by Stephen King
“Yes,” Alice says. She turns to him with a smile on her lips and an expression of naked relief in her eyes. “He says he rented you the apartment.”
Billy frowns, trying to remember, then smiles as it comes to him. “Oh yes, right. Mr. Ricker.”
“Richter,” he says, and extends his hand. Billy shakes it, still smiling, trying to read what Richter is thinking. He can’t. But Richter will have noticed the bruises on her face and her nervousness. Those are impossible to miss. And is Billy’s hand sweaty? Probably.
“I was in the…” Billy points vaguely toward the bedroom and the bathroom beyond.
“Quite all right,” Richter says. He looks at the screens of the AllTech laptops, which are cycling through all sorts of pre-loaded clickbait: the wonders of acai berries, two weird little tips for erasing wrinkles, doctors plead with you not to eat this vegetable, see what these ten child stars look like now.
“So this is what you do?” Richter asks.
“As a sideline. I earn most of my beer and skittles doing IT work. Travel around a lot, don’t I, dear?”
“Yes,” Alice says, and gives another of those jagged giggles. Richter slips her a quick side-glance, and in it Billy sees that whatever Alice may have told Richter while Billy was fumbling with the fucking fake stomach, the man believes that she’s Dalton Smith’s niece like he believes the moon is made of green cheese.
“Fascinating stuff,” Richter says, bending to squint at the screen that’s just changed from the dangerous vegetable (corn, as it happens, which isn’t even a real vegetable) to ten famous unsolved murders (JonBenét Ramsey leading the pack). “Just fascinating.” He straightens up and looks around. “I like what you’ve done to the place.”
Alice has neatened it up a bit, but otherwise it’s the same as it was when he moved in. “What can I do for you, Mr. Richter?”
“Well, I just came to give you a little heads-up.” Richter, recalled to business, smooths his tie and puts on a professional smile. “A consortium called Southern Endeavor has bought up those storage sheds back there on Pond Street and the houses, the few that remain, here on Pearson Street. Which includes this one. They’re planning on a new shopping mall that should revitalize this whole section of town.”
Billy doubts that malls can revitalize anything in the age of the Internet, including themselves, but he says nothing.
Alice is calming down, and that’s good. “I’ll just go in the bedroom and let you men talk,” she says, and does just that, closing the door behind her.
Billy puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his feet, making the fake stomach bulge a bit against the sweatshirt. “The storage sheds and houses are going to be knocked down, is that what you’re telling me? Including this one, I assume.”
“Yes, but you’ll have six weeks to find new accommodations.” Richter says it as if conveying a great gift. “Six weeks is firm, I’m afraid. Give me a forwarding address before you move out, Cuz, and I’ll be happy to refund any rent that’s owing.” Richter sighs. “I’ll have to tell the Jensens when I leave here. That could be harder, because they’ve been here longer.”
It’s not for Billy to tell him that Don and Beverly will be looking for a new place anyway, maybe to buy instead of to rent, when they get back from their cruise. But he does tell Richter that the Jensens will be gone for awhile and he’s been taking care of their plants. “Me and my niece, that is.”
“Very neighborly of you. And she’s a lovely girl.” Richter licks his lips, perhaps just to moisten them, perhaps not. “Do you have a phone number for the Jensens?”
“I do. It’s in my wallet. Will you excuse me for just a sec?”
“Of course.”
Alice is sitting on the bed and looking at him with big eyes. Most of the color has left her face, making the bruises even more prominent. What? those eyes say. And How bad?
Billy raises a hand and pats the air with it: Be cool, be cool.
He gets his wallet and goes back into the living room, remembering to walk fat. Richter is bent over one of the AllTechs, hands on knees, tie hanging down like a stopped pendulum, looking at the wonders of the avocado, nature’s most perfect vegetable (it’s actually a fruit). For one moment Billy actually considers lacing his fingers together and bringing the hammer down on the back of Richter’s neck, but when Richter turns, Billy just opens his wallet and holds out a slip of paper. “Here it is.”
