Troubleshooter

by Austin Camacho

  “Something I can do for you?” Sarge asked with a smile his shotgun belied. The younger man stuttered out a few random syllables, found the doorknob behind himself, and left.

  “Who was that?” Hannibal asked, coming down the stairs behind Sarge.

  “Just another druggie,” Sarge said with a yawn. “Between us we’ve turned eight of them away since about three this morning. About half of them were like that young fellow, just in from the suburbs to score some dope. Didn’t realize our little pusher had such an upscale audience.”

  Hannibal walked around to sit on the desk. “Yeah, well, the yuppies don’t want dealers in their neighborhood, but they still want the products. Anyway, they won’t come twice. I think we got it licked, bro. After we got the cops into it, and one of Sal’s in the joint, he won’t want to get into it again.”

  At that Sarge grunted. “Get your shower?”

  “Yeah buddy, and I sure needed it.”

  “I’m hep,” Sarge grinned.

  “Yeah, but I wish I’d remembered to bring towels.”

  “That’s why God created tee shirts,” Sarge countered.

  Shoes scuffing on the stoop snapped Hannibal to his feet and Sarge’s hand to the shotgun. A man opened the door and stopped cold, harshly backlit, his hand never leaving the knob.

  “What’s this shit?”

  “Something I can do for you?” Sarge asked again.

  “Don’t know,” the man in working clothes said. “I’m the exterminator, but it looks like I got the wrong address.”

  “No no.” Hannibal pulled the man’s arm. “Come in. Please. We just moved in, and we had some trouble with the neighbors. But man, are we glad to see you.”

  “Yeah, well, this is my first stop of the day and I’m not used to having shotguns pointed at me,” the newcomer said.

  “Look, just do what you do, okay?” Hannibal urged him. “Start at the top and work your way down to the cellar. This whole place is…” A woman walking in behind the exterminator drew Hannibal’s attention.

  “Mother Washington,” Hannibal said, breaking into a broad grin and grasping her hand. “This is a pleasant surprise. Yo, little bro,” he added to Monty, standing behind her.

  “Gabriel told me you had actually moved in here, but I just couldn’t believe it,” Mrs. Washington said, as Hannibal guided her toward his front room door. “Well, at least the hallway looks clean.” He followed her eyes down to the floor, certain that she registered the faint but still recognizable trail of blood leading from the basement door to the front. Then their eyes met. She smiled, and he gratefully accepted her decision not to mention the stain.

  “We’re making a little progress,” Hannibal said, opening the door to his apartment. His guests walked in, but stopped just inside.

  “Lord today,” Mother Washington moaned, looking at the shapeless black splotch on the floor, following it up the wall.

  “Had a little problem last night,” Hannibal said lightly.

  “Y’all got water? Electricity?”

  “All the comforts.” Hannibal eased a folding chair up behind her. The woman sat stiffly, nodding her thanks.

  “Just you and your friend with the gun to fix up this big old house?”

  “No, ma’am,” Hannibal said. “There are four other fellows helping out.”

  “Six of you, huh?” she asked, looking around. “All men?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “What you eating?” Mother Washington asked.

  “Whatever.” Hannibal was feeling a little pressured. “We got food, but none of us is much for cooking.”

  “Had breakfast?” she asked, standing. Hannibal stammered a negative answer, following her to his kitchen. Mother Washington explored the refrigerator and every cabinet, muttering “Lord, Lord, Lord” and “have more mercy, Jesus.” Finally she began piling food on the sink’s sideboard, talking intermittently to herself, or to Monty.

  “Got eggs. Got bacon. I need my big iron skillet, boy. And a cookie sheet for the biscuits. Have mercy, there ain’t no flour. Bring the flour, child. Bring two skillets. They got potatoes at least. And bring my apron, the yellow one. Oh, and a spatula. Boys living alone. Lord have mercy.”

