Troubleshooter Read online

  “So, you going to send the cops?” Ray asked, looking over Hannibal’s shoulder. Grid lines on the paper showed him all the holes were within two and a half inches of each other.

  “For what? This is my job.”

  “Theirs too,” Ray reminded him. “They might like a little gift like this.”

  Hannibal stared down into the perforated target, and Ray wondered if he saw anyone’s face in particular there. “See the one in the paper this morning?” Hannibal asked. Ray shook his head. “It went down last night, around nine o’clock in Union Station. It’s pretty crowded that time of night. Two guys are arguing, right there in the food court, downstairs. They’re shouting at each other, right? So another guy walks up, grabs one of them by his jacket, puts a gun to the back of his head and bang.”

  “Why you take it so personal?” Ray asked. At first he was not sure Hannibal heard him, but he soon realized his friend simply had no answer. After a few seconds of silence, Ray asked, “Cops get them?”

  “Oh, they got them, all right. Couldn’t identify either of them. Or the victim. Nobody knows why it happened. What do you think?” His eyes drove into Ray’s.

  “Got to be a gang thing,” Ray said. “Probably over drugs.”

  Shaking his head slowly, Hannibal jammed his pistol into its holster under his right arm. “They can’t protect anybody, Ray. They might want to. They might want you to think so. But they just can’t. I don’t need any noncombatants getting blown away tonight, okay?”

  “Yeah, but Hannibal, how much can you hurt these guys?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” he admitted. “But that’s not the point. What I need to do is just be a big enough pain in the ass that they finally decide this one place ain’t worth it. All I need to be is stubborn. It’s that simple.”

  “Yeah, simple.” Ray stared down the line of Anglos firing at man shaped targets and understood why Hannibal was comfortable here. These people were like him in one important way. They were prepared to take care of their own troubles themselves. “Except, what if you’re not the only one stubborn?”

  -14-

  There was one hell of a party going down. Hannibal could hear the music, loud and driving, pulling everyone within a one-block circle into the celebration, whether they wanted to be or not. Three or four couples had walked past him in the dark, already drunk or stoned, moving toward the source of the beat like George Romero’s hungry zombies toward living flesh.

  If anyone saw him, they would probably think he was in the same condition. He sat with his back against a building’s cold sandstone stoop. A row of three overly full trashcans separated him from the street.

  The chance of anyone seeing him was slight. He wore black jeans, pullover, running shoes, gloves and a shell windbreaker to conceal his weapon. Unmoving, he disappeared in the shadow of the garbage. Years of Secret Service work had taught him how to remain still for extended periods of time, and with that patience he had gained the ability to withdraw.

  When you worked crowds with politicians and dignitaries, your best defense was invisibility. A wise instructor had told him camouflage was only the beginning. The art was to learn to withdraw your personal aura, so people looking right at you did not see you, unless you wanted to be noticed.

  From the shadows he watched a long black Lincoln Continental take possession of the street, pulling up within ten yards of his surveillance point. First the black bodyguard got out and looked around. The occasional passerby ignored him. Then Sal, wearing arrogance like a cloak, stood up and walked out several feet in front of the car. His face told a story of impatience and distrust. The other guard remained in the driver’s seat.

  The black guard said something Hannibal couldn’t hear. Judging by Sal’s body language, he answered with some snide remark. Hannibal remembered his time in the Secret Service, thinking how quickly these boys would be looking for work if pushers held to the same standards. How often had he traveled with the Vice President’s family without ever seeing them? When you protected someone, you looked at everything except your principle. Also, you checked the area before your man left his vehicle. That’s why no one could ever have been lying in wait for anybody Hannibal had been assigned to protect. Not the way he waited now.

  Even worse, as they approached their meeting place, they almost surely drove right past Hannibal’s car just three blocks away. The white Volvo was certainly not inconspicuous. Ray would wait there for half an hour, then return home if Hannibal did not show up at the car. That eventuality seemed remote. Since they had failed to recognize his car, they had no clue that Hannibal was present, and in his mind they deserved what they would get.