Richter takes a little pad from his inner pocket and jots down the number with a silver pencil. “I’ll give them a ringy-dingy.”
“I can do it, if you want.”
“By all means, by all means, but I’ll still have to call them myself. Part of the job. Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Smith. I’ll let you go back…” His eyes flick briefly to the bedroom door. “… to whatever you were doing.”
“I’ll see you out,” Billy says. Pitching his voice lower, he says “I want to talk to you about…” He tilts his head to the bedroom.
“None of my business, Cuz. This is the twenty-first century.”
“I know, but it’s not like that.”
They walk up the stairs to the foyer. Billy brings up the rear, puffing a little. “Got to lose some weight.”
“Join the club,” Richter says.
“That poor kid’s my sister Mary’s girl,” Billy says. “Mary’s husband left her a year ago and she picked up this loser, I think in a bar. Bob somebody. He’s been after the girl and beat her up when she wouldn’t come across for him, if you know what I mean.”
“I get it.” Richter is looking out the foyer door like he can’t wait to get back to his car. Maybe the story makes him uncomfortable, Billy thinks. Or maybe he just wants to get away from me.
“Here’s the other piece. Mary’s got quite the temper, doesn’t like anyone telling her her business.”
“Know the type,” Richter says, still looking out the door. “Know it very well.”
“I’ll keep my niece for a week, maybe ten days, let Sis cool down a bit, then take her back and talk to her about Bob.”
“Got it. Wish you luck.” He turns to Billy and offers a hand with a smile to go with it. The smile looks genuine. Richter may believe his story. On the other hand, he may be acting as if his life depends on it, which he might think it does. Billy gives him a good firm shake.
Richter exclaims, “Women! Can’t live with em and can’t shoot em outside the state of Alabama!”
It’s a joke, so Billy laughs. Richter lets go of his hand, opens the door, then turns back. “I see you shaved off your mustache.”
Startled, Billy raises two fingers to his upper lip. What he did was forget to put it on in his haste, and maybe that’s for the best. The mustache is tricky, it needs spirit gum to hold it, and if he applied it crooked, or the spirit gum showed, Richter would have known it was fake and wondered what the fuck.
“Got tired of picking food out of it,” Billy says.
Richter laughs. Billy can’t tell if it’s forced. It might be. “I hear that, Cuz. Loud and clear.”
He trots down the steps to his scratched SUV, shoulders a bit hunched, maybe because it’s chilly this morning, maybe because he’s expecting Billy to put a bullet in the back of his neck.
He gives a wave before getting in. Billy waves back. Then he hurries downstairs.
3
Billy says, “I’m going to visit your bad date today. Tomorrow I’m getting out of Dodge.”
Alice puts a hand to her mouth but drops it when her index finger brushes against her swollen nose. “Oh God. Did he recognize you?”
“My instinct says no, but he’s observant, noticed I didn’t have my mustache anymore—”
“Jesus!”
“He assumed I shaved it off, so it’s okay. At least I think so. I’m willing to push my luck one more day. Did you give him a name?”
“Brenda Collins. My best friend in high school. Did you—”
“Give him a different one? No, just called you my
niece. I told him your mother’s boyfriend beat you up because you wouldn’t go to bed with him.”
Alice nods. “That’s good. It covers everything.”
“Which doesn’t mean he’ll believe it. Stories are one thing, seeing is another. What he saw was a middle-aged fat man with a banged-up underage girl.”
Alice draws herself up, looking offended. Under other circumstances it might have been funny. “I’m twenty-one! A legal adult!”
“Do you get carded in bars?”
“Well…”
Billy nods, case closed.
“Maybe,” Alice says, “if you really mean to… well… confront Tripp, we shouldn’t wait until tomorrow. Maybe we should go right now.”
4
He stares at her, simultaneously believing that pronoun and not believing it. And what’s worse, she’s looking at him like it’s a foregone conclusion.
