Austin Camacho - Damaged goods

“Well, what is it?”

“It appears to be an audio file,” the guard said.

The stranger flashed a sly smile, glanced at Hannibal and said, “Well, play it.”

The guard tapped keys and what sounded like a hip-hop beat came out of the laptop. Derek’s hand slid toward the space between the cushions. The move was subtle, but Hannibal was sure the guard behind him would have noticed it. He sat very still, trying hard to look harmless.

The audio track evolved into a rap performance. Sarge finally looked at Hannibal when the lyrics started: “She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean…”

The stranger’s eyes hooked to Hannibal.

Sarge said, “Damn.”

Hannibal reached for the stranger’s attention. “Look this doesn’t have to end ugly. You still want the formula, right? I might be able to…”

Rod screamed, “You son of a bitch!” His hand thrust under his chair. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

The stranger stayed still, composed. The man at the computer performed some sort of sleight of hand magic trick and a pistol appeared in his right fist, pointed toward Rod. Derek pulled a gun out of the sofa. Sheryl dived for the floor. A hand landed on Hannibal’s shoulder, he guessed to hold him still as a shield. He heard a safety catch click off near his ear.

And then Hannibal went blind.

A heavy revolver roared and the eye-scorching blast jarred Hannibal into action. He dived hard to his right, away from the couch, one hand already working into his pocket as two more shots were fired. He had no time to wonder why the lights had gone out. He just knew that survival depended on taking advantage of miracles when they came along.

Hannibal had a pretty good mental picture of where each of the players would go for cover. Listening to the rustling of bodies scrambling for safety between at least half a dozen more gunshots, Hannibal rolled to the wall beside the door, the last place he expected any of them to go. A gunshot on his right brought a scream of fear from Sheryl. Her pitiful sobbing came from somewhere near the middle of the room. Hannibal managed to free his pocketknife and begin work on the tape holding his wrists in place.

Someone was creeping along the wall to his right. Someone else was crawling behind the sofa. Then he heard a heavier thump at the base of the stairs. It had to be Rod. He was moving up the stairs. There was no way to know what kind of arsenal he might have there. Hannibal imagined Rod at the top of the stairs with a machine gun hosing down the room. He couldn’t reach him without crossing the no man’s land of the center of the room. But, could he get one of the others to bring Rod down?

His hands free, Hannibal eased up into a crouch. While adjusting his balance he bumped his head against the blinds. The soft rattle shot fear down his spine. He snapped back to the floor, waiting for a bullet to find him. No one fired. Maybe the others were also focused on the stairs. And he had just bumped into the possible solution.

Focusing his attention on the denser darkness at the center of the room, Hannibal slowly raised his left hand, gripped the cord hanging behind it, and yanked hard.

With a loud whirr the blinds raced toward the ceiling. The pale blue moonlight revealed a frozen tableau of desperation faced with inevitability. Derek stood in the center of the floor straddling his weeping girlfriend. With his teeth clenched like Dirty Harry he held the big. 44 Magnum thrust forward aiming at a space on the wall halfway between the two bodyguards. Before Derek could even decide whether to swing left or right, two automatics spoke at once. The Magnum revolver fired into the ceiling and Derek flew backward as if yanked by wires. Sheryl screamed again. The gunmen’s eyes turned to Hannibal.

The stranger rose from behind his chair and walked calmly toward the door. When he was inches away from Hannibal he stopped and nodded once. Then his eyes went to the stairs. Rod must have already reached the second floor. The stranger looked again at Hannibal.

“Will we meet again?”

“No,” Hannibal said. “Other priorities.”

The stranger offered a half smile and then said, “Let’s go” in a clear voice and opened the door. His men moved to follow him. Hannibal stood and bolted toward the stairs. Halfway across the room he bent long enough to scoop up the revolver Derek had dropped. With the muzzle pointed toward the ceiling he raced up the stairs, praying that he would meet Rod at the top. Instead, he found the hallway empty. It was the hall where Rod had kicked and beaten him. The second floor of this house held only ugly memories.

Moonlight showed him that the first room, where Mariah was beaten, was equally vacant.

The second bedroom, where Derek and Sheryl had played before the boy was blown away trying to defend his mentor, was unoccupied.

He entered the final bedroom, where Hannibal had been chained and forced to watch Missy being brutally sodomized. This empty room greeted him with a fresh breeze. The window stood open. Rod had not come upstairs for weaponry. He had deserted his junior partner. Hannibal followed.

When his feet hit the ground he rolled twice and came up gun first. Only then, gazing across the pistol’s front sight, did he realize that he was on the hunt. Deep footprints in the turf and broken brush showed Rod’s path back toward the street. Hannibal really had no choice but to follow. This had to end that night.

The street was again empty when Hannibal returned to it, but he could hear Rod’s heavy tread moving away to his right. He heard sirens approaching from the opposite direction. Maybe Missy did call the police after all. But the Colombians had already made themselves scarce and Rod would disappear into the landscape if Hannibal lost track of him.

Hannibal pushed the big revolver into his belt and started an easy jog in Rod’s direction. Within half a block he had eased the throttle up to a respectable cross country pace and was closing on his quarry. Residences flew past him to be replaced by a growing number of businesses. His lungs burned as he dragged air deeper and deeper into them. His ribs ached from Rod’s earlier kicks. His whole body ached from the miscellaneous traumas it took when Hannibal’s beloved White Tornado speared into the ground and the car collapsed around him to keep him and his passenger alive. It didn’t matter how far Rod ran. Hannibal would catch him and see to it that he never damaged another woman.

Devoid of traffic, Pacific Avenue was just another wide street. What mattered to Hannibal was that when he crossed it he was close enough to Rod to see that he was dragging. The man was strong, but he was no runner.

Atlantic Avenue was dark except for the security lights that every store and shop had shining over its door. A minute later they were racing across the boardwalk and down the wooden stairs to the cool sand. Did Rod intend to swim to safety? No, he turned right just short of the waterline and pushed himself onward.

They ran in wet sand now, the salt smell so strong it wrinkled Hannibal’s nose. They passed folding chairs and the periodic lifeguard platforms, but on this night there was no one on or even near the beach but the two of them. They were running south, passing single digit streets on the other side of the boardwalk. Their numbers, he knew, were dropping quickly. He couldn’t see the end ahead, but he knew it was there, just past Second Street. He was panting aloud now, watching his towering shadow chasing Rod’s across the sand, which was smoothed by the receding tide. He was close enough to hear Rod’s labored breathing now. His legs were beginning to burn. Would he be able to bring Rod down if he caught up to him?

The silliness of that question suddenly struck him. He slowed to a jog and drew the long. 44 from his belt. He held the weapon in both hands, thrust forward like a divining rod that was unerringly drawn toward evil.