Summary

In Chapter 1, Billy Summers reads a comic book as he waits for Nick Majarian’s men, Frankie Macintosh and Paulie Logan, to pick him up from his hotel. The comic book is only a cover. Summers is actually reading Émile Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin. He plays as if he is not very intelligent. In reality, he is as intelligent as the men who have hired him.

Frankie and Paulie drive Billy to a house in a middle-class neighborhood with dead grass on the lawn. Inside, Nick tells Billy that Billy will live in that house if he chooses to take the job Nick is offering. Nick comments that Billy’s representative, Bucky Hanson, claims Billy is thinking about retirement. Nick asks how many men Billy has killed. Billy claims not to know, but he thinks to himself he has killed...