  An hour and a half later, Hannibal found himself washing dishes, gazing vacantly into his overgrown backyard while his hands moved automatically over borrowed pans and utensils. A drying rack found under the sink had been pressed into service. The water was as hot as his hands could stand, and he used a real scouring pad. Mother Washington apparently didn’t believe in Teflon or any other kind of nonstick coating. Staring out idly, he started thinking about how the yard might look with its weeds mowed down and a grill sitting out there. Shaking his head, Hannibal reminded himself how being in that building was strictly business, but the image of a backyard barbecue would not go away. His reverie was interrupted by a welcome voice echoing through the length of the apartment.

  “Anybody out there?” Cindy called from the front. She quickly moved the length of the apartment, slipped up behind him and settled her head onto his left shoulder as if it were the most natural motion in the world.

  “All clear,” Hannibal smiled. “Another day off? You’re going to get fired.”

  “Worked real late last night.” Cindy eased away, reaching for a chair. “Anyway, thought you could use some help. Looks like you had a little problem in your front room.”

  “Yeah, some clown tossed a firebomb in,” Hannibal said, turning off the water. “He’s in the joint now and I think I can keep him there. Think he was the drug boy’s last play.”

  “So you’re saying it’s safe around here now, right?” Cindy asked, staring around. “Listen, I’ll dry if you’ll show me the…”

  “Sorry, no towels,” Hannibal said. With a laugh he turned and started shaking out his hands, prompting Cindy to raise her hands to try to fend off the flying droplets. She wore yet another barely legal pair of shorts, and another black tee shirt, this one emblazoned with “Jack Daniels” across the front.

  “Sound to me like we need to go shopping,” Cindy said, as if she were inviting him to a ball game. “You need towels, some paint and maybe a piece of carpet, eh?”

  “What’s this we stuff?” Hannibal asked, leaving the kitchen. “I got to stay here.”

  “I thought you said it was safe now.”

  “Well, I guess,” Hannibal said. “Actually, I was going to call Balor tomorrow if nothing changes and tell him to get the place painted, get flooring put in and order the rest of the appliances. I figure I’ll keep the team here until he’s renting the flats out. Then I can phase them out one at a time until all six places are rented out. After that, no `vacuum’ like you said, so no more druggies or vagrants wandering in.”

  Hannibal had talked all the way to the front room, but Cindy stayed behind momentarily at the middle room, the one with his bed in it. The small photograph held her gaze. It was a portrait of a white woman, neither ugly nor really pretty, a rather plain blonde but with an unmistakable sparkle in her eyes.

  When she followed, Hannibal pretended not to notice her brief stop. By the time she stepped into the front room Hannibal was standing with hands on hips, looking up at the charred wall.

  “You know, I’m thinking maybe you’re right,” he said absently. “I’ll probably be here a couple weeks. Guess some paint might be in order.”

  -30-

  Hannibal did not notice the shadow at the edge of the wall until he hit it with his paint roller. He silently cursed himself for getting so much on the baseboard. Sunlight and his energy, he realized, were both running out. He dropped wearily onto a folding chair, looking up at Cindy on the ladder using a small brush on the molding. Hopefully, the brown she was using would cover the crème color meant for the walls. The colors weren’t bad but, Lord he hated the smell of fresh paint.

  “Why didn’t I just make Balor pay a professional to do this?” Hannibal muttered. “Take a break,” Cindy called down, “I spent a coupl
e hours on my ass this afternoon.”

  “And a lovely ass it is.” Hannibal smiled wearily at his own lame humor. This girl was something else. He had driven her to the stores, but she picked out the towels. She selected colors off a chart and even pointlessly asked his opinion of them. She knew how many gallons of each color paint they needed, and chose brushes and rollers. She had picked a beige carpet that would come within an inch or two of his living room walls on all sides when they unrolled it. At her insistence they picked up a boom box, at Balor’s expense, and the vintage George Benson CD they listened to while they worked. The disc was the first step toward replacing Hannibal’s extensive music collection, which now lay buried under the pile of charred masonry that used to be his old apartment.

  Back at the house, she had made sandwiches for everyone’s lunch, unasked. Before anyone was really sure what she was doing, she had gathered up all their laundry, piled it into his car, and gotten her father to drop her off at a Laundromat for a couple of hours. This was the time she referred to as “sitting on her ass.” And, while she had merely delivered the clean clothes to the men she had just met, she folded her father’s clothes, and Hannibal’s.

