2. A Piece of Cake
The small apartment felt unusually cramped tonight as everybody sat around or took turns pacing the floor. Outside it was dark, inside it was dimly lit and warm and everybody's nerves were hanging by their last thread. Face was the one wearing a hole in the floor currently, B.A. sat in Hannibal's chair and Amy, Jean, and Murdock were sardined on the couch.
"What time is it?" Amy asked.
Murdock checked his watch and said, "8:40."
"And what time did Hannibal say he'd be home tonight?" Amy asked.
"7 o' clock," Jean answered, "I say we eat without him."
"We can't do that," Face told her.
"Sure we can," she said, "We won't touch the dinner, we'll just eat everything else that's in the icebox, with his budget that won't take much doing."
"You think something could've happened to him?" Amy asked.
"To Hannibal?" Murdock scoffed, "Nothing could happen to him."
"Why, because he's too smart?" Amy asked.
"Because he's too mean," Jean told her.
Murdock got up from the couch, went over to the window and looked down to the street below. All of a sudden he straightened up like a cat arching its back and he said, "There he is!"
"Are you sure?" Face asked.
"Sure I'm sure, he's down there!" Murdock said.
"Oh great, now we can eat," Jean said.
"First thing's first, come on," Face told them.
Murdock opened the window and climbed out onto the ledge and shimmied his scrawny self down the drain pipe, beating the others down to the street by a good 30 seconds.
Down on the next block Hannibal was slowly trudging back to his apartment after a particularly exhausting day. After spending 10 hours running around the movie lot in a rubber suit, he'd gone down to the cemetery to visit with his parents and wound up staying longer than he'd intended. A bit out of character, he was puffing on a cigarette as he walked, his eyelids suddenly felt like each was a 20 pound sack of potatoes, all he wanted to do was get to his apartment, have a beer, and crash for the night. He knew he'd be alone, he'd already inquired about the others' plans for the night to make sure he wouldn't be disturbed: Face had a hot date with the latest woman he was seeing, B.A. was doing last minute repairs to the van, and Murdock was busy with Billy's semi-annual flea and tick bath, and delousing.
It was very rare that Hannibal Smith ever let his guard down, but tonight he did, and that was why he didn't hear the sneakered feet creeping up behind him, and then…
"Hey!" he got out when somebody grabbed him from behind and covered his eyes.
"Surprise, Colonel!" Murdock said as he blindfolded the older man.
"Murdock," Hannibal turned towards the voice, his own clearly expressing his minor annoyance, "What're you doing?"
"I got a surprise for you, Hannibal."
"Murdock, you know I don't like surprises, especially when they're about me," he said.
"Ohhh I think you'll like this one, Colonel, come on, walk this way," Murdock said as he started pushing Hannibal up the sidewalk, "Don't worry, it's gonna be a piece of cake."
His own words used against him. Behind the blindfold Hannibal rolled his eyes, he had a feeling that this wasn't good, and that it wasn't going to end well.
Hannibal heard other people walking nearby, and he had a good idea that more people were involved than just his Captain. He made his way in the door and up the three flights of stairs, not so amazingly with little help because he had the whole layout of the building memorized like the back of his hand. He heard a door open and he knew they were walking into his apartment.
"Alright, so what's the surprise?" he asked.
The blindfold was removed and the lights were thrown on as he heard several people yelling, "Surprise!"
He sure was, alright. His apartment had been ransacked with a minor touch of birthday décor with metallic screamers and birthday banners and cardboard signs put up on the walls and at the top of the doorways. On the kitchen table was a tray full of well done steaks, another tray of baked potatoes stacked in a pyramid, a dish full of steaming asparagus, a large bowl of tossed salad, a plate of dinner rolls likewise in a pyramid, and a bottle of expensive wine. Murdock ran over to the countertop, did something that Hannibal couldn't see, and when the pilot turned around he was carrying a large cake with a bunch of candles lit on top.
