No Such Creature

ONE

On a cool night in late June the traffic on Highway 101 was not heavy-not for a Saturday night, anyway-and moved along at a steady clip, people cruising out to restaurants or movies or to spend the evening with friends.

There was one car travelling north from the city-a midnight blue Lexus. An old man was driving, his considerable belly pressed up against the steering wheel, and the passenger seat was only partially filled by a blade-thin boy who looked to be in his late teens.

As the Lexus rounded a curve, it broke away from the rest of the traffic and veered across an entire lane. A sharp left, and then it bounced into the parking lot of a gas station and made a swift circle so that it came around again, nose pointed toward the highway.

Inside the car, the boy took his hand from the dash, where it had been bracing him against becoming a highway statistic, and said, “Would you mind telling me what that was all about?”

“Final wardrobe check.”

“We already did that, Max. Why do we have to do it over again?”

“It’s your hide I’m looking out for, Owen, me lad. You know I never give a thought to myself-I’ve been accused of it many times. ‘Max,’ the doctor said to me-cardiologist, I hasten to point out, knows a thing or two about this sorrowful organ we call the human heart. ‘Max,’ he said, ‘the fact is you are suffering from magnacarditis. Your heart’s too big. An albatross borne down by giant wings. You care too much for other people, and it’s driving you to an early grave.’”

“The only thing getting bigger on you,” the boy said, “is your gut, and if you had a decent doctor-not that I believe you ever went to see a doctor-he’d tell you to cut back on the Guinness and the single malts, not to mention the hamburgers, the milkshakes and the shepherd’s pie.”

“It pains me to hear such cynicism from one so young.” Max placed a hand over his heart as if to protect that overworked organ. “The world is a barren, comfortless place when a seventeen-year-old-”

“Eighteen.”

“-when an eighteen-year-old addresses his mentor this way-insulting the sage and learned man who’s raised him up as his own and taught him everything he knows.”

“I know lots of stuff you didn’t teach me. The capitals of Africa, the rivers of South America, how to calculate the area of an irregular surface.”

“Trivia,” Max said. “Tell it to Roscoe. But you wound me, boy.” He tapped a plump finger on his heart and sighed. “I’m a gentle creature, beset by a heartless teenager, no doubt an incipient gangbanger. You, of course, are a warlike American, whereas I remain your humble Warwickshire yeoman, and ever shall.”

“I’d like to visit Warwick one day. I’d love to hear from somebody other than you what you were like as a kid. I have a feeling they’ll be telling a very different story about Max Maxwell over there.”

“Nonsense. They would recall a heroic figure, just as you see me today.”

The boy examined himself in the rear-view mirror. “Okay, so how do I look?”

Max squinted at him, ginger eyebrows furrowing. “Terrifying. Perfect young Republican.”

They had decided on a dark wig and vigorous curls for Owen, and neatly trimmed sideburns. A gorgeous black Armani jacket and pants were set off by an expensive white T-shirt that showed off his fat-free abdominals. Owen’s first draft of the look had been red hair, freckles and polka-dot bow tie, but Max overruled him: too on-the-nose, he called it, a parody. And besides, it was important to make optimal use of Owen’s heartthrob potential. The curls did give the boy’s profile a touch of the Greek god, not that Owen believed that heartthrob business for one minute.

“You don’t think the hair’s too curly?”

“It’s perfect. Gives you a bit of the Kennedy-to which even the most granite-hearted Republican is not immune. And me?” Max smoothed his ginger moustache. Even up close it looked completely natural.

“I’d say you were a real bastard. Kind of guy who owns several mines and seriously mistreats his workers.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, Max, I bought you a little present.”

“No time, boy, no time.” Max started the car again. “We must get a wiggle on.”

“Hang on. You’re gonna love this.” Owen pulled it from an inside pocket and held it out.

“A cellphone?” Max furrowed his new ginger brows. “Why in the name of heaven would we need another cellphone?”

“We don’t. Try to make a call from your cell.”

Max gunned the motor, eyeing the traffic whizzing by. “Owen, time is of the essence.”

“We’ve got plenty of time. Try to make a call.”

Muttering, Max extracted his cellphone and dialed Owen’s number. “Nothing happening,” he said. “Completely dead.” He showed the tiny blank screen to Owen.

“Exactly,” Owen said. “Because what I have here is not a cellphone. It’s a cellphone jammer. Good for up to five hundred yards.”

“You actually found one?” Max said. “Sweet boy, you are my very Ariel.”

Owen put on a thin, reedy voice-he was good at voices, and this one made him sound like a tiny alien. “All hail, great master!I come to answer thy best pleasure, be it to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire!”

Max laughed. “You’re a good lad, Owen. Truly, it’s not every boy who’s cut out for a life of crime.”

The old man slid the gear shift into drive and the Lexus eased back onto a highway peopled with innocent civilians.