by Stephen King
Billy shakes his head.
“So you’re clean and that’s good, because there’s a bounty on your head.”
“How much?”
“Chat rooms say six million dollars.”
Billy gapes. “Are you shitting me? Why? They were only paying me two to do the job in the first place!”
“I don’t know.”
Alice is turning her head from one to the other as if watching a tennis match.
Bucky says, “Nick’s handling the contract, but I don’t think it’s his money any more than the money you were promised was his.”
Billy props his elbows on the table and his loosely closed fists on the sides of his face. “Who pays six million dollars to kill a shooter who shot another shooter?”
Bucky laughs. “Save that one. It’s right up there with she sells seashells down by the seashore.”
“Who? And why? Joel Allen was nobody, as far as I can tell.”
Bucky shakes his head. “Don’t know. But I bet Nick Majarian does. Maybe you’ll get a chance to ask him.”
“Who’s Nick Majarian?” Alice asks.
Billy sighs. “Benjy Compson. The guy who got me into this mess.”
Which is sort of a lie. He got into it all by himself.
14
In the end, Billy decides he and Alice will stay with Bucky for three days, maybe four. He wants to finish writing about the Funhouse. That won’t take long, but he also needs time to think about his next move. Does he need another long gun, scope-equipped, to go with the Ruger? He doesn’t know. Does he need another handgun, maybe a Glock that holds seventeen rounds instead of a measly six? He doesn’t know. But a potato-buster for the Ruger might come in handy, little as he likes them. Would he have occasion to use such a thing? He doesn’t know that either, but Bucky tells him that a jam-and-lock silencer for the GP should be no problem. If, that is, he doesn’t mind something homemade that might break apart after a few shots were fired through it. Bucky says in the high country all sorts of accessories are available.
“I could get you an M249, if you wanted. I’d have to ask around, but I know some people to ask. Safe people who can keep their mouths shut.”
A SAW, in other words. Billy has a brief but brilliant memory of Big Joe Kleczewski standing outside the Funhouse with that very same gun. He shakes his head. “Let’s stick with the silencer for now.”
“Silencer for a Ruger GP, got it.”
Alice will have her paperwork in three days as well, but when she and Billy go for groceries in Sidewinder, Bucky wants her to pick up some hair dye. “I think you should go blond for your driver’s license. But leave the eyebrows dark. That would be a good look for you.”
“You think?” She sounds doubtful but looks interested.
“I do. You were in business school, so I’ll give you some background to go with that. Can you take shorthand?”
“Yes. I took a summer course in Rhode Island and picked it up fairly fast.”
“And you can answer a phone? ‘Dignam Chevrolet, how may I direct your call?’ ”
Alice rolls her eyes.
“Okay, entry-level skills at least, and the way the economy is roaring, that should be enough. Add nice clothes, good shoes, and a cheery smile and there’s no reason why Beth Anderson can’t find her niche.”
But Bucky doesn’t like it. Alice doesn’t pick up on it, but Billy does. He just doesn’t know why.
15
They go for groceries, Billy wearing his wig and a pair of dark glasses Bucky finds for him in the clutter of stuff—what he calls Irish luggage—he hasn’t unpacked yet. At King Soopers Billy pays cash. They go back up Edgewood Mountain Drive, the Fusion thudding and bumping and forging grumpily ahead over the last two miles.
Alice helps Bucky put the things away. He looks at the plantains she purchased doubtfully but says nothing. When that chore is done, she says she’s tired of being cooped up and asks if it would be okay for her to take a walk. Bucky tells her that if she goes out the back door, she’ll find a path into the woods. “Steep slope, but you look young and strong. Might want to put on some bug dope. Check the bathroom.”
Alice comes back with her sleeves rolled up trucker style, slathering on Cutter. Her cheeks are shiny with it.
