Hannibal looked up to find Henry smiling, more with his eyes than with his mouth.
“What?”
“You are, in fact, the colorful character Mr. Blair said you were,” Henry said.
“Me?” Hannibal said. “I’m not colorful, brother, I’m just for real. You’re the dude that’s colorful. Look at you. Whatever possessed you to become somebody’s servant?”
Henry lowered his eyelids and spoke with a little more force. “Mister Blair needs me. I keep his world spinning while his head is in the stratosphere. And you’re one to talk about anyone’s vocation. A man who spends his life mucking about in other people’s misery.”
“Mucking about?” Hannibal repeated, imitating Henry’s enunciation. “Man, you’ve spent too much time with those Brits. But I’ll tell you, sometimes poking through other people’s garbage is important. Sometimes it’s the only way to solve their problems.”
“Indeed.” Their eyes locked, and Hannibal realized that somehow he had made Henry’s point for him.
An online map service told Hannibal that he could drive three hundred and forty miles southwest and still be in Virginia. And since that was where he could find Brendon Hathaway, Hannibal filled his gas tank and drove onto I-66 west, pointed toward Grayson County.
While most of his mind focused on driving and scanning for police cars, a part of him was still reeling from his web surfing the night before. He had taken Cindy up on her suggestion and visited a few Internet chat rooms. It took him a while to find what he was looking for, but armed with the abbreviation she had given him he soon found himself lurking in a place where he thought the role play would have made Anita feel right at home not long ago. His actual first name was accepted well as a screen nickname. He quickly learned that those who didn’t capitalize their names, mostly women, were treated like children in some chat rooms, and like outright slaves in others. When they typed their conversations, He was struck by the odd convention of capitalizing even pronouns attached to the Dominant people, and the use of lower case by submissives, even to the pronoun “I.” He saw that somehow they could change the color of their type, and lines in one color represented actions rather than speech. In some rooms, the actions were pornographic. In others, rapes and other violent acts were carried out. Sitting at his computer, in contact with the others only through a screen, he still left feeling the need for a shower.
Sunday morning traffic locked Hannibal into a slowly rolling grid at the start of his drive. He didn’t mind, because his car was his office for the day. While he watched the bumper of the Escalade moving in front of him in fits and starts he made his first call.
“Isaac, what’s on your schedule today?”
“Well, I’m working security for a concert tonight,” Isaac said. “Of course, if you need me for something I can cancel.”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble now that you’ve got a full time job, buddy.”
Isaac’s smile came through the telephone speaker as clearly as if Hannibal could see him. “Now Hannibal, if it wasn’t for you Anna wouldn’t even be talking to me. You need me, you got me.”
When the Redskins dropped him from their rolls, Isaac Ingersoll became an abusive husband. Hannibal helped Isaac’s wife and son to leave him before he did any permanent damage. Then, after getting to know him, Hannibal helped Isaac to get counseling and to begin the process of reconciliation with his family. For that, Isaac would always be grateful.
“Isaac, there’s a lady lying in Fairfax Inova Hospital recovering from a serious beating. Serious, as in black eyes, cracked ribs and a broken nose. She’s healing, and her nose has been reset well enough that no one will ever know. I don’t want any more harm to come to her.”
There was a short pause. “And if the guy who did all this shows up?” Isaac asked.
“Then you can have him.”
Like a reformed smoker or drug addict, Isaac Ingersoll had developed strong feelings about people who clung to his former vice. He was also six feet four inches tall and weighed something over three hundred twenty pounds. He was fully capable of teaching any man who battered women what it was like to be on the receiving end of a good beating. Hannibal was certain that Anita would be safe as long as Isaac was at her hospital door.
Traffic was just thinning when Hannibal called Sarge.
“How is Marquita doing, buddy?”
“It’s amazing, Hannibal,” Sarge replied. “She’s so much stronger than she was yesterday. I think she’s ready to go out to the market this morning.”
“Glad to hear it, Sarge. Just make sure you go with her.”
“You know I’d stick with her every minute if I could,” Sarge said.
Hannibal rolled over the crest of another hill. Modest farms greeted him, and miles of pasture formed a patchwork quilt from his vantage point on the winding roads. “Well, starting today I want you to do just that, on the payroll,” Hannibal said. “Don’t want to take a chance that whoever visited Anita might want to visit Marquita.”
Sarge’s voice dropped an octave. “It would be a mistake for anybody to come out here and try to hurt Markie.”
Hannibal knew that Ray would be sleeping in, so he waited until he reached I-81 before that call. He was already feeling his ears pop when he turned toward Roanoke, climbing into the mountains. The road’s twists became sharper and more severe, with the shoulder disappearing from time to time. The depth of the forest on all sides and on the mountains ahead of him imparted a calm he was sure no drug could match. The mist that settled on the mountain highway cooled the air. Hannibal lowered his window a bit so that he could taste that mist and inhale the sweet clean scent of the mountains. While he was lulled by the countryside he called Ray and explained where he was in his latest case.
“It sounds like you want to catch this Rod character pretty bad, Paco,” Ray said. “Not sure how I can help.”
“Then you’re not thinking Ray,” Hannibal said, pushing the White Tornado into a curve fast enough to leave rubber behind on the road. “I’m pretty sure our boy’s back in the area. I doubt he’s stupid enough to go back to Vienna, but you’ve got a fleet of limousines on the road all the time, running all over the capital area, Northern Virginia and half of Maryland. All I ask is that you tell your drivers to keep an eye out for a candy apple red car that looks like a Stingray married a Caddy and they had a baby.”
“Sure thing Hannibal,” Ray said. “But speaking of getting married and all, have you popped the question to Cindy yet?”
Hannibal yanked the wheel, pulling his car back from drifting into the oncoming lane. He crested a rise and for a second it looked as if the entire world was laid out in front of him. Highland meadows and valleys, laced with streams and creeks, stretched out for miles ahead of him. The term “God’s country” appeared in his mind unbidden.
“Not yet, Ray. The right time hasn’t come up.”
“I’m not getting any younger, pepe,” Ray said.
Hannibal tapped his brakes as the road dived into a two-lane valley.
“I want those grandkids while I can still walk them to the park,” Ray said.
“Ray, some things you just can’t rush.”
“You can call me Papa.”
“Like hell,” Hannibal said, although the thought made him grin.
Five hours after he left the hospital, Hannibal pulled to a stop under a hanging red light in Independence, in the heart of Grayson County. The highlands of the Blue Ridge Mountains looked much like New England to him. The little village had been carved out of the lush greenery of high alpine meadows and the tranquility made the twenty-five mile per hour speed limit a blessing, not something to curse about as he did so often closer to home.
After getting Hathaway’s address from directory assistance, Hannibal had printed out directions from a mapping web site to guide him there. As he slid through the intersection of Routes 58 and 21 he picked up the sheet to make sure he was going the right way. He hardly saw a soul on his way, and he wondered if the entire population of Independence might still be in church.