Troubleshooter

by Austin Camacho

  With one beefy hand raised high, she was no longer conversing. She was testifying. Hannibal suddenly realized how his single-minded quest had become contagious. He defied “The Man.” Now everyone wanted to prove they could do it too. Only if it broke this time, it would not end with one man with bruises. It would be a blood bath.

  “Would you at least just call the police?” Hannibal asked.

  “Why? They’ll come when they’re ready. They’re right there, just two blocks away.”

  He stared off to his right. He could barely see a tiny revolving red light.

  For a moment he hesitated. He thought he could end this if he could talk to them, but could he risk getting that far away from his house?

  The truth was, he could not risk not going. Besides, it was pure arrogance to think that his presence alone could hold back the rising tide of frustration and anger that was about to crest in a wave of violence. He started up the block at a slow trot, but his legs picked up speed of their own accord as desperation pushed him over the sidewalk. All the way he passed men moving slowly in the opposite direction, a tide of joking, laughing, yet grim black faces. They all wanted to be where it was happening, and that was in front of number twenty-three thirteen.

  When the three parked police cars were half a block away, a uniformed man leaning on one of them laid his hand on his sidearm. Hannibal slowed his pace to a crawl and held his own hands away from his body. He was not sure what he planned to say to these men, but he had to get close enough to avoid shouting.

  “Something I can do for you, sir?” the cop holding his gun asked. Hannibal thought he looked too young to be trusted with a gun. Just as Hannibal was about to speak, another man stepped out of the second car.

  “That you Jones?” Kendall asked.

  Hannibal felt tension slide off his shoulders. “Man am I glad to see you. What the hell are you doing out here anyway?”

  “Watching,” Kendall said.

  “Well then, you can see what’s going down. Come on up the block and break this thing up before it gets out of hand.”

  Kendall took a long last drag from his cigarette and flipped it into the gutter. “No can do, friend. Orders.”

  “Orders?” Hannibal asked, stepping closer to the policeman. The other cop slid his revolver out of his holster, but Hannibal didn’t care. “Look, screw your orders. I got a hostage situation up there. A man’s been kidnapped. Now come get him and take me in if you have to. It’s about to blow up down there.”

  “I don’t care if you got the mayor bent over a barrel, pal.” Kendall’s piercing eyes bored into Hannibal’s as if trying to force a message home. “The bosses got long memories. They don’t want another riot like they had here in the sixties after the assassination of Martin Luther King. I reported everything I saw and we, meaning every cop in the city, we have been forbidden to interfere. Seriously, if anything will set it all off in this neighborhood, it’s a blue uniform.” His eyes dropped to the ground then. “We’ll come in when it’s all over.”

  Kendall’s words hit Hannibal like hailstones. He felt the ground sliding out from under him. Without another word, he turned and walked as quickly as he could without breaking into a run back toward his own building. This was not the situation he had bought. It was just too big for him. It was not fair that he should be responsible for all these men and their families.

  When he reached the front steps at twenty-three thirteen, Hannibal hesitated at the bottom. Maybe he could say something, make an announcement, that would make these people disperse. He could see about thirty men or so on the street at this point. Probably two-thirds of them were Sal’s flunkies. He might be able to make the local people see common sense and get to safety.

  Before he could turn around, two black men slapped him gently on the back.

  “Chill, brother,” one man in undershirt and baggy pants said, grinning wide. “They ain’t the only ones with guns, dig?”

  “Oh, God!” Hannibal moaned, bolting up the stairs. Sarge opened the door in silence. Hannibal did not speak either, but maintained his pace, jogging up the stairs. This nonsense had to stop, and he only knew one person who might be able to make that happen.

  -38-

  On the top floor, Hannibal burst into the flat that had become his command post. Looking neither left nor right, he marched into the room he had left Ronzini in. Not speaking, he grabbed up Cindy’s purse and pulled out her cordless telephone. While his right hand held the phone toward Ronzini like an olive branch, he drew his automatic and thrust it forward, pressing its muzzle against Ronzini’s forehead.

