“What?”
“Nothing, lover.”
“No,” he said, still smiling. “It’s something. What?”
“The car,” Cindy said. “We talked about you getting something different. I thought maybe you were ready for a change. You could have gotten anything, but here you are in another four door Volvo. Same same same.”
Startled, Hannibal pointed to the car with both hands, as if trying to get her to see what was so obvious to him. “Cindy. It’s BLACK.”
“Whatever,” she replied. Then her smile returned full force. God, he loved her when she smiled like that. He tried to dive into the empty moment, but they both spoke at once.
“I’ve got something I’ve got to…” It was a romantic comedy moment they both recognized, and they collapsed into laughter.
“What?” Cindy asked, gasping for breath.
“No no, you first.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Hannibal said.
Cindy balled her hands into fists and she suddenly seemed to be vibrating in anticipation. It all spilled out at once, in a voice of pure joy.
“Oh, God Hannibal, I didn’t want to steal your thunder in there, but I have had the most amazing forty-eight hours. The IPO offering has gone through the roof! So much better than anyone could have ever expected! We actually exceeded the twenty-five million we needed to raise by a solid margin. I am now the star of the firm.”
“That’s wonderful baby,” Hannibal said, wondering in silence how his proposal would compare to this success.
“And that’s not all!” Cindy grabbed both of Hannibal’s hands, shaking him and actually bouncing up and down like a kid at Christmas time. Her eyes flew wide and her hair bounced on her shoulders. “My stock options just went crazy! Hannibal, as of today at noon I was actually worth something like seven million dollars! Oh my God it’s like a drug. I swear, money is like a drug and I am as high as they get. Do you get it? I can have anything I want, baby. Whatever I think of, I can get it with a snap of my fingers.”
Hannibal kept the smile frozen on his face, but thanked the Lord for the dark glasses shielding his eyes. She was right. She could get anything she could think of, all by herself. That being true, what could she possibly need him for?
Cindy must have noticed his reserve, because her breathing slowed a bit, her smile backing down just a notch.
“I’m sorry. That was kind of selfish, or at least self-oriented, wasn’t it?”
“But well deserved,” Hannibal said. “I’m so proud of you, baby. You really are the best. So far above…” he left that sentence unfinished.
“So, what was your news? What did you want to tell me?”
Hannibal looked into Cindy’s eyes, but he thought about Anita and how her butler boyfriend did not react to a briefcase full of money. Of course, it contained just a sliver of Cindy’s new fortune, and they had started almost even. Anita needed Henry to help her understand how her life would change now. She needed his guidance, his knowledge of how to handle her windfall. They would chart their new course together.
He thought of Sarge, now forming a relationship with a woman of independent means. But Marquita had a long way to go to find her former self. She needed him emotionally and, well, didn’t everyone need to be needed?
He tried to imagine life with a wealthy, star attorney. He tried to picture himself taking her to a restaurant, or to a show, or driving her to an important social event. He tried to visualize their lives, in the evening, in her new home that she would pick out and have professionally decorated. The heiress and the detective. Nick and Nora Charles, he supposed, but it looked different from the inside.
He pulled his hand out of his pocket. Empty.
“Nothing, baby. It was nothing.”