Hannibal stooped to gather half the plastic bags in his hands but Eddie hesitated, watching Cindy’s hips as she swished away toward the Volvo. J-Lo with brains, he thought, a woman who made even a navy blue power suit look seductive.
“You are one lucky son of a bitch,” he said, grinning as he scooped up the rest of the bags.
Hannibal wasn’t feeling very lucky as he pulled into his unofficial parking space across the street from his apartment in Southeast DC. It was ten o’clock by then and he was worn out. Darkness hung over his neighborhood like a warm blanket, except for the cold pool of light from the streetlamp he parked under. He got out of his car feeling as if someone had strapped weights to his shoulders.
Many of his neighbors had their windows open despite the late autumn cool, and he was pulling in snippets from three different television shows. A deep breath told him that someone was enjoying their show with overbuttered popcorn. Somehow, the sounds and smells of families relaxing in front of their TV sets had a sedative effect on him. The steps up to his stoop looked a lot steeper than usual as he trudged toward them. At the top he pushed through the common door of his building, pulling off his Oakleys and sliding them into his suit jacket pocket.
His work with Eddie Miller was not what had fatigued him. Miller lived in a sixth-floor apartment in Bethesda, just north of and indistinguishable from the District. Hannibal had verified that Miller’s doors and windows were secure, instructed him to keep his blinds closed, and made sure Eddie had Hannibal’s phone number beside the telephone. He was certain Miller would be fine until morning, when Hannibal would pick him up to go to the courthouse.
It was the conversation with his woman that had drained Hannibal. Cindy had received a block of stock as part of her law firm’s public offering. The stock had exploded and overnight, she was wealthy. She didn’t seem to notice that Hannibal, a working stiff private investigator, was not comfortable with the dramatic difference in their economic levels. Now she wanted him to help her pick out a million-dollar home.
Meanwhile, Hannibal felt at home in his low-end apartment building in a five-room railroad flat. He was part of a real neighborhood and didn’t think he would desert his neighbors even if he won the lottery. He sighed and shook his head.
If he had any sense, he would be heading into his apartment, but he needed to record his hours and expenses for the day and that meant getting into his office on the other side of the hall. As he unlocked his office door his foggy mind was busy berating him for not proposing to Cindy as he had planned to do, just before he learned of her windfall.
He had gotten as far as buying a ring. He had chosen the words he would say. But by the time he had gathered his nerve she was thrilled by the news of her sudden wealth. At the time it seemed that news would overshadow a proposal. Besides, what did a rich woman need with a husband? And, what did he really have to offer her?
Now he was telling himself that the money didn’t matter, that she respected him for who he was and what he did, not for what he had.
That is why he was all the way into the room before he realized that he was not alone. A man sitting at his desk was pointing a pistol at him.
“Close the door behind you,” said the man in a thick, Eurasian accent.
1
Hannibal kept his eyes on the stranger as he pushed the door closed. He could almost feel his irises widening, adjusting to the darkness. The man behind the automatic had military-short hair. His tight, angular face looked as if someone had assembled it from a number of flat planes. The eyes were a sharp, piercing blue, like ice chips set into the ruddy face. This man would think nothing of killing Hannibal. The silencer attached to the barrel of his nine millimeter Browning Hi-power said that he might even get away after doing so.
“Remove your coat,” the stranger said. Hannibal considered the situation and decided that if this fellow wanted him dead he already would be, so he had nothing to lose.
“Say please.”
The stranger smiled then, a cold, hard smile, and leaned back in Hannibal’s chair. “Please.”
Well, the man was at least being respectful. Hannibal pulled off his coat and hung it on the coat rack beside the door.
“Now, with your middle finger and thumb lift that Sig Sauer out of its holster and set it here on the desk. Please.”
This man was very calm and well controlled. A professional, not like the amateurs Hannibal dealt with earlier. That knowledge put him more at ease. He might die tonight, but not because of a jumpy gunman having a careless accident. Hannibal watched those hard blue eyes as he reached under his right arm and pulled his gun free of its holster. He placed it carefully on his desk in front of the gunman. Interesting, Hannibal thought, that he was left-handed too. With a nod, the other man turned on Hannibal’s desk lamp. After a second he waved the tip of his barrel at Hannibal’s face.
“They are truly hazel, just as your file said.”
He would be referring to Hannibal’s eyes. But what file was he talking about? Hannibal had no police record, except of course as a past officer. He had never served in the military. And not many people could get into his old Secret Service jacket. Now he was more curious than worried.
“Look, I hope you won’t consider this rude, but this is my office after all. Just who the hell are you?”
The stranger motioned Hannibal into the guest chair. “I am Aleksandr Dimitri Ivanovich. And you are Hannibal Jones, the self-described troubleshooter, born in Frankfurt of an American soldier and a German mother. Six years New York City Police Department, three of them as a detective. Seven years in the Treasury Department’s Protective Service. Licensed investigator in Washington, Virginia and Maryland.”
“Okay, so you’ve done your homework,” Hannibal said, unbuttoning his shirtsleeves. “Obviously you’re not just some casual burglar.”
“Of course not. Do I look like a thief? It is important that you know who I am, so that you will not make a foolish mistake. I am in fact a professional assassin.”
“Really,” Hannibal said. “Killers don’t usually open up so easily. Freelance?”
“I do not simply work for the highest bidder,” Ivanovich said with an air of indignance. “I work for what you would call the Red Mafiya. The Russian mob. So you see I am in my way a troubleshooter as well.”
Hannibal sat forward, his mouth suddenly dry. The shadows behind Ivanovich seemed to grow taller and more menacing. Hannibal’s mind raced back through his most recent cases, searching for an enemy who might be in the position to place an assignment in this man’s hands. Then he considered Russians or Eastern Europeans he might have offended while doing his job. Ivanovich allowed him all the silence he needed to consider and reject every possibility.
“I give up. Who sent you? Why are you here?”
Ivanovich surprised Hannibal with a charming smile, although the gun’s muzzle never wavered. “No one sent me here. I have come to your office for the same reason most people do. I need your help.”
“My help? At gunpoint?”
Ivanovich lifted a photo album from under the chair and placed it on the desk. He slid out an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo and turned it to face Hannibal.
“This is Dani Gana, a wealthy Algerian, or so I am told.”
Hannibal took the face in. The man was darker than Hannibal but his features were not African. He was aggressively handsome, wearing a day’s growth of beard and the kind of self-possessed smirk that women are drawn to and men want to slap off any face they see it on. Hannibal would have disliked him right away if someone other than a hired killer had presented the picture. He raised his eyes back to Ivanovich.
“I won’t find your target for you.”