Damaged Goods (16 page)

Hannibal closed his eyes to keep them from rolling. “I think he may have been involved in something that turned out to be over his head. Did you ever hear of a valuable, er, treasure he had hidden for his daughter?”

“A treasure?” Gaye stopped and looked around the hallway while one set of pudgy fingers stroked his highest chin. “Remember when I told you every one of those guys back there is a genius? I meant that. But Vernon, he was above all of us. I know he was working on something special, but he kept his counsel, and people in our business, we tend to stay in our own lane.”

“Of course,” Hannibal said. “But is it possible some others might not have been as circumspect as you? What about this Hathaway character?”

Gaye looked down, as if trying to find his shoes. He bared his lower teeth, sinking his top chin into the rolls beneath it. Hannibal surmised that this was his “make a tough decision” face.

“Hathaway. He was a cowboy. Too wild for the pharmaceutical arts, if you ask me. Left the company rather suddenly. I think he may have stolen proprietary information, some of the results of some research he was working on.” Then he looked at Hannibal, as if a new idea had struck him. “This is just rumor, you understand. I haven't seen any evidence of wrong doing or anything.”

“Relax, Elliot. May I call you Elliot?”

Gaye beamed. “Certainly, um, Hannibal.”

“In my profession, you never reveal your sources. So, just between you and me, is it possible that Cooper and Hathaway might have been mixed up in something together?”

“Oh, I don't think so,” Gaye said. “Cooper was a straight arrow from all I saw. But you might want to interrogate Hathaway. Could be a lead.”

Hannibal turned, and bit his lips to keep from laughing. When it passed he said, “I might want to ask him a few questions. Know where he took off to”

“Well sure. Hathaway's living large, and the new startup company he jumped to wants everybody to know they got him.”

The reception was even more crowded when Hannibal returned, but Cindy found him in seconds. His attendance at this event had served its purpose in his mind. It had been a good dance, so he wasn't particularly unhappy when Cindy presented him with the piper's bill. He performed escort duty well through the reception, a silent auction, a truly tasty dinner, and even during the musical performance by a has-been country crossover band. He graciously allowed several nerds to dance with Cindy, including Elliot Gaye who seemed to be built for country dancing.

It was just shy of eleven o'clock when Hannibal began the cross-town drive down Connecticut Avenue toward his own neighborhood. Traffic was blessedly light as they rolled past the ostentatious buildings of embassy row, and for once Hannibal didn't mind stopping for a light at every corner. He relaxed into his seat and pulled his tie down an inch from his throat.

“I owe you an apology, sweetheart,” he said. “That wasn't half bad, and it's nice to just spend some time out on the town with my girl.”

“What's funny is, we were both working,” Cindy replied. “I had to make connections for the firm, and you had to question Elliot. Just shows you can have fun, even when you're on the job.”

“Yep, and it was pretty fruitful for me. As it turns out I should be able to talk to this Hathaway guy tomorrow.”

“So he didn't go far?” Cindy asked.

“Nope. Elliot said his new company is in Grayson County, but hey, it's still in Virginia so how far away can it be?”

Cindy patted his free hand and smiled. “That's my Hannibal. Often wrong, but never in doubt. And by the way, sugar, what did they call you in school?”

“Mostly my name,” Hannibal said as they passed the Washington Zoo entrance. “I was just Jones to a lot of the teachers.”

“You mean you really didn't have a nickname?”

“Like what? Hanny?”

“I don't know. Most people with unusual names pick up a nick name.”

Hannibal stared up into the traffic light's red orb for a moment, letting the past catch up to him while he waited for the light to change. “My parents were oddly proud of my name,” he said. “Of course, they didn't know about Thomas Harris' cannibalistic character when I was born. They just knew about the general from North Africa who nearly held off the Roman legions using elephants in his army, a couple of hundred years before Jesus was born. They named me after
him because they wanted me to have something to shoot for, I guess.”

Hannibal's telephone rang, cutting off further conversation. He checked his watch, muttered, “What the hell?” under his breath and poked a button on the dash.

“Jones? Where the hell you been? Don't you check your messages?”

“Blair?” Hannibal asked, slowing for another traffic light. “Listen, I was at a formal dinner and a silent auction, so I turned the phone off. Do you know what time it is?”

“Of course. But while you were out partying, Anita hasn't had so nice an evening. She's in the hospital. She's been beaten pretty badly.”

To Hannibal, Inova was a chain store just like Rite-Aid or Seven-Eleven. There seemed to be one on every corner in Northern Virginia and the fact that they were hospitals didn't make him any more confident in them than he was of the service in the Olive Garden. Chains generally give you consistency, but rarely special service.

When Hannibal called Inova Fairfax a minute after Blair disconnected, he learned that Anita was resting comfortably in a private room that must have been provided at Blair's insistence. He didn't want to disturb her, and there was little he could do at a hospital at midnight anyway, so he left her to the doctors' care.

After a restless night he entered the hospital corridors at eight o'clock and rushed to Anita's room. He half expected to find Blair at her bedside, but instead it appeared that he had sent his second. Henry stood at the foot of the bed, dressed exactly as he was when he entered Hannibal's office days before. With his hands clasped behind his back he reminded Hannibal of the black jockey figures he had seen on rich people's lawns in racing towns like Saratoga. He wondered if black butlers were as rare as live black jockeys.

