Rough Draft

by James W. Hall

  “Oh, she must’ve liked it. It was very good, Randall. Very realistic.”

  The assignment had been to draw one of the animals of the Everglades. Drawing was torture for him. So personal, so much exposure.

  “Everybody else did alligators. There were a couple of deer. I was the only one who did an osprey.”

  “So you were original. That’s good.”

  “I wish I’d drawn an alligator like everyone else.”

  She came up behind him, tried to keep her voice upbeat.

  “You remember what day it is, right?”

  “I remember.”

  “We have to get rolling in ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “Oh, Mom,” he said. “Can’t we skip it for once?”

  “But you like Dr. English.”

  “She’s okay.”

  “And we skipped two weeks ago, Randall.”

  “Once a month is enough. Cutting back would save money.”

  “Don’t worry about the money. The money’s irrelevant. What matters is for you to start feeling better.”

  He was using the computer mouse to flick through screen after screen, bright images coming and going almost instantly.

  “What’re you working on, Randall?”

  “A project for computer science.”

  “Tell me again. What’s it about?”

  He looked up at her. His mouth twisted into a smirk.

  “Go on,” she said. “I know I won’t understand it. But I like to hear the words.”

  “Cognitively self-modifying automata.”

  She nodded.

  “And what’s that in English?”

  “Little bugs that live on their own inside a program. The longer they survive, the more they learn and adapt. They get smarter and smarter and harder to detect.”

  “That sounds like computer viruses.”

  “Viruses destroy things. These are just bugs. They’re neutral. They’re just there, learning, not hurting anybody.”

  “And they’re teaching that in computer science?”

  “They’re trying to.”

  He smiled politely and his eyes strayed back to his screen.

  “I really hate my clothes,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Oh, never mind.”

  “Your clothes? Why? What’s wrong with your clothes?”

  “They’re wrong. They’re geeky.”

  “When did you decide that?”

  “They’re geeky and I hate them.”

  “Well, then we’ll go shopping, find you some new clothes.”

  “I don’t like when you go shopping with me. You watch me all the time. You smile and stuff.”

  “I make you self-conscious?”

  “And I don’t want to go to soccer anymore either.”

  “You love soccer, Randall.”

  “I only go because you want me to. But I don’t like it. It’s too hot out there, no shade, I get all sweaty and I can’t breathe. The coaches scream at me. And I don’t like the kids. I don’t like getting kicked in the shins. I’m not doing it anymore.”

  “There’s nothing about soccer you like, really? Now be honest.”

  “I don’t like all the other people in the stands. All the parents and the little kids. Everyone hanging around watching, whistling and cheering. I’d rather be alone.”

  “You need friends, Randall.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Of course you do. Everybody needs friends.”

  “You don’t have any friends.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Name one.”

  “There’s Gisela.”

  “One friend, big deal.”

  “There’s Max.”

  “He doesn’t count. He’s your book agent.”

  “But he’s my friend too.”

  “He has to be your friend. You pay him. Anyway, he lives in New York. You see him like twice a year. That’s not a friend.”

  “Randall, this is a ridiculous conversation.”

  “I have Stevie,” he said. “I don’t need any more friends. Stevie’s plenty.”

  “Look, Randall, I like that you have an E-mail friend. But a real friend is someone you know face-to-face. Someone you spend time with. If you gave it half a chance, I’m sure some of your soccer teammates, or kids in your class would be thrilled to be friends with you. Isn’t there someone you want to invite over? You could swim in the pool. Have a cookout.”

  “Yeah sure, Mom, sit around a campfire, roast weenies. Oh, boy.”

  “Come on now, Randall.”

  “I don’t need anybody. I’m happy by myself.”

  “Remember how much you used to like to fish, go swimming, snorkeling? You need to get out of this room, away from the computer.”

  “Why? What’s so good about being outside?”

  “It’s healthy. It’s enriching.”

  “You get skin cancer outside.”

  “Oh, now you’re being silly, Randall.”

  “You don’t get outside. You don’t do things.”

