She gives that a distracted smile but it’s Billy she’s looking at, his opinion that matters. Billy knows exactly what Bucky was talking about. He remembers a video he saw on YouTube, one that showed a bird taking a bath in a dog’s water dish while the dog – a Great Dane – sat and watched. And he thinks of that old saying about how if you save someone’s life, you are responsible for them.
‘You look terrific,’ he says, and Alice smiles.
CHAPTER 19
1
Billy and Alice stay with Bucky for five days. On the morning of the sixth day – the one where God reputedly created the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air – they pack up the Dodge Ram and get ready to leave. Billy is wearing the blond wig and the fake glasses. Because the truck is the Quad Cab model, they can stow their scant luggage behind the bench seat. The ancient mower is still in the truckbed. It has been joined by a hedger, a leaf-blower, and an old Stihl chainsaw. The trailer, empty when Billy first saw it, now contains four cardboard barrels purchased at Lowe’s. The two men kicked them around awhile to give them the right battered look and filled them with hand tools bought for a song at a bank foreclosure auction in Nederland. The barrels have been secured to the sides of the trailer with bungee cords.
‘You want to look like the twenty-first-century version of a saddle bum,’ Bucky said while they were playing kick-the-barrels. ‘God knows there are plenty of them in the West Nine. They drift around, find a little work, then move on.’
Alice asked him what the West Nine were, and Bucky named them off: Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon, and – of course – Nevada. Billy thinks the truck is okay. It might be a needless precaution on their road trip, anyway; Bucky’s right, any bounty hunters will be concentrated in the Vegas metro area. Later, though, when it comes to Promontory Point, the way the truck looks could be vital.
‘This has been a good visit,’ Bucky says. He’s wearing biballs and an Old [97s] T-shirt. ‘I’m glad you came.’
Alice gives him a hug. Her new blonde hair looks good in the morning sun.
‘Billy?’ Bucky holds out his hand. ‘You be safe now.’
Billy almost hugs him, that’s the way things are done these days, but he doesn’t. He’s never been much for bro-hugs, even in the sand.
‘Thanks, Bucky.’ He takes Bucky’s hand in both of his and squeezes lightly, mindful of Bucky’s arthritis. ‘For everything.’
‘Welcome.’
They get in. Billy fires up the engine. It’s rough at first but smooths out. Bucky has agreed to find someone to drive the Fusion back to its home base, thus protecting the Dalton Smith name. Something else on my tab, Billy thinks.
He gets the old truck’s nose pointed down the road. Just as he puts it in first gear, Bucky makes a whoa, whoa gesture and comes over to the passenger side. Alice rolls down her window.
‘I want to see you back here,’ he tells her. ‘In the meantime, stay out of his business and stay clean, you hear?’
‘Yes,’ she says, but Billy thinks she may only be telling Bucky what Bucky wants to hear. Which is okay, Billy thinks. She’ll listen to me. I hope.
He gives a final blip of the horn and gets rolling. An hour and a half later they turn west on 1-70 toward Las Vegas.
2
They stop for the night in Beaver, Utah. It’s another motel of the no-tell variety, but not too bad. They get chicken baskets at the Crazy Cow and a couple of cans of Bud at Ray’s 66 on the way back. Later they sit outside their adjoining rooms, draw the obligatory lawn chairs close, and drink the cold beer.
‘I read the rest of your story while we were driving,’ Alice says. ‘It’s really good. I can’t wait to read more.’
Billy frowns. ‘I hadn’t planned on going on after Fallujah.’
‘Lalafallujah,’ she says, and smiles. Then: ‘But aren’t you going to write about how you got into the business of killing people for money?’
That makes him wince because it’s so bald. And of course so true. She sees it.
‘Bad people, I mean. And how you met Bucky, I’d like to know that.’
Yes, Billy thinks, I could write about that, and maybe I should. Because dig, if that muj hiding behind the door had shot Johnny Capps to death instead of just blowing his legs apart, Billy Summers wouldn’t be here now. Neither would Alice. It comes to him as sort of a revelation – although maybe it shouldn’t – that if Johnny Capps hadn’t lived, Alice Maxwell might well have died of shock and exposure on Pearson Street.