The next room is a big office that could double as a small conference room. There’s no desk, just a table long enough for maybe six people, if they crammed in shoulder to shoulder. On it is a stack of Staples notebooks, a box of pens, a landline telephone. This room – his writing studio, Billy supposes – is even hotter than the antechamber because of the morning sun flooding in. No one has bothered to lower the blinds, either. Giorgio flaps the collar of his shirt against his neck. ‘Whew!’
‘It’ll cool quick, real quick,’ Hoff says. He sounds a bit frantic. ‘This is a great HVAC system, state of the art. It’s starting already, feel it?’
Billy doesn’t care about room temperature, at least for the time being. He steps to the right side of the big window facing the street and looks down that diagonal to the courthouse steps. Then he traces another diagonal to the small door further on. The one courthouse employees use. He imagines the scene: a police car pulling up, or maybe a van with SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT or CITY POLICE on the side. Law enforcement gets out. Two at least, maybe three. Four? Probably not. They will open the door on the curb side if it’s a car. The back doors if it’s a van. He’ll watch Joel Allen clear the vehicle. There will be no problem picking him out, he’ll be the one bracketed by cops and wearing handcuffs.
When the time comes – if it comes – there will be nothing to this shot.
‘Billy!’ Hoff’s voice makes him jerk, as if waking him from a dream.
The developer is standing in the doorway of a much smaller room. It’s the kitchenette. When Hoff sees he has Billy’s attention, he gestures around palm up, pointing out the mod cons like a model on The Price Is Right.
‘Dave,’ Billy says. ‘I’m Dave.’
‘Right. Sorry. My bad. You got your little two-burner stove, no oven but you got your microwave for popcorn, Hot Pockets, TV dinners, whatever. Plates and cookware in the cupboards. You got your little sink to wash up your dishes. Mini-fridge. No private bathroom, unfortunately, the men’s and women’s are at the end of the hall, but at least they’re at your end. Short walk. And then there’s this.’
He takes a key from his pocket and reaches up to the rectangular wooden panel above the door between the office/conference room and the kitchenette. He turns the key, pushes the panel, and it swings up. The space inside looks to be eighteen inches high, four feet long, two feet deep. It’s empty.
‘Storage,’ Hoff says, and actually mimes shooting an invisible rifle. ‘The key’s so you can lock it on Fridays, when the cleaning staff—’
Billy almost says it, but Giorgio beats him to it, and that’s good because he’s supposed to be the thinker, not Billy Summers. ‘No cleaning in here. Not on Fridays, not on any other day. Top secret writing project, remember? Dave can keep the place neatened up himself. He’s a neat guy, right, Dave?’
Billy nods. He’s a neat guy.
‘Tell Dean, tell the other security guy – Logan, yeah? – and tell Broder.’ To Billy he says, ‘Steven Broder. The building super.’
Billy nods and files the name away.
Giorgio hoists the laptop bag onto the table, pushing aside the tools for writing by hand （a gesture Billy finds both sad and somehow symbolic）， and unzips it. ‘MacBook Pro. Best money can buy, state of the art. My present to you. You can use your own if you want to, but this baby … all the bells and whistles. Can you get it going okay? There’s probably an instruction book, or something …’
‘I’ll figure it out.’
No problem there, but something else might be. If Nick Majarian hasn’t rigged this beautiful black torpedo so he can use it as a kind of magic mirror into what Billy writes in this room, he has missed a trick. And Nick doesn’t miss many.
‘Oh sugarpie, that reminds me,’ Hoff says, and hands Billy another of his engraved cards along with the key to the cubby over the door to the kitchenette. ‘WiFi password. Totally safe. Secure as a bank vault.’
Bullshit, Billy thinks as he puts the card in his pocket.
‘Well,’ Giorgio says, ‘I guess that’s about it. We’ll leave you to your creative endeavors. Come on, Ken.’
Hoff seems reluctant to leave, as if he feels there should be more to show. ‘You call me if you need anything, Bi … Dave. Anything at all. Entertainment, maybe? A TV? Maybe a radio?’
Billy shakes his head. He has a considerable musical library on his phone, mostly country and western. He has many things to do in the days ahead, but at some point he’ll find time to rip his tunes to this fine new laptop. If Nick decides to listen in, he can catch up on Reba and Willie and all Hank Junior’s rowdy friends. And maybe he’ll write that book after all. On his own laptop, which he trusts. He will also take security measures on both lappies – the new one and his personal, which is an old pal.