Judah writes:

What altitude where you at?

I would bet that a kid with a handheld laser pointer might be very difficult
to catch and prosecute, and I bet even a handheld laser pointer will create a
flash in your eye at 2000 feet, even if the beam has diffused enough that the
"operator" won't be able to tell for sure where it's hitting your plane...

If you're lucky, you will only see the diffused portion of the light, and not
the beam itself, which may damage your vision. It sounds like the OP saw only
the periphery, not the beam itself (which, as you indicate, would be extremely
difficult to aim with precision from the ground, unless the culprit also had
some sort of telescopic sight and a way to hold the laser steady). The beam
of a good quality laser (highly collimated, that is) will hardly spread out at
all over a distance of a few thousand feet and thus may still be only a
millimetre or two in diameter.