Rough Draft (30 page)

Hal was fifteen years old and he'd been surviving on the road for a year. Run away from school, run away from the trailer beside the highway with the blinking Santa Claus on the roof. Judy Terrance's trailer.

Judy was standing at the stove frying eggs in her pink see-through nightie when Hal came into the trailer. She turned and saw him and something in her eyes went very still. She seemed to know exactly why he was there but she couldn't make herself scream or run away or anything. She stood there with a spatula in her hand. The bacon was sizzling and the sunny-side-up eggs were almost done in the big black iron skillet.

Her hair was gray and her old breasts hung loose, dark nipples staring down at the linoleum floor.

Hal took the spatula from her hand. He turned off the burners.

“I did the best I could,” she said. “You was the way you was when I took you on, and there wasn't any changing it. I tried the best I knew how.”

“You did all right,” Hal said. “You did fine. I was a handful.”

Then he reached up, spread his hands around her throat, and he strangled her. She stood there looking into Hal's eyes until she was unconscious. He laid her on the kitchen floor, then he lifted her nightie and tore an opening in her chest below her sternum, then he put his hand inside her soft old body and squeezed her heart till it was quiet.

When Hal looked up he saw the trucker had come out of the bedroom and was watching him from across the breakfast nook. His name was Hector Ramirez and he'd been visiting Judy Terrance for as long as Hal could remember, bringing her the white powder that got her through her empty days. Cocaine usually, but when he could get it, Hector gave her heroin. The man always had plastic bags of the powder in his truck, tucked among the lettuce and corn. He didn't use the stuff himself, but he sold it to other truckers and to people along his route. That's how he paid for the jewelry he wore, the diamonds on his hands and in his earlobe. Hector was a big man with a mustache that curved around his mouth and ran down to his chin like a Mexican bandit. He had a large belly and his tattooed arms were big
and thick. Hal had seen the man wrestle the giant tires off his truck, so he knew how strong Hector was.

That morning Hector was naked. He came close to Hal while he was stooped over Judy's body, his right hand still inside her warm chest. Hector was a foot taller than Hal with big snaky muscles in his neck and shoulders. He bent close to see what Hal was doing. Hal drew his hand out of Judy Terrance's body.

“Now I gotta kill you, too, Hector.”

“You could try, boy, but there's not a chance in hell it'll work out in your favor.”

“I gotta do it, Hector. I can't let you live.”

Hector stepped back, pulled out a chair from the kitchen table, and sat down in it. He fondled his long penis and studied Hal.

“What'd you do, reach in there and grab hold of Judy's heart?”

“I squeezed it till it stopped,” Hal said. He was looking at Hector's big chest, wondering if his arm was long enough to reach all the way inside him.

“You seem to know what you're doing, boy.”

Hal nodded.

“I'm guessing this isn't the first time you killed somebody that way, is it?”

“No, sir. This is my seventh. You'll be number eight.”

Hal rose to his feet. He wiped his bloody hand on the leg of his blue jeans.

“I know some people,” Hector said. “They might be interested in talking to a boy like you.”

“What people?”

“You got a trade? Some kind of work you do to make money?”

“I know about embalming,” Hal said. “Preparing the dead.”

Hector smiled. He looked over at Judy, lying on her back in her pink nightie.

“She was a good woman, old Judy, but she was starting to
dry up a little. I liked her, though. We had some laughs. When she wasn't stoned out of her gourd.”

He fiddled with his penis, not making it hard, just stretching it, scratching his balls. Hal watched him and said nothing. His hands were sticky with blood.

“So tell me, boy. You think you could kill somebody you didn't know? Some complete stranger? You think you could do that? Kill somebody without the heat of passion driving you to it.”

“I guess so.”

“Well, if you want, I'll make a phone call, see if these people I know might be interested in talking to you. There could be a future in it, boy. There's always somebody needs killing. And you seem to have a knack for it. There'd be a lot of travel, I'd expect. How you feel about traveling?”

“Traveling is okay,” Hal said. “I don't mind traveling.”

