Damaged Goods (24 page)

“Oh, you don't blow the chronic, do you?”

Hannibal did a quick mental translation. “No, it's not for me. Or Monte.”

Huge's head bobbled like a sports figure doll as he handed Hannibal a Styrofoam cup. Huge was physically slight, but there was no denying the energy the man generated, the subtle sense of power, and his total comfort with the power he had.

“You told me your friend had no interest in school, right? Let me talk to him. I ain't a gangster, you know. Never pretended to be, but I'll tell you, the G's don't fuck with me cause I can give them the beats that get asses on the floor, and that lets them clock the dollars.”

Hannibal nodded, but didn't sit because Huge was still standing. Huge wasn't a gangster, or a “G” as he and his friends would say, but he commanded respect. On reflection, Hannibal realized that his relationship with Huge was in many ways similar to the one he had with Ronzini.

“So, you haven't asked me about your Rod Mantooth problem,” Huge said, starting to walk around the table. “I love that name.”

“You'll tell me when you have something.”

“This is my city, brother man,” Huge said, spinning to point a skinny finger at Hannibal. “You think it's hard to find
one funky white dude? Shee-it. But of course, your call last night made it too easy. We got one for you.”

“Got one? Who?”

“Lime,” Huge said, pulling a note pad from the hip pocket of his baggy shorts. “We got Lime.” From the pad he pulled a photo and two pieces of paper, which he dramatically slid across the table's glossy surface. Hannibal scooped them up and examined them one at a time. The photo was a candid shot of a beautiful young woman with a cream complexion that could have made her part Asian, or Hawaiian, or Middle Eastern, or half a dozen other possibilities. Her hair was long, thick and naturally wavy, the color of balsa wood with blonde streaks. Bright green, slightly slanted eyes stared out above a tiny pert nose and full, challenging lips. This was the girl in the lime colored bathing suit. The other papers bore an address and details of the time and location of the sighting.

“One in the morning?” Hannibal asked. “And she wasn't with Mantooth?”

“My man said she was patrolling the beach, still in that bikini. Not sure if she was dropping off or picking up, but it sure looked like a drug run to my partner. That was taken on the boardwalk just before shit started shutting down. He clicked a lot. I kept the rest. Man, I'd put her in a video in a heartbeat. And check it, she don't look like a woman who's been abused, do she?”

Hannibal saw as much strength in her face as in her long striding legs. “Maybe she likes it. Or, maybe she's a partner. Or maybe she likes girls.”

“Only one way to know, bro,” Huge said. He had come full circle and stood facing Hannibal now. “One thing's for sure, she'll lead you to the man you want to meet. You go check it out, and come back to pick up Monte tonight sometime.”

“What do you have in mind for him?”

Huge's grin was so broad it was infectious. “Gonna show him how it all works, dig? Introduce him to some people who wish they'd stayed in school. Some people who had a lot of money go through their hands and got nothing cause they didn't know how to handle it. You just leave this one to me,
brother. Now, you going down the beach to meet this bitch? Tell her to introduce you to this player so you can straighten his ass out?”

“Something like that,” Hannibal said.

Huge leaned back, scanning Hannibal up and down. “You don't do undercover, do you? I mean, a black suit on the beach in summer is going to stand out a bit. You need to loosen up some if you're going to get within half a mile of this ho.”

When did a lazy pronunciation of the word “whore” come to be a synonym for woman, Hannibal wondered. “I'll keep my distance. Besides, if I take my jacket and shirt off I'll stand out even more. I don't have any tattoos.”

But back at his car, Hannibal started the engine, cranked the air conditioner to maximum and got back out. He folded his jacket and laid it on the back seat. He laid his tie atop that and opened the top button of his white shirt. Then he rolled his sleeves up to just below his elbows and returned to the driver's seat. For now, that was as incognito as he was prepared to be.

A little known CD by
The Georgia Satellites
pumped his speakers while he drove southward down Atlantic Avenue, almost to Rudee Inlet. He cut right on Fifth Street, almost the end of the resort area beach, and eased a short way down Salem Avenue. Just like Atlantic City, he thought. As soon as you get a few blocks from the Boardwalk it stops being a resort town and starts showing its less impressive side.

Hannibal had always heard that Monopoly was based on Atlantic City, because that was the Boardwalk he knew about. He reconsidered that assumption as he drove past Baltic Avenue and turned up Mediterranean. The modest houses he was passing were surely the least expensive properties on this particular board. He cruised slowly up the narrow street until he spotted the address Huge had written down. He parked between an aging aqua Fairlane and a drab green Chevette.
Walking toward the wooden cottage Hannibal was praying that the drivers of the two cars were careful. If paint from either one got scraped onto his white tornado, he might just have to have the car put down.

The mystery girl lived in a second floor flat she apparently rented from the building's owners. She had a separate entrance at the top of a long flight of white wooden stairs. Hannibal wanted to meet the woman face-to-face. He was building a cover story concerning confusing her address with someone else's on his way up the stairs. It wasn't necessary. His knock drew no response.