  “Of course, I do,” Hannah said.

  “All you do is write. You stay inside and you write. That’s all you ever do. Turn on your computer first thing in the morning, sit down in front of it and type. Turn it off before you go to bed.”

  She drew a slow breath, let it out.

  “I hate my clothes,” said Randall. “They’re stupid.”

  Hannah put her hand on his shoulder. She could feel the vibrations radiating from his body like the hum of a tuning fork buried deep in the bone, a low throb that had begun to pulse years ago, that morning when he found his grandparents dead.

  The watershed moment. Everything forever different afterward. His startle reflex on hair-trigger. Now he was jumpy. Any little noise, a bird exploding into flight, an avocado falling from the tree would send him reeling. His appetite was erratic. He was depressed, quiet, stayed in his room. He had manic bursts, long hours lost in his programming language, deaf to the world.

  “Have you been sleeping, Randall? Did you sleep last night?”

  He pointed and clicked, pointed and clicked.

  “Randall?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure. How do you know if you’re asleep? You lie there in the dark, you close your eyes, how can you tell?”

  “Have you stopped taking your medicine again?”

  “I take it some of the time.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Well, go wash your face, put on a fresh shirt. We’re going to see Dr. English.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes, you have to. You always feel better afterward, you know you do.”

  “I feel better because the appointment’s over.”

  “When you grow up, Randall, you should be a lawyer. You’re so good at arguing.”

  “Do lawyers have to play soccer?”

  “Not unless they want to.”

  “Then that’s what I want to be, a lawyer.”

  She ruffled his thick mop, gave his scalp a gentle scraping with her fingernails, something that usually made him croon. Today he was silent.

  “We’re still pardners, aren’t we, Randall?”

  It was an old refrain. Single mother, only child, the mantra of their loyalty.

  He lifted his hand from his mouse and turned to look at her. She gave his scalp another scratch.

  “I’m not crazy, Mom.”

  “Nobody said you were.”

  “Only crazy people go to shrinks once a week.”

  “That’s not true. A lot of people go to psychiatrists. It’s because they want to feel better, because they want to understand how they can start enjoying life.”

  “I enjoy life.”

  “Do you?”

  He moved his cursor around the screen, sailing across the electronic net.

  “I’m not crazy,” he said. “I’m not a wacko.”

  “Did somebody call you that? Somebody at school?”

  “Never mind,” he said.
“Just never mind.”

  “Is somebody bothering you? Tell me his name. I’ll talk to his mother.”

  “Oh, yeah, talk to his mother. Boy, you really know how it works, don’t you?”

  “Randall,” she said. “If somebody’s bothering you …”

  “Nobody’s bothering me. I’m fine. Just a little crazy, that’s all.”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t say that.”

  He settled finally on his own Web page. In a banner across the top Randall’s World glowed in a brilliant red. He had created the page a few months back as a school project and every week or so he redid it, another look, another motif. This week there were animated frogs swimming and flying over a purple bayou. Others perched on a floating log. Their long tongues unfurling, snapping flies out of the air. Silly and childish, something any eleven-year-old boy might like. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “I guess I’m just in a bad mood.”

  “Bad moods are allowed,” she said. “As long as you give equal time to good ones.”

  He looked up at her, managed a smile.

  “So we’re pardners then?” she said.

  “Sure, Mom,” Randall said, looking back at the flying frogs. “Pardners.”

  FIVE

  Monday, 4 P.M., hour sixteen of Operation Joanie. No sign of Hal Bonner.

  Frank Sheffield was sitting behind the wheel of one of a dozen surveillance vehicles in play this afternoon, a brown UPS truck. He was idling at the stop sign on Seaview Lane, a side street off Old Cutler Road when Hannah Keller passed in a red Porsche convertible, a Boxster, if Sheffield wasn’t mistaken. Hannah and her kid, with the convertible top up, windows down. The kid sticking his arm out the window, making a wing with his hand, riding the bumpy air currents.

