Rough Draft (24 page)

Frank said, “So are you guys still mad at me?”

She paused a second or two, then said, “You assaulted a United States senator, Frank.”

“I believe what happened was a civilian was trying to interfere with a federal agent in the performance of his duties.”

She said, “I think you better start planning your retirement.”

“The guy on the motorcycle,” he said. “Hannah's spotted him twice. Yesterday in the Gables and this morning leaving the Bayshore address. Probably the same guy we saw at the shopping plaza.”

Helen was silent.

“But he left the scene,” she said finally. “A long time before she did.”

“Like I said, Helen, he probably made us. But that's our guy. Close-cropped hair. Red helmet, dark sun visor, red dirt bike.”

Helen covered the receiver and spoke to someone. He couldn't make out her muffled words.

When she came back she said, “All right, we can run all recent purchases or reported thefts of red dirt bikes.”

“Sure,” Frank said, “for all the good it'll do. The guy's not that dumb.”

“You got some other idea?”

“I'm hanging up, Shane. I've got to get back to work.”

“What're you doing now, Frank? Where are you taking this?”

Frank leaned around the door, peered down the hallway, but it was empty. Hannah was still back there with Randall.

“I'm going to get Hannah back to your script, Shane. Point A, point B. Will that make you happy?”

“Frank, you're fucked, any way you look at it. If you think going back to the plan will get you out of this, you're dead wrong. When this is over, there's going to be a full review at the most senior level. Believe me, Frank, you're totally fucked. Kiss your pension good-bye. You'll be lucky to dodge jail time.”

Frank saw Hannah appear in the doorway of Randall's room. Standing there talking to the kid, a few last words.

“Nice talking to you, Shane. Oh, by the way, the handwriting guy, he analyzed your scribbling. I got the skinny anytime you want it, your full profile. Sounds to me like the guy's got a pretty good handle on you. The short version is,
he thinks you should probably increase your visits to the shrink from two times a week to three.”

“Fuck you, Frank.”

“I'll be talking to you, sweet pea.”

She clicked off before he had a chance.

Hal Bonner followed the fat man's dark blue Ford through traffic a few miles east of the shopping center to a neighborhood of two-bedroom houses with red tile roofs, and one-car garages. A big shady tree out in the front yard of every one. Sidewalks, fences in the back. Dogs barking. Some tricycles and swing sets and statues of Catholic saints inside glass domes. People off at work doing whatever people at work did.

Driving through traffic, Hal decided he hated Miami. In most ways it was the same as Milwaukee and Atlanta and Chicago, same burger places, same pizza places, chicken and pancake places, same gas stations, same Wal-Marts. But there was something different here. It was hotter, stickier than anywhere he'd been. Even South America. The air smelled like melting asphalt and concrete. His skin couldn't breathe. His lungs wouldn't fill. And the way people drove their cars. Everyone angry, everyone swerving left and right, looking for any gap, any advantage. Hal felt his heart beating. The thump of it against his ribs. Something he'd not felt before in any other town. The heat, the pushy drivers, the brightness in the sunlight. Hal's heart was beating. It was loud in his ears. It didn't usually beat. Usually it was silent inside him.

Ahead of him on the shady street, the blue Ford swung into a driveway and Hal drove on past the house and stopped at the next intersection and turned his bike around and headed back slowly. Two doors down from the fat man's place there was a house for sale. The blinds were drawn, no
car in the drive. Hal parked the bike in the driveway of the vacant house. He took off the helmet and set it on the seat of the bike.

Hal headed down the sidewalk. Feeling the pressure come into his veins, the electric spark in his heart muscle. All the glands opening, pumping out their drugs, giving Hal Bonner that edge, that high, hot chemical advantage.

He ambled down the sidewalk like he belonged there, not darting from tree to tree, hiding in the shadows. Walked like it was Sunday afternoon and the neighbors were all outside, mowing grass, throwing sticks to their dogs, cutting flowers, whatever normal people did on Sunday in their cute yards.