"Of course we couldn't put the full amount of candles on it or we'd burn the whole building down," Face commented.
"Ha ha," Hannibal replied.
"Come on, Hannibal, make a wish and blow out the candles before Murdock starts singing," Jean said.
"Oh alright," Hannibal watched as the pilot set the frosted conflagration on the table, then blew on the candles with enough force to put all but two of them out. From his pocket, Murdock produced an old candle snuffer and used it to extinguish the remaining flames.
"So what'd you wish for?" Amy asked.
"It's bad luck to say what you wish for," Hannibal told her.
He suddenly became aware of five people crowded around him.
"Yes?" he asked.
"So how old are you today, Hannibal?" Amy asked.
He noticed everybody else was staring at him with the same inquisitive look, and he knew there was no getting around it.
"Well let me think," he said theatrically as he folded his arms and looked upward, "I was 18 when I went to Korea, that was a little over 30 years ago so that would make me…"
"39," the others said.
Hannibal chuckled, "You know me too well."
"No, we all grew up watching Jack Benny," Jean replied.
Hannibal looked over the buffet and realized how long it had to have taken to get all this put together. He looked at them with a hint of amusement readable on his face and he shook his head, "You guys had this all planned."
"Yeah and we about starved to death waiting for you to get home," Face said.
"Ironic since we all worried you'd be home before everything was done cooking," Jean added.
"Well what's everybody waiting for?" Hannibal asked, "Let's eat."
Before the clock on the wall struck 9, the entire meal and three quarters of the birthday cake were gone without a trace; Murdock rounded up the dirty plates and dumped them in the sink to wash later, then they took Hannibal into the living room to give him his presents. One by one everybody disappeared into the bedroom and came back carrying something wrapped for him. Face went first, his present to Hannibal was a new case of expensive cigars, something the Colonel could never have enough of, then Murdock gave him his present, Hannibal was slightly confused when he took the lid off the box and saw a teddy bear inside.
"It's very nice, Murdock," he said assuredly.
"That's not the real gift, it's inside of it," Murdock said.
Hannibal turned the bear upside down and saw a Velcro patch on the bottom, he pulled it up and reached into the sealed stuffing and pulled out a new nickel plated Smith and Wesson.
"Happy birthday, Colonel," Murdock said.
Hannibal grinned and replied, "Thanks, Murdock, this is great."
B.A. was next. He carried a large box over to the table and dropped it on, the vibrations of the table indicating that whatever it was, it was heavy. Hannibal yanked the ribbon off the top and it took the lid off the box, and laughed when he saw that it was about 50 boxes of assorted ammunition for his guns.
"Perfect gift for the man who has everything," Hannibal said as he picked up a few boxes and examined them, "Thanks, B.A."
"Can I give him my present now?" Jean asked, sounding a bit annoyed.
"Yeah go ahead," Face said.
Jean picked up her package and took it over to Hannibal and dropped it in his lap.
"Well I know it's not a bowling ball," he said cynically. Looking at Jean he could see her teeth gritted together even through her closed mouth, whatever it was, it was obvious she was anxious for him to like it.
He ripped through the paper and saw it was a shoe box, or rather boots. Taking the lid off he felt his eyes grow to twice their size when he saw the ostrich skin boots, just like the ones he'd been forced to leave behind, and then went back for, at Jamestown.
"Hey…" he looked to her, "How did you…"
"I remember Face saying you ruined yours when you came running into the sea after us when we bailed out of the chopper last year," Jean said, "I hope they're the right ones."
"How did you…" Hannibal was cut off before he could ask the $900 question.
"Colonel, it's not a good idea to look a gift horse in the mouth, you know that," Murdock said.
Hannibal looked back at the Captain and was left speechless for a moment, finally he gestured as if surrendering and said, "Alright…" he turned to Jean and told her, "Thanks, Jean, this is a real surprise alright. So that just leaves…Amy."
