Drawing Amanda (23 page)

“Let me make it easier,” Woody responded.

“Really, I’m good,” she said. It sounded like she was stepping away from him.

“I don’t want to leave her up there any longer,” Inky said to Rungs.

“Precinct house is a few blocks away,” Rungs said. “They’ll be here any second.”

They heard Amanda’s footsteps, the soles of her new boots tapping on the wood floor, then Woody saying, “You look lovely.”

A second later they heard the mechanical whir of a digital camera. “Hold that,” Woody said to Amanda.

Inky clutched his drawing and opened the car door. “That’s it. I’m outta here. It’ll take him some time to get downstairs,” he said to Rungs as he got out of the car. “The police’ll be here by then.”

Inky didn’t wait for Rungs’s reaction. He walked by the auto repair shop. His swift steps were so strong he could feel the sidewalk through his sneakers. He passed the boarded-up building and noticed a lady cleaning furniture on a fire escape. The studio was a few buildings away. Was Woody still taking pictures of Amanda? What was he asking her to do? Inky shuddered at the possibilities and broke into a trot. He had to get there as soon as possible. He had to get to Amanda.

Then everything went dark.

There was something around his head. It was heavy and odorous. A chemical smell filled his nose. It combined with his panic to make him light-headed. He tried not to breathe.

He wanted to scream. He was afraid to scream. Would screaming blow all that they’d planned for? Would it mean danger for Amanda? He was braced for an attack, but he didn’t sense anyone near him. Who wanted him not to see?

He had to see. Seeing was everything. “No, damn it. No,” he screamed.

Inky sucked in a breath of the chemical, and the colors in his head went hazy. He thought of the art room at the school. The scent was familiar—turpentine!

He reached up to his eyes and felt a nubby, rough fabric on his face. He found the frayed end of the fabric and lifted it away. He gasped and took in the cold, fresh air.

“Lo siento mucho, lo siento,” he heard a woman’s voice say. It came from above him. The fire escape. The lady in the flowered dress on the fire escape cleaning her furniture. No one was out to get him, she’d just dropped her cleaning rag.

Like a painting by Utrillo, the once seedy street scene now seemed a thing of beauty. The rusty sign, the steel gray sky, the overflowing trash, all glorious in their contrast of color and light. The flowers on the dress that apologetic Hispanic woman wore now transformed into a garden path leading him straight to Amanda.

Inky looked down the street to the car. Had Rungs seen any of this? Probably not. He was busy waiting for the police.

Finally he was at the front of the studio. He texted Rungs that he was about to go in but got no response. He yanked at the big glass front door to the studio building and entered. He looked at the buzzer that said “Turner and Megaland Studios.” What had Amanda been thinking when she faced this buzzer? What she was thinking now?

Inky noted that the door opened out. That would make it easier for him to step outside once Woody came down, so he could block Woody’s view of the approaching police, and maybe keep him from running away. He wished he had timed how long it took for Woody to come downstairs after Amanda had rung the buzzer, but he’d been too busy straining to hear the sounds from the receiver. Probably it would take longer now. He was interrupting, after all.

Inky pushed in the black button. The sound of the buzzer went through him. What if Woody ignored it? Last night on the phone he and Rungs had decided if that happened, Inky would keep pressing the buzzer and talk to Woody through the intercom. They figured Woody would not want a scene with Amanda there. The doorway now seemed eerily quiet as he waited for Woody to acknowledge the buzzer.

Inky made a note of his distance from the door, how his back was to the wall and where he needed to stand to reach the door to open it. He stepped in and out, counting his steps. He felt like he was in the awful folk dance unit of gym class. He always came in at the wrong part of the music, and now he was afraid he’d mess this up, too.

He wished he could talk to Rungs, wished he knew what was going on with Amanda. They should have a two-way system the next time they did this, he thought, then caught himself. There would be no next time. It was hard enough to believe there was a
this
time.

* * *

Down the street, Rungs greeted the policemen. He was surprised to see two officers in the squad car; his father worked alone. He wondered what else he hadn’t calculated. He had a vaguely metallic taste in his mouth as the police officer rolled open his window.

