“I was over optimistic,” Hannibal said while shaking small dots of steak sauce onto his porterhouse. “The phone call was pleasant, but it was a dead end.”
“I’m sorry.” Cindy brushed an errant strand of hair back and shared a broad smile that deepened her dimples. “Haven’t been able to get my brain away from work. What were you saying?”
Hannibal had hoped that a good steak would get her mind off her job. Bobby Van’s and one or two other places were contenders, but for his money Morton’s served the best aged, top-prime porterhouse steak in the city. Or, more accurately, for their money. Cindy always insisted they go Dutch at places like this.
“Just that this lead to Anita Cooper’s father didn’t pan out. This Ron Trumble character.” Hannibal took a deep, relaxing breath. It wasn’t the expensive appointments that drew him to a restaurant like this, or the attentive service. Hannibal loved being wrapped in the red meat smell of a good steak place. The smell hinted at so much: freshly cracked peppercorns, sauteed onions, mushrooms, and the scent that arises when flames meet a well marbled cut of beef.
“Oh, yes,” Cindy said, sliding her knife through her steak. “This is the girl who likes it rough.”
“I don’t know if that’s really true. But this guy she was with sure did a number on her.”
Cindy waited to speak until she finished chewing. She was beautiful in her navy blue power suit and Hannibal briefly wondered how many she owned. She wore her hair up that day, but by six o’clock a few locks always shook themselves loose from captivity. When she looked up, she seemed surprised to find him hanging on her words.
“You make her sound like a victim, and maybe she is. But trust me, my gallant knight, there are plenty of women out there just waiting for a man to come along and hand them just what you described this Rod character did. There’s a market for muy macho hombres with plenty of machismo.”
That doesn’t justify it, he thought. Aloud he said. “Weak women.”
“Maybe just different tastes.” She pointed at him with her fork. “You are so limited in your view of humanity. And judgmental.”
The juices filling his mouth as his teeth pushed through the black crust surrounding rare meat numbed Hannibal to what could be an insult.
“Well, no man could ever do that to you, right?”
“Oh, hell no,” Cindy said, adding her lilting laugh. “Some man came at me with all that master shit, I’d have to stab him in his sleep.” She put her fork down beside her plate, placing her fingers together in front of her face. “But then again…”
“Then again what?”
“Well, you know, as play,” she said, her eyes wandering out the window behind Hannibal, reflecting the night-lights on Independence Avenue. “I mean, don’t you ever think about, you know.”
“Not sure I do know, babe.”
Cindy dug into her baked potato. “Well, like, being tied to the bedposts with silk scarves. That kind of thing sometimes does sound a little exciting.”
“Right, and I’m sure you’re just waiting for a man to tie you down and beat you.”
“Well, hold up a minute,” Cindy said, warming to her subject. “Think about it. There’s a world of difference between a beating and a spanking, isn’t there?”
“Okay, change of subject.” When her eyebrows rose he said, “I am not comfortable talking about that stuff with you. I know we’ll both be working tomorrow, but where would you like to go tonight?”
Cindy’s eyes went down to her plate. “Sorry sugar, I can’t go out partying tonight.”
He slid his hand across the tablecloth to take hers. “Worn out, hon? I know it’s been a long day. Why don’t we just pick up a nice bottle of wine and go back to my place?”
“No, you don’t understand, baby. I’ve spent so much time on the DPO that my other cases have gone by the boards. I need to get back to the office for a few more hours.”
“Excuse me?”
Cindy’s shoulders dropped. “I am so tired. But at that firm, anybody who’s not putting in ninety hours every week just isn’t going to move up. And then you have stuff like this cocktail party we’re all expected to be at tomorrow night. It just gets to be too much. Damn it. They think they own you. They think four hundred grand per entitles them to your whole life. And you know what? They’re right. They own me.”
Hannibal shook slightly, as if an unexpected glass of ice water had been thrown into his face. Was it a slip, or a jab? He had never put an actual number next to Cindy’s income in his mind. That casual comment seemed to force a shift in his world. She wasn’t his girl anymore. He was hers. He was the helper, the junior partner in their relationship. At that moment he remembered the ring he still carried in his pocket every day, waiting for the right moment to make his claim on her future. The ring felt far heavier now. Maybe he should wait for her to propose to him.
Right behind that thought her later words pushed through. They own me, she said. The firm came first. The money not only made her the natural alpha in their relationship, it made her firm her first priority. They took precedence. He was hers, and she was theirs.
“Fuck that.”
Cindy’s head snapped back, her eyes wide. He realized he was squeezing her hand harder than he had intended. And the couple at the next table looked over at him, and then quickly looked away. He had been a bit louder than he had intended too.
“Hannibal? What’s wrong?”
“You tell me. Is Baylor, Truman and Ray more important than me? Than us?”
“Of course not,” she said. “That’s not what I meant.” But he noted the second of hesitation before her statement.
“All right then, let’s go,” Hannibal said. “We haven’t had enough alone time lately.”
The drive back to Anacostia was much quieter than usual, at least in terms of conversation. Hannibal turned the stereo up louder than he generally did when she was aboard and played music he had never played before with Cindy in the car. He didn’t know if Cindy had ever heard of Def Leppard, and didn’t really care. She sat in silence against the passenger door while he drummed on the steering wheel and sang along to “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”
He parked in his unofficial designated space in front of his building and walked around to help Cindy out of the car. She squeezed his hand as he walked her up the outside steps, unlocked the hall door, and marched down the hall to his own apartment door. He was just turning the knob when she finally spoke.
“It really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“The crazy hours you work?” Hannibal asked, guiding her through the living room toward the kitchen. He needed to pop that bottle of wine. She spoke again before he could reach the light switch.
“My income. I never knew. I never thought.”
Hannibal turned and pressed his face very close to hers in the darkness, aware that his breathing had gotten heavy. “This is not about money.”
Cindy found his light eyes in the darkness. Her respiration rate was up as well, he noticed, her breasts rising to brush against his chest. “Really. Just what is this about? The precious male ego?”
“Don’t push me, Cindy.”
She pushed.
He pushed back.
9
Hannibal drove the white Volvo very slowly through Marquita’s neighborhood, dodging kids who were chasing basketballs they’d thrown through driveway hoops. It was a quiet area on a Saturday morning, looking too much like a television sitcom neighborhood for his tastes. Cindy was again slumped against her door, but this time she wore a soft smile and her eyes closed. Hannibal’s fingers drummed lightly on the wheel, keeping time to a George Duke tune called “Love Has No Rhyme, No Reason.” He knew the truth of that.
“Listen, thanks again for agreeing to talk to Marquita,” Hannibal said. “I know you’ve got your own giant load of work, but she can’t really focus and she’s got financial matters that have to be straightened out.”