Hector made his phone call and Hal went to work a month later. By the time he was fifteen, he'd killed fourteen people, the first seven for free, the next seven for pay. Most of the ones he was hired to kill were people like Randy Gianetti, men who'd stolen money from the drug dealers, men who thought they were smart. There were a couple of women, too. Hal made good money. Enough to live in motels wherever he was, order room service, watch whatever movies were on the pay-per-view. The number of people he'd killed was much higher now. He'd stopped counting. Keeping score made it seem like a game, and it wasn't a game. Hal didn't play games.

In the dark motel parking lot, Hal watched those Christmas lights twinkle. Green and gold and red and blue. Little Japanese bulbs like fireflies trapped in plastic. Same kind Judy Terrance liked, only she always set hers so they'd blink. Two seconds, then a blink. Two seconds, then another, as regular as a heartbeat.

Hal sat in his rental car and watched the motel until somewhere around two-thirty he saw Hannah Keller and the FBI agent come walking past the tiki bar. The agent had his arm over Hannah's shoulder like he was too tired to walk on
his own. Both of them were hunched over, trudging. It was a long swim back from the stilt house. Hal's arms were still tired from the trip out and the paddle back. There was probably a bruise on the FBI agent's throat where Hal had chopped him with the paddle.

Hal Bonner waited in his car till the two of them went into his motel room and closed the door. He waited a little longer, then a little longer after that. She didn't come out. A while later the gray van pulled out of the lot and then the white Ford left a while later. A silver Taurus with two men in it pulled in right afterward. Neither of the men got out of the car.

Now Hal knew he needed to act. To do something to distract the men who were following Hannah Keller. And he needed to do it pretty quick before J. J. Fielding had a chance to die and the money he'd stolen disappeared forever. He sat there for another few minutes hatching a plan. He put Misty Fielding into the plan, then took her out, then once more he put her back in.

When he could see the whole thing in his head, all the details bright and clear and perfect, he started his car and backed slowly out of the space, and pulled out of the lot. He was going to visit Hector Ramirez, his old friend. Hector would be just the distraction he needed. If these men in the parking lot were searching for Hal, trying to trap him, his plan would lure them away.

Hal started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. His mind was tired. He'd been thinking more than he ever had before. He had never been involved in an assignment that required so much of him. It was a challenge, perhaps too great a challenge. All he'd ever had to do in the past was locate someone and kill them. But this was far more complicated and Hal was starting to tire. Starting to feel a knot of muscle tighten inside his head. Then he thought of Misty Fielding, and he felt the knot relax. He thought of her some more and the pressure continued to ease.

All the way across the city of Miami, Hal saw Misty's green eyes staring at him out of the dark.

Hannah took a long, hot shower in Frank's tiny bathroom. After drying off and slipping into a pair of his fleecy sweatpants and a white sweatshirt, she was still shivering. Her hair was damp but at least the sticky, salty feel was rinsed away. Her legs were weak. She felt faint and dizzy, as if she were hovering out-of-body a foot or two in the air above herself. The marathon swim had totally drained her, pushed her beyond any limits she'd ever known.

She opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the efficiency apartment. Frank was brewing coffee. He was barefoot, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, his hair in a madman's tangle.

“How's the throat?”

“Great.” His voice was a painful croak. “Just great.”

“You sound like you've been smoking three packs a day for twenty years.”

“I must've swallowed a half gallon of seawater.” He poured them each a mug of coffee. “Black or what?”

“Black's fine.”

She took the mug and sat down at the small dinette table. She blew on the coffee, then had a sip.

“I should go, let you rest.”

He had a sip of his coffee, came over, patted her on the back, and pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.

“You saved my life.”

“It was nothing.”

“I respectfully disagree.”

“You should probably stop talking, Frank. Save your voice.”

“I probably should.”

He downed half his coffee, grimacing as the hot liquid passed through his throat. He set the mug down between them.

Hannah was still hovering near the ceiling, watching herself. Her stomach wobbling. Something clenching and unclenching deep in her gut.

“That guy,” he said. “Did you get a look at him?”