  “I could get used to this,” Hannibal muttered absently.

  “You mean living in this place?”

  “Er, yeah.” Hannibal said, clutching at the vine she offered, although he was thinking something entirely different. “It ain’t a bad place, you know. And this neighborhood, it ain’t as bad as I figured either. You know, this morning, this old lady down the block, she wanders in here, bops down to the kitchen, and cooks breakfast for all of us. Just like that.” Hannibal leaned forward, shaking his head in disbelief. “Nice old lady. Still got class, and self respect. Like this building. A nice old lady.”

  Hannibal’s overtired brain repeated for him all the good things about staying in number twenty-three thirteen. He looked up at Cindy, who stepped up one rung on the ladder with one foot, drawing his attention to her nicely rounded bottom. She had also pointedly turning her back to him.

  In a voice overloaded with casual unimportance, she asked, “Who’s the girl?”

  “Girl?” Her shift of subject caught Hannibal off guard.

  “The Anglo,” she asked. She appeared to be concentrating her entire being on the molding she was painting. “In the picture on the mantle.”

  “Oh. Mama.”

  Cindy chuckled. “Oh, your mama’s white?” But then she stopped and turned. He could feel her eyes on him, looking at him as if for the first time. She scanned his hazel eyes, his golden skin, so close to her own Hispanic complexion, and his hair, neither straight nor kinky.

  “Your mama’s white,” she said again, this time quite solemnly.

  “Does it make a difference?” Hannibal asked, standing.

  “But the picture’s signed `to my honey’,” Cindy said, dropping two rungs closer to him.

  “Yeah, well when I was little she used to say my skin was the color of honey,” Hannibal said through a faraway smile. “She called me her honey boy and it kind of stuck.”

  Cindy touched down. On the portable stereo, George Benson made the train sound with his guitar, a plaintive, mournful cry. “I’m really sorry,” Cindy said. “I feel so stupid.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Hannibal said. “Listen, why don’t we quit for the night.”

  While Hannibal cleaned brushes and rollers, Cindy headed for the kitchen. Involved with his own activity, Hannibal didn’t notice her return until the living room light went out. The lamp in his bedroom was on, but a huge full moon actually threw more light on him. He turned, to see Cindy seated at the card table. She had put out a bag of tortilla chips, a bowl of salsa, a bottle of white wine and two Styrofoam cups.

  “Come eat something,” she said, beckoning him, “and tell me about your mama.”

  Hannibal left everything as it was and joined her in his room. He kicked off his shoes, got comfortable on his bed and gathered his thoughts to tell a story.

  “Well, my dad was in the Army, stationed in Germany when he met her,” Hannibal said, picking up a cup. “It wasn’t too common then, but they got married and had me. I don’t remember him too well. Ran out of luck in Vietnam when I was six.” That prompted a big swallow of wine. Halfway down it burned, but by the time it reached his stomach it had become a soft, warm glow.

  “God, I seem to be hitting all the wrong nerves tonight.” Cindy looked everywhere but into his eyes.

  “No, it’s too old to hurt. Besides, it’s kind of different to have anybody ask me about me. I mean, in my line of work I ask all the questions.”

  “Well, in my work too,” Cindy said with a smile. “You grew up in Germany, I take it. That’s why you spoke German before, after those animals beat you up. By the way, what’s, um, scheiskopf I think you said.”

  “Very good,” Hannibal said, impressed by her pronunciation of the foreign word. “Did I say that? It’s German for `shithead’ I guess. This drug pusher, he kept calling me that while his friends were pounding my skull in.”

  “Guess that explains all that babbling about wanting to get to the base, too,” Cindy said, almost to herself.

  “A nightmare left over from when I was small.” Hannibal sipped, then refilled their glasses. “There was an army hospital in Berlin, but one of my great fears as a kid was getting hurt and ending up in a hospital where they didn’t speak English.”

  “So your mama raised you,” Cindy said around a mouthful of chips and salsa. “Funny, my papa pretty much raised me after mama decided she didn’t want a family after all.”

  “You mean she just took off?” Hannibal asked.