He wondered if the fat guy had a wife. He wondered if he had a daughter or son or a big dangerous dog. Hal Bonner didn't mind dogs. He'd dealt with them before, snarling, fur standing up, teeth snapping. Hal just had to look them deep in the eye and they'd start backing away, their snarl quieting, sometimes becoming a whimper. They could smell who he was, knew instinctively what he could do. Hal hadn't met a guard dog yet that wanted to find out for sure.

Hal stopped in the driveway of the small stucco house with a red tile roof. It was painted white with brick-red trim on the shutters and front door. There was a security light mounted high on a pole in the side yard. There was a sticker on the front window that warned of an armed response from the security company. There was the blue car in the driveway, an old Ford Galaxy. Two trees, some bushes near the front windows, three steps up to the front porch, a wide picture window with orange blinds closed against the early afternoon light.

Hal opened the gate to the backyard and walked to the garbage cans. He lifted the lid on one, picked up one of the white plastic sacks, and tore it open. He had to paw around for a minute till he came to some discarded mail. A credit-card statement in the name of Marcus Shoenfeldt. It was a strange name. He'd never seen it before and had to sound it out several times, saying all the syllables to himself before he thought he had it right.

Hal put the garbage back in the can and pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and called information and got the number for Marcus Shoenfeldt. He walked to the front porch as he punched Marcus's number in. Just as he pressed the front door bell, he heard the telephone ringing inside Marcus Shoenfeldt's house.

On the second ring an irritated voice answered the phone. Hal heard it in stereo. One voice traveling out to the stars and back to the little piece of plastic at his ear, the second voice coming from the other side of the front door.

Hal said, “Marcus, is that you?”

“Yeah, and who is this?”

“It's Hal. Your old buddy.”

Marcus hesitated, then said, “You must have the wrong Marcus.”

Hal pressed the bell again.

“That your doorbell?” Hal said. “Go ahead and answer it, Marcus, I'll hold on.”

“I'm hanging up,” Marcus said. “I don't know any Hal.”

“You do now,” Hal said.

Up close the man was even bigger than Hal had thought. He filled up the doorway. Long black hair that he wore in a braid down his back. Blue bib overalls over a white long-sleeved T-shirt. But he wasn't a dangerous man. Hal could see that in the first second. The man was mush. Sad blubber in a big sack.

He tried to close the door in Hal's face, but Hal put a shoulder against it and shoved it aside and nearly knocked Marcus off his feet. He was through the door and in the foyer and he turned and closed the front door and bolted it.

“What the hell you think you're doing?”

Marcus was backing across the living room. He had bookshelves made of concrete blocks and yellow pine planks. A stereo and a small TV were squeezed in among the books. A jumble of pizza boxes filled one corner of the room. A lot of plants, little indoor trees and ferns. Against one wall was a long leather couch, black. Magazines scattered all around.

“Why don't you sit down?” Hal said. “I want to ask you a few questions.”

Marcus was looking around the room like he was searching for a weapon.

“It won't take long. Three or four quick questions, that's all. Sit on the couch, make yourself comfortable. You want, I can put on some music.”

“This is breaking and entering,” Marcus said. “You'll do time for this.”

“We're just having a conversation. Do you see me breaking anything, Marcus, or entering anything?”

“Man, you're in some deep shit here.”

Hal backed him across the room till Marcus was at the couch.

“All right, big fellow, why don't you sit down?”

Marcus pushed some of the magazines aside and let himself down onto the black couch. Hal could hear the wood frame heave under his weight.

Hal came over, stood across the coffee table from him. He looked down at one of the magazines lying on the glasstopped table. There was a handsome man on the cover with his arm around a beautiful woman. Both of them were smiling. They were smiling because they were beautiful and they knew it and because they were on the cover of a magazine.

Hal picked up the magazine and paged through it. More beautiful women, and handsome men on every page. All of them smiling.

Hal dropped the magazine back on the table.

“I like pictures of animals better than pictures of people.”

“Yeah, well, each to his own.”

“I like bees a lot. Do you know anything about bees, Marcus? You know about the waggle dance?”

