game was changed.
Now the monster had a face.
When Marquita answered the door her eyes pierced Hannibal’s dark lenses and somehow she knew. He could feel it. She nodded hello, opened the door wide and walked back inside. Sarge sat behind a tall glass, on a stool at the breakfast nook that separated the kitchen area from the living room. The glass’ contents were topped with small green leaves.
“Markie was just showing me how to make a proper mint julep,” Sarge said. “Of course you’re supposed to have a silver cup. No idea why. So, how’d things go today? I see you relaxed a little bit.” Hannibal had buttoned his shirt and pulled his coat back on, but left his tie in the car.
Marquita kept her eyes on her own glass, crushing leaves at the bottom with a spoon, releasing the fresh scent of mint into the air. “You saw him, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Him and his whole party family. She’s still part of the gang.” He slid the photograph across the counter. Marquita’s breath caught in her throat.
“Damn you’re good,” Sarge said with the robust energy of a fisherman who feels the big one hit his line. “So now we’re in business right? We waltz over there, rearrange his face a little, find out what he did with whatever he’s got, then make sure he’s in no condition to do this to any more women.”
Marquita grabbed Sarge’s forearm and whispered, “No.”
“Baby,” Sarge began.
“No, Marquita needs you,” Hannibal rushed to say. “And your plan wouldn’t work anyway, if I read the situation right. It looks to me like this guy’s a lifelong player. I think this formula he stole from Anita’s house is his one-time big score. No beating is going to make him give it up.”
“It’d be fun,” Sarge said.
“Hannibal shook his head, but he was smiling. “Yeah, it would, but we can’t do this one for fun old friend. I’m going to have to get close to this guy, find out if he still has the prize and if so how he plans to cash in on it. If it’s already gone, maybe I can track it down and recover it. Even if I can’t I’d need to track down the money he got and get that to Anita as compensation.”
“Well, he won’t like that idea,” Sarge said with a wink.
“No. In that instance, you might get your chance to be persuasive with the boy.”
A whirring blender stopped conversation for a moment. After ice cubes became crushed ice Marquita poured the result into her glass. Sarge took a big drink from his own glass, slurping through the crushed ice.
“So, I take it you’ve got a plan?” he asked.
“Sort of,” Hannibal said. “I’ll start with the girl in the morning, and see if I can get invited to join the party.”
“Will you stay for a while, then?” Marquita said. “I would be happy to cook, and Archie said he would rent a movie for us to watch.”
“She still doesn’t want to go out,” Sarge said in conspiratorial tones, as if Hannibal might not understand.
“We can make it an evening,” Hannibal said, “on a couple of conditions. First I have to get across town and recoup a certain little G before he gets adopted by the hip-hop nation. And we’ll both be back for dinner and a movie or two, if we can order in. You don’t need to always be doing for us.”
“Amen to that,” Sarge said.
A danceable beat rolled in a continuous loop inside Huge Wilson’s studio at a volume Hannibal could barely detect. It seemed to move up through his feet rather than seeping into his ears. The mood was the same cheerful intensity he had left hours before. Sometime during the day Monte had changed entirely, except for the look of joy on his face. The youngster was showing one way hip-hop may have gotten its name. He couldn’t hold still, and Huge seemed to be getting a kick out of seeing the boy so happy.
“Hannibal you would not believe it,” Monte was saying. “We recorded an entire track, from beginning to end. Man it’s like science, only its music. Did you know you have to use a lot of math to lay down the beat? You got to know the number of beats per minute, and the notes, I mean, all music is made up of math.”
“You don’t say,” Hannibal said.
“Seriously. And did you know that Huge went to Old Dominion University?”
“As a matter of fact I did,” Hannibal said, with a nod toward Huge. “I do like to know a little about my clients. And it seems you’ve become a young producer yourself. He’s even got you looking the part.”
“Couldn’t have my man hanging around here looking like he wasn’t down with the flow,” Huge said. In fact, the changes were small but the look was different. In place of the generic tee shirt he had arrived in, Monte had on a thermal undershirt with the sleeves pushed up. White painter’s pants replaced his denim shorts and a new Wizards cap sat on his head, backwards of course. The big difference to Hannibal’s eye was a pair of suede boots where K-mart sneakers had been. Red laces reached only to his ankles, leaving the top half of each boot hanging open. Behind his smile, Hannibal thought, “You look like a bum. Is that the style?”
“Hey, what you see ain’t all we got when we went out,” Monte said, dropping into the far corner, pulling forward a real surprise, a stack of paperbacks. “Look at all these. Huge says if I want to be a serious G, I need to get through these. I think I can get them all read before school starts.”
Now Hannibal was impressed. Among the music oriented volumes he saw The Beat: Go-Go’s Fusion of Funk and Hip-Hop, a book that details the origins of Washington D.C.’s original music form. He also saw Yes I Can by Sammy Davis Jr. and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, both pretty hefty volumes he had read in his youth.
“You think you can get through all these during the summer?”
Monte brushed invisible dirt off his shoulder. “Man, Huge says I’m a young Black man on the move, and I can do anything. Don’t you think I can?”
Hannibal glanced at Huge, feeling that he had misstepped. “Well, of course I do. Huge is right, a man can do anything he puts his mind to. Huge here could be a teacher if he decided that was what he wanted to be.”
Huge stood up, his arms wide. “Hey thank you man. I take that as a big compliment. And you know, you could be a rapper.”
Monte burst into high-pitched laughter. “Oh, yeah, I’d like to see that shit.”
“Language,” Hannibal said.
“What you saying, Little G?” Huge said. “The man got faith in you. You ain’t got no faith in him?”
“Well, I get that stuff about doing whatever you put your mind to, but this is different. I mean,” Monte flipped a thumb toward Hannibal, “I mean look at him.”
“Hey, fellows,” Hannibal started, but Huge cut him off.
“That’s cold, little G. My man here’s pure street. I can see he’s a soldier. Bet he’s got soul he ain’t showed yet.”
Hannibal shook his head in frustration. “Huge, you don’t have to…”
“No way,” Monte said. “He couldn’t even find the beat. You ever hear that crap he listens to?”
Hannibal had somehow been pushed out of this conversation about him. Trapped between reversing his position on self-determination, disappointing Monte and embarrassing himself, he could only stare with his mouth open when Huge clapped his hands in front of himself, aimed both index fingers at Monte and said, “Double or nothing,” in a challenging tone.
“Double what?” Monte asked.
“Hannibal raps, you finish a book every week through the summer, with a report.”
Hannibal stared down at Monte’s hat, avoiding eye contact, praying that he would not accept the dare. Monte stared back at him, lower jaw jutted out.
“You’re on, Huge. Sorry Hannibal, but not everybody can do everything.”
Fifteen minutes later, Hannibal was fighting to breathe deeply. He stood alone in the studio. A microphone, smelling of sweat, hung from the ceiling directly in front of him and large headphones pressed into the sides of his head. Half a dozen young men stood on the other side of the glass wall, including Monte who was clearly having the time of his life. He had taken small cash bets from the others about Hannibal’s hip-hop debut. Hannibal closed his eyes and tried to remember a single rap song, thinking he could simple imitate someone else. Not one came to