  Hannibal felt the party music filling the street the way the music does in old voodoo movies just before the climax. His heart was thumping like the base line as he eased himself up into a deep crouch. He pulled a black ski mask from his belt and stretched it over his head. Now the night air was filtered through woven cotton. With his attention focused on the big man inside the car, he felt adrenaline flow into his bloodstream. He had spent years on the other side of this situation, waiting for someone to attack, but this sure felt different. Being the attacker gave him a rush like nothing he had ever felt in bodyguard work. And he had to admit that most of his work in the Service had been exactly that – personal protection duty, which was just glorified bodyguard work.

  It had not seemed so humid before he sprinted for the Lincoln. Now his lungs could not grab enough air. The two men outside the car did not know he was there until they heard the passenger door yanked open. Sal turned to see a shadow on the front seat holding a gun against his driver’s head.

  “Get the fuck out,” Hannibal rasped in a guttural voice. “Out, or I swear I blow your head away.” The driver’s door opened and Hannibal stiff-armed the other man out onto the asphalt. Sal shouted something garbled, and the other guard rushed around to the passenger side of the car, drawing his gun as he moved.

  “You boys react too slow,” Hannibal said to himself, pushing the car into gear and stomping on the gas. Both doors slammed shut as he pulled away from the curb. Three bullets smacked the rear window. He heard their impacts over the screaming tires, but the glass held.

  In his rear view mirror he watched Sal ranting at his two giant flunkies. The Lincoln’s big V8 engine gave out a deep-throated roar. Hannibal was certain he was driving a car full of illegal drugs. He planned to dump them down a convenient sewer and ditch the car a few blocks away. That easily, he could get Sal’s attention and open serious negotiations. It shouldn’t be hard to convince him that this was a bad place to do business.

  Then, as he crossed the first intersection, headlights came on behind him. They drew his attention because the engine behind him snarled loudly, but the sound was even deeper than roar of the one he was driving. Just as it was leaving, the adrenaline rush kicked back in.

  As the Lincoln passed the loud house party, he watched his rearview mirror. In the light cone of a street lamp he saw a black Camaro pulling up on him. At that moment, he appreciated the Lincoln’s apparently bulletproof skin.

  The Camaro pulled up close to his rear bumper, and then pulled a bit closer, giving him a small jolt. Hannibal’s head snapped back. That was a warning, he thought. A taste of things to come if he did not pull the Lincoln over. That little contact threw him off balance. This car, for all its size, was hard to control.

  So Sal the drug dealer had posted a back up vehicle in case of trouble. Maybe he was smarter than Hannibal thought. How had the Camaro’s driver known Sal was not inside? Could he have seen Hannibal take the car from him? Maybe, or maybe he expected a signal Hannibal did not give.

  A red light glared at the next corner, and Hannibal simply rolled under it. A loud horn blared on his left, sounding like a train whistle as it passed behind him. Then a woman, walking with the weight of too much drink, stepped into the street. He stood on the brake, and again received a crunching impact from behind. The woman looked through the win
dshield as if trying to see if anyone was driving, then went on across the street.

  The driver behind Hannibal was bald, with tightly stretched skin, as if someone had pulled it all taut under his neck. He held a small telephone in his right hand. He said a few words into it, then dropped it to pick up a small revolver. Hannibal pressed the accelerator, his bumper making a strange, crying noise as it twisted loose from the Camaro’s bumper.

  Hannibal needed both hands for driving, so he could not even consider gunplay. The Camaro stayed with him. A third corner came up. He maintained a lead on his pursuer, but he was leaving Ray behind. He wanted to turn around. With no pedestrians nearby, he didn’t think it would too hard.

  Hannibal hauled on the wheel turning right at the corner, only to find the Camaro coming up on his right side. The Camaro smacked into Hannibal’s car with a squealing crunch, and then surged ahead. His diaphragm paralyzed, Hannibal cranked the wheel to the right, trying to stay in his lane. At the next intersection he turned left, leaving the other car behind.

