Collateral Damage by Austin Camacho

Has your office called them?”
    â€œHe hasn’t really done anything. And I’m afraid he might go crazy if some uniformed stranger was to push him. He knows you.”
    Hannibal was about to protest again. Then an image came to him, an image of Isaac Ingersoll on a rampage in a crowded government building. Somebody was sure to get hurt if the police handled the situation, maybe Isaac worst of all. And clearly Anna didn’t want that, despite all her husband had done to her. He was not there out of hate, but out of a confused love. If Hannibal might be able to defuse the situation, he really had no choice but to go. He might be able to end the situation with a little talk.
    Still, before he slipped his jacket on and pushed his Oakley sunglasses into place, he shoved his Sig Sauer P229 into the holster under his right shoulder.

    Hannibal slipped between the glass doors of the Department of Motor Vehicles. The ambient noise level was enervating, but he couldn’t pick out any words in any conversations. The counter had to be thirty feet long with maybe a dozen people standing behind it. The line of customers stretched the length of the counter then curled on itself, once, twice, six times. Almost every person in that line was talking, in one of four languages, not counting the small children who have a language all their own. The tone of that mass of indecipherable chatter was negative. It was a room full of frustration, and Isaac Ingersoll stood at the back of it, against the wall counter littered with forms to fill out. Match and powder keg in easy reach of one another.
    But what Hannibal saw in Isaac’s face was helplessness. He stared across the wide room at Anna who stood behind the eye test machine, working hard at working. When she spotted Hannibal, a huge breath escaped her, as if she were inflatedwith tension and his presence allowed some of it to leak out. Then her eyes went to her husband, the worry lines crowding her face. Hannibal followed her line of sight to Isaac who seemed to receive her psychic wave because he turned his head and saw Hannibal for the first time. His jaw set and his hands curled into fists.
    Hannibal kept his hands in front of him, one holding the other, and walked toward Isaac. Watching the bigger man’s eyes, Hannibal pushed himself closer, inside the danger area, less than arms’ length away. His neck craned and he stared up into that big Nordic face, showing no tension.
    â€œCould we just talk a minute?” Hannibal asked softly. “Maybe outside? All these people don’t need to be involved in this.” Then he turned his back to Isaac and eased away toward the door. A part of him anticipated a fist at the back of his head but he could not look back, could not offer Isaac an option.
    He pushed through the door and dim fluorescence was replaced by the scorching fireball hanging in the eastern sky. Hannibal walked a few steps toward it. When he turned, he stood in a corner of the parking lot. Isaac was no more than five feet away, raising his fists. But the sun was stabbing his eyes. Hannibal kept his hands and his voice low.
    â€œIsaac, I think you’re ready for a serious fight,” Hannibal said. “And you know what else? I think you could beat my face in.”
    Isaac shifted his feet into a more aggressive fighting stance. “You got that right, asshole.”
    Hannibal’s first goal was accomplished. He had the man talking. The next step was to get him thinking. “You know, your wife could have called the police and told them you were harassing her. Why do you suppose she didn’t do that?”
    While he talked, Hannibal floated lightly on his feet, keeping himself turned in such a way as to never offer Isaac a perfect target. Anger tightened Isaac’s face as he moved to try to reach the right position to land a solid punch. “You her new man,” Isaac said. “You tell me.”
    â€œYou’re know