Marcus stared at him uncertainly.

“Look man, I don't know what the hell you want, but if you're looking for money, you're out of luck. I got about ten dollars in my wallet and some change in a jar in the other room. You want my collection of nickels, hey, it's yours, but that's the only thing I got of any value. I'm on disability pay.
You know what that is? It makes welfare look like winning the Lotto. So go on, take the TV if you want. Take the couch, everything. Just get it done and get out of here.”

“Yes, I want money,” Hal said. “Four hundred and sixtythree million dollars. Is that number familiar to you?”

Marcus stared at him, his lips quivering. All that tough talk had just been air fluttering across his larynx.

“Man, you're mixed up. You broke into the wrong house this time, bud.”

“Where is J. J. Fielding hiding, Marcus?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Where is J. J. Fielding?”

“Like I said, you've made a mistake. You broke in the wrong house.”

“Why were you talking to Hannah Keller, Marcus?”

He held Hal's gaze for a moment, then closed his eyes and looked away.

“Hey now,” Marcus said. “I don't know anything about this shit. It's none of my business.”

“Were you talking with Hannah about J. J. Fielding?”

“Hell, no,” Marcus said. “You want to know what we talked about, we talked about some handwriting in her book, that's all.”

“What handwriting in what book, Marcus?”

“A copy of one of her novels. There's all this scribbling in it. She wanted me to tell her who wrote it, what they were like, give her a profile. That's all I know.”

“You can do that? Look at handwriting, tell about the person who wrote it?”

“That's my job,” he said. “That's what I do for a living.”

“What did you tell Hannah Keller about this handwriting?”

“Whoever wrote it was a woman. And she was some kind of psycho. That's all I know. A dangerous woman. Which I guess is kind of redundant.”

Marcus smiled at him. It reminded Hal of Randy Gianetti of Detroit, Michigan, the way he smiled in the Milwaukee hotel room. Trying to get Hal to smile back. But it didn't
work that time and it didn't work this time either. Hal didn't smile a lot, not that he was aware of.

“Where is J. J. Fielding hiding?”

“Listen, man. I swear, if I knew who this guy was, and I knew where he was hiding, I'd give him up in a second. But I don't know. I never heard of him. Hannah didn't say anything about any J. J. Fielding or anybody else. I did most of the talking.”

Hal studied the man's dark, nervous eyes for several seconds. The man was telling the truth. He didn't know anything that could help Hal. This was a wasted trip.

“Do you have any friends or family, Marcus, people who stop by your house and say hello from time to time? Now tell the truth. Don't lie to me. Do you have friends who stop by?”

“No,” he said. “Unless you count the postman. Why?”

“That's good.”

“Yeah? And why's that good?”

“Could you look at my handwriting, Marcus, and tell me about myself?”

“Hey, man, what the hell is this? I told you what I know. I'm not doing some damn parlor trick for you.”

Hal walked over to the kitchen and found a pencil lying on the counter. He came back to the coffee table and picked up one of the magazines, opened it to a page with a beautiful woman holding her beautiful child in her arms. He scribbled some words in the white border of the page.

“Read this,” Hal said. “Tell me who I am.”

“All right, but Jesus, I told you everything I know.”

Marcus took the magazine from him and glanced at what Hal had written. He read the words over again and then one more time. Then he dropped the magazine on the floor and stood up. He was wobbling a little, his eyes were wide open and watery. He was breathing through his mouth.

Hal had written these words. “Now I am going to kill you by crushing your heart.”

The big man stood there for a moment longer, staring into Hal's eyes, then he lunged to the left and broke for the bathroom. But he'd eaten too many doughnuts and potato chips,
too many beers and cheese sandwiches, too many Christmas cookies and apple pies and pizza pies and all the other goodies that fat people filled their fat selves with. Stuffing and stuffing and stuffing more food inside themselves, stretching out their skins until they couldn't run anymore, they couldn't flee the charging predator. No way to escape the fingers that reached out and grabbed his hair and yanked backward, bringing him down. An earthquake against those wood floorboards.