  Frank put the big truck in gear, rolled onto the roadway. He was wearing the UPS uniform, brown shorts and shirt, heavy black brogans. Wondering how the UPS guys stood it, the sticky synthetic threads, the sun-absorbing color. He was miked up, a black dot on his collar, and a flesh-colored receiver plugged in his left ear.

  “I got her,” Frank said. “Red Porsche Boxster. License AGP Five-Six-Six.”

  In his earpiece Helen Shane rogered that.

  “I’m rolling now, four cars back. There’s Hannah’s Porsche, then a green Camaro, a blue late-model Toyota Corolla, a black Dodge van, then little old us. And there’s some idiot on a red dirt bike riding my bumper. Maybe somebody could pull him over, write him a ticket.”

  “Frank, you stay with the Porsche only as far as Cocoplum Circle, then sixteen will take over. You hear that, sixteen?”

  Sixteen rogered.

  Forty agents, leapfrogging, falling away. Two choppers rotating positions, several hard-wired video cameras at the fixed locations. Yard-service workers along the route, mailmen, Rollerbladers, dog-walkers. It was a first-time thing for Frank. All the stops pulled out. Big-budget production, the full orchestra. Helen with the baton in her hand, keeping the beat, making sure everyone stayed on key.

  She was back at the command post, a three-bedroom suite on the top floor of the Grand Bay Hotel. Big bank of windows with a sweeping view of Biscayne Bay and the Dinner Key Marina. Probably two thousand a night for a room like that. Though Sheffield wasn’t privy to the deals, he assumed the room was comped to Senator Ackerman. Helen said the Grove was a central location, fifteen minutes from every venue on their game plan. Had to hand it to her, the lady wrote herself a nice part in the script.

  “Did you say a blue Corolla, Frank?” It was Helen in his ear, her voice strained today. The plan unfolding. Sixteen hours down, fifty-six to go. Starting at midnight, due to close up shop midnight Wednesday. Helen was on hyper-alert, as though Senator Ackerman was standing next to her, ready to promote her on the spot, or tear off her stripes.

  “That’s right. Blue Corolla, peeling fake leather top. Looks like just the driver, no passenger. Can’t tell if it’s male or female.”

  “Didn’t we have an earlier sighting on a blue Corolla? Did you pick that up, thirteen?”

  Thirteen came back with some static.

  “Thirteen, go again,” Helen said. “You’re breaking up.”

  Thirteen backed down his squelch and a male voice that Frank didn’t recognize said, “A blue Corolla was parked five houses down from the Keller house earlier this afternoon. Departed simultaneous with target vehicle.”

  Helen took a few moments to digest it. Maybe she ran it by the Senator or Charlie Pettigrew back at command central. When Helen came back on, her voice was steely.

  “We’re going to take the Corolla. This could be our target. Repeat, this could be target. All ground units in the blue team, and both our birds will converge. Wait till the other side of Cocoplum Circle. Corner of Poinciana and LeJeune Road. Twelve and fourteen get in position at Poinciana. Let the Porsche pass through, then intercept the Corolla at the intersection. Move the choppers. Three, five, and eight converge on the area immediately. One and four, you should be moving south on LeJeune. Everyone wait for my signal.”

  “Shit,” Sheffield said. “We haven’t even got going yet, we’re already catching the guy. That’s no fun.”

  Helen said, “No random traffic, Sheffield. If it’s not critical, stay off the air.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And, Sheffield, disregard previous order. You’re to keep target in sight. You stay with Hannah. We’re taking down the Corolla.”

  “I hear you,” Frank said.

  It was supposed to be a kick in the nuts. A message from Helen. If Frank wasn’t going to take this seriously, fine. But it meant he wasn’t going to be included in the bust. Which would’ve pissed him off if he’d been an androgen junkie. But that wasn’t Frank. He never tried to duck the action, he just didn’t need to jack up his pulse rate on a regular basis like most of the other guys.