  God, that idiot had actually run into him. He was sweating freely now, wishing he was not driving steadily away from his only backup. He had to get turned around. At the next corner he would…

  A liquor store sat at the next corner. A uniformed policeman had just stepped out of that store carrying a package and was getting back into his blue Metro Police car. Hannibal briefly considered stopping and asking for help. But then he remembered that the man pursuing him was only guilty of reckless driving. Hannibal was the one driving around in a car undoubtedly full of illegal drugs. He slowed down, not wanting to get stopped for reckless driving himself. He hit his turn signal and, feeling the cop’s eyes on him, made a left and headed back toward his own car.

  Streets were narrow and short in Southeast D.C., with some laid out at odd angles to the rest. It took a few more turns for Hannibal to really be pointed in the right direction, not far from where Ray sat behind the wheel of his Volvo. He had not seen the Camaro behind him for a while, and the street in front of him looked clear. Up ahead three or four men stood clustered around a big boom box. They were jamming the O’Jays. He remembered the last time he heard that tune. He was wet under his arms that night, just like now, except then it had been from dancing.

  Hannibal’s focus returned to the road when a slow moving Cadillac turned onto his street up ahead of him. It was driving away from him but sitting right in the middle of the street. The Cadillac slowed to a crawl right in front of him. Hannibal locked his brakes, even as he saw lights behind him. It had to be the Camaro.

  With a squeal of rubber, the Lincoln hit the car ahead, but without much impact. Hannibal turned to stare out his back window. The sports car behind him swerved left. Hannibal dived for the passenger side door. Tires made their screeching sound as the Camaro’s driver wrenched his two thousand pound steel bludgeon to the right toward the driver’s door of the Lincoln. Hannibal heard the engine pumping closer as he grasped the door handle.

  Then there was a deep base thump of steel punching steel and the high hat cymbal sound of shattering glass, and a concussion tossed him through space. The cement sidewalk slapped his back like a giant, over-friendly hand. His eyes did not want to open and the air forced out of him by the impact seemed reluctant to return. He yanked off his mask thinking that might help. It did not, and he noticed his face felt wet on the left side. He tasted blood, wondering as he had so many times before why its taste reminded him of copper. He rolled over, he thought onto his knees, though he could not be sure. Thoughts were slippery, hard to get a grip on, but he had a feeling that sitting still would put him in some danger.

  Then the music changed. No, one kind of music stopped and another took its place. No more O’Jays. This new song sounded too high and shrill, and somehow familiar.

  For the last fourteen years a police siren had meant assistance to him. For half that time he had often been the source of that siren. But now, in his confusion, his muddled brain reached back to his childhood, when that sound had only meant danger. He was caught.

  Hannibal lurched to his feet and forced his eyes open. Through a fog that had risen awfully suddenly, he saw the Lincoln, smashed, leaning slightly toward him in the street with its trunk popped open. Its nose was still pressed against the tail of the Cadillac, like one big dog sniffing another. The Cadillac’s driver looked at him for a second before jumping into the Camaro as it roared off. They were running. Maybe that wasn’t a bad idea.

  It took his muddled mind a second to determine the direction of the source of the siren sound. A small smile curled his lips when he had it pinned down, then he turned and started walking away from it. The smile kind of hurt, but at least he could feel his face. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the music lovers on the corner looking over the wreck. One of them looked up and waved him on, hooking a thumb in the police car’s direction. Hannibal nodded at the fuzzy man and started jogging. Hannibal wasn’t worried. His figure, covered in black from head to toe, would be invisible to anyone more than half a block away.

  The area looked familiar but he was not sure where he was. All of Southeast Washington D.C. would seem familiar, he reasoned, an unchanging rundown landscape of dingy houses and cracked sidewalks on poorly lighted streets. Still, he thought he recognized this street.

