Damaged Goods (30 page)

“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 knew his plan wasn't working.

“Oh, child, are you all right?”

“It's just a headache, ma'am,” he said, stepping through the doorway. “Anita?”

“Downstairs waiting for you. Now you be kind, you hear? She's not looking her best.”

At the bottom of the stairs Hannibal discovered that Mother Washington had been both right and very wrong. Physically, Anita did not look her best. The pale bruising under her eyes made her look jaundiced, and her right cheek was swollen just enough to make her face appear lopsided. Her nose was also still a little bigger than it should have been, swollen during its healing process. Her lower lip looked as if she had split it, maybe by smiling too much or crying too much. It was healing, but the red line down the middle told him that doctors had removed the stitch too soon.

On the other hand, her eyes were bright and lively, and her posture a tiny bit more erect than before. She was holding her head up. This last beating may have given her strength, he thought, or maybe it freed her from Rod Mantooth for good.

“Why are you looking at me so funny?”

“Sorry,” Hannibal said, smiling. “I just didn't expect you to look so good.”

Anita flushed crimson at his remark. “You're so full of stuff. But, listen, Mother Washington said something about
you having an idea on how to get Daddy's formula back. Did you actually, I mean, have you seen Rod?”

“Yes, we've met now,” Hannibal said, avoiding her eyes as he walked toward the computer desk. “And I know he hasn't sold your father's formula yet, but he will soon, unless I can trick him into showing me where he stashed it. What he has is on a gold CD-Rom.”

“Oh, one of these,” Anita said. She slid a storage case forward on a shelf and blew dust from its top before opening it. The case held two rows of CDs. Light glinted off them, stabbing into Hannibal's eyes, sparking the pain again. He forced himself to look at the labels.

“Marquita remembers seeing one of these in Rod's possession. She says it had a white label that said something like formula.”

“Right.” Anita flipped through the discs, all of which bore white labels. She moved slowly through the stack, and then turned to Hannibal with a crooked smile that twisted his heart. It had to hurt her to smile.

“One of the formula set is missing. It's number 4-9-3.”

“That is exactly what Marquita said. Wow, that writing is so precise. Did you make all the labels yourself?”

“Of course,” Anita said. “Daddy's writing was atrocious and we never could figure out how to print the labels so they'd come out even.”

Hannibal lowered himself slowly into the desk chair. This was being too easy. “It's the bait I need. Can you make me a duplicate of the missing disc?”

Anita's eyes flashed and he could almost hear her pulse quicken. “Will it help you to get Daddy's real disc back?” When Hannibal nodded, she said, “I will make it exactly like the one he took. We're going to get my legacy back.”

Five minutes later Hannibal and Anita went upstairs, drawn by the aroma of chicken and the inviting crackle of oil in a deep pan. When they entered the kitchen Mother Washington spoke without turning.

“Child, could you get my pills from my pocketbook? I left it up in the guest room.”

Anita nodded and headed up the stairs. Mother Washington waved Hannibal toward her. He stood beside her, watching the chicken turning golden almost as if she were willing it to do so. She pushed pieces around with a slotted spoon and spoke in a lower tone.

“This man, this Rod Mantooth, you met him?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“He a monster,” she said as if she'd known him all her life.

“Yes ma'am.”

“You take care of him, you hear me? You stop him.”

“What would you have me do?” Hannibal asked, looking at Mother Washington's matronly face. “Want me to shoot him? Or just drop him down a well?”

Her eyes shot fire at him, and her breathing grew deep and labored. Hannibal could clearly see that she saw nothing funny in this situation. “That child will never be right. That man hurt her in ways only a woman can be hurt. You just make sure he don't do it no more, you hear? The Lord loves all his children, but sometimes I don't understand it.”