Amy smiled sadly and told him, "Sorry, Hannibal, I've got to get to work early tomorrow so I'm afraid I'll have to cut out early."
"Aww," Hannibal crooned exaggeratedly.
Amy took her gift over to him and told him, "Here, you can open it after I'm gone and tell me tomorrow what you think of it."
"Okay, I'll do that," he replied.
Jean tapped Face on the shoulder and asked him, "What did Amy get Hannibal?"
Face shrugged, "I don't know."
Hannibal waited until the others had passed out from too much wine or too much food or too much of whatever it was that put B.A. to sleep before he decided to open Amy's present. For some reason he got the impression that there was more to her leaving and leaving her present behind unopened than just what she was telling him.
The present lay on the table where he'd left it after she'd gone. He could tell that under the blue striped paper it was a small flat box, weighed almost nothing at all. Using the technique he'd mastered as a child on Christmas morning, he ripped into the paper and saw it was a flat little box. Hannibal was starting to really wonder what it was, Amy had been around all of them long enough that he wouldn't put it past her putting those peanut brittle snakes into the box and then popping in to see if he jumped. He pulled the lid off and saw a note on top of a sheet of paper encased in a plastic sleeve.
He peeled the note off first to read it. In Amy's handwriting it said, "Rancher? Nice try, Hannibal." He picked up the paper in the bottom of the box and scanned it over.
"I'll be damned," he said.
It was a new copy of an announcement from a very old newspaper from right there in California, the copy had even had the paper's yellow and brown age stains transfer onto the new paper. Saying only, 'On this date, born to Mr. and Mrs. John Smith, a 9-pound boy', and it was enough. That's how it was back then, short, simple and to the point, they didn't bother with pictures, or even the children's names…of course, he didn't remember the rule being that you had to name your kid the minute he came into the world squawking. Still, John Smith III, how long could his parents possibly have spent deciding on a name? Of course…if his mother had had any say in it…no, if that were the case he would've been named something else entirely, her say had to have been the same as his father's.
There was something else that had been copied here; an older announcement, dated a couple of years before his birth, a wedding announcement for the newly pronounced Mr. and Mrs. John Smith. These of course were much longer than birth announcements, had to say who got married, who their families were, what time of the day they got married, where they got married, who was in the band, where the reception was. Except, Hannibal noted, there wasn't all of that here. When his folks had gotten married they were still a couple of poor folks from vaudeville when vaudeville was still king. Actually by the time they'd got married, his father had already made the transition from vaudeville to early Hollywood, just starting to break in to the film industry, and learning how to carry over what he'd learned from one profession and make it work in the other. But they'd still been poor, no band, little reception and they'd gotten married in a judge's living room, but it had been good enough for them.
They were happy people, in spite of being poor, in spite of living in a place where their lives were threatened on a regular basis by every drunk, tramp and crook who tried busting into their home, as he'd been a witness to many times as a kid, in spite of everything; of course maybe it helped that his mother liked brandy and his father liked everything from beer to whiskey. Never in excess though, or rather in excess, but not to the point of exceeding, his whole career was in being able to maintain himself and knowing when and how to keep or lose his balance at the drop of a hat, nothing could interfere with that, not even his favorite whiskey. Hannibal blinked as he recalled all the things he'd learned from his father, and how long it had been since he'd actually thought about the fact that so many things he used and did in his day to day life, all came from that man.
Hannibal fell back in his chair, clutching the paper in his hand and laughing to himself. He should've known better than to dare a news reporter to find out his history, who better than someone who could access the archives going back as far as California had newspapers? Hannibal got up and went over to a small inn table in the dining room and picked up a framed photograph he'd had taken a while back. All his children: Face, B.A., Murdock, Amy and Jean, the only picture of all of them he allowed in this apartment, much easier to hide or destroy if the MPs came nosing around. Hannibal smiled at Amy in the corner of the photo, and said to it, "Thanks, kid."
Well, maybe spending his birthday with company instead of alone as originally planned, wasn't so bad after all.
