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But they go northeast instead, two miles from downtown. They enter a neighborhood that looks lower middle class stability, three or four steps better than the trailer park. He grew up in but far from fancy. No big gated houses – not here this – is a neighborhood of ranch houses with lawn sprinklers twirling on small patches of grass. Most are one story, most are well maintained, but a few need paint and there’s crab grass taking over some of the lawns.

He sees one house with a piece of cardboard blocking a broken window in front of another. A fat man in bermuda, shorts and a wife beater sits in a lawn chair from costco or sam’s club drinking a beer and watching them go by times have been good in america for a while now, but maybe that is going to change. Billy knows neighborhoods like this: they are a barometer and this one has started to go down. The people who live here are working the kind of jobs where you punch a clock, mackintosh pulls into the driveway of a two-story with apache lawn. It’S painted a subdued yellow.

It’S okay, but it doesn’t look like a place where nick majerion would choose to live even for a few days. It looks like the kind of place a machinist or lower echelon airport employee would live with his coupon clipping wife and two kids making mortgage payments every month and bowling in a beer league on thursday nights logan opens billy’s door. Billy puts his archie digest on the dashboard and gets out. Macintosh leads the way up. The porch steps it’s hot outside, but inside it’s air-conditioned, nick majerion stands in the short hallway, leading down to the kitchen, he’s wearing a suit that probably cost almost as much as a monthly mortgage payment on this house.

His thinning hair is combed flat, no pompadour for him. His face is round and vegas tanned he’s heavy set, but when he pulls billy into a hug that protruding belly feels as hard as stone, billy, nick exclaims and kisses him on both cheeks big hearty smacks. He’S wearing a million dollar grin billy, billy man, it’s good to see you good to see you too nick. He looks around you usually stay somewhere fancier than this. He pauses.

If you don’t mind me saying nick laughs, he has a beautiful infectious laugh to go with the grin mackintosh joins in and logan smiles. I got a place over on the west side, short term house sitting. You could call it. There’S a fountain in the front yard. Got a naked little kid in the middle of it.

There’S a word for that. Cherub billy thinks but doesn’t say he just keeps smiling anyway, a little kid peeing water you’ll, see it you’ll see it. No, this one isn’t mine billy, it’s yours! If you decide to take the job, that is, three nick shows him around fully furnished. He says like he’s selling it.

Maybe he sort of is this. One has a second floor where there are three bedrooms and two bathrooms: the second small, probably for the kids on the first floor, there’s a kitchen, a living room and a dining room. That’S so small, it’s actually a dining nook. Most of the cellar has been converted into a long carpeted room with a big tv at one end and a ping pong table at the other track. Lighting nick calls it the rumpus room, and this is where they sit.

Macintosh asks them if they’d like something to drink, he says: there’s soda beer, lemonade and iced tea. I wan na arnold palmer nick says: half and half lots of ice. Billy says that sounds good. They make small talk until the drinks come the weather, how hot it is down here in the border. South nick wants to know how billy’s trip in was billy, says it was fine but doesn’t say where he flew in from and nick doesn’t ask nick says how about that [, __, ], trump and billy says how about him.

That’S about all they’ve got, but it’s okay, because by then macintosh is back with two tall glasses on a tray and once he leaves nick gets down to business. When i called your man bucky, he tells me you’re hoping to retire. I’M thinking about it been at it a long time too long truth. How old are you anyway, 44

Been doing this ever since she took off the uniform, pretty much he’s pretty sure. Nick knows all this: how many

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