Rough Draft (14 page)

Frank was still spraying the kayak, watching Helen out of the corner of his eye, seeing her peel out of the parking lot, her tail lights disappearing, when across the lot a car door swung open. Away from the overhead lights, just a dull red gleam coming from the hood of the car. He shut off the hose, and watched as someone got out, stood there a moment uncertainly, then headed across the pitted asphalt toward him.

Ten feet away he recognized her, and he felt something shift inside his chest. He dropped the hose on the ground and took a step in her direction.

“Frank,” she said. Coming into the motel lights. “Frank Sheffield.”

“Hannah?” he said. Trying to sound surprised, which he was, only in a different way from what she would expect. Trying to remember his role. But he really didn't have one. This wasn't covered in the script.

“I didn't know if I'd find you here. Five years later, you're still in the same motel room.”

“I find something I like, I stick with it.”

She smiled, came closer.

“Plus they give me a deal. Seven-fifty a month, all the coconuts I can pick.”

Frank looked back over Hannah's shoulder into the dark lot. There had to be at least a half-dozen agents scrambling around somewhere out there. The night shift. By now Shane had probably gotten word on the radio and was circling back. Frank thrust into the spotlight.

“Something wrong?” She glanced back over her shoulder.

“No,” he said. “Nothing's wrong. It's nice to see you. Been a while.”

Hannah came close. She reached out and touched a finger to his bare shoulder, then brought the finger to her mouth and tasted it with the tip of her tongue.

“Cabernet?”

“No,” he said. “Pinot.”

“It's a little salty.”

“That's probably just me.”

“You have any more, or did she throw the whole thing on you?”

“You were sitting out there a while,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Waiting for her to leave. What is she, a girlfriend?”

Frank considered it for a second.

“Somebody from work,” he said.

“Oh, so that's some kind of FBI secret handshake thing, throwing wine on each other.”

“Well, that,” he said, “is a long story.”

“The good ones usually are.”

“So you want some pinot?” he said. “Or just stand out here in the parking lot and quip the night away?”

“Maybe a sip. I can't stay long. Randall's in the car. It's almost his bedtime.”

“Bring him over. I got Coke, chocolate chip cookies. Unless that's too much sugar.”

“No, he's finishing up a burger and fries. Anyway, I think he'd rather stay in the car. He's had a rough day. And FBI guys make him nervous.”

Frank could still feel the place on his shoulder where her finger had trailed across the flesh. A tingle. First one of those he'd had in a while.

“You're still with the Bureau, aren't you?”

“Still plugging along,” he said. “But I don't like the idea I make a ten-year-old kid nervous.”

“He's eleven,” she said. “And it's not just you. A lot of things make him nervous.”

Frank nodded, wanting to take a longer look at her, but feeling bashful, keeping his gaze on the tiki bar.

“And the book career, how's it going?”

“Fine.”

“I read a couple of them, you know. The first two.”

“Then you stopped. Not your cup of tea.”

“Well, yeah, I'm more of a
Sports Illustrated
kind of guy. But they were good. I liked that woman, what's her name? Sharon?”

“Erin. Erin Barkley.”

“Yeah, Erin. She was tough. Real smart aleck. Quite a sex life, too.”

“It's make-believe.”

“Seemed pretty convincing to me.”

“The cop part is factual, all that procedural stuff. But Erin's sexual habits, that's to keep my readers happy.”

“Well, it worked for me. I remember that.”

The flesh on Frank's shoulder was still prickling. Like she had acid on her fingertip, his skin peeling away, but in a
pleasant way. He looked at her under the yellow porch light. Her blond hair was loose, tangling in the sea breeze. A dusting of hair on her cheek, a fine golden sideburn. She was looking out toward the ocean, but she must have sensed his stare because she turned her head and gave him a shy smile. With a woman as striking as Hannah it probably happened all the time, men's appraising looks.

“I'll get that wine,” he said.

