‘You should take her with you.’
Billy turns to him, startled. Bucky has an old tin ashtray loaded with filterless butts sitting on his lap. ‘What? Are you crazy? I thought she could stay here with you while I track Nick down in Vegas.’
‘She could, but you really should take her along.’ He stubs out his cigarette, sets the ashtray aside, and leans forward. ‘Hear me now, because I’m not sure you did before. Guys are looking for you. Hard guys like this Dana Edison you mentioned. They know the cops didn’t catch you, they know Nick stiffed you, and they know there’s a damn good chance that you’ll be on your way to get what’s owing. That you’ll take it out of his hide if you can’t get it any other way.’
‘Like Shylock,’ Billy murmurs.
‘I don’t know about that, never saw the movie, but if you think that will fool them—’ He flicks the blond wig, which really has become bedraggled and needs to be replaced. ‘—you’re taking dumb pills. They know you’ve changed your appearance, you never would have gotten out of Red Bluff otherwise. And if you’re driving, there are only so many ways into Vegas. They’ll be watching all of them.’
He’s making sense, but Billy doesn’t like the idea of bringing Alice into danger. The idea was to get her out of it.
‘The first thing you might want to think about is the license plates on that ride of yours.’ He points down at the deck and the vehicles beneath. ‘There are cars with Dixieland plates in this part of the country, but not that many.’
Billy doesn’t reply. He’s struck dumb by his own stupidity. He set up the jammer to block the Fusion’s onboard computer, but he’s been flashing those blue-diamond plates all the way across the Midwest. Like a sign saying HERE I AM.
Bucky doesn’t have to read his mind because everything Billy’s thinking is on his face. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. You did most stuff right, especially for someone moving fast.’
‘It only takes one thing wrong to put your head in the noose.’
Bucky doesn’t disagree, just lights another cigarette and says he doubts if they’re looking for Billy in places like Oklahoma and Kansas. ‘They’ll want to concentrate out west. Keep it tight. Idaho, Utah, maybe Arizona, but most of all in Nevada. Until you get to Vegas, things stand out there.’
Billy nods.
‘Besides, if they’d seen you and tracked you, they’d be here already.’ Bucky gestures with his hand, leaving a trail of smoke in the air. ‘Isolated spot. Fine place for a shooting party. I think you’re okay, the odds in your favor. Which is good in another way, because the paperwork on that leased car is in the Dalton Smith name, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have ID in any other name?’
Billy still has his David Lockridge DL and Mastercard, for all the good it will do him. ‘None that’s not burned.’
‘I can make you some, enough to get by. I’ll use Name Generator. Just, if I make you a credit card, don’t try using it. It’ll only be for show. And never mind switching the plates, you need to switch vehicles. That lease car can stay here for the time being, it’s butt-ugly anyway.’
‘Comfy, though,’ Billy says, and drinks some beer.
‘You’ve got money? You wired me my ten per cent of your advance, so I’m thinking you do.’
‘Forty thousand or so, but not in cash. Money Manager accounts back in Red Bluff.’
‘But in Dalton Smith’s name, yeah?’
‘Yes.’
Bucky’s cigarette is down to a roach. He butts it. ‘There’s a place on the east side of Sidewinder called Ricky’s Good Used Cars. Kind of a fly-by-night operation. You can buy something there. No, better, I buy something there. I can pay cash and you can give me a Dalton Smith check for the amount. I’ll wait to cash it until you’ve finished this fucktub of an operation.’
‘And if I get killed, you’ll be stuck.’
Bucky flaps a hand at him. ‘I’m not talking about a BMW, just something that’ll roll for as long as you need it to roll. Fifteen hundred dollars, maybe two grand. Maybe not a car at all. Maybe an old pickup truck would be better, something rusted out with bad springs but a worthwhile motor.’ He looks up into the sun, calculating. ‘And maybe pulling one of those little open trailers like landscape guys use to tote their mowers and blowers and shit.’
Billy can see it in his mind’s eye. A truck with paint cracking on the doors, rust on the rocker panels, and Bondo around the headlights. Clap a beat-up old cowboy hat on his head and yes, it could be good camouflage. He’d look like any day-wage drifter.
‘They’ll still be looking for a man alone,’ Bucky says, ‘and that’s where Alice comes in. You two pull into some roadside café where a couple of bounty hunters are drinking coffee and keeping an eye out on Highway 50, they’re going to see nothing but some fella and his daughter or niece in a broke-down old Dodge or F-150.’
‘I’m not taking Alice into a situation that might get bloody.’ The worst thing about it is that she might go.
‘Did you take her with you when you dealt with those dinks who raped her?’
Of course he didn’t, he left her in a nearby motel, but before he can say so, the back door opens and Alice is back.
16
When she comes out on the porch her color is high, she’s smiling, her hair is blown into a haystack, and Billy sees, with only minimal surprise, that, today at least, she’s actually kind of gorgeous.
‘It’s beautiful up there!’ she says. ‘So windy it almost blew me off my feet but oh my God, Billy, you can see forever!’
‘On a clear day,’ Billy agrees, smiling.
Alice either doesn’t get the reference or is too full of what she’s seen to give it even a token smile. ‘There were clouds in the sky above me, but also some below me. I saw this huge bird … it couldn’t have been a condor, but—’
‘Yes it could,’ Bucky tells her. ‘We get them up here now, although I’ve never seen one myself.’
‘And way across, on the other side, this is crazy, but I thought I saw that hotel you talked about. Then I blinked my eyes – the wind was so strong they were tearing up – and when I looked again, it was gone.’
Bucky doesn’t smile. ‘You’re not the only person who’s seen that. I’m not a superstitious man, but I wouldn’t go anywhere near where the Overlook Hotel used to stand. Bad stuff happened there.’
Alice ignores that. ‘It was a beautiful view and a beautiful walk. And guess what, Billy? There’s a little log cabin about a quarter of a mile up the path.’
Bucky is nodding. ‘Kind of a summerhouse type of thing, I guess. Once upon a time.’
‘Well, it looks clean and dry and there’s a table and some chairs. With the door open, it gets some sun. You could work on your story there, Billy.’ She hesitates. ‘If you wanted to, I mean.’
‘Maybe I will.’ He turns to Bucky. ‘How long have you owned this place?’
Bucky thinks about it. ‘Twelve years? No, I guess it’s more like fourteen. How the time slides by, huh? I make sure to come up for a week or a weekend once or twice every year. Get seen around town. It’s good to be a familiar face.’
‘What name do you go by?’
‘Elmer Randolph. My real first name and my middle.’ Bucky gets up. ‘I see you got eggs, and I think the time is just about right for huevos rancheros.’
He goes in. Billy gets up to follow, but before he can, Alice takes his arm just above the wrist. He remembers how she looked when he carried her across Pearson Street through the pouring rain, her eyes dull marbles peeping out between slitted lids. This is not that girl. This is a better girl.
‘I could live here,’ she says again.