Billy Summers

The next day, Billy meets Ken Hoff in Red Bluff to learn more about the job. Billy drinks soda but Hoff is drinking wine. He is between 45 and 50 years old. Hoff tells Billy that he owns a nearby 22-story building called the Gerard Tower. This building is opposite the courthouse; it is the place from Billy will shoot when Allen arrives at court. Billy is told that he will have access to an office on the 5th floor, which has a good view of the steps. Hoff will acquire the weapon, or “tool,” for Billy. He talks about his financial troubles and a deal involving a media corporation called WWE about which he is anxious.

Billy subsequently meets Nick again to discuss the job further. Nick is with his right-hand man, Giorgio “Georgie Pigs” Piglielli. They give Billy a wallet containing his fake identification and other ephemera of a new identity. If he agrees to take the job, he will assume the role of David Lockridge, an aspiring author who has been living a life of dissipation and failing to meet his deadlines. His cover story is that he is writing a book, for which he has already been paid a small advance. He is in Red Bluff because it is quiet and removed from the temptations that have been preventing him from writing. They agree that he is to say that the subject of his work is a secret: Nick and Georgie want him to keep the cover simple. Billy thinks this is because they believe in his “dumb self” identity and think that he couldn’t sustain a more complex story: Little do they know that Billy has always wanted to write. He sees this as an opportunity to fulfill that wish. Giorgio will take the role of his agent, under the name George Russo, to set him up in Red Bluff and to act as his handler once he is undercover. Billy accepts the job and $500,000 is wired to his offshore account.

Billy moves into 24 Evergreen Street, the little yellow house where he first met with Nick. There is a small Toyota parked outside for him to drive. While Billy settles into his temporary home and new identity, he thinks about Ken Hoff and how it seems as though there is something he (Billy) is not being told. He instinctively dislikes and distrusts Hoff.

Billy meets his neighbor, Jamal Ackerman; they discuss the state of Billy’s lawn, and Jamal offers to lend him some fertilizer. Jamal is married to Corinne (“Corrie”), and they have two children. Shanice is 8 years old, and Derek is 10 years old. Jamal works at a tire store; Corrie is a stenographer at the courthouse.

The next morning, Billy goes to Gerard Tower to meet Giorgio and Hoff. Hoff introduces Billy to the security guard, Irv Dean. They create an ID card for Billy under his new identity of David Lockridge. Giorgio tells Hoff that the cleaning staff are not to disturb Billy’s office, using the cover story that his writing must not be interrupted or his work otherwise disturbed.

Hoff gives Billy a tour of the building. There are many vacant units, and Billy begins to suspect the extent of Hoff’s financial troubles. When they reach Billy’s office on the fifth floor, Giorgio gives Billy a new MacBook Pro. He assumes Nick is monitoring it and decides to continue using his own laptop for anything he would prefer to keep private.

Back at his house, Billy meets Danny Fazio, a nine-year-old boy who lives in the neighborhood. He finds that Jamal has left him a bag of lawn fertilizer. That night, Jamal and Billy share a drink on the porch. Other neighbors join them, including Mrs. Kellogg (a recent widow), Paul and Denise Ragland, and Diane and Pete Fazio. During this impromptu party Billy learns that the previous residents of the yellow house were the Dugans, a family people considered “snotty.” This causes Billy to reflect on Nick’s suggestion that he would be good at this long-term assignment because he gets along with people without getting close.

Before he goes to bed that night, Billy looks Hoff up online and finds that he supports Trump. He owns real estate in downtown Red Bluff, as well as having diverse other business interests. He has been divorced twice, and Billy speculates that this means more financial pressure in the form of expensive alimony payments. Hoff had plans to open a golf course and a casino, neither of which came to fruition. Hoff’s evident financial distress and consequent desperation make Billy think that Hoff has been chosen as a fall guy to distance Nick from the crime.