“Holy shit,” Billy says. “You really do have Stockholm Syndrome.”
“I don’t because I’m not a hostage. I could have walked out anytime from the Jensens’ apartment, as long as I was quiet on the stairs. You would never have noticed because you’d’ve been all wrapped up in your writing.”
Probably true, Billy thinks. And furthermore—
Alice says it for him. “If I was going to run away, I could have done it the first time you went out. For the morning-after pill.” She pauses, then adds, “Plus I gave him a false name.”
“Because you were scared.”
Alice shakes her head vehemently. “You were in the other room. I could have whispered that you were William Summers, who killed that man at the courthouse. We would have been upstairs and in his car before you finished putting on that.” She pokes him in the fake belly.
“You can’t go with me. It’s nuts.”
Still, the idea is starting to seep down, like water in dry earth. She can’t go with him all the way to Vegas, but if they can work out a story that protects the Dalton Smith identity, which is now in dire peril, then maybe…
“Maybe you could go by yourself if you leave Tripp and his friends alone. Because if anything happens to them, they’d connect it to me. Tripp and his friends, I mean. They wouldn’t want to go to the police, but they might decide to hurt me.”
Billy has to hide a smile. She is playing him, and doing a good job of it on short notice. This is quite a change from the puking semiconscious girl he fished out of the rain, the one who sometimes has panic attacks in the night. Billy thinks it’s a change for the better. Plus, she’s right—anything he does to those three they would connect to her. Assuming, that is, she’s the only woman they date-raped last week, which seems likely.
“Yes,” Alice says, watching him from under her eyebrows and still playing him for all she’s worth. “I guess you better leave them unpunished.” Then she asks him what he’s smiling about.
“Nothing. Just that I like you. My friend Taco would have said you’ve got some gimme to you.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It doesn’t matter. But yeah, those guys need a payback for what they did. I need to think about this.”
Alice says, “Can I help you pack while you think?”
5
It’s Billy who does the packing. It doesn’t take long. There’s no room for her new clothes in his suitcase, but he finds a plastic Barnes & Noble bag, the kind with handles, on the top shelf of the bedroom closet and dumps her stuff into that. He carries the AllTechs out to the Fusion in a stack.
While he does that, Alice goes through the Jensens’ apartment with a dish towel and a spray bottle of Lysol and water, wiping down surfaces. She pays special attention to the TV remote, which they’ve both used, and doesn’t neglect the light switches. When she goes downstairs, Billy helps her wipe down the basement apartment, paying particular attention to the bathroom: fixtures, shower head, mirror, the toilet’s flush handle. It takes them about an hour.
“I think we’re done,” she says.
“What about the key to the Jensens’ apartment?”
“Oh glory,” she says. “I’ve still got it. I’ll wipe it down and… what? Slip it under the door?”
“I’ll do it.” He does, but goes in first to get Don Jensen’s Ruger. He sticks it in his belt, beneath the pregnancy belly. The XL sweatshirt covers it. The revolver is a pricey item, five or six hundred dollars, and Billy doesn’t have that much cash. He leaves two fifties and a C-note on the nightstand, along with a quick scribble that says Took your gun. Will send the balance when I can. More like if he can. Meanwhile, what about Daphne and Walter? Will they die of thirst on their windowsill? Romeo and Juliet of the plant world? Stupid to even wonder, given everything else he has to worry about.
It’s because Bev gave them names, he thinks. He treats each to one final spray for good luck. Then he touches his back pocket, where Shan’s flamingo drawing is folded up and stowed away.
Back downstairs, he takes Alice’s phone out of his hip pocket and holds it out to her. He’s replaced the SIM card.
She takes it with an accusing look. “It wasn’t lost. You had it all along.”
“Because I didn’t trust you.”
“And now you do?”
“Now I do. And at some point you need to call your mother. Otherwise she’s going to get worried.”