  Anyway, since coming on duty this morning at 6 A.M., spending the first hour studying the case files in that Grand Bay Hotel suite, finding in the pile of paperwork a glossy photo of Hannah Keller, Frank had been taking this in a different direction. He was thinking how in a few days when this was over, he was going to have to call her up, see if maybe she wanted to come over to Key Biscayne, visit his favorite tiki bar for a margarita, watch the driftwood pile up on the shoreline.

  The photo was a few years old, a publicity shot for her book jacket or something, soft focus, a lot of diffused light. Blond hair cut short, wide-set blue eyes that flickered with sass. Which brought it all back, the way he’d felt about her back then, a quiver in his chest. Knowing enough not to try to hit on her in her period of grief. Anyway he’d been involved at the time. A dark-haired girl named Darlene, or Arlene. He wasn’t even sure of her name, but he remembered Hannah vividly. A rough-and-ready lady with an ironic take on things. No bullshit, straight to the point. And, he seemed to recall, she had a first-class pair of calves. As sculptured as a dancer’s with narrow ankles. Not that legs mattered all that much, or any body parts. He’d just noticed. And remembered.

  Now the caravan was moving through the tunnel of banyans along Old Cutler, a half mile till Cocoplum Circle. Pretty day, a good breeze off the water, golden sun rippling through the dense layer overhead. Traffic moving fine ahead of him. A little buildup of cars heading south, the other way, probably some business folks getting a jump on rush hour.

  In his ear, Helen Shane was staying in touch with everyone, flitting back and forth between the two dozen units. The urgency in her voice rising. But Frank ignored her, keeping his eyes on the red Porsche. Nice car. The book business obviously doing well. He’d read a couple of them early on, liked them fine. She had a good ear for street talk, some good zingers about cops and bad guys. Her heroine, he seemed to recall, was one kickass broad. Quick with a comeback, fast on the draw. He hadn’t kept up with Hannah’s career, though. His reading tastes ran more toward the sports page, following whatever Miami team was in season.

  The UPS truck enter
ed Cocoplum Circle, rolling through the YIELD sign. Keeping Hannah in view on the other side of the fountain. The red Porsche, then the Camaro, then the blue Corolla. He heard the distant thump of one of the choppers. He steered the top-heavy truck around the tight circle, then took the second spoke off of it, north onto LeJeune Road, heading into the heart of Coral Gables. Hannah and her kid stopping at the light up ahead. The guy on the dirt bike was revving his engine in Frank’s rearview mirror. Fucking Miami drivers.

  Frank watched as the blue Corolla peeled off with most of the other traffic onto Ingram Highway, heading for Coconut Grove.

  Frank pinched the button mike that was fixed to his collar, lifted it close to his mouth.

  “Corolla’s heading east onto Ingram. Repeat, Corolla’s no longer following the Porsche.”

  “Roger that,” Helen said. “I hear you.”

  Frank waited for a moment. One car behind the Porsche. When the light turned green, he said, “So, Helen, you still going after the Corolla?”

  “The Corolla’s an anomalous sighting. Stand down. All units stand down. Let the Corolla go.”

  “It could be our guy,” Frank said. “He might’ve seen us following and broken off.”

  “Thanks for the insight, Sheffield, but that bicyclist you just passed back on Cocoplum was one of our guys. He got a good visual and reported the driver of the Corolla to be a young white female.”

  “Maybe Hal is a master of disguise.”

  “It’s anomalous,” Helen said, clicking off.

  “Anomalous,” Frank said. “Man, tomorrow I gotta bring along my thesaurus. Stay up with you people.”

  “Cut the chatter, Sheffield. Keep your eye on the goddamn ball.”

  It was Senator Ackerman. His voice was hard and full of phlegm as if he’d been staring again at the photograph of his daughter.

  Then it was Helen speaking, moving her men around the chess board. Sixteen here, twenty-three there. All the pieces still in play, the game moving forward. Fifty-six hours left.

  Misty had the evening shift at Hooters. All the happy-hour idiots streaming down from the high-rise office buildings, loosening their ties, guzzling two or three quick ones before heading off to the suburbs in their fancy leased cars to join their skinny wives and coddled kids.