  “You call that asshole son of yours and tell him to call this shit off,” Hannibal snapped. Somehow, maybe from experience with a dozen gangland attempts on his life, Ronzini managed to not react.

  “He probably thinks I’m already dead,” Ronzini replied blandly. “Now, if you can tell me what this is all about, I might be able to stop it.”

  “About?” Hannibal repeated, his gun still in the other man’s face. “It’s about getting the drugs out of this building. Right now, it’s about no innocent bystanders getting hurt.”

  “Fine,” Ronzini said in a maddeningly even tone. “Give yourself up.” He looked deep into Hannibal’s eyes, which were more green than brown right then.

  “The hell I will!”

  “Okay,” Ronzini said, as if he had just made a point. “Now you see. It ain’t about drugs and it ain’t about innocent bystanders. It’s about egos. Yours and Salvatore’s. You won’t give up. Neither will he. And now we both know your reason’s no better than his.”

  Fearing the confusion now clouding his mind, Hannibal turned away from Ronzini, again resting his hands on his hips. Looking over at Cindy, he saw indecision in her eyes. He wanted badly to ask her what to do, but he would not, because she might tell him to quit. Would giving up save all those people outside, his new neighbors and Ronzini’s men? No, there was another way. He spun back on the gangster lounging on the bed.

  “It ain’t just me and Sal no more,” Hannibal said in a guttural street voice that apparently surprised Ronzini. “And you ain’t the only outsider in it no more. People fixing to get hurt bad.”

  “So?”

  “So? So?” Hannibal dropped the gun and the phone on the bed, fingers digging into the collar of Ronzini’s expensive suit. Ronzini’s eyes bulged as Hannibal lifted his bulk up from the bed. Heaving with all his weight, Hannibal hauled the gangster upright, spun, and flung him into the next room. Ronzini’s knees cracked on the floor. Hannibal gripped the back of his collar, dragging his heavy body forward until his chest slapped onto the windowsill. Ronzini’s hands pressed against the windowsill to keep him from being choked. His head was thrust half way out the open window.

  “Look down there, you greasy slug,” Hannibal said through clenched teeth. “Look! You see them. They ain’t just pieces in some big game. They’re living, breathing human beings. Not just my people. Some of your best boys too, I bet.”

  He knelt beside Ronzini, pushing their faces together, holding the older man still by a handful of thick graying hair. He thought he saw something new in Ronzini’s face. He prayed it was the light of understanding beginning to dawn.

  “Even you can see he’s already lost this block,” Hannibal said. “Even if he got the building back, those people down there would never let this place stay a crack house. They’d fight to the end, now. And you know if any shit starts down there, dudes will come running in from blocks away, just to be in on it. All of Anacostia, all of Southeast. Maybe down from Northeast too. You ready for this? You ready for a blood bath, right here in D.C.? A sure enough riot? Were you here when King got shot? Or maybe you saw it up close in New York in the sixties. These people are just as frustrated, just as mad. I could die here. You could die. Your son could die. A shitload of people who got no business in this could die. You want this?”

  It was time to shut up. Hannibal locked eyes with Ronzini and would not let go. He watched Ron
zini’s gaze roam from shadowed face to shadowed face below them, sensing the mood, the tension, the hatred on the street. Those forces created an unbroken circuit of anger ready to flare up into a firestorm, engulfing this block and, maybe, several around it.

  “I don’t want this,” Ronzini said quietly. His whisper reverberated in the otherwise silent room. Soft, slow footsteps approached from behind. A telephone hung close to his ear.

  “Call your son,” Cindy said. “Call this damned thing off before it’s too late.”

  Ronzini sat on the floor. Hannibal knelt beside him. Between them, Cindy’s hand held her telephone. Slowly, like a boy choosing his own whipping switch, Ronzini accepted the phone. He pushed six buttons, stopped and looked up.

  “Salvatore is too proud,” Ronzini said. “I think you are not as proud as you were an hour ago. You agree to settle this with him, one to one?”

