Rough Draft by James W. Hall

eyes were small and close together. She was fat. This woman would never be in a magazine.
    â€œHave you heard of the kusimanse?” Hal said.
    â€œThe what?”
    â€œKusimanse,” Hal said. “It is a West African dwarf mongoose, a small creature, not very strong. Not even strong enough to crack open an eggshell. But the problem is, this creature loves eggs.”
    â€œYeah? So?”
    â€œSo what the West African dwarf mongoose does, when he finds an egg, he takes it, and he bends over like the centeron a football team and puts his front paws on the egg and he hikes the egg through his back legs right into a rock or a tree. And he breaks the egg open and he eats it.”
    The woman looked at Hal like there was more to his story.
    â€œThere are many ways to accomplish a task,” Hal said. “Even the weak can find ways to satisfy their needs.”
    â€œOoo-kay,” the woman said, lifting her eyebrows slightly. “That mean you want another Coke or not?”
    Hal watched Hannah Keller pass by. He watched her go into a door across the street. She shut the door and was gone.
    â€œI do not,” Hal told the young woman. “I am finished.”
    The woman scribbled on her pad and tore off the sheet and set it on the counter in front of him.
    â€œHave a nice day,” she said.
    But she didn’t mean it. She did not care about him or how the rest of his day would go. She did not want to mate with him or ever see him again. He could tell this from her eyes and her tone of voice and the way she stood. Hal could see inside people. There was nothing difficult about it. He could read their bodies. He could tell who was dangerous and who was not. He could tell when someone was lying. He could tell who would be easy to kill and who would be difficult. Who would struggle, who would give in easily.
    Hal tried to stay attentive to everything around him. He watched and listened and was aware. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t mentally retarded or demented. He wasn’t an idiot.
    He counted out the exact change and set the money beside the bill. This was how it was done. You gave a tip if the service was good. Fifteen percent. Hal decided that the service he had received was good. It was prompt and polite and nothing was spilled. He counted out more money so that the coins added up exactly to the bill plus fifteen percent.
    He could do math. He could read. He wasn’t learning disabled.
    He sat at the counter and watched the door across the street. The door that Hannah Keller had entered. The door that soon she would exit.

SEVEN
    The waiting room at Janet English’s office was still empty.
    Hannah sat down on the couch, set her purse beside her. She was thirsty, but there was no water fountain in the office. She could use something stronger than water anyway. Thinking more along the lines of tequila. That fucking bastard. Popping up like that out of nowhere, making a run at Randall. The man had no fatherly instincts whatsoever. The whole thing had to be about Hannah, getting even, making her sweat. Maybe he wasn’t even serious. Just out to grind her a little. Christ, that fucking fucking bastard.
    She had ten minutes before Randall’s session was over. She needed to relax, calm down, not let Randall see her agitation. Like he didn’t already have enough to deal with.
    As she was shuffling through the magazines on the coffee table, she saw it. Lying right beside the tattoo magazine—a copy of
First Light
, the book that had gotten her writing career started.
    She hadn’t noticed it earlier. But then she’d been distracted.
    Copies of
First Light
were rare these days. Only a two-thousand print run in first edition. Collectors starting to take an interest in her, snapping them up. She hardly ever saw one on book tour.
    Probably Janet English had left it there, wanting it signed.
    She plucked the novel off the table. The cover was wrapped in a clear plastic