  A thin man, very tall, was weaving like a Redskins lineman in front of him. Hannibal tried to dodge, but he could not see too clearly and they collided. The man felt as if he was rooted to the ground. Hannibal bounced onto his back and lacked enough balance to get up.

  “Come on. One more block.”

  He knew that voice. “Monty?”

  “Come on, man, get up,” Monty said. “You ran full out into that light pole.” Hands that felt much too small grabbed Hannibal under his shoulders. With Monty’s help for balance he managed to stand shakily and let the boy guide him forward.

  “Man, you look like they really fucked you up.” Monty dug his fingers under Hannibal’s belt behind him for support.

  “Watch your mouth.” Hannibal noticed his words had come out slurred and tried harder. “We had a deal,” he said more slowly.

  “Okay, dude. Don’t talk. I’m taking you home.”

  Walking helped him to breathe more deeply. The dizziness faded, and Hannibal’s vision began to clear. Concussion? Yes, he must have gotten a concussion. But he knew he was recovering control, so it could not have been bad. A passing thing. No nausea, no headache. Must be okay.

  But when they reached the porch steps both nausea and a throbbing headache caught up to him. Still, with the railing for support he reached the door.

  Monty knocked on the wooden panel. Hannibal checked his jacket, making sure it stayed zipped up far enough to completely cover his holster. He stared into a window in the door, which was covered on the inside by a heavy curtain. Not good security, he thought. Anyone could punch in the glass, reach in and unlock the door.

  Then the curtain moved away. A round, dark face stared out at him. The woman’s gray hair was pulled to the back of her head. Some sadistic sculptor had spent sixty years engraving worry lines into her kindly face. Fear shone in her eyes. Not fear of him, but rather for him. She looked down at Monty, then past them both, as if the devil might be following. When she saw no sign of him, she began unlocking the door, a four-step process to Hannibal’s hearing.

  Woman and child helped him into the room and onto the couch. While her strong arms helped him into a seated position she filled the room with “Lord today,” and “have mercy Jesus.” Then she shuffled off on flapping mules.

  His mind now clearer, Hannibal glanced around the modest room. The passage of time had dulled the paint and faded the wallpaper, but otherwise the house seemed immaculate. The sofa was not as supportive as the woman and boy had been, as if the inner springs had simply given up trying to do their job. All the furniture was overstuffed and reupholstered more than once, in the kind of eclectic decor that comes from collecting pieces one at a time
at bargain prices.

  “Don’t worry,” Monty told him. “Grandma fix you up.” He stood very close, as if protecting his charge from whatever might attack next.

  “What were you doing out there?” Hannibal asked, squinting his left eye. His cheek was beginning to throb.

  “Just wanted to see if you’d really go.” Monty never quite smiled, but his cynical expression lightened just a bit then. Hannibal leaned forward to smack him, but just then the woman returned with a large porcelain bowl full of steaming water and a handful of soft cloths. She wet one, wrung it almost dry, and swabbed at Hannibal’s cheek, against his weak protests.

  “You don’t have to do that Mrs…”

  “Call me Mother Washington.” She sat down on the sofa beside him. “Everyone else does. Except Gabriel of course.”

  “Aw, Grandma!” he protested, but love shone through his rough tone.

  “This isn’t too bad,” Mrs. Washington said. “Looks like you just got a little bit of a scrape.”

  “My face was covered,” he said, then cut himself off. She could misunderstand his wearing a mask. “Ma’am I appreciate your hospitality, I really do, and your grandson was a big help, but I can’t stay here. I have to be honest. There might be people looking for me.”

  “Young man, hush.” Against his will, he found himself pushed back into childhood by her voice. “I’ve tended knife wounds, gunshots and a whole passel of split lips right on this here couch. The Lord won’t let no evil come in this house after me.”

  He moved her hand, holding the cloth against his own face. “There’s always a first time. Mother Washington, can I use your phone? There’s some people be worrying about me.”