Killers of a Certain Age

The work opens in 1979, with Billie Webster and Helen Randolph, contract killers with an organization called the Museum, preparing for their first job. They are dressed as stewardesses as the target will soon board the aircraft they are on. Billie listens to fellow agents Vance and Sweeney, who are posing as the plane’s pilots. They trade pop culture references, and Billie ignores their attempt to flirt with her. Vance returns to the task at hand, assuring Billie she will succeed at the work ahead.

Sweeney expresses an interest in Billie’s colleague Natalie Schuyler, referring to her only by her hair color, leading an exasperated Billie to note, “the little brunette has a name” (6).

Billie checks in with her colleague Mary Alice Tuttle, and the two commiserate about the inevitable harassment and condescension from Sweeney and Vance. Helen and Natalie are both discomfited when they watch the Bulgarians board the plane as they cannot imagine murdering the small dog their target has brought with him. The Bulgarian’s chief bodyguard is extremely suspicious when he realizes Vance and Vance are not their usual pilots. Billie interrupts the standoff to take drink orders, and the takeoff preparations begin.

The women serve drinks, and after the target assaults her, Billie reminds herself, “Nobody has pretended they won’t be harassed or groped or propositioned” (13).

After the plane takes off, Vance alerts the women it is time to act. The men’s drinks were drugged, and the targets will now be poisoned with injections of sodium thiopental. Mary Alice’s injection does not go in, so her target begins to choke her. Acting quickly, Billie stabs and neutralizes him. Vance urges the women to secure the document case and exit the plane. When Billie realizes the man is handcuffed to the case, she neatly cuts his hand free of his wrist, undeterred by the gore. The women exit the plane by turns as the flight will be left on autopilot to crash into the ocean. On the ground, the team is intercepted and met by their mentor, Constance Halliday, codenamed Shepherdess. Constance congratulates Billie, who promptly vomits, but the omniscient narrator assures the reader “it was the greatest day of her life, so far” (21).

The chapter opens 40 years later, with a 60-year-old Billie surveying her surroundings on the cruise ship Amphitrite, named for the Greek goddess of the sea: She, Mary Alice, Natalie, and Helen are on an all-inclusive retirement journey in the Caribbean. Billie, now the first-person narrator, assures the reader she will provide no real information about her work, which relies on “museum nomenclature to make it a little less obvious to anybody listening in that our job is to eliminate people who need killing” (23). Billie recalls that the agency’s founders had served in espionage in World War II, unwilling to let war criminals and war profiteers remain unpunished, and the agency later turned to punishing other international criminals. Billie admits that the organization was never perfect, but the work was always thrilling and morally valuable. She has no qualms about her work as their targets are selected based on the moral need to prevent them from doing harm: “[W]e don’t murder on our days off any more than a thoracic surgeon will cut your rib cage open for kicks” (25).

In late December, the four women reunite in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Natalie flirts with a much younger crew member, and Helen defends her. Billie worries that Helen still looks frail as she has been mourning her husband. When Billie admits she is still having hot flashes from menopause, Mary Alice and Natalie squabble about whether it is appropriate for them to discuss menstruation in public. Billie distracts them with a celebratory toast.

After dinner, the cruise director, a young woman Billie finds patronizing, takes the four women on a tour with the captain. The friends have differing views of their new station in life: Mary Alice is happy while Natalie and Billie reflect ruefully there is nothing like the excitement and quick thinking their work requires. Mary Alice is relieved because her wife, Akiko, does not know the truth about her job but may suspect she is engaging in infidelity. Mary Alice specifically mentions that the couple plays softball together, and Akiko is the pitcher. This becomes an important plot point at the end of the novel, when a good throwing arm becomes crucial to dispatching more assassins. Though the women are well paid, their work is not consistent, and some of them have freelance or creative jobs to fill their time. Mary Alice found herself inventing an “accounting emergency” for some of her work trips, which strained credulity and explained her wife’s doubts (32).

Mary Alice admits that sometimes she uses her anti-gay family as a cover story, which Helen finds upsetting, but Mary Alice reminds her that their hostility to Akiko is real, though she admits she also believed the truth would end her marriage. Natalie reflects that she never told any of her partners about her work, which partly explains her casual approach to sex and marriage. Billie is privately afraid of the pending adjustment to her ordinary life.