  “Me and him,” Hannibal said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

  Ronzini nodded and pushed the last button. Holding the telephone an inch from his head, he made sure Hannibal and Cindy could hear the ringing at the other end. Over his shoulder, he noticed Virgil, in a chair. He had picked up Hannibal’s pistol, and held it casually on Ronzini.

  A soft burring buzz sounded four times before a voice said “What?”

  “Salvatore. This is Papa,” Ronzini said firmly. The only response was silence. “Salvatore.”

  “Papa, you okay?” Sal sounded too up, as if he was using his own products.

  “Salvatore, pull your men out of the street,” Ronzini said. “Jones will let me go, and he will come out. It’s over.”

  “The hell it is,” Sal answered. “He got a gun on you, Papa? I know he’s making you say these things. Don’t worry, Papa. I’ll get in there and get you out. You tell him that.”

  “No, Salvatore, listen to me. Listen to me!” Ronzini was on his knees, yelling into a dead piece of plastic. Three seconds later, the dial tone returned, like an EKG hooked to a flat lined patient. Shock showed on Ronzini’s face.

  “He hung up on me.” Ronzini swallowed, as if a bitter pill had gotten stuck in his throat. “My boy just hung up on me.”

  “Well, no sense putting up with you no more.” That deep, scratchy voice made Hannibal look up, and he watched Virgil stepping forward, gun first.

  -39-

  Virgil’s yellowed eyes bore down on Anthony Ronzini as he approached. “That shit your son pushes up and down the street come close to killing me.”

  He was a big man, wide as Ronzini. His arms looked thick and soft, like sausages. His two hands nearly hid the back half of the pistol, but the gun looked bigger four inches from Ronzini’s nose. Virgil’s breathing was deep and loud, as if he were working himself up for something. Everybody in the room knew what it was.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Cindy said, trying desperately to conceal her panic.

  “The hell I don’t.” Virgil stared down the automatic’s sights into a spot between Ronzini’s eyes. The gangster betrayed no emotion, but new beads of moisture erupted from his forehead.

  “Of course you want to kill him.” Hannibal slowly rose to his feet. “So do I. But you won’t. You’re more of a man than he is. You don’t have to kill him.”

  Ronzini swallowed, but when he spoke, it was with a clear voice. “I’ve done a lot illegal things. Probably caused a lot of other people to do some crooked things. But I swear to you, I never in my life sold any dope. Never.” Then, without ever losing eye contact, he stood up. With the appearance of total calm, he walked past Virgil who seemed frozen in place, and sat back down on the bed. Virgil did not resist Hannibal taking back his pistol.

  Cindy was staring out the window now, and Hannibal went to stand behind her. Ronzini was staring at a point in space between himself and the wall.

  For a brief moment, Virgil had stepped center stage and felt the spotlight on himself. Now the light had moved on, and he knew he was invisible for a time to the main players. Unnoticed, he walked out and down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, Sarge stepped out of the left apartment. “Hi,” Sarge said, shaking his head. “I was checking the view through a window. Getting ugly outside. What’s the deal upstairs?”

  “It’s out of control, man.” Virgil said, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. “Hannibal can’t stop it. Ronzini can’t stop it. I’m afraid the whole thing’s going to blow.”

  Sarge glanced up into Virgil’s yellowed eyes, then looked again more closely. Virgil pulled his face away, but he knew it was too late.

  “So what else?” Sarge asked.

  Loud voices outside the door nearly drowned out Virgil’s deep scratchy voice. “I just come real close to doing something real stupid. I had a gun. I got frustrated. I come that close to killing Ronzini.”

  Sarge whistled a descending note. “Yeah, that would have done it all right. Gang war and a riot for sure. What the hell put that idea in your head?”

  “I been thinking about that.” Virgil sat on the guard desk. “I think it was something Timothy said, about the guys pushing the junk. You know I used to shoot up.”

  “Yeah, it kind of shows, long after you quit,” Sarge said, as if stating a commonly known natural law.

  “Anyway, Timothy was talking about how we ought to just put a bullet in the man’s head. He’d have done it himself if he got the chance.”

  “Yeah. That guy scares me. Back in the Corps we’d have called him a loose cannon on deck.”

