~+~Meat Is Murder~+~

Meat is Murder

Hannibal bristled as he walked past the dining room where his nephew sat behind a computer. He cursed the day Saturday Night Live created the “copy room guy.”

“How about if you work on some original material for a change, Ely,” Hannibal growled.

“Oooo. Hannibal Bannanibal is a little testy today. What’s the matter, didn’t catch any serial killers today?”

“No.”

No. In fact Hannibal Lecter had not done a really useful day’s work at the FBI in a long time. He was now fifty-five years old, two years away from mandatory retirement, and his career had been in a steady state of decline for some time now. He had never been a really stellar performer. During his time in the FBI, he had assisted in many arrests, some ordinary and some extraordinary. He had also participated in countless successful stakeouts where his penchant for uncanny stillness disturbed more than one partner. More than once he had been called on to help out in the Field Profiling branch of the FBI. Mostly however, Hannibal played a supporting role. He was never a leading man………except for that one case.

There had been a string of murders all involving the owners of ill-run puppy breeding farms. The murders were reminiscent of those committed by Dr. Clarice Starling several years before. The brilliant and beautiful young Doctor of Veterinary Medicine had snapped somewhere along the way and methodically killed eight individuals who were each guilty of unspeakable acts of animal cruelty. Dr. Starling pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity at her trial, and was sentenced to life in the state prison for the criminally insane.

The FBI thought it would be helpful in solving the current “copy-cat” case if an agent could interview Starling, gain her trust, and possibly obtain some insight into this kind of murderer’s mind. Special Agent Hannibal Lecter had been selected as the lucky man. Hannibal was picked not because of his skill as an interviewer, but because of his voice. It was known that Dr. Starling appreciated refinement and intelligence. Hannibal’s mannerisms were low-key and elegant, but most of all his buttery smooth voice, with its hint of a British accent that faded in and out after his being so long in the United States, was almost hypnotic. These features, together with his non-threatening appearance, conveyed, quite correctly, the perception of a very high intellect and a feeling of sincerity. Dr. Starling was notoriously impossible to interview, but the FBI felt, if she were to talk to anybody, it would be Hannibal.

And Dr. Starling did talk to Hannibal. She gave clues that directly led to his apprehension of ‘Lassiehood,’ the puppy farm killer. But in order to get such important information from the quirky Dr. Starling, Hannibal had had to work hard. He spent a great deal of time down in the dungeon of the prison sitting outside the plexi-glass of Dr. Starling’s cell where she taunted him, insulted him, and coaxed him into telling her many personal details about his life. In spite of it all, they built up a bizarre kind of rapport that made a lasting impression on Hannibal. To this day, he thought of her often. He still wore Rockport shoes with genuine leather uppers, but he winced a bit every morning when he put them on recalling her disdain for all animal products. She had backed down when he told her that he was an attentive pet owner who gave his cat Titus, beta-blockers every morning for high blood pressure.

The last time he saw her, just before she escaped from custody, had been at the mid-point of a transfer to another prison. She was in a cell with bars rather than a plastic barrier. She reached out and their hands had met briefly. For a moment, they looked into each other’s eyes with no barrier between them. Hannibal felt the power of her gaze send a shiver down his spine. It was not an unpleasant feeling. That was a long time ago.

“So, Dude, how was work today?” Ely had made his way into the kitchen.

“Fine. How was sitting around my house all day?”

“You know, you have got to check that hostility at the door Uncle Hannibal. I’ve been working on a new website that will eventually bring me fame and fortune. You’ll want to be on my good side when that happens.”

“Mmm-hmmm. I’m holding my breath.” Hannibal threw one of the empty plastic grocery bags over his shoulder. As it floated to the floor, a thin grey cat trotted into the kitchen and swatted at it with open claws. Ely watched as the cat crawled into the bag and began shredding it from the inside.

“That cat is looking really scraggly lately. How old is he?”

“He’s eighteen,” Hannibal said turning around to see Titus stretched out on the remains of the bag, resting after his brief shredding effort.

“He’s pretty much at the end of his nine lives then, huh? Guess there’ll be a mercy killing in the not-too-distant future for you buddy - oh, hapless Roman General,” Ely said as he squatted down and pulled on the bag sticking out from under Titus’ back legs.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Hannibal said, frowning at his nephew. “So what if he looks a little scraggly. You started to look scraggly when you were eighteen and no one considered euthanizing you. Although I sometimes think that would not have been completely unwarranted. I can see how you may have gotten on your new stepfather’s nerves. You certainly do a good job of staying on mine.”