Sheffield turned and went inside the motel room, walked briskly to the kitchenette. He looked back at her through the screen door. She was standing there, peering through the dark at the tiki hut. Hannah Keller. Looking even better than the photograph. Better than his memory of her. He stood in the kitchenette trying to remember what he'd come inside for, why he'd left her alone out in the dark.

Then he saw the wine bottle on the counter. He poured some into a squat highball glass and took it back out to her.

Now she was sitting comfortably in the director's chair Helen Shane had vacated. There was a copy of
First Light
in Hannah's lap.

“So,” Frank said. “To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?”

She took the wine, tasted it. Set it down on the cement porch.

“Somebody's screwing around with me, Frank.”

“I'm sorry?”

“I said, someone's screwing around with me. They sent me this.”

She took the book from her lap and held it out.

He looked at it for a few seconds. None of this in the script. At this moment he and Hannah were probably lit up green in night-vision goggles. ‘She's handing him the book. She's handing Sheffield the goddamn book.' ‘So what's he doing?' ‘He's not doing anything, just looking at it.' ‘All right. Just as long as he doesn't take it. Jesus, we can't have him getting involved. That'll screw up everything.'

“Frank?” Hannah said.

“Yeah?”

“Is there something wrong?”

Sheffield said, no, there was nothing wrong. Then he sat down beside her and reached out and took the book. He set it on his lap and watched as it spilled open to a random page.

She wasn't sure why Frank Sheffield was so tense. Maybe still worked up about the redhead who'd tossed the wine on him. Nervous she'd come back, find him sitting there with another woman. Hannah couldn't read him. He seemed different from the breezy beach bum she remembered. Kept his eyes down, dodging hers, fumbling with the book, looking at the pages, but not really studying them. She wasn't sure how she could tell, but he didn't seem to be paying full attention. Leafing too quickly, looking at nothing long enough to absorb it.

“Look at the front, the numbers in the front,” Hannah said. “And the name.”

Sheffield took a breath and blew it out.

He flipped to the front, tilted the book so it caught the full light.

“J. J. Fielding,” he said.

He looked up at her. Holding her gaze for a couple of seconds, then his eyes straying off toward the tiki bar. Some folks over there dancing to a Phil Collins tune.

“Yeah, J. J. Fielding. His signature in a book that just happened to be lying in the middle of a table in the doctor's office where I take Randall every week. Imagine that.”

“And you're saying what?”

“I think it's pretty obvious, Frank. Someone's sending me a message.”

“Could be another J. J. Fielding entirely.”

“Oh, yeah, the name is so popular.”

“And what do you expect from me?” Still keeping his eyes from her. Sitting stiffly in his chair like he was on trial.

“Well, I thought you'd be intrigued. A little startled maybe. Some normal human response like that.”

“I'm intrigued. Sure, I am.”

He met her eyes. Smiling, but hiding something behind it. She couldn't tell what. Maybe he thought she was nuts. Scribbled Fielding's name in the book herself to get her parents' murder investigation cranked up again.

Hannah said, “The case is still open, isn't it? Fielding's money-laundering indictment, the embezzlement? You'd still like to catch this guy.”

“Sure, we would,” Frank said. “And so would a lot of other people.”

“You mean the Cali cartel,” she said.

“How'd you know about that?”

“It was in the paper.”

“It was?”

“You should get off the sports page, Frank, maybe you'd learn something. Four hundred million and change, I seem to recall. I remember thinking, with that kind of money Fielding could hide anywhere. A penthouse at the Ritz, order room service till the end of time.”

“Four hundred and sixty-three million is the exact figure. Largest embezzlement in U.S. history.”

“But for some reason this doesn't interest you. J. J. Fielding. The name of an FBI fugitive written in a book, that doesn't arouse your curiosity.”

“I didn't say that.”

“What exactly did you say, Frank?”

“This is crazy. A copy of your book, Fielding's name in it. It's Looney Tunes.”

She stiffened.

“Give it to me.” She held out her hand. ‘The book. Give it to me.”

He hesitated a second, then handed her the copy of
First Light
.

She stood up, crossing her arms over her chest, pressing the book tight.

