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.
-21-
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.
As the hulk crashed onto the floor life jumped back to full speed. Hannibal’s knuckles pulsed with pain, reminding him why he usually worked in gloves. Now he had only seconds in which to choose a new path. A face-to-face battle with Rod would have been more satisfying, but he had learned long ago that the only direction to go in life was forward.
His shoulders feinted toward the door before his head yanked him back toward the bed. If Mariah was in sight when Rod awoke he might beat her to death. Leaving her behind could not be an option. He grabbed her wrist and saw a slight smile move her lips as he pulled her over his shoulders. Hooking an arm around one of her knees he hurried down the stairs. In the living room he lowered Mariah to the sofa, even as he watched seconds tick past in his head. Time mattered, but now sound mattered too. He didn’t want Rod awake any sooner than necessary.
The basement held a storage area and a laundry room, but when Hannibal turned on the light his eyes scanned only the walls. He knew that home security systems were designed to defend from outside the walls, not from within. He found the small metal box he was looking for hanging beside the furnace. It was locked, and that would cost more seconds. He pulled a small Swiss Army knife from his pocket and opened the shorter blade. With it he defeated the lock in less than thirty seconds. Then he had only to flip two switches to shut down the alarm system.
Upstairs, silence and darkness continued to reign. Mariah leaked a soft moan. Hannibal hefted his human burden, not knowing how close to awareness she might be. With some effort he managed to sidestep out the front door and pull it closed behind them.
The air was thick and damp as he scampered down the street with Mariah across his shoulders like an ox’s yoke. Hannibal dragged air deep into his lungs, wondering if the alarm company received a signal when the alarm was disabled from within. If they did, he hoped that they would send the police to the house right away.
Less than a minute after leaving Rod’s house Hannibal was loading Mariah into his back seat. He felt naked and exposed under a white-hot full moon. Cars, trees and buildings hugged pools of blackness and when he closed the door and stood to his full height. Hannibal had the feeling that his shadow was taller than his soul. Still, he had more business to attend to. He pulled his backup piece, the Smith and Wesson Centennial Airweight, out of the glove compartment and ran back toward Rod’s house.
In seconds he was crouching silently beneath a rear window, one that would lead into the computer room. He slipped the five shot thirty-eight caliber revolver into the back of his waistband. What had come to Hannibal when he was standing over Rod’s unconscious body was a reconfiguration of values. The data disc containing Anita Cooper’s legacy was one objective, but he couldn’t abandon human needs for it. Even as he reached for Mariah he knew that he couldn’t leave the other girls behind. Sheryl might escape danger since she clearly had nothing to do with the apparently unsuccessful attempted theft. Missy, on the other hand, was still an innocent in Hannibal’s eyes. If he was going to stop to pull Mariah out of harm’s way, he had to at least save Missy as well.
A car full of loud teenagers approached from the beach and rolled past, leaving Hannibal with only the sound of his heart, thumping in a world painted stark blue and white by the moon. Then the sound of crickets slowly swelled in the yard behind him. That sound grew until the racket was almost as painful as the alarm had been.
Hannibal stood, fingers locked into the edge of the windowsill. His stomach clenched in anticipation of the next effort. Sensing no movement inside, Hannibal raised the window. While he pulled himself slowly up and into the room, Hannibal wondered if Rod had regained consciousness. If he had, walking in through the front door would have been suicide.
Seconds later Hannibal was listening for the
slightest hint of movement from his familiar hiding place inside the computer room closet. He waited a full five minutes before stepping out of the computer room. Gun in hand he stood briefly, sniffing the air for trouble before moving to the stairs. He moved upward, one step at a time, sensitive to the slightest creaking.
The room at the top of the stairs stood open. Rod lay face down with his feet toward the door, unconscious or maybe just asleep. His hairy back rose and fell in a slow steady rhythm. A gentle snore rolled out of his mouth. Hannibal doubted his one punch could have done that much damage, but there was no way to know what effect drugs and alcohol would have added. All in all, it seemed that things were going his way this time.
At the second door he heard quiet conversation. Having been interrupted, Derek and Sheryl would be slowly getting back into the party mood. No danger from that quarter.
