Damaged Goods (33 page)

“You all sweaty from dancing all night, Shorty. You better get in that bathroom and get yourself real clean if you want to be with me.”

“Yes, Sir,” Mariah said with no hint of irony or sarcasm.

When Mariah stepped out of the room Hannibal poured two drinks. By squeezing the small plastic bag between two fingers he poured its powdered contents into one of the glasses. He had practiced to be able to do this even with someone watching, in case he needed to. The crushed Rohypnol dissolved in seconds. He was swirling the vodka around in the glass when Mariah returned. He pushed the glass toward her.

“I think you need a taste before we party.”

Hannibal sipped from his own glass. Mariah swallowed the contents of hers like it was water.

“Now lose the shoes and get up on the bed,” Hannibal ordered. Mariah pulled off her heels and stretched out on the comforter, grinning like a child in line at Disneyworld.

“Not like that,” Hannibal said, still standing by the door. “Get your ass up.” Despite her confused expression, Mariah leaped to her feet in front of the bed. “I want to see you dance,” Hannibal said. “Up on the bed. I think I'd like a nice, slow, striptease.”

Mariah's eyes lighted and she gave a docile nod before stretching to the radio on the headboard. Once she managed to find some slow, smoky music, she stepped up on the bed.

“I hope you find me pleasing, Sir. I wouldn't want to disappoint you and get punished for it,” she said. Her eyes said just the opposite. But Hannibal noticed that her words were a little slurred and as her hips began to sway her balance was shaky. The liquor? The drugs? Maybe both. In any case, he watched her move through a sultry and seductive dance and spend nearly five minutes teasing with her blouse before finally taking it off. While trying to unhook her bra she stumbled in the comforter and dropped to her knees. Hannibal rushed forward, concerned that she might bang her head on the headboard. Mariah raised an arm to protect her face from an anticipated attack.

“I am so sorry, Sir,” Mariah said. “I don't know what happened to me. Didn't drink that much.”

“Don't worry about it,” Hannibal said, putting an arm behind her for support. “We'll skip the rest of the dance. You look like you're ready to party now.”

Mariah shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it. “But I wanted to be clear for this one. You are so hot. This feels…” She looked deep into Hannibal's face and her caramel colored eyes focused with absolute clarity for a second. “This feels like when he gives me…”

Her mouth was trying to form the letter “R” as Hannibal lowered her back onto the bed. She would sleep through the rest of the night while he executed his scheme. Silently wishing her sweet dreams, he threw back the rest of his drink and eased out of the room. Muffled sounds from down the hall told him that the other two couples were fully involved. He slipped down the stairs with more stealth than was necessary. In the living room he unlocked the three locks that secured the front door. Then he went to the telephone and memorized the number on its face. A soft squeal from upstairs caught his attention. He had no way to know which room it had come from, and decided it didn't matter. He
moved into the computer room and pushed the door as close to closed as possible without letting the latch click.

It was almost show time. In the darkened room Hannibal loosened his belt and pulled the CD case from inside the front of his pants. While his left hand casually tossed his decoy CD Rom on the floor, his right pulled out his cell phone and pushed a preset number. The phone's glowing face cut into the darkness of the room. It rang only once before his call was answered.

“Hey,” Hannibal whispered. “Your turn. You sure you're up to this?”

“I want to,” Marquita replied. “I need to do this.”

“Okay.” Hannibal gave her the number, then stepped into the computer room's closet and slipped out of his shoes. He left them behind and returned to the living room, all the while listening to the clicks and buzzes as Marquita made the connections for a three-way call. On the way he reflected on the courage Anita showed when she damaged Rod's car and freed herself from his emotional grasp. Now he hoped that Marquita would free herself, and her act of defiance could well require an even greater degree of courage.

Crouched beside the front door, Hannibal listened to the phones ring out of synch in the room and on his cell phone. Four. Five. Six. How many times would Rod let it ring? Would he just ignore it? That was one way Hannibal's 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.

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 to the side. Rod began to turn to his own left. Rod's left arm was tensed but held too low as he spun toward Hannibal. No! This was not the way it was supposed to go.

But of course it was too late. Rod's hate filled visage turned toward Hannibal powered by the full might of his thick bull neck. Hannibal's right fist drove forward, a missile beyond guidance, and Rod's jaw moved directly into its path. The impact was jarring. Shock waves rode up Hannibal's arm and into his shoulder. Shock washed over Rod's face, chased by oblivion. As Hannibal withdrew his arm Rod began to drop toward the floor as if his soul had suddenly departed his body.