“Don’t mind the wolves,” Bucky says. Then, seeing her alarmed expression: “Kidding, kiddo. The oldtimers say there haven’t been wolves around here since the 1950s. All hunted out. Bears, too. But if you can make it a mile, you’re going to come to one hell of a view. You can look across I don’t know how many miles of gulch and ravine to a big old flat clearing on the other side. Used to be a resort hotel there, but it burned flat many a moon ago.” He drops his voice. “It was reputed to be haunted.”
“Watch your step,” Billy says. “You don’t want to break an ankle.”
“I’ll be careful.”
When she’s gone, Bucky turns to Billy with a smile. “ ‘Watch your step, you don’t want to break an ankle.’ What are you, her daddy? God knows you’re old enough to be.”
“Don’t get Freudian. She’s just my friend. I couldn’t tell you exactly how that happened, but it did.”
“You said they roughed her up. Does that mean what I think it does?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“Two out of three. One of them just jizzed on her belly. That’s what he said, anyway.”
“Jesus Christ, she seems so… you know, okay.”
“She’s not.”
“No. Of course she’s not. Probably never will be, not completely.”
Billy thinks that, like too many depressing ideas, it’s probably true.
Bucky gets two beers and they go out on the front porch. Billy has parked the Fusion beneath, nose-to-nose with the Cherokee.
“She seems to be coping, at least,” Bucky says when he’s resumed his rocking chair. Billy has taken another one. “Got some guts.”
Billy nods. “She does.”
“And she can read a room, as they say. Maybe she did want to go strolling, but she mostly left so we could talk.”
“You think?”
“I do. She can have the spare room while you stay here. A bunch of my stuff’s in it now, but I’ll clear it out. The bed’s stripped and I don’t know if there’s sheets, but I saw a couple of blankets on the shelf in the closet. That’ll do for three or four nights. Since you’re not sleeping with her, you get the attic. Most times of year you’d freeze or boil up there, but right now it should be just about perfect. I’ve got a sleeping bag somewhere. Maybe still in the back of the Cherokee.”
“Sounds good. Thanks.”
“Least I can do for a guy who’s promising me a million dollars. Unless you’ve changed your mind about that.”
“I haven’t.” Billy gives Bucky a sideways look. “You don’t think I’ll get it.”
“You might.” Bucky pulls a pack of Pall Mall straights out of his shirt pocket—Billy didn’t know they still made those—and offers it to Billy, who shakes his head. Bucky lights his smoke with an old Zippo, the Marine emblem and Semper Fi embossed on the side. “I learned a long time ago not to sell you short, William.”
They sit for awhile without talking, two men in porch rockers. Billy thought Pearson Street was quiet, but this place makes Pearson Street sound like downtown. Somewhere far off someone is using a chainsaw, or maybe it’s a wood-chipper. That and a light breeze sighing through the pines and aspens is the whole soundtrack. Billy watches a bird go stiff-wing gliding across the blue sky.
“You should take her with you.”
Billy turns to him, startled. Bucky has an old tin ashtray loaded with filterless butts sitting on his lap. “What? Are you crazy? I thought she could stay here with you while I track Nick down in Vegas.”
“She could, but you really should take her along.” He stubs out his cigarette, sets the ashtray aside, and leans forward. “Hear me now, because I’m not sure you did before. Guys are looking for
you. Hard guys like this Dana Edison you mentioned. They know the cops didn’t catch you, they know Nick stiffed you, and they know there’s a damn good chance that you’ll be on your way to get what’s owing. That you’ll take it out of his hide if you can’t get it any other way.”
“Like Shylock,” Billy murmurs.
“I don’t know about that, never saw the movie, but if you think that will fool them—” He flicks the blond wig, which really has become bedraggled and needs to be replaced. “—you’re taking dumb pills. They know you’ve changed your appearance, you never would have gotten out of Red Bluff otherwise. And if you’re driving, there are only so many ways into Vegas. They’ll be watching all of them.”
He’s making sense, but Billy doesn’t like the idea of bringing Alice into danger. The idea was to get her out of it.