The door to the third room stood open by only a crack. Hannibal pressed it slowly open with his empty right hand, holding his gun close to his side. A muted lamp on one side table lent the room a ghostly glow. Missy looked up, her brown eyes round and wide. When Hannibal was growing up his mother had paintings of little black kids on the walls. Their eyes were bigger than any real person’s ever could be. She found it cute, but as a child Hannibal found the pictures disturbing in some odd way. Missy’s eyes almost reached that size now, and her pupils were stretched wide by the dark or maybe by drugs. Her face betrayed both surprise and relief. Her mouth moved but his finger pressed against his lips cautioned her to silence.
Only after taking in her beautiful brown face did Hannibal’s appreciation of the scene broaden. Missy was kneeling on the bed, naked, with her arms stretched out in front of her, spread wide to display her petite breasts. She did not hold the pose out of respect. Her wrists were each handcuffed to the short posters at the foot of the bed.
“You don’t have to take this,” he whispered, stepping slowly toward her. Her wary eyes followed him as he approached her, and then turned to the cluttered dresser. The small silver key lay there in plain sight. He felt her eyes on his face as he unlocked one cuff, then the other, but could not guess what emotion hid behind them. She never pulled at the small chains to free herself any faster. She continued to kneel on the bed with her arms spread apart until Hannibal took one arm and gently pulled. She placed one foot on the floor, hesitated, then stood beside the bed.
Hannibal pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it round Missy’s shoulders. When it began to slide off he pushed one edge into her hand.
“Hold this,” he said. She did. Was she in shock, he wondered, or heavily doped up? Holding her free hand he guided her toward the door. She didn’t resist, but she seemed in no hurry. They moved slowly through the darkness toward the stairs. They passed one room and were in front of the door to the other when Hannibal heard footfalls behind him.
“What the hell?”
Hannibal spun, leveling the gun in the direction of Derek’s voice. “Just stay quiet and don’t move,” Hannibal whispered, “and you can live through this.” Derek’s breathing was quick and shallow. He was on the verge of making a move. Hannibal took a couple of slow steps backward toward the stairs. Derek moved forward, maintaining a constant distance from Hannibal who had no desire to fire his weapon. If questioned by police, could he convince them that he was in the right? Was he on a rescue mission, or was he guilty of an overprotective kidnapping? Could saving Missy from whatever she had agreed to do merit the use of lethal force?
A roar of rage from his left froze Hannibal for a couple of tenths. It was enough. Rod’s bulk crashed into his side, a speeding freight train that numbed his gun hand even as its momentum smashed his right shoulder through the wall’s plaster. He saw his pistol hit the carpet and tensed his stomach just in time to receive the bludgeon that was Rod’s left fist. Rod’s right smacked across his skull, birthing a flock of blue floaters before Hannibal’s eyes.
“Raiding my stable, eh?” Rod said in a hateful snarl. “Well let’s see what you got when you don’t get to sucker punch me.”
Hannibal managed to block Rod’s next left hook, but his knees were already buckling. He had no space in which to move and his balance was thrown off. Rod had the momentum and just kept throwing punches until Hannibal slowly crumpled to the floor. Then kicks replaced the punches, flexing Hannibal’s ribs in as they landed. He clenched his teeth and kept his elbows in. Each kick rocked his body and spread a burst of pain through him, but he knew the important truth. This kind of thing never lasted very long. A familiar gray gauze curtain slid up over his senses.
Hannibal mentally clawed the gauze aside. Somehow he knew time had passed. His ribs ached, but didn’t drown the pain from rug burns on his knees. His view was narrow, like looking at close objects in a small room through a telescope. His other awakening senses tried hard to assemble a broader picture for him. An odd, hollow ringing in his ears blunted rhythmic grunting, above and too the left. The caustic smell of sex and sweat flared his nostrils. Salt in his mouth? No, that was blood.
Hannibal craned his neck upward, moving his narrow view until a small hand came into view. Missy’s hand, again cuffed to the bed. So he was on the floor not far from the foot of the bed and she was back where he had found her. This time, her hand was clenched around the footboard it was chained to, holding her steady as she rocked forward and back.
