had nothing to lose he would be a danger to all those around him.
But in the meantime, Hannibal couldn’t think of anything else he could do to finish his assignment. Like most days, when the work was done, Hannibal changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Hours passed in solitude, filled by frozen egg rolls and a marathon of television episodes. Cindy had given him a DVD of the short-lived Blade television series. He had enjoyed it more than he had expected to, and couldn’t wait to tell Cindy. He tried hard not to notice that she hadn’t called him to talk about her day or the house she looked at. She was probably working late again, as lawyers so often do.
When the phone did ring, Hannibal checked his watch before answering. She really had worked late.
“Hello,” he said, eager to hear her voice again, even if he had to tell her he couldn’t talk.
“Come over for a drink.” It was Ivanovich’s hard, accented voice. The anger Hannibal had put away earlier in the day popped out of its box.
“Bitch, I’m done working for the day. I’ll get more answers tomorrow.”
Pause. “I thought a bitch was a woman only. Come over for a drink.” This time Hannibal noticed a slight slurring. He must have started drinking alone.
“Look, Alex, it’s after eleven. I need my sleep.”
“Aleksandr,” Ivanovich said. “Never Xander. Never Lex. Never Al. Never Alex. You are not asleep. You are alone. Like me. Come over for a drink.”
Hannibal thought about his own isolation, and about the fact that Ivanovich had not left that office for more than forty-eight hours and in that time had seen no one except Hannibal and, he assumed, a delivery boy from the liquor store. Well, he did it to himself, Hannibal thought. Screw him. He was about to say it aloud when Ivanovich appeared to remember something from their very first conversation.
“Please.”
When Hannibal walked into his office, he bypassed the wall switch for the ceiling light. His desk lamp shed the only light in the room. Ivanovich seemed more at home in the relative gloom. He was still in Hannibal’s desk chair. His pistol still lay on the desk pointed toward the door. The black photo album still lay open in front of him. But Ivanovich had changed into a t-shirt, one of those you see so often in Washington gift shops, that said “You Don’t Know Me,” and in smaller lettering, “Witness Protection Program.” He held a tumbler of clear liquid in his right hand. He put it down to pour vodka into a similar glass on the desk.
“So, you can call a man a bitch?”
“Anything can be a bitch,” Hannibal said, picking up his glass. “A man you don’t like. A woman you do like. An object like, oh, I don’t know. You poured some nasty vodka into this bitch and I picked it up. Hell, life’s a bitch.” He took a swallow from his glass, finding the drink surprisingly smooth but just as fiery as he expected.
“So sit,” Ivanovich said, reaching behind his head to start another Nine Inch Nails CD. “Tell me of your progress, Mister Detective.”
Hannibal dropped into his visitor’s chair as the warmth from the drink spread through his body. He noticed that his office smelled just a bit like fried food, and the cartons in his trashcan confirmed the reason. Did this guy live on Chinese takeout?
“The way I see it, you gave me four jobs,” Hannibal said. “I’ve got a banker who confirms in writing that Gana is who he says he is. I got an expert to help me test him for background knowledge and I’m convinced he’s from where he says he’s from. In conversation with him and the Petrovas, it became pretty clear that he’s primarily here for the girl.”
“Viktoriya,” Ivanovich said, raising his glass and emptying it, almost as if he was toasting the woman’s name.
“Yes. That leaves the money. Normally, Ms. Santiago could help me with that part, but I have another friend with connections who will be able to tell me in a day or two where Gana got his money. That’s all you need to know, right? Then you disappear from my life-and Cindy’s.”
“You miss her, don’t you?” Ivanovich asked, signaling to Hannibal to return his glass. When Hannibal didn’t answer he said, “Yes, that is the deal.”
“You want details?” Hannibal asked, setting his glass back on the desk.
“Please,” Ivanovich said, refilling the glass. “As much detail as possible. I want to know everything you’ve learned about this man Gana, and how you came to these conclusions.”
While listening to heavy industrial rock and sharing three more rounds of drinks, Hannibal recounted his day, omitting his detour to see Cindy. Ivanovich was not pleased but he was satisfied, which meant that once Ronzini put Hannibal on the money trail he would be free. He didn’t say so, but with Ivanovich gone he would also feel free to pursue the real mysteries raised by his investigation without worrying about Cindy. God, he missed her. More than this Russian killer could know. What could a murderer for hire know about human feelings anyway?
“You are thinking too hard,” Ivanovich said. “What is on your mind? Your woman? She is safe.”
Hannibal stared at his glass instead of his client. “Actually, I was thinking about you. I know who Dani Gana is now. I know who Viktoriya Petrova is. Just who the fuck is Aleksandr Ivanovich?”
10
Ivanovich stood up, maybe just to stretch his legs, maybe to see himself more clearly. Hannibal watched him, trying to center his mind. He knew that the casual profanity was a sign that the alcohol was loosening him. He seldom drank and for that reason his tolerance for liquor was low.
“Your real question is, how do you get the job of assassin in the Russian Mafiya? Is that not so?”
Hannibal emptied his glass anyway. “No. Let me ask you the same shit you want to know about your rival. Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here?”
“I am a man born to dirt-poor farmers in Georgia,” Ivanovich said, staring at the wall like a student giving a dissertation. “Too poor to seek a proper education. So poor that I sought refuge in military service. So I signed up to fight for my country, much as your father did.”
Ivanovich paused while he refilled his glass, as if he could not talk and pour at the same time. When the bottle was empty he reached under the desk and produced another, opened it, and filled his glass to its rim.
“Little did I guess that I would be fighting my own countrymen in Chechnya.”
“That must have sucked,” Hannibal said, wondering how much alcohol Ivanovich had had delivered to his office.
“I was a teenager. A boy. But I grew up a lot in those three years. My father had taught me to hunt and I stood out on the firing range. Then my colonel said he saw something in me. Whether it was the strong hands of a farmer or the cold impatience of a boy who had nothing to lose I don’t know. Anyway, he selected me for sniper training. There was a bonus involved, so of course I excelled.”
“So you had a talent for hitting the target. How’d they know you had the nerve for killing?”
Ivanovich paced to the window and looked out for a moment. “They knew after that riot in Chechnya when I gunned down half a dozen citizens.” He quickly returned to the desk and raised his glass. Hannibal thought he was trying to rinse the taste of that memory out of his mouth.
“Sounds like you had a future in the army.”
“Yes, but the world moves and we move with it.” Ivanovich glanced at the photo album, then quickly away. “The colonel was my benefactor then. At the time, military officers often raised funds in unauthorized ways. He left the army and asked me to go with him. He had plans. He was going to America to turn his black market business into an empire. He needed a good gun at his side. He offered me more money than I had ever seen. I followed him here. How could I know I would find the girl I left behind?”
Hannibal stood to sit his glass on the desk. “Excuse me?”
“The Petrovas were neighbors back home. Nikita Petrova was also a soldier. He served in Afghanistan under fire, and in Algeria undercover. But when I was in secondary school, I knew him as the man who would only let me visit his daughter in his presence or his wife’s. I knew I loved Viktoriya even then. You see? I’ve carried this picture for so many years.”
Hannibal looked down to see a photo of Viktoriya, the girl he had only met that day. In the photo she was just