“So happy to see you here,” Henry said in a tone that could have been condescending, or maybe it was subservient.
Hannibal didn't trust his perceptions on that score, so he merely nodded toward Henry and moved to the side of the bed. The rhythmic beeping of Anita's monitors failed to reassure him. She smelled of iodine and alcohol, and her appearance started a twisting ache in his center. Both her eyes were blackened, her lower lip split and her nose swollen into a new, inappropriate shape.

“I am so sorry,” Hannibal said. “I had no reason to think you were in any present danger.”

“Not your fault,” Anita mumbled through swollen lips. “This has nothing to do with you or the case you're on.”

“What utter nonsense,” Henry said in the same proper speech pattern. Despite his irritation, Hannibal shared his skepticism.

“Anita, you're a brave girl, and stronger than I knew, but you can't do this by yourself. You have to tell me who did this to you.”

Anita clenched her eyes tight and pushed her lip out like a stubborn child. “I don't know who hit me. I didn't see. He just came up behind me when I left the market last night. I shouldn't have been out so late.”

“This is really too much,” Henry said. “Miss Cooper you really must tell us.”

Hannibal clenched his teeth and waved a hand toward the door. “Henry, could I speak with you for a moment?”

Hannibal led Henry around a corner to a small, unoccupied waiting room. He closed the door and turned off the television. Henry stood in front of him, erect as always, as if awaiting instructions. For an instant he reminded Hannibal of his worst moments with Anita. But Henry's eyes never wavered when Hannibal spoke to him. Instead he met Hannibal's gaze in a direct and perhaps defiant way. That at least betrayed an unexpected inner strength. Still, Hannibal had to be firm with him and lay down the rules of this game.

“Look, pal, what you were doing in there, that's not helping her any. Anita needs to be handled pretty gently right now.”

“Yes sir,” Henry said. “And may I inquire as to your intended actions, now that you realize that she is at physical risk?”

Hannibal shook his head. “My intended actions? Well, basically, I intend to find this Rod Mantooth and kick the living shit out of him. Then I'll get back whatever he took from Anita. And then maybe I'll just kick his ass again. That sound like a plan to you?” Hannibal pulled his phone out of his jacket. “Think I can get your boss at his office this early?”

“He is at the health club right now,” Henry said. “Perhaps I can help?”

“Not likely,” Hannibal said. “I've met another of Rod Mantooth's victims and if he sent somebody after Anita I'm afraid the other girl might be in danger too. I want to lay on some protection for both of them, so I need to get authorized to spend the money.”

“Oh, well then it's not a problem,” Henry said. “Mr. Blair has authorized me to tell you to use whatever resources you need in order to bring this matter to a successful close. I have his checkbook if you need ready cash.”

Hannibal considered Henry's words. This certainly simplified the situation. “Alright then,” he said, pacing and thinking aloud. “I can put Isaac on Anita, leave Sarge on Marquita, and get Ray on the road following the custom car angle while I follow the Hathaway connection.”

Hannibal looked up to find Henry smiling, more with his eyes than with his mouth.

“What?”

“You are, in fact, the colorful character Mr. Blair said you were,” Henry said.

“Me?” Hannibal said. “I'm not colorful, brother, I'm just for real. You're the dude that's colorful. Look at you. Whatever possessed you to become somebody's servant?”

Henry lowered his eyelids and spoke with a little more force. “Mister Blair needs me. I keep his world spinning while his head is in the stratosphere. And you're one to talk about anyone's vocation. A man who spends his life mucking about in other people's misery.”

“Mucking about?” Hannibal repeated, imitating Henry's enunciation. “Man, you've spent too much time with those Brits. But I'll tell you, sometimes poking through other people's garbage is important. Sometimes it's the only way to solve their problems.”

“Indeed.” Their eyes locked, and Hannibal realized that somehow he had made Henry's point for him.

An online map service told Hannibal that he could drive three hundred and forty miles southwest and still be in Virginia. And since that was where he could find Brendon Hathaway, Hannibal filled his gas tank and drove onto I-66 west, pointed toward Grayson County.

While most of his mind focused on driving and scanning for police cars, a part of him was still reeling from his web surfing the night before. He had taken Cindy up on her suggestion and visited a few Internet chat rooms. It took him a while to find what he was looking for, but armed with the abbreviation she had given him he soon found himself lurking in a place where he thought the role play would have made Anita feel right at home not long ago. His actual first name was accepted well as a screen nickname. He quickly learned that those who didn't capitalize their names, mostly women, were treated like children in some chat rooms, and like outright slaves in others. When they typed their conversations, He was struck by the odd convention of capitalizing even pronouns attached to the Dominant people, and the use of lower case by submissives, even to the pronoun “I.” He saw that somehow they could change the color of their type, and lines in one color represented actions rather than speech. In some rooms, the actions were pornographic. In others, rapes and other violent acts were carried out. Sitting at his computer, in contact with the others only through a screen, he still left feeling the need for a shower.