‘Yes. They need a payback for what they did to you, but that’s not the only reason. What men like that have done once they’ll do again. Maybe you’re not even the first.’
‘You’d be taking a risk. It could be dangerous.’
He thinks of the gun in Don Jensen’s nightstand and says, ‘Probably not very.’
‘You can’t kill them. I don’t want that. Tell me you won’t kill them.’
The idea hasn’t even crossed Billy’s mind. They need to pay, but they also need to learn, and those who are obliterated are beyond lessons. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No killing.’
‘And I really don’t care about Jack and Hank. They weren’t the ones who pretended to like me and got me to come to that apartment.’
Billy says nothing, but he does care about Jack and Hank, assuming they participated, and based on what he saw when she was undressed, he’s sure that at least one of them did. Probably both.
‘But I care about Tripp,’ she says, and puts a hand on his arm. ‘If he was hurt that would make me happy. I suppose that makes me a bad person.’
‘It makes you human,’ Billy says. ‘Bad people need to pay a price. And the price should be high.’
CHAPTER 16
1
We could hear heavy small-arms fire and explosions in other parts of the city, but until the shit hit the fan, our area in the Jolan was relatively quiet. We cleared the first three houses in our section, Block Lima, with no trouble. Two were empty. There was a kid in the third one, not armed and not wired up to explode. We made him take off his shirt to be sure. We sent him to the police station with a couple of army guys who were headed that way with their own prisoners. We knew that kid would probably be back on the street by nightfall, because the cop shop was basically a turnstile. He was lucky to be alive at all, because we were still red-assed about losing Albie Stark. Din-Din actually raised his gun, but Big Klew pushed the barrel down and said to leave the kid alone.
‘The next time we see him he’ll have an AK,’ George said. ‘We ought to just kill them all. Fucking roaches.’
The fourth house was the biggest on the block, a regular estate. It had a domed roof and a courtyard with palms on the inside to give it shade. Some rich Ba’athist’s crib, no doubt. The whole thing was surrounded by a high concrete wall painted with a mural of children playing ball and skipping rope and running around while several women looked on. Probably with approval, but it was hard to tell because they were so bundled up in their abayahs. There was also a man standing off to the side. Our terp, Fareed, said he was the mutawaeen. The women watched the children, Fareed said, and the mutawaeen watched the women to make sure they did nothing that might incite lust.
We all got a kick out of Fareed, because his accent made him sound like a Yooper from Traverse City. Lots of the terps sounded like Michiganders, who knows why. ‘Dat picture means dis house, the al’atfal, da kiddies, can come und play.’
‘So it’s a funhouse,’ Donk said.
‘No, dey don’t allow fun in da house,’ Fareed said. ‘Just in da yard.’
Donk rolled his eyes and snickered, but no one laughed outright. We were still thinking of Albie, and how it could have been any one of us.
‘Come on, you guys,’ Taco said. ‘Let’s get some.’ He handed Fareed the bullhorn that had GOOD MORNING VIETNAM printed on the side in Sharpie and told him
2
Billy is snapped back from Fallujah by the sound of Alice running down the stairs. She bursts into the apartment, hair flying out behind her. ‘Someone’s coming! I was spritzing the plants and saw the car turn into the driveway!’
One look at her face tells Billy not to waste time asking if she’s sure. He gets up and goes to the periscope window.
‘Is it them, do you think? The Jensens coming back early? I turned off the TV but I had coffee, the place smells of it, and there’s a plate on the counter! Crumbs! They’ll know somebody’s been—’
Billy pushes the curtain back a few inches. He couldn’t see the new car if it was able to pull all the way up, the angle is wrong, but because his leased Fusion is in the driveway, he can. It’s a blue SUV with a scratch running down the side. For a moment he doesn’t know where he’s seen it before, but it comes to him even before the driver gets out. It’s Merton Richter, the real estate agent who rented him the apartment.
‘Did you lock the door?’ Billy jerks his chin upward.