simple plan could fail.
After eleven rings Rod picked up the phone upstairs and snarled, “What?” Now, Hannibal knew, Marquita had to get his attention right away and hold it.
“This is Marquita LaPage. You remember me?”
There was a pause during which Hannibal could hear a young girl trying to stifle a whimper. Rod said, “Sure I remember you. I stayed at your place and you served me while I made connections. You were a nice bit, but I’m kind of busy right now.”
“I need to tell you how I’m going to take it all away from you.”
Another pause. Then Rod asked, “How’d you get this number?”
“I know all about you now,” Marquita said. “I learned a lot after I met Anita Cooper. She told me what you stole from her.” Hannibal could hear the tremble in Marquita’s voice, but he was betting Rod could not. He was accustomed to women being intimidated when they spoke to him.
“You silly bitch. Anita doesn’t even know what I took.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Marquita said. “We know. And I wanted to hear your voice when the thief we hired took it away from you and left you with nothing.”
“You ain’t got the guts for that kind of action,” Rod said. But Hannibal could hear a doorknob turning. He reasoned that the phone upstairs must be wireless and Rod was about to check on his treasure. Marquita’s call had done the trick. He was just rattled enough.
Hannibal yanked the front door open. The high-pitched alarm drove daggers into his ears as he scrambled toward the computer room. A roar almost as loud came from upstairs. Rod thumped down the narrow flight of stairs shouting unintelligible curses. Before Rod reached the first floor Hannibal was in the computer room closet working to slow his own breathing. He held the closet door open less than half an inch, just enough for one eye to see through. He crouched immobile on his haunches, tracking Rod’s movements by sound and trying to ignore the sweat sliding down his forehead. He heard Rod slam the front door shut, and push buttons until the alarm stopped sounding. The door swung open again, and Rod must have stepped outside, trying to see whoever had left. More feet pattered on the stairs. Derek’s voice asked, “What’s up?” Rod told him to stay there and watch the door.
As Hannibal had predicted, Rod’s next move was to storm into the computer room and slam that door as well. When he clicked on the light his eyes zeroed in on the CD-ROM lying on the floor. He stood in gym shorts only, his broad feet splayed below him, blonde hair swirling around his legs.
In the closet, Hannibal drew his aura in as his instructors had taught him to do in the secret service. He was still as a stone and just as silent. If Rod had looked right at him he might not have seen him. In the silence he watched Rod pause for three long seconds. In his mind he was shouting, Don’t think it through, just react.
A delighted smirk twisted Rod’s lip and he said, “Asshole had it and dropped it trying to get out.” He scooped up the disc, not looking too closely at it. Instead he glanced back at the room’s door to make sure it was closed and Derek couldn’t see him. Then he shoved his wheeled chair away from the computer, dropped to one hairy knee, and thumped his fist lightly on the floor where he usually sat. A square of tile popped up no more than an eighth of an inch. It was just enough for Rod’s fingertips to grip. He pulled and the tile lifted out of the floor. Rod dropped the disc inside, clearly believing that he was returning his own disc to his hiding place. After pressing the tile back into place with a foot he returned the room to darkness and left.
Time shifted into a glacial pace while Hannibal forced himself to breathe and strained to hear whatever sound leaked through the walls from the living room. He heard Rod brush off questions from Derek and say something about unfinished business upstairs. He heard the locks clicked into place. He heard the random tones of the security system being armed. He heard Derek’s frantic movements around the room, like a half-grown puppy bouncing around its master.
Just as his knees began to ache, Hannibal heard the two sets of footsteps moving up the staircase. Doors opened and closed upstairs. Still he waited. Would Rod think to visit Mariah? Had he noted Smoke’s absence, or was he too fixed on what he was doing with Missy? After two more minutes with no detectable activity above, Hannibal slipped his shoes back on and left the closet. He planned to turn the computer on but when he touched the mouse the monitor lit. Apparently Rod never turned the machine off. Good. By the monitor’s eerie light Hannibal opened the floor’s trap door and reached inside. He had half expected to find a hardcover notebook there, but now realized that Rod must have destroyed it. If it contained the handwritten notes that generated Cooper’s anti-addiction formula, it would be gibberish to Rod but a danger to him if it fell into the hands of a chemist.
By touch Hannibal identified his fake disc by an “X” scratched into the back of the case. He located the only other item in the small space, another CD-ROM case. Having seized his prize he closed the trap door, leaving his imitation disc behind.
Hannibal pulled the chair back into its usual place and squinted into the screen for the next step. He grinned as he did the little bit of typing that would all but guarantee that Rod wouldn’t retain a copy of Vernon Cooper’s remarkable discovery. Hannibal was still surprised and a little frightened by how few keystrokes were required to reformat a hard drive. Just as Rod would destroy the hard copy of the formula, he didn’t strike Hannibal as the type to make a copy of a disc, but he may have copied the data into his computer. If he did, it no longer mattered.
All that remained was for Hannibal to leave with his prize. The alarm would sound again, but he would easily reach his car before Rod or Derek even made it to the door. The contents of the computer disc would make Anita’s life much more pleasant, and perhaps of equal importance, they would restore her father’s legacy. Maybe later he would make an anonymous call to the police about the drugs in the house, just for fun.
Hannibal again released the front door locks but as his fingers touched the cold brass knob a resounding slap snapped his head toward the stairs. He froze in place as a second slap reverberated through the house.
“Wake up, bitch,” Rod snarled above. Mariah, Hannibal thought. The brute must have at least reasoned as far as the identity of his thief and now he was trying to get confirmation from Mariah.
“You were in on it, weren’t you?” Rod said. It was a course bellow that betrayed no disappointment, only anger. “You brought him in here to try to rip me off.”
Well, it wasn’t Hannibal’s concern. He had what he had come for. Rod had been hitting women for a long time, and would continue to do so after Hannibal was long gone from his miserable life. Besides, Mariah wasn’t like Anita or Marquita. She was a volunteer. She actually liked this stuff.
But did she like this stuff when she was half unconscious? And hadn’t Marquita and even Anita initially volunteered for, and even asked for, Rod’s destructive attention? They enjoyed being told what to do, and maybe even the humiliation until the party got rough.
Could he just walk out?
Even while he was considering his options, Hannibal was tearing a small hole in the cloth beneath the sofa. When the hole was big enough, he slipped the disc into it for safekeeping. Only then did he realize that he had made a decision.
At the top of the stairs he heard yet another vicious slap. The bedroom door stood ajar. Hannibal pushed it with one finger, easing the door open just far enough for his body to pass through. Facing Rod’s broad back, thickly matted with hair, Hannibal knew he could take him. He could call him, face off, take a couple of good shots and then kick this vicious animal’s ass. Derek was in another room, probably deep into the action with Sheryl. By the time he appeared, it would be over. Hannibal set himself, raised his fists and settled into a comfortable fighting stance.
Then it all changed. Rod pulled Mariah up by her hair, shouted, “You lying bitch,” and slammed a fist into her face.
21
As Mariah floated backward toward the bed, time down-shifted to a sluggish pace and Hannibal found himself in one of those defining moments that we see in slow motion with high definition clarity. He saw Mariah’s eyes, clouded yet aware, set in a face expressing more confusion than pain. Then his focus shifted to the enormity of Rod’s fist extended from his body like a weapon wholly separate from Rod’s body. Thoughts of a fight faded in the face of blind rage.
“You bastard,” Hannibal said through clenched teeth. His own right fist launched forward as if of its own will. His body began to pivot, his hips and back and stomach driving that fist forward. He saw awareness pull Rod’s face