“Not much of one.”

“Same guy you saw at the deli? One with the motorcycle helmet?”

“It was dark, Frank. I didn't get that kind of look.”

“He had a buzz cut, though.”

“You saw him better than I did. You were in his face.”

“Well, he was one strong little weasel, I know that much. Jesus, if you hadn't been there, Hannah, I'd be floating facedown about now, drifting with the tide. I'd be in the morning paper, another body washes ashore.”

She finished her coffee, stood up, and took the mug to the sink and rinsed it.

“What the hell's going on, Frank? Somebody's taking shots at me. A few hours later, this guy steals our kayak, leaves us out there to drown.”

Frank shrugged.

“I thought you'd quit. You were just going to walk away.”

“I'm still considering it.”

“I wish you'd hang on a little longer. We're almost at the finish line.”

“Look,” she said, leaning against the sink. “I'm going to need to go.”

“What? You gotta pick up Randall?”

“Randall's okay. He can sleep over with Gisela.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he'll be fine there.”

“You made arrangements for that, a sleep-over?”

She shrugged.

“So, were you planning to spend the night with me?”

Frank leaned back in his chair. He seemed to be fighting off a grin.

“I didn't know what was going to happen, Frank.”

“Well, well,” he said.

“I'm going.” But she didn't move from the sink.

Frank pushed his chair back, stood up.

As he approached, he raked a hand through his hair, got some of it unsnarled.

Even as tired as she was, as emotionally wrenched from seeing the film of her mother and dad, it wasn't an unpleasant prospect, cuddled with Frank Sheffield in that queen-size bed filling the adjoining room. Except for the gnawing uneasiness, something about Frank that kept bothering her, a series of slightly off-key notes that kept jangling the air between them.

“So, what you're saying is, there's really no reason you need to go home.” His eyes were on hers. He tilted his head to the side with an easy grin.

She reached out and pressed her palm flat against his chest. About to grab a handful of his shirt and draw him to her or fend him off, she wasn't sure. He looked down at her hand, trying to read this moment, the ambiguous heat of her gesture.

Then he reached up with his right hand, gripped her wrist and slowly drew her hand down his chest, smoothed it across his flat stomach. Eyes on hers. At waist level, Frank hooked his right arm behind his back, like some ballroom dancer's slinky move, tugging her into his embrace.

His head tilted to the side, tipped down, lips softening against hers, finding the mesh. She kept her eyes open, looking at his lids and his cheek, trying in this way to stay aloof, but her lips betrayed her, the kiss deepening, mouths coming slowly apart, resettling. And she shut her eyes and gave herself to this moment, the hunger and urgency. His hands rising to cup her head, guide the pressure of the kiss, and
Hannah could feel the distance melt, the breathless merger begin.

But she couldn't let it happen. She wasn't sure why. She snaked her right hand up, pressed her palm against his chest, and pried herself away. He relaxed, let go of her head. He blinked at her like a man emerging from a pleasant sleep. For a second or two his hands still held the airy shape of her skull, then he let that go as well.

She took a deep breath, tried to hide her gasping.

“What is it?” His whisper was hoarse. “What's wrong?”

She stepped back, got another foot of distance between them.

“Would you tell me something, Frank?”

“If I can, sure.”

A shy smile flickered on his lips as if he were reliving the kiss a few seconds more. Hannah's hand wandered in the air between them, fumbling for the right gesture, something emphatic, something to snap him out of his erotic drowse. She pointed a finger in his face. It was all wrong, but she held it there. Stubborn, on the edge of inexplicable tears.

“Tell me, Frank. Why the hell should it take so long for your FBI computer geeks to trace a Web site back to its source? Is it really that complicated?”

His quiet smile dissolved. Hannah, the mood killer.

She said, “Here we are, we're playing ring-around-a-rosy with the bastard who killed my parents. I'm getting shot at. We were almost drowned out there tonight. When all we need is for your computer people to do their job and we could get off this merry-go-round, go arrest this son of a bitch, and be done with it. Why's it taking so long, Frank? Can you answer me that?”