“I called.” Rungs said, standing up as straight as he could, glad for his height but knowing there was no way he looked like the president of an international bank, which is what he knew they’d presume because he’d used Hawk’s phone with her father’s caller ID.

“This some kind of prank? ’Cause we have zero tolerance for that kind of thing.”

“No, sir. Deadly serious,” Rungs said. How to explain? He started walking toward the sedan that was serving as their command central. One officer followed. His name tag said “Hogan.” His partner remained in the squad car.

Rungs started with the facts. “William Turner, offender 28292, was posing as a game developer. He made arrangements to meet my friend. She’s inside now, Officer Hogan.”

“Her phone?” the officer asked.

Rungs didn’t confirm the officer’s assumption. “I gather I don’t have to tell you who Helen Stegmann is. How her father would do anything for her. Her father the bank pres—”

“Yeah, kid. We got all that . . .” Officer Hogan said.

Rungs was glad he didn’t have to totally lie. He glanced down the street toward the studio. Good. Inky hadn’t stepped outside yet. He walked up to the car, thinking he might have won the policeman over. Officer Hogan, a few steps behind him, approached the driver’s window.

“He’s not part of this,” Rungs said, and he opened the back door of the car. Hawk’s driver looked back, alarmed. “It’s OK, we called him,” Rungs said to the driver loudly enough so he could hear through the plexiglass barrier. “It’s about our friend upstairs.”

Rungs heard Woody’s voice coming from the receiver, then the whir of the camera. “She’s with him now. He’s taking pictures of her,” Rungs said to Officer Hogan. The officer let out a low whistle.

“Got a diddler,” he radioed to his partner.

Then they heard Inky’s distorted voice; it was what Woody and Amanda were hearing from the intercom. Rungs smiled. Inky was saying exactly what they’d arranged. “It’s me. Picasso2B, the kid who draws for Megaland. I have that new drawing you asked me to drop off.” They’d thought that Woody wouldn’t be able to ignore the request, not in front of Amanda, who was supposedly testing the site, and especially if Inky made it a point to say he was a kid.

Sure enough Rungs heard Woody say to Amanda, “Why don’t you look through the makeup over there while I get the buzzer.”

“Cool,” Amanda said. “My mother doesn’t let me wear makeup.”

Officer Hogan looked at the receiver, then at Rungs. Rungs noticed a flush of anger at the top of his pudgy cheeks.

“It’s connected to a G-phone,” Rungs said. “She has it in her purse. The box has a speaker and an HD recorder.” Rungs couldn’t help bragging about the gear, but the look on the officer’s face suggested he was less than thrilled seeing Rungs’s fieldwork in action.

“Unauthorized civilian use—and a kid. What all are you trying to do? What are you trying to pull? I should confiscate that,” the officer said.

“I wouldn’t be doing that,” Rungs said, stepping closer to the officer so he was uncomfortably close to his face. “It’s property of the Sahmnakkhaogrong-hangshaat.”

“The what?”

Rungs reached into his pocket for his father’s business card and handed it to Officer Hogan. “Thai National Intelligence Agency.” Rungs pointed to the lettering.

The officer studied the card. “You print this out on your computer?”

“No, sir.”

The officer ran his fingers over the raised letters of the card. Rungs pointed to the equipment again.

“My father’s.”

What the hell?” He let out a whistle. “Tell you what though, son, in this country, what you got from this box, it’s not admissible.”

Rungs replied quickly, thinking Woody would soon be in the building entranceway with Inky. “Get his camera, then. She’s 14. That should be all the evidence you need—that and the captures of their chats you can get from his computer.” Rungs could see the officer was now interested.

The policeman whistled again. “Sarge is gonna love this if we bring it in clean.”

Rungs looked down at his phone and saw the text message from Inky. “My friend just buzzed up. He’s gonna make the guy come down to collect this drawing he really wants. It’s his artwork the creep has been using to woo her.”

“Grooming,” Officer Hogan said, as if he was talking to a colleague. “They all do that shit.”

* * *

Inky was sweating even though it was chilly in the doorway. He was growing impatient. He hit the buzzer again, this time sounding out two staccato bursts.

“Coming, coming,” a voice came through the intercom a moment later. Inky jumped at the sound and knocked the drawing against the wall, bending an edge. Hearing Woody’s voice made it all real, and that was scary.