“I suppose she would,” Alice says. Then, with a trace of bitterness: “After a month or so.” She sighs. “Okay, and tell her what? I made a friend, we bonded over chicken noodle soup and The Blacklist?”
Billy considers, but comes up empty.
Alice, meanwhile, breaks into a smile. “You know what, I’m going to tell her I quit school. She’ll believe that. And I’m going to Cancun with some friends. She’ll believe that, too.”
“Will she really?”
“Yes.”
Billy thinks there’s a whole mother-daughter relationship in that single word, complete with tears, recriminations, and slammed doors. “You need to work on that a little,” he says. “Right now it’s time to go.”
6
There are two Sherwood Heights exits off the Interstate, both with clusters of fast-food restaurants, gas-em-up quick-stops, and motels. Billy tells Alice to look for a motel that isn’t part of a chain. While she’s busy checking out the signs, he slips the Ruger out of his belt and stows it under the seat. At the second exit she points out the Penny Pines Motel and asks what he thinks. Billy says it looks good. Using one of his Dalton Smith credit cards, he gets them a pair of adjoining rooms. Alice waits in the car, making Billy think of that old song by the Amazing Rhythm Aces, “Third Rate Romance.”
They bring in their stuff. He takes the Mac Pro out of the carry-bag, puts it on the room’s single table (shaky and needing a shim under one leg), re-zips the bag, and slings it over his shoulder.
“What do you need that for?”
“Supplies. I need to do some shopping. And it’s got a good look. Professional. What’s your phone number?”
She gives it to him and he puts it into his contacts.
“Do you have an address for the condo where these guys live?” It’s a question he should have asked before, but they’ve been a little busy.
“I don’t know the number, but it’s Landview Estates, on Route 10. It’s the last stop the bus makes before it gets to the airport and turns around.” Alice takes him by the sleeve and leads him to the window. She points. “Pretty sure that’s Landview Estates, those three on the left. Tripp lives—they live—in building C.”
“Third floor.”
“That’s right. I don’t remember the apartment number, but it’s the one at the end of the hall. You have to push a code to get in the front door, and I didn’t see what he put in. It didn’t seem important at the time.”
“I’ll get in.” Billy hopes he’s right about that. His expertise is guns, not entering buildings with security doors.
“Will you come back here before you go there?”
“No, but I�
��ll stay in touch.”
“Are we staying in these rooms tonight?”
“I don’t know. It depends on how things go.”
She asks if he’s sure he wants to do this. Billy says he is, and it’s the truth.
“Maybe it’s a bad idea.”
It might be, but Billy means to go through with it anyway, if he can. Those men owe.
“Tell me no and I’ll back off.”
Instead of doing that, Alice takes one of his hands and squeezes. Hers is cold. “Be safe.”
He gets halfway down the hall, then turns back. There’s another question he forgot to ask. He knocks and she opens the door.
“What does Tripp look like?”
She takes out her phone and shows him a picture. “I took this the night we went to the movies.”
The man who drugged her drink and raped her and, along with his two friends, tossed her out of the old van like a piece of trash, is holding up a bag of popcorn and smiling. His eyes sparkle. His teeth are white and even. Billy thinks he looks like an actor in a toothpaste ad.
“Okay. What about the other two?”
“One was short and had freckles. The other was much taller, with an olive complexion. I don’t remember which one was Jack and which one was Hank.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
7
The Airport Mall is just up the road from the motel. It’s anchored by a Walmart even bigger than the one in Midwood. Billy locks his car, mindful of the gun under the driver’s seat, and does his shopping. The mask is easy. Halloween is still weeks away, but the stores always put out their holiday shit well ahead of time. He also picks up a cheap pair of binoculars, a package of heavy-duty zip-ties, a pair of thin gloves, a Magic Wand hand mixer, and a can of Easy-Off oven cleaner. Outside, a couple of cops—real ones, not Wally World security guards—are drinking coffee and discussing outboard motors. Billy gives them a nod. “Afternoon, officers.”