  Virgil’s eyes suddenly widened, his mouth hanging slightly open. He was putting puzzle pieces together in his mind and getting a very ugly picture.

  “When’s the last time you seen Timothy?” Virgil asked.

  “Don’t know,” Sarge said. “Why?”

  “He’s got a gun, you know.”

  Sarge barely missed a beat before pulling out his radio. “Quaker, you there?” he asked it.

  “Yo,” the radio said. “Hannibal’s kitchen.”

  “Timothy with you?” Sarge asked.

  “Ain’t seen him, man,” Quaker answered. “And I can see through to Ray on the other side, and he’s all alone. What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” Sarge told Quaker. Then he turned to Virgil. “This ain’t good, man. If he gets a wild hair up his ass and fires out into the street he could trigger a firefight to match anything I saw in Nam.”

  “Better tell Hannibal,” Virgil said, starting up the stairs.

  “No,” Sarge said, pulling the back of Virgil’s shirt. “Ronzini’s pretty safe as long as Hannibal’s with him. Timothy can do the most damage if he hits somebody outside. Let’s you and me check for him on the first floor. If he don’t turn up, then we go upstairs and do a room by room sweep, just like when we first come in.”

  “Okay,” Virgil said, picking up Sarge’s bat. “Hold that shotgun up when you go, man. I don’t think he’d shoot me. Anybody else, well, I don’t know. I think the pressure got to him. No telling what he’d do.”

  Upstairs, Cindy stared down at the men doing their war dance under the streetlights. “Madre de Dios,” she murmured, “now what do we do.” Tension was squeezing miniature tears through her eyelids.

  “I don’t know,” Hannibal said. “I really don’t know. They think they’re doing the right thing down there. Hell, maybe they are. I can’t stop them.”

  As if he was sitting in a different room, Ronzini said, “He hung up on me.”

  Hannibal’s mind, left without focus for a moment, attached itself to Ronzini’s internal conversation. “You set him up in business, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I got him started,” Ronzini admitted. “He’s a man now, he needs to find himself.”

  “But now you can’t control him,” Hannibal said.

  “He never learned he can’t just do anything he pleases,” Ronzini said. “I know sometimes he gets out of hand. That’s my fault. I never taught him he ain’t God. Never let anybody else teach him. I protected him.”

  Behind him, outs
ide and three stories lower, Hannibal heard a bottle crash on the sidewalk. A slightly slurred voice said “Y’all need to get the fuck out of here before I fuck you up.” It would start soon.

  “I thought I could do it,” Hannibal said quietly to Cindy. “I thought I could, but it’s too big for me. Didn’t think anything was, but this is. Ronzini was right. My ego could get a lot of good people hurt.” That thought kicked him forward, driving him to clutch at the only straw he saw. He faced Ronzini, his head dropping like an under inflated child’s punching toy. “I quit. Okay? I quit. Sally wins. He gets whatever he wants. Now call it off.”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Desperation showed in Ronzini’s red rimmed eyes. “He won’t even talk to me.”

  “So undercut him,” Hannibal almost shouted. “I’ll bet every one of them hoods out there knows you, or knows who you are. The pros do, anyway. Think they’ll listen to him if you tell them to hit the road?”

  The room became a frozen tableau. Hannibal, rooted in place, became aware of the wetness under his arms. He could smell himself, an acid stench he guessed came from fear and self-reproach. Outside, a voice clearly not bred in Washington’s inner city said, “Back off, spade.” Something passed between Hannibal’s mostly brown eyes and Ronzini’s. It was the only movement in the room.

  When Hannibal’s chest began to ache from not breathing, Ronzini’s face slowly wound itself into a twisted smile. “He needs a lesson. We still got a deal?”

  Hannibal let his breath out in a strangled hiss. “Whatever it takes. Stop the riot.”

  Sarge held the shotgun barrel ahead of himself as he worked his way through Hannibal’s apartment. In contrast to what was going on outside, the apartment held the silence of a tomb. He felt just as he did the first day that he entered that building. At any minute, someone could well step out of a shadow and try to kill him.