George, Donk, Johnny, Bigfoot, and Klew are returning fire from behind the truck because they can see that those guys on the roof have almost got the angle on Billy and the others behind the taxi; it’s scant cover and lethal geometry. Maybe they can hold out until the Cobra arrives with the Hellfires, maybe not.
Billy looks around for the baby shoe, thinking he might have lost it just a minute ago, thinking it might be close, thinking if he can grab it everything will be magically okay, it’ll be like singing ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic,’ but it’s not close and he knew it wouldn’t be close but looking means he doesn’t have to look at Albie, who is now breathing his final rasping gasping breaths, trying to take in all the world he can before he leaves it, and Billy wonders what he’s seeing and what he will see when he makes it to the other side, pearly gates and golden shores or just black nothing, and Johnny Capps is yelling from behind the truck, yelling Leave him, leave him, leave him and get back here, but they won’t leave him because you don’t do that, you leave none behind, that was Drill Sergeant Uppington’s biggest fucking rule, and the shoe isn’t there, the shoe is nowhere, he lost it and their luck went with it, and Albie’s going, almost gone, those terrible gasps for breath, and there’s a hole in his boot and Billy realizes it’s bleeding, he got shot in the fucking fo—
2
Billy bolts up so fast he almost falls off the couch. It’s Pearson Street, not Fallujah, and that’s not Albie Stark gasping for breath.
He hurries into the bedroom and finds Alice sitting up in bed with one hand grasping her throat, horribly like Albie when Albie at first thought the bullet just clipped him. Her eyes are wide and full of panic.
‘Wash …’ Whoop! ‘… cloth!’ Whoop!
He goes into the bathroom and gets one. Wets it down without waiting for the tap to run warm, comes back and drapes it over her face, glad to cover eyes so wide they look ready to fall out of their sockets and dangle on her cheeks.
She keeps gasping.
He sings the first line of ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ to her.
Whoop! Whoop! is his answer.
‘Give it back to me, Alice! Sing! It’ll open you up! If you go down to the woods today …’
‘If you … go down … to the woods today …’ A gasp after every two or three words.
‘You’re sure of a big surprise.’
Under the washcloth, Alice shakes her head. He grasps her shoulder, the bruised one, knowing he’s hurting her but doing it anyway. Anything to get through to her. ‘All in one breath, you’re sure of a big surprise.’
‘You’re sure … big surprise.’ Whoop!
‘Not perfect but not bad. Now both lines together, and put some feeling into it. If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise. With me. à deux.’
She does it with him, her half of the duet muffled by the wet washcloth where a crescent of mouth-shaped shadow appears each time she inhales.
He sits beside her as her breathing finally begins to ease. He puts an arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re all right. You’re okay.’
She takes the washcloth off her face. Locks of damp dark hair are stuck to her forehead. ‘What’s that song?’
‘“Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”’
‘Does it always work?’
‘Yes.’ Unless, that is, half of your throat has been blown out.
‘I need to have it on my phone.’ Then she remembers. ‘Shit, my phone is gone.’
‘I’ll put it on one of the laptops,’ Billy says, and points to the living room.
‘Why do you have so many? What are they for?’
‘Verisimilitude. That means—’
‘I know what it means. Part of your disguise. Like the wig and the fake belly.’ She uses the heel of her hand to brush the damp locks off her forehead. ‘I dreamed he was choking me. Tripp. I thought he was going to choke me to death. He was saying “Get them panties down” in this funny growling voice that wasn’t like his regular voice. Then I woke up—’
‘—and you couldn’t breathe.’
She nods.
‘Have you ever seen a movie called Deliverance? Guys on a canoe trip?’
She looks at him as if he’s gone crazy. ‘No. What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?’
‘Get them panties down is a line from the movie.’ He touches the marks on the side of her neck, very lightly. ‘Your dream was a recovered memory. That’s possibly the last thing you heard before you went all the way out, not just from whatever he put in your drink but because he choked you. Lucky he didn’t kill you. It probably wouldn’t have been on purpose, but you’d have been just as dead.’