“The first thing you might want to think about is the license plates on that ride of yours.” He points down at the deck and the vehicles beneath. “There are cars with Dixieland plates in this part of the country, but not that many.”
Billy doesn’t reply. He’s struck dumb by his own stupidity. He set up the jammer to block the Fusion’s onboard computer, but he’s been flashing those blue-diamond plates all the way across the Midwest. Like a sign saying HERE I AM.
Bucky doesn’t have to read his mind because everything Billy’s thinking is on his face. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. You did most stuff right, especially for someone moving fast.”
“It only takes one thing wrong to put your head in the noose.”
Bucky doesn’t disagree, just lights another cigarette and says he doubts if they’re looking for Billy in places like Oklahoma and Kansas. “They’ll want to concentrate out west. Keep it tight. Idaho, Utah, maybe Arizona, but most of all in Nevada. Until you get to Vegas, things stand out there.”
Billy nods.
“Besides, if they’d seen you and tracked you, they’d be here already.” Bucky gestures with his hand, leaving a trail of smoke in the air. “Isolated spot. Fine place for a shooting party. I think you’re okay, the odds in your favor. Which is good in another way, because the paperwork on that leased car is in the Dalton Smith name, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have ID in any other name?”
Billy still has his David Lockridge DL and Mastercard, for all the good it will do him. “None that’s not burned.”
“I can make you some, enough to get by. I’ll use Name Generator. Just, if I make you a credit card, don’t try using it. It’ll only be for show. And never mind switching the plates, you need to switch vehicles. That lease car can stay here for the time being, it’s butt-ugly anyway.”
“Comfy, though,” Billy says, and drinks some beer.
“You’ve got money? You wired me my ten per cent of your advance, so I’m thinking you do.”
“Forty thousand or so, but not in cash. Money Manager accounts back in Red Bluff.”
“But in Dalton Smith’s name, yeah?”
“Yes.”
Bucky’s cigarette is down to a roach. He butts it. “There’s a place on the east side of Sidewinder called Ricky’s Good Used Cars. Kind of a fly-by-night operation. You can buy something there. No, better, I buy something there. I can pay cash and you can give me a Dalton Smith check for the amount. I’ll wait to cash it until you’ve finished this fucktub of an operation.”
“And if I get killed, you’ll be stuck.”
Bucky flaps a hand at him. “I’m not talking about a BMW, just something that’ll roll for as long as you need it to roll. Fifteen hundred dollars, maybe two grand. Maybe not a car at all. Maybe an old pickup truck would be better, something rusted out with bad springs but a worthwhile motor.” He looks up into the sun, calculating. “And maybe pulling one of those little open trailers like landscape guys use to tote their mowers and blowers and shit.”
Billy can see it in his mind’s eye. A truck with paint cracking on the doors, rust on the rocker panels, and Bondo around the headlights. Clap a beat-up old cowboy hat on his head and yes, it could be good camouflage. He’d look like any day-wage drifter.
“They’ll still be looking for a man alone,” Bucky says, “and that’s where Alice comes in. You two pull into some roadside café where a couple of bounty hunters are drinking coffee and keeping an eye out on Highway 50, they’re going to see nothing but some fella and his daughter or niece in a broke-down old Dodge or F-150.”
“I’m not taking Alice into a situation that might get bloody.” The worst thing about it is that she might go.
“Did you take her with you when you dealt with those dinks who raped her?”
Of course he didn’t, he left her in a nearby motel, but before he can say so, the back door opens and Alice is back.
16
When she comes out on the porch her color is high, she’s smiling, her hair is blown into a haystack, and Billy sees, with only minimal surprise, that, today at least, she’s actually kind of gorgeous.
“It’s beautiful up there!” she says. “So windy it almost blew me off my feet but oh my God, Billy, you can see forever!”
“On a clear day,” Billy agrees, smiling.
Alice either doesn’t get the reference or is too full of what she’s seen to give it even a token smile. “There were clouds in the sky above me, but also some below me. I saw this huge bird… it couldn’t have been a condor, but—”
“Yes it could,” Bucky tells her. “We get them up here now, although I’ve never seen one myself.”