The view between the curtains on the inside of the door offered little. A white gas stove, Formica kitchen table and metal tube chairs implied a place that hadn't changed much in decades. Drab wallpaper and chipped linoleum might mean a place that the model-shaped occupant didn't spend much time in, but the dog's water bowl meant regular return visits home.

From the landing he had a good view of what appeared to be a typical, middle class neighborhood, leaning toward the low end. He saw bicycles in driveways, chain link fences were more popular than the white picket variety, and a woman in shorts and a tank top sat in front of the neighborhood grocery store on the other side of the street. Ah, the all-knowing, all seeing neighborhood observer, Hannibal thought. Where would private detectives be without them?

Hannibal smiled his way over to the stringy-haired blonde whose freckled skin had seen too much sun and not enough sunscreen. She raised expectant eyes toward him but offered no greeting.

“Well, hi,” Hannibal said. “You look like maybe you can help me.”

“Yeah, but why would I want to?” she replied.

“Because you're a nice person,” Hannibal said, offering his hand. “My name's Hannibal and you are…?”

She took his hand, amusement lighting her eyes. “Fay. How do you do? You looking for somebody?”

“I was hoping to catch up to this young lady.” Hannibal showed her the five-by-seven Huge had given him. “A friend gave me her address. Does she work during the day?”

Fay flashed uneven, tobacco-stained teeth. “Mariah? Naw, she's the wind, like in the old song, you know? Real party girl.”

Hannibal nodded, making a show of taking Fay's words seriously. “Party girl, eh? Well, any idea how long she'll be away? Maybe I should come back next week.”

“If you was smart you wouldn't come back at all,” Fay said, pulling a cigarette out of a pack of Kools. “She's hooked up with some guy she met on the beach. But I happen to know she'll be home in the morning.”

Hannibal let his eyebrows rise in wonder. “Really? Now how would you know that?”

“Cause she asked me to feed and walk her dog.” Fay lit up and took a deep drag. Hannibal waited. “I told her I'd help her out for one day and no more.”

Hannibal pushed his hands into his pockets, pursed his lips and nodded as if lost in thought. “So she met a guy on the beach. Wonder if we're talking real competition here. Fancy car, big money?”

“Oh yeah,” Fay said. “A player for sure. He flashed, and she went for the cash.”

“Tourist you think?” Hannibal asked, and looked at Fay as if only she could tell. “Not a local fellow?”

“Local boys don't wear those flashy Hawaiian shirts,” Fay said, blowing smoke into the sky, “and they don't rent beach houses right on Lake Holly. She told me he's up there someplace.”

Lake Holly turned out to really be two small lakes, a few blocks apart from each other in the middle of the city. The water lay just inside Pacific Avenue, which was just inside Atlantic, and stretched from about 16th Street down past 6th. Hannibal knew because he had meandered up and down the
streets in the area, getting a feel for the locale. He drove with his window down and his shirt completely unbuttoned. Through his sunglasses he saw that condominiums, apartment buildings and single-family homes co-existed peacefully on the shores of the lakes, two blocks from the boardwalk. No one looked like a year-round resident, although most of them had to be.

He turned off his CD player because several variations of beach music seeped into the car from hidden sources, changing each time he turned a corner. Sometimes it seemed as if everyone he saw was dancing to the prevailing beat. Women wore Capri pants or bathing suits, regardless of their age or size. Men dragged their feet when they walked. The sun baked him through his undershirt. On almost every corner the smell of burgers, tacos and chicken reminded him that he had missed lunch. Then he would cross the intersection and forget again.

One house standing proudly behind a white picket fence drew his attention as he drove very slowly past. It was traditional brick with white painted wood, the glassed-in porch presenting a solid, conservative front. A young man was carrying a pony keg toward the door. Three women stood in his way, laughing as they drifted left and right to clear a path. Their two-piece bathing suits were the color of cherry, lemon, and lime.

And there he sat. There on the front steps of that impressive vacation home in a quiet section of the resort area, within easy walking distance of the beach. It was him. It had to be.

Hannibal didn't turn his head toward the house, but he had a full ten seconds to appraise Rod Mantooth as he rolled past. Hannibal judged him to be about five foot ten, with great broad shoulders and thick, swarthy arms. His short-sleeved shirt hung open. A tangled mass of curly hair burst out from the uncovered space. Thick hairy legs grew from the bottoms of his shorts and ended in broad, spatulate feet.

Stretching his peripheral vision to its limit Hannibal took a mental photograph. The wavy black hair was not quite long
enough to touch Rod's shoulders, but it was striking out in all directions atop a large, square head. Olive skin carried a deep tan. Black marbles were sunk into his craggy face where eyes should have been, but the marbles were flat, dull and lifeless.

Women would say this face had character lines, but Hannibal saw no hint of character in the man's careless grin. Charles Bronson's face was creased this way, but Bronson never grinned like that. This was more the old Rod Steiger, or perhaps early Broderick Crawford. Did Broderick ever go by Rod?

And then Hannibal was past the house and he dared not look back for fear of attracting attention. The target had been sighted. Now Hannibal made the subtle shift from being on the hunt to actually stalking his prey. Now the game was changed.

Now the monster had a face.