Please don’t do anything to Amanda, Inky thought as he strained to hear footsteps. He thought of his abandoned religious school education. He needed a real prayer now, but none came to mind. So he squeezed his eyes shut and said his father’s name over and over again, hoping it would do.

Inky steeled himself and glanced out the door. Rungs was still out of sight, but hopefully with the police. But what if the police didn’t believe Rungs? And what if Woody figured out they were trying to trap him?

It felt like forever to Inky, standing there, straining to hear Woody’s footsteps. His mind saw only the neutral palate of the doorway. He memorized every detail. He could draw this scene over and over; he would always know just the way the light came in through the doorway, the same way he’d always remember the image of the charred remains from his father’s plane crash.

And then he saw Woody.

He looked like the pictures they’d seen online, but it was still a shock to see him in person. He’d spent so much energy thinking about how creepy Woody really was that he was unsettled to find that he was just a regular guy, a trim and confident regular guy with a friendly smile.

“Hi there, Picasso in training,” Woody said breathlessly. “I wasn’t expecting you now. Sorry I can’t invite you up. Big session. I just have a minute. But it’s great to meet you. Great to meet you.” He held out his hand.

Inky shifted his drawing to the other hand and shook Woody’s hand. He wondered if Woody noticed how sweaty his palms were. Would he think anything of it, or just think that Inky was nerdy and graceless?

“So you’re the guy behind Megaland. It’s so exciting to meet you,” Inky said, hoping he sounded sincere. “Er, thanks for saying all those nice things about my work.”

“You’re a real talent,” Woody said in a manner that made Inky think of the way agents or advertising guys were portrayed in movies.

Inky tapped on the rolled-up drawing. “Let me show you this one.” It wobbled in his hand and he hoped that Woody didn’t notice the shake.

This next part would be the hardest of all: getting Woody to step outside. They wanted Woody out of the building so it would be that much harder for him to go back and destroy any evidence on his computer. Inky tried to sound unrehearsed. He looked around the little space they stood in and said, “It’s really dark in here.”

Inky leaned against the glass door, then released it just like he’d practiced while he was waiting for Woody to respond. It was an awkward gesture and he hoped that Woody would not be suspicious. Inky’s foot and the hand with the drawing were outside the doorway.

Woody gave him a curious look. Inky stepped all the way out, taking two steps back. He awkwardly held the door for Woody to follow, thankful for his long arms, worrying that he’d lose his footing or that he’d trip and blow it all.

Inky waved the rolled-up drawing—his signal to Rungs. “I really like figurative art,” he said, hoping to distract Woody. Woody nodded in response.

Inky had another maneuver; he had to position himself in such a way that Woody would not see Rungs and the police officer approaching. He did a bit of a pirouette; he stumbled, just enough so that Woody noticed.

“I’m nervous, I guess,” Inky said. “I’ve never shown a piece like this before, and well, you know, you’ve been . . .”

Woody waved him off. “Of course, of course. I understand. All artists are vulnerable. This must be hard.”

Inky felt soothed by Woody’s response. He didn’t seem that suspicious. As Inky rolled the rubber band off of his drawing, he was hit with a wave of guilt about what he was about to do. Megaland had been a good thing for him in a lot of ways.

The rubber band snapped and hurt his finger. “Damn,” Inky said, and he felt tears well up in his eyes. He tried to fill his mind with a soft color, settled on the peach of the shirt that Amanda was wearing and recovered.

He opened the picture and held it up for Woody to see. As he raised it, he noticed a shift in the shadow down the street. It had to be Rungs. He held the picture up to Woody’s eye level, so that it blocked his own face. He was afraid his expression of relief would betray him. It was so close to over, but so much could still go wrong.

His hands were shaking so much that Woody was having a hard time taking in the picture.

“Easy, easy. It’s just art,” Woody said. Inky knew he was looking at the contour of the girl’s breast in his picture.

“You are a truly marvelous artist. So realistic,” Woody said. He put a hand on the picture.

For a moment Inky forgot why he was there and let himself feel proud. “I’d love to show you more someday. I have a whole portfolio,” Inky said, stalling. What was taking them so long? The car wasn’t parked that far away.