“Look, I'm sorry I bothered you. Just go back to whatever you were doing, forget any of this happened.”

“Wait a minute, would you?”

“I've got to get Randall home. It's his bedtime.”

She turned and headed back down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. Then Frank was beside her, stride for stride. He put a hand on her shoulder and she halted.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “You caught me by surprise, coming out of the dark like that. The book and everything.”

“Look, it's nice to see you again, Frank. But I can take it from here.”

“Hey, wait a goddamn second, will you? I said I was sorry. I didn't mean to imply
you
were Looney Tunes, I mean the book, the situation. This whole thing.”

She could see Randall watching from one row over. Sitting in the same position she'd left him. Frank stepped in front of her, his chest blocking her view of Randall. The curly hair lit up golden by the parking lot lights.

“Don't you ever wear a goddamn shirt, Sheffield?”

He grinned.

“Only when it's required.”

She took a step back, used her left hand to hold the hair off her face.

A white Lincoln caught them in its lights for a moment, then rolled on.

“You come out here, dump this in my lap, what exactly do you expect?”

“I guess I expected you to help,” she said. “But never mind. It's after hours, you're busy with all this.” She waved her arm toward the tiki hut and the beach.

“You want my help, like what, in an official capacity?”

“Official, unofficial. I thought you'd be interested.”

“I am,” he said. “I'm interested.”

Frank was looking at her, his gaze steady and resolute. But Dan Romano had taught her to mistrust eyes. An expert liar could fool himself into believing what he was saying
was true, and bring that sincerity to his eyes. What you looked at was the throat. The amount of swallowing. A telltale sign of a liar's dry mouth.

Frank's Adam's apple was bobbing. Every two or three seconds it moved.

“Look,” she said. “Those numbers in the front of the book, they're some kind of half-assed code. Randall figured it out and it describes the murders, details only an insider would've known. And there's an address there too. An address on Bayshore Drive, and a time for the meeting. By nine tomorrow morning.”

Sheffield nodded.

She said, “Randall is off to school at eight in the morning. I figure I can get to the Bayshore address by around eight-thirty. Maybe you'd like to drop by, we could see what this is all about. If you get lucky, you might even be able to make an arrest. You still make arrests, don't you, Frank? You haven't got so laid-back you don't do that anymore, have you?”

Frank swallowed again.

“I'll have to read my manual,” he said. “Brush up on how it's done.”

“Eight-thirty then. The address is twenty-six forty-nine Bayshore. You need to write that down?”

“Twenty-six forty-nine. My memory's still working fine.” Another swallow.

“Sure there's not something bothering you, Frank? Something you want to talk about.”

He waved away a night bug dancing at his ear.

“Twenty-six forty-nine,” he said, mustering a smile. “I'll be there at eight-thirty. But if I'm a few minutes late, you'll wait for me, right?”

“I'll give you five minutes,” she said. “Then I'm going in.”

“Okay, okay, eight-thirty sharp,” he said. “Scout's honor.” And made a two-finger salute.

And another swallow.

* * *

Hal sat on his motorcycle in the large dark parking lot.

The air was different out here. It smelled like fish and seaweed. There was wind rattling through the palm trees. He watched as Hannah Keller got in her small car and started it and pulled out of the parking lot.

The man she had been talking to stood and watched her drive away.

Hal waited. He watched other cars pull out of the parking lot. They might be following Hannah Keller or they might not be.

Hal would ask somebody in the motel who this man was. He'd find out his name, what he did for a living, maybe even his relationship to Hannah. The man looked like a cop. That's how he stood, how he walked, like a lazy cop, a cop who drank too much, who sat around and watched TV. Worthless, slothful. A doughnut lover.

After he learned who the man was, then Hal had another person he wanted to talk to, somebody else he'd seen. Somebody he was curious about. He could let Hannah Keller go for the time being. She was taking her son home to bed. A good mother. Tucking him in, singing him lullabies. What good mothers did. He could pick her up again tomorrow morning. That would be soon enough.