Sergeant Fleck shook my hand and said if you’ve got a mind to hooraw you better hooraw this weekend because come Monday when you take that test you are going to be Mr Taking Care of Business. I said okay. He said never mind that, let me hear you say yes Staff Sergeant Fleck. So I said that and he shook my hand and said it was good to meet me. ‘And you too sir,’ he said to Mr Speck.
Going back, Mr Speck said he talked tough but I don’t believe he ever killed anyone like you did, Benjy. He just didn’t have that look about him.
By then Ronnie had been gone （in her 7-league boots） for 4 or 5 months, but before she went she let me make out with her in the Demo Derby. That was great, but when I wanted to go farther she laughed and push me away and said your too young but I wanted to give you something to remember me by. I said I would remember, and I do. I don’t think you ever forget the first girl who gives you real kisses. She told me
4
Billy stops there, looking over the laptop and out the window. Robin told him that when she finally lit somewhere, she would write the Stepeneks so her friends from the House of Everlasting Paint could write back to her. She told Billy to do the same thing when he left.
‘I’m guessing it won’t be long before you’re on your way,’ she said that day as they sat in the smashed Mercedes. She had let him unbutton her shirt – that much she had allowed – and she was buttoning it up again as she spoke, hiding all that glory inside. ‘But your idea about feeding yourself to the war machine … you need to re-think that, Billy. You’re too young to die.’ She kissed the tip of his nose. ‘And too pretty.’
Billy starts to write this, only omitting that he had had the hardest, most painful, and most wonderful erection of his life during that all-too-short necking session, when his David Lockridge phone bings with a text. It’s from Ken Hoff.
I have something for you. Probably it’s time for you to take it.
And because he’s probably right about that, Billy texts back Okay.
Hoff returns, I’ll come by your house.
No, no, and no. Hoff at his house? Next door to the Ackermans, with whose kids Billy plays Monopoly on the weekends? Hoff will bring the rifle wrapped in a blanket, of course he will, as if anyone with half a brain and a single eye wouldn’t know what was inside.
No, he texts. Walmart. The Garden Center parking lot. 7:30 2nite.
He waits, watching the dots as Hoff composes his reply. If he thinks the meeting place is negotiable, he’s in for a surprise. But when the response comes back, it’s brief: OK.
Billy shuts down his laptop without even finishing the last sentence. He’s done for the day. Hoff poisoned the well, he thinks. Only he knows better. Hoff is just Hoff and can’t help himself. The real poison is the gun. This thing is getting close.
5
At 7:25 Billy parks his David Lockridge Toyota in the Garden Center section of Walmart’s giant parking lot. Five minutes later, at 7:30 on the dot, he gets a text.
Can’t see you, too many cars, get out and give me a wave.
Billy gets out and waves, as if spotting a friend. A vintage cherry-red Mustang convertible – a Ken Hoff car if ever there was one – drives down one of the lanes and pulls in next to Billy’s humbler vehicle. Hoff gets out. He looks better than the last time Billy saw him, and there’s no alcohol on his breath. Which is a good thing, considering his cargo. He’s wearing a polo shirt （with a logo on it, naturally）， pressed chinos, and loafers. He’s got a fresh haircut. Yet the essential Ken Hoff is still there, Billy thinks. The man’s expensive cologne doesn’t mask the smell of anxiety. He’s not cut out for the heavy stuff, and bringing a gun to a hired killer is pretty damn heavy.
The rifle isn’t wrapped in a blanket after all and Billy is willing to give him points for that. What Hoff hauls out of the Mustang’s trunk is a tartan golf bag with four club heads sticking out. They gleam in the day’s fading light.
Billy takes the bag and puts it in his own trunk. ‘Anything else?’
Hoff shuffles his tasseled loafers. Then he says, ‘Maybe, yeah. Can we talk for a minute?’
Because it might be prudent to know what’s on Hoff’s mind, Billy opens the passenger door of the Toyota and gestures for Hoff to get in. Hoff does. Billy goes around and sits behind the wheel.
‘I just want to ask you to tell Nick that I’m okay. Can you do that?’
‘Okay about what?’
‘About everything. That.’ He hoists a thumb behind him, meaning the golf bag in the trunk. ‘Just make sure he knows I’m a stand-up guy.’