“And way across, on the other side, this is crazy, but I thought I saw that hotel you talked about. Then I blinked my eyes—the wind was so strong they were tearing up—and when I looked again, it was gone.”
Bucky doesn’t smile. “You’re not the only person who’s seen that. I’m not a superstitious man, but I wouldn’t go anywhere near where the Overlook Hotel used to stand. Bad stuff happened there.”
Alice ignores that. “It was a beautiful view and a beautiful walk. And guess what, Billy? There’s a little log cabin about a quarter of a mile up the path.”
Bucky is nodding. “Kind of a summerhouse type of thing, I guess. Once upon a time.”
“Well, it looks clean and dry and there’s a table and some chairs. With the door open, it gets some sun. You could work on your story there, Billy.” She hesitates. “If you wanted to, I mean.”
“Maybe I will.” He turns to Bucky. “How long have you owned this place?”
Bucky thinks about it. “Twelve years? No, I guess it’s more like fourteen. How the time slides by, huh? I make sure to come up for a week or a weekend once or twice every year. Get seen around town. It’s good to be a familiar face.”
“What name do you go by?”
“Elmer Randolph. My real first name and my middle.” Bucky gets up. “I see you got eggs, and I think the time is just about right for huevos rancheros.”
He goes in. Billy gets up to follow, but before he can, Alice takes his arm just above the wrist. He remembers how she looked when he carried her across Pearson Street through the pouring rain, her eyes dull marbles peeping out between slitted lids. This is not that girl. This is a better girl.
“I could live here,” she says again.
CHAPTER 18
1
In deference to his guests, Bucky has taken to smoking on the porch, although the whole house holds the olfactory ghosts of the hundreds of Pall Malls he’s smoked since relocating from New York. Billy joins him the next morning while Alice is in the shower. And singing in there, which might be the best sign of recovery yet.
“She says you’re working on a book,” Bucky says.
Billy laughs. “I doubt if it will mount up to that.”
“Says you might like to work on it in the summerhouse today.”
“I might.”
“She says it’s good.”
“I don’t think she has much to compare it to.”
Bucky doesn’t chase that. “I thought she ’n I
might do some shopping this morning, give you a chance to get after it. You need a new wig and she needs some lady things. Not just hair dye.”
“You’ve already discussed this?”
“As a matter of fact we have. I usually get up around five—or rather my bladder gets me up—and after I took care of that business I came out to have a smoke and she was already here. We watched the sun come up together. Talked a little bit.”
“How did she seem?”
Bucky tilts his head toward the sound of the singing. “How does she sound?”
“Pretty good, actually.”
“I think so, too. We might take a ride all the way to Boulder, better selections there. Stop at Ricky Patterson’s used car lot on the backswing. See what he’s got. Maybe have lunch at Handy Andy’s.”
“What if they’re looking for you, too?”
“You’re the one in the crosshairs, Billy. I imagine they took a look for me in New York, maybe checked out my sister’s place in Queens, then gave me up for a lost cause.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Tell you what, the first stop we make will be either Buffalo Exchange or Common Threads. I’ll buy a cowboy hat and yank it down to my ears. Yeehaw.” Bucky puts out his current Pall Mall. “She thinks the world of you, you know. Thinks you’re the tomcat’s testicles.”
“I hope she didn’t put it like that.”
In the bathroom, the shower keeps on. She’s still singing, which is good, but Billy thinks she may be having a hard job getting clean enough to suit her.
“Actually,” Bucky says, “she called you her guardian angel.”
2
Half an hour later, after the steam has cleared out of the bathroom, Alice comes to the door while Billy is shaving.
“You don’t mind if I go?”
“Not a bit. Have fun, keep your eyes open, and don’t be afraid to tell him to turn the radio down when your fillings start to rattle. He always had a tendency to blast it when Creedence or Zep came on. I doubt if he’s changed.”