  “Met a new guy,” Cindy said simply, staring again at the photograph Hannibal clearly cherished. “Your mother was a bit more of a mother I guess. So is that the kind of woman you looking for? They say most men are looking for their mothers.”

  “Not me.” Hannibal grinned and gulped more wine. Because he drank seldom, he had little alcohol tolerance. He already felt a respectable buzz under his skull. He leaned back for a better look at all of his guest. “I’ll tell you. I’m really attracted to brown-eyed girls with high IQs. You know, the helpful type, with a nice smile, long hair, long legs, slim waist, and, er… nice big tits.”

  Cindy almost fell from her chair laughing, but she managed to right herself and gain her feet. None too subtly, she reached behind herself, pushing the door closed. “Well, my eyes are brown.” She walked around the bed to close the door at the other end of the room. “My hair is fairly long, and they tell me I’m pretty intelligent.” Now she was standing directly in front of Hannibal who leaned back on his elbows on the bed.

  “So far, so good,” he said.

  “And…” Cindy crossed her arms, gripped her tee shirt’s bottom edge, and pulled it up, turning it inside out as it slid over her head in one smooth motion and fell to the floor. Her bra barely contained her.

  “Oh, yeah,” Hannibal said, smiling broadly as he got to his feet. “I’d say you’re a hundred percent.” She stepped into his arms and he quickly released the hooks behind her, his fingertips trailing sparks down her back until he could cup the globes of firm flesh at the lower end of their journey.

  Cindy’s sucked in a sharp breath between full but parted lips as Hannibal trailed kisses down her chest, tonguing the increasing roundness until he finally drew a hardened nipple into his mouth. Cindy rewarded him with a low moan and her nails gently raked across his back as she fell backward onto the mattress.

  “So, how’d you ever end up with a name like Hannibal?” Cindy asked an hour later. Her head now floated with the rise and fall of Hannibal’s chest as she clung to his lean form in the darkness. He savored the citrus scent of her hair and tried to hold onto the warmth of afterglow.

  “Not a typical Afro-American name, is it?” Hannibal said. “Well, Mama told me my dad was looking for the name of a great military leader, a conqueror. Alexander was too common. Being German, Mama wouldn’t
even consider Napoleon, thank God. Somehow, they settled on Hannibal.”

  “That name must have made school a drag,” Cindy said while her fingertips lightly drew figure eights on his belly. “Kids can be so cruel when you have a name that’s a little different. So, what was it like, growing up in Europe?” He knew she wanted an exciting story, but he did not have one to tell her.

  “What was it like? Well, home was cool. School was kind of Shitty. What was it like? Kind of like being in the ring six hours a day. After school I got to go back to my corner, but it sure wore me out.”

  “But you went to an American school, right?” Cindy pressed. “I mean, you said you lived in Berlin and I know the Army’s been there since World War Two.”

  “Yeah, and I was an Army brat,” Hannibal said. “Somehow Mama managed to stay in American quarters after Papa died, to make sure I was raised like an American, not a German.”

  “So if it wasn’t Germans making school tough.”

  “What, you think Americans leave their prejudice at home when they go overseas?” Hannibal asked. “Mama did her best to convince me I was right and everybody else was wrong, but it didn’t help all that much. No, babe, it was pure hell, right up to high school.”

  Cindy craned her neck to kiss his. “What happened then?”

  “Well, there was this cracker, first week of my freshman year.” Hannibal sank into the past, protected by the darkness, inhaling the sweet mix of Cindy’s perfume and her own natural scent. “He said something about me being an Oreo, or a zebra, or one of the usual remarks. So I told him to kiss my ass. It was a Friday. After school we walked across the street and he kicked my ass. No great surprise. He had me by a good twenty pounds.”

  Cindy gently rubbed his face, as if she could soothe those long ago injuries. “God. What did you do?”

  “Well, something snapped in my head, and I kind of just said, that’s enough. Monday rolled around and I went after him. So he beat my ass again. I fought him again Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday. Finally Friday came around and by then the audience was getting thin. I guess it got boring just watching me fall down. When I caught up to him after school he asked me what my problem was. What MY problem was.”