Walking with Billy Three Hats

Billy Three Hats, Little Alma, Sonny Boy, and their neighbors live in Camp Pendleton, a community embedded within a pretentious college town. Like most communities, Camp Pendleton has a governing body, norms and nuances, and consists of a multiethnic stew of Democrats and Republicans, Pentecostals and skeptics, perverts and prudes. But unlike communities in the four walls and a roof tribe, Billy and friends live in secrecy and fear, hidden away in their homeless encampment, surviving on scraps and throwaways while absorbing the scorn and contempt of outsiders. When three women from Camp Pendleton disappear, a cloud of suspicion settles on Cruze Calloway, a desk jockey at the local university. The asocial and enigmatic Calloway comes under more scrutiny when the police link him to a stripper who has vanished. The key to unlocking the mystery of the missing women lies trapped in the tangled psyche of Cruze's walking buddy, the mute and mentally challenged Billy.