“That ain’t me,” Hannibal said.
“It would make you some important friends.”
“Those friends I don’t need,” Hannibal said.
“We’ll see,” Ronzini said, standing. “You’re a blunt instrument, my friend. When the time comes, we’ll see.”
As they headed for the car, Hannibal held his tongue, not offended by the comparison to a blunt instrument, but still bristling at Ronzini referring to him as friend.
19
“You should have seen it, Sarge,” Monte said through a mouth full of pastry. “My man was riding that beat old school. Rhyming like Nelly on speed, boy. I never had so much fun losing a bet in my life!”
At the stove, Marquita said, “Now I begin to wonder if there is anything our Mr. Jones can’t do.”
Hannibal smiled, shook his head, and bit into another of the powdered sensations, even as he listened to more sizzling in a big skillet in front of Marquita. She flipped the little pastries in a couple of inches of oil as they floated to the surface, then fished them out and laid them on paper towels. She called them beignets, and they filled the suite with a sweet scent. They tasted like powdered donuts without holes, only lighter than anything he’d ever gotten from Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme. And the fact that he, Sarge and Monte were sucking them down as quickly as she could pull them out of the pan and powder them meant they were still warm as he chewed and washed them down with hot, fresh coffee.
“Oh, he has his limits, Markie,” Sarge said, at the table in his undershirt. “Boy can’t dance a lick. Can’t cook for squat. And don’t get him for a partner in pinochle.”
“Thanks for the support, pal,” Hannibal said, delivering a playful punch to Sarge’s shoulder. “Like everybody else I just do what I can. Now Marquita here, she can cook.”
“There is more I could do,” she said, ladling the last of the beignets out of the pan.
“What else?” Hannibal asked with a shrug. “You put up with me calling at a ridiculous hour after I picked up Monte last night, because I forgot to check in and let you know we were okay until I was getting ready for bed myself. You made us this super breakfast. You hung around here an extra day when I know you’d rather be as far from Rod Mantooth as possible. What else could you possibly do?”
“I could testify,” she said, and Hannibal felt the chill that raced through her body as those words flew out. “I could go to court and testify. If you could get Anita to talk about Rod beating her, between us I bet we could get him thrown into jail.”
Sarge reached her in three long strides and wrapped his beefy arms around her. For a moment she shook within his embrace. “You,” Sarge said in a soft voice, close to her ear, “are a very brave woman.”
“Yes, that would call for a great deal of courage,” Hannibal said. “You and Anita would have to explain your history with Rod to the police. And you would have to make them understand why you did certain things.” Hannibal’s eyes cut to Monte, who seemed to understand that this was no time to be asking questions. He filled his mouth with a beignet as if to assure his own silence.
“Yeah, baby, then you’d have to face the whole thing again in open court,” Sarge said.
“If you got through it all, Rod probably would end up in jail for a few years.” Hannibal said. “A strong, direct approach. But we’re not going to do it that way. It doesn’t fulfill my mission, and I have an idea that will.”
Sarge stepped away from Marquita, as if he did not want to spatter her with his anger. “What do you mean, your mission?” What’s more important than getting this guy off the street?”
Hannibal counted to ten in his head. Then he asked Sarge a question that seemed irrelevant. “When you see a guy being loud and abusive with his girl and you’re working as a bouncer, what’s your first priority? Protect the girl from harm? If it is, I assume you separate them.”
Sarge backed off a step. “Well, my job’s to maintain order in the house. I generally just tell the jerk to take it somewhere else. But this…”
“Is no different,” Hannibal said. “I need to recover that formula. I have to make Anita whole. Besides, nobody wants Rod to be able to come back in three or four years and sell this formula for a fortune and live happily every after. Right?”
“Okay,” Sarge said. “Didn’t you say Rod’s out of town today? Maybe we should go up to his house and toss the joint until we find the formula.”
“Naw. Breaking and entering’s not one of my strong points, and his alarms looked pretty sophisticated. I’m planning to make him think I’ve already got it.”
“But, how can you make him think that?” Marquita asked.
“That all depends on you,” Hannibal said, leaning back. “I’m convinced that the disc you saw Rod get so excited about during your little cruise contained his big break. If you remember it well enough for me to make an accurate copy, and if I set up the situation just right, we might just con the con man.”
“You mean that disc that cost Mariah a beating?” Marquita’s eyes moved up and left as she searched her memory. “I know it was gold colored, with a white label and numbers on it. 4-9-3 maybe? Not so sure. Then words like base line formulae or something of the sort, in a very small, fine handwriting.”
“That’s excellent,” Hannibal said, watching Marquita light up again, as she did whenever she received the slightest praise. “Now I propose that we all check out and head back up north. I’ll go to the source of the disc, since I’m pretty sure Anita wrote all the labels, and get an apparent duplicate made. Then I’ll come back down here tomorrow, attend this big party, and find out if I’m slick enough to skin this cat.”
For Hannibal, the drive back to Washington was like a day in his office, if his office had been moved to an MTV sound studio. Before they reached the Virginia Beach city limits Monte had shoved a CD into the machine. Huge had given him a collection of discs he had either performed on or produced. Hannibal waited until the end of the first head-splitting rap tune before shutting it off, explaining that he had some work to do.
“Hey man, don’t you want to hear your greatest hit?” Monte asked, waving a disc at Hannibal.
“Is that what Huge made when I was in the booth?”
“Yep. This one’s mine. He sent one for you too.”
“Yeah, well, maybe later when I’m too drunk to be embarrassed,” Hannibal said. Now chill while I make a few calls.”
First he called Anita to make sure that no unexpected health problems had arisen. Mother Washington was sitting with her, so he learned that she was eating well and feeling better since Mother Washington had called in a hairdresser to get her back to looking normal. She still had bruising around her nose and seemed depressed much of the time. They would be there when he arrived to talk about whatever he could do to get her stolen property back.
He then called Cindy’s number, got no answer, and left a message on her machine. On a guess he called her office number. Again no answer. Hoping for information he tried the main number. A receptionist answered, which even on Saturday was not really a surprise. She explained that Ms. Santiago had already been in the office that morning and would be back soon. He asked to be switched back into her voicemail and left a message for her to call him as soon as she was free.
Then he gritted his teeth, focused on the rolling road ahead, and let Monte have his way with the CD player.
By the time he pulled up in front of Anita Cooper’s home, Hannibal had a crick in his neck and a persistent headache dancing behind his eyes from driving into the sun. He shut off the engine, deciding to sit for a moment and enjoy the quiet. He had followed Sarge back to their building and dropped Monte off across the street before proceeding to Anita’s. Along the way he had tried Cindy’s home and cell phone numbers, before leaving another message at her office. Missing her was probably contributing to his headache.
At the door Hannibal tried to keep the pain out of his smile. When Mother Washington opened the door he