The next day, Billy goes to his office in the Gerard Tower to begin work. Imagining Georgie and Nick surveilling him through his new laptop, he sets it up with a program to play card games to reinforce their image of him as his “dumb self.” While his laptop plays games by itself, Billy assesses the area. Billy has assassinated 17 people already, not counting those he killed as a Marine sniper in Iraq. He considers the problem of escaping after he has taken the shot, which he thinks of as the main challenge he will face and the most important problem to solve.

At lunch, a food truck arrives at the building. As he is supposed to become a familiar face at the Gerard Tower, he takes the opportunity to meet people who work in the building. He meets a group of lawyers and Phyllis Stanhope, who works for an accountancy firm. From them he learns about the businesses that operate out of the tower. There is a debt collection agency called Business Solutions that occupies the entire second floor. Billy notices that Business Solutions employees can be identified by their casual dress. One of the people employed in this company is Colin White, a flamboyantly dressed man who is well-liked and gregarious.

Billy orders some things online. Then he sits down to begin writing, choosing to use the MacBook Pro he was given by Nick and Georgie rather than his own laptop, which he has used for everything else. He plans to write in the persona of his “dumb self” and is not concerned that they will realize he is more perceptive than he pretends to be. He reflects that he might also want his writing to be read by someone other than himself, even if it is only by Nick and Georgie checking up on him. That night, Billy is invited to a neighbor’s house for dinner—an invitation he accepts. Giorgio asks Billy to meet with him and Nick on Thursday night.

Billy continues to write and finds the process liberating. He writes the story of his childhood and the death of his sister, Cathy, who was killed at the age of nine by her mother’s violent boyfriend. Billy was 11 at the time and had been told to look after his sister while his mother was at work. The boyfriend (unnamed in Billy’s story, but elsewhere identified as Bob Raines) then turns on Billy, who takes the man’s loaded gun from his bedroom and shoots him in the chest. In his book, Billy uses fake names that are recognizably close to the truth—for example, Cathy is Cassie. His own alias is Benjy Compson.

Billy’s online order arrives; it contains elements of his escape plan. Since he will no longer be able to use the identity of “David Lockridge” after the assassination, he is preparing another. The items he has bought include a fake moustache, glasses with clear lenses, and an inflatable fake-pregnancy belly.

It is Thursday, so Billy goes to Nick’s house as agreed. They eat a meal together. After they have eaten and the staff have been dismissed, Nick asks Billy how he has been doing and explains some further details about plans for the day of the assassination. Billy learns that there will be diversions in the form of “flashpots,” small explosions that will create distractions to mask Billy’s escape.

Nick proposes a scheme for this escape, surprising Billy, who has always planned this part of his work himself. Nick’s plan is to use a Department of Public Works van driven by his own men as an escape vehicle. Once in the back of this van, Billy will be driven to a safe house in Wisconsin. While Nick has never given him a reason to distrust him, Billy is wary. He reflects that the only person he really trusts is his friend Bucky Hanson, who helped him to create the identity of Dalton Curtis Smith. This identity will be the basis for his own escape plan.

Billy sets out to find an apartment for Dalton Smith in a quiet area of town. He wears his Dalton Smith disguise: blond, overweight, mustached, and wearing glasses. He finds a promising house on Pearson Street in a down-at-heel neighborhood. He speaks with one of the neighbors, Mrs. Beverly Jensen, who confirms his suspicions about the area and tells him about the basement apartment in her building. He then talks to the building manager, Mr. Merton Richter, and rents the unit in character as Dalton Smith.

That weekend in Midwood, Billy plays monopoly with his neighbors’ children, winning the game and beginning a tradition that he will maintain throughout the time he lives there as David Lockridge. He continues to develop the persona of Dalton Smith, buying several cheap laptops and leasing a car in his new name. He moves some of his belongings into the second apartment on Pearson Street.

He returns to the office, where he meets Phyllis. He impulsively invites her for a drink. As soon as he says it, he realizes it is a mistake to become close to anyone while he is undercover. They make plans anyway.