He readjusted his view up and over to her face. Missy’s long, straight hair flew forward and back lagging behind her head’s movements. Her eyes were clenched and her lips pressed together in a straight line, stifling what would be squeals of pain if they got out. Hannibal felt his own eyes welling up.
Up and back from Missy’s face he found Rod’s. Focus was difficult. His whole body was pulling back and slamming forward. His eyes were vacant, and Hannibal wondered for a moment where he really was.
“Do her harder!” That came from the other side of the bed in a woman’s voice. Hannibal managed to widen the circle of his view enough to find Sheryl. Her eyes blazed in a way he found at once frightening and sickening. Had she endured the same initiation? And now, was she joyous to see someone else having to take their turn? Beside her, Derek panted like a hungry dog.
Sheryl snapped, “Feed it to her,” and shoved Derek to the foot of the bed. Missy looked up, eyes wide now. Derek lowered his zipper. Hannibal shut his eyes and turned away, tuning out not just Missy’s shame but his own as well. I’m so sorry he thought. The world faded into a gray mist and slowly down into blackness.
Hannibal’s eyes snapped open and the darkness came into sharp focus. A deep breath set off sparks around his rib cage. That was okay. The pain made his mind sharper.
He curled his lips in. The blood on them hadn’t completely dried yet, so he hadn’t been out for very long. The ringing in his ears had stopped. Rod must have given him a mild concussion, but the effects had faded. Now ragged snoring helped him pinpoint the bed. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he could make out two figures on the bed. The larger one, the source of the snore, lay on his back.
The smaller figure was almost lost in the darkness except for her eyes and small, brilliant teeth. Missy lay with her chin on her overlapped hands, staring into Hannibal’s eyes. How long had she been watching him? While he stared back she mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”
What on earth had she to be sorry about? He was the one who had failed her. The image of her dramatic rape scene made his stomach lurch. He raised his right hand toward her but it moved only inches. He was still handcuffed, he saw, to a leg of the dresser. The dresser’s legs were pedestals ending in wooden balls. No way to slip the cuff over it. At Hannibal’s end, the steel bracelet was clamped tight on his wrist, cutting into the skin each time he moved.
What would Rod plan for him in the morning? Another beating? No, the most logical move would be to hold Hannibal until the deal for the formula was concluded, and then turn Hannibal over to the South American gang lords who made the purchase. Hanniba
l caught the stench of fear and realized that he smelled himself. South American gangs could be very accommodating to their friends.
Hannibal wasn’t very good with locks and even if he could pick it, did he have enough time? Although he was still chained, he saw that Missy was free. Her restraints, he realized, had been part of the game, just there to enhance Rod’s control fantasy. Maybe they enhanced her fantasies as well. Was the horrible rape he observed in fact consensual? Was she happy about all that had happened to her?
As if she was reading his mind, Missy shook her head in the negative. Then she swung her feet off the bed, moving only inches at a time stopping often to look at Rod. After it up, Hannibal could see her breathing rate increase. Watching Rod, Missy shifted her weight off the bed and onto her legs in tiny increments. The snoring never wavered. Once standing upright, Missy released a shuddering sigh.
Hannibal caught himself admiring her perfect form in rear view, and berated himself, turning his eyes away. He knelt there with his face turned aside until he sensed her kneeling in front of him. Then he heard the soft click of a tiny lock opening. He looked to Rod to make sure he hadn’t moved. Then Hannibal moved his arm enough to be sure of his newfound freedom.
He rose silently to his full height and turned a thankful smile on Missy. She had pulled on white bra and panties that glowed in the darkness. She stood very close to Hannibal, leaning in to whisper into his ear.
“Take me with you.”
Hannibal nodded. They moved toward the bedroom door, both watching the chest of the snoring Rod rise and fall. Hannibal quickly glanced around for his pistol but it was no place obvious.
Again Hannibal and Missy moved down the hall. She seemed much more alert this time. Whatever drugs she had been on must have washed through her system. Still, her movements were as awkward as his. Maybe she was sore as well, from rough use rather than a beating. And here she was, rescuing him.
Damaged Goods Page 24
