Austin Camacho - Damaged goods

“It’s ready,” Anita called.

Hannibal bounded up the stairs to find Anita facing him with her back to the stove, pointing toward the table at the front of the house where a glass of lemonade already stood. He smiled a thank-you and moved to a chair while stuffing his glasses and gloves into inside jacket pockets. Green plants lining the windowsill beside him were a silent testament to one more thing he could not do, keep plants alive in his home.

Anita served lunch, in a truer sense than Hannibal was accustomed to. She carried his soup bowl on its plate to the table, and then brought another plate with two sandwiches. The sandwiches were cut in half diagonally and turned so the crusts touched and the filling side faced out. She carried the plates with both hands, and placed them on the table with her face down, almost as if she were bowing to him. Then she returned to the stove, and lifted her own sandwich from its plate, as if she intended to eat standing at the counter by the sink. For Hannibal, that was too much.

“Please, come join me,” he said, keeping his tone light. “We need to talk a bit while we eat, so I can get some facts straight.”

Anita quickly carried her plate to the table and sat at the other end. In the eerie quiet she chewed slowly, her eyes mostly focused down on her food. Hannibal tasted his own sandwich, leaned back and smiled. It was on rye bread with onions and celery and maybe a hint of mustard as well.

“Hey, that’s really good,” he said.

When she smiled back at him her nose wrinkled adorably and her shoulders rose a bit. “Thank you,” she said, barely loud enough to be heard.

“I’m impressed at how well you keep the house,” Hannibal said, sipping his lemonade. “And I noticed everything is very organized. Did your father keep it this way?”

“Daddy was never as organized as he could have been. I actually kept his things straight for him. It was good to have someone to take care of. We took care of each other.”

Hannibal nodded, and sipped his chicken soup. “So, you organized all his work notes and such?”

“Oh yes. It was one way I helped Daddy out.”

“So, you couldn’t have missed the fact that his most recent notebook is gone,” Hannibal said. “Didn’t it occur to you that whatever your father meant for you to have might be hidden in them?”

Anita looked down again. “It was just his notes. What could be so valuable in one of those books?”

What indeed? Hannibal could think of a dozen possibilities. Incriminating photographs could lie between the pages. Dirt on a company executive could be written between the formulas, or even trade secrets Anita’s father could have sold to another firm. These were the kinds of intangible items that people often paid a great deal of money for. They were also the kinds that lose value quickly once too many people are aware of them. The kind of treasure that is all too often unrecoverable. You can’t repossess a person’s knowledge.

“Well, one way or another, it sounds as if you won’t get whatever it is back unless I can make some sort of settlement with Rod. That means I won’t be able to help you unless I can find him, and it sounds as if this guy knows how to keep a low profile. He could be several states away by now.”

Anita was looking at the floor again, her fingers laced together in front of her, biting her lower lip. Sitting behind her half eaten sandwich, she looked even smaller than she really was. “Please Mr. Jones. Please try. Whatever my father left me, it’s my only legacy from him.”

Hannibal pushed his food aside. “I don’t even know if I can help you. I need more to go on. So tell me a little about this Rod fellow. Where did he work? What did he do?”

“Rod was very handy,” Anita said. “He helped a lot around the house, and sometimes he did odd jobs for neighbors and such.”

“I see.” Hannibal was starting to form a picture of their relationship, and it was not a pretty one. “He stayed here?”

“He had no place to go.”

“Did he give you money?” Hannibal asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it.

Anita, to her credit, stuck to the truth. “Once in a while he bought groceries and such. But he was real good at fixing things around here. And he helped me, you know, get focused. He helped me with having a purpose in life.”

Her designated purpose appeared to be to take care of this man who appeared out of nowhere to take advantage of her and, most likely, to steal the only thing of value left to her. Hannibal was starting to really dislike this guy. “What’s his full name, and what does he look like.”

Anita squared her shoulders as if reporting to a drill sergeant. “Roderick Mantooth is his full name. He’s a little shorter than you but bigger, broader. His hair is black, like his eyes, and he’s…” Here she looked out the window, avoiding Hannibal’s gaze. “He’s white.”

That fact seemed a lot more significant to Anita than it was to Hannibal.

“Rod Mantooth? Could that be his real name? Oh, well. You said you saw him at another woman’s house. Was he driving?”

“Oh yes, Rod was driving.”

Good. “Did you get the license plates?”

“No. I’m sorry, the car was too far away.”

Her shyness, bordering on subservience, was beginning to annoy him. “Well, that would have made it a lot easier to find the guy. Do you think you’d recognize the car again?”

“Oh, of course.” Anita’s smile seemed almost to reflect pride. “You couldn’t miss it with those big fins on the back. It’s a specially customized car, fire engine red with white interior. Rod calls it a Corvorado.”

“A what?”

“The front end is from a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette. From the doors back, it’s a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado. You couldn’t miss that.”

Hannibal was afraid he might miss the boat.

The entrance gate to the pier was on the water's edge to Hannibal’s left as he faced the Potomac River, playing with the ring box in his left front pocket. The Nina’s Dandy floated there, her windows reflecting the last few rays of the orange sun at Hannibal’s back. He squinted for a while, and then turned away from that reflection, his eyes not shielded by sunglasses for a change. Across the river, tall oaks and maples blazed golden in that reddened glow, and waves like silver sequins lapped at the shore. Everything was dressed up for the occasion.

Unlike his idyllic backdrop, Hannibal felt unnatural in his costume. His double-breasted Italian suit was pure silk, in a color he wasn’t sure he could name. Creme, perhaps, or off tan with sort of a gold tone. Anyway, he knew Cindy liked it. His navy blue shirt came with a matching pocket square, so he wore both. He did like the tie, kind of a silvery charcoal with a subtle darker diagonal stripe.

Hannibal flashed back an hour or so, to the moments before he left home. He was standing erect, trying to hold still while Sarge worked to tie Hannibal’s tie in an impressive Windsor knot, so much classier than the usual four-in-hand Hannibal whipped into his work ties every day. Sarge appeared to be enjoying Hannibal’s plight, perhaps sharing the experience in some vicarious way. Hannibal knew Sarge’s life had become a lonely one, for no reason Hannibal could identify. Why were so many good people alone? In any case, Hannibal took joy in his own amazing luck in having a wonderful woman after too many years of short lived relationships followed by long spaces of alone time. He was determined to make this one stick.

Several guests had already boarded the Nina’s Dandy, the floating restaurant he had chosen for the special moment. Hannibal wondered if Cindy would arrive in time for them to eat. Then again, he wondered if he would be able to eat. The acid leaping inside his stomach seemed to be voting no.