Ely stood up and shifted his weight.

“That’s Evil stepfather to you.”

“Yeah, well,” Hannibal started. “He does seem like a real mouth-breather. Even more so than the last one.”

Hannibal could never figure out why his younger sister, Mischa, insisted on taking up with one loser boyfriend after another. Worse yet, she often married them. This was husband number four. He was eight years her junior and worked as a guard at the local prison. Shortly after they were married, which was shortly after they had met, Brian kicked Ely out of the house. Since Ely was twenty-one it was not an altogether unreasonable thing to do, Hannibal thought. But still, Mischa did not stick up for the boy. Instead she begged Hannibal to take him in temporarily until he could find a place of his own. Hannibal could never say, no, to Mischa.

So here they were, six months later and Ely was no closer to having a place of his own than he was on the first day he moved in. He was a college drop out with no job prospects on the horizon. He was not even looking. He spent most of his time on his computer that now took up all of Hannibal’s dining room. He had recently signed up for cable internet service that Hannibal was now paying for, but that Ely had promised to pay him back for when he got some consulting customers. Consulting to do what, Hannibal had no idea.

Changing the subject from their current living arrangement, Ely said, “Hey, that creepy looking guy with silver teeth picked up those trays of pasta you made. I put the money on your desk upstairs. He paid you in cash. Cashola. Money on the barrelhead. Cold hard……….”

“Thank you. I don’t know why that amuses you so much. You know the Bureau’s attitude toward moonlighting. If I were to be caught, I could lose my job, such as it is.”

“Yeah I know. I just don’t know why anyone would order catering from a guy with silver teeth. How do you know him anyway?”

“I know him because years ago, I arrested him on a drug charge. He got off easy with a plea bargain and the fact that he was a very small cog in a much bigger machine. But now he’s on the straight and narrow and he has found his calling in cooking food rather than crystal meth.”

“Yeah, but is his food good enough to get past the silver teeth?”

“Some of it is,” Hannibal said. He was now busy at the cutting board slicing onions. His dark blue eyes never watered.

“Because you make some of his food, huh?”

“Yeah,” he pointed the knife toward Ely, “because I make some of it.”

“What’s for dinner anyway?” Ely asked.

“Liver,” Hannibal replied.

What a weird Monday morning. Paula Kepler from the Justice Department had pulled strings to get Hannibal assigned to follow up on an apparently new lead in the search for Clarice Starling. Hannibal was pleased to get a new and interesting assignment but was at the same time very uneasy about Paula’s involvement in it. It was pretty fair to say that there was no love lost between Paula and Hannibal and that she would stop at nothing to make his life miserable. She was one of the primary reasons why Hannibal’s career had languished for so long.

It all stemmed from the infamous Jack Russell incident. It was a sunny October morning almost five years ago to the day, when Hannibal was walking to his car across the Starbucks parking lot. He had put the giant Café Americano on top of his car and was fishing for his keys when he noticed the dog slinking around the front of his car. It was a Jack Russell terrier and it looked terrified. It appeared to have been in a fight, with some scratches around its head and chest and a sizeable gash on the left side of its neck, but otherwise it looked clean and well fed. This had to be someone’s missing dog, not just a stray. Well, Hannibal thought, if he called the dogcatcher and waited for them to show up, who knew what would happen. The intersection was very busy, so against his better judgment - would the dog bite? - Hannibal decided to sacrifice his biscotti and take the dog to the ASPCA himself. He waved the treat in front of the dog’s nose and coaxed her around to the side of his car. He opened the back door, threw the biscotti in, and watched the dog jump right in after it. Piece of cake.

That was when he got the phone call about the hostage situation. Hannibal was certainly no negotiator, but in this case, once again, his voice was required. He was told that a schizophrenic Welsh man had taken his mother and sister hostage inside his sister’s house not far from the Starbucks. The deranged man was demanding to speak to a fellow countryman and no one on the scene could put on a convincing accent, especially under pressure. Apparently the suspect believed that Tom Jones was not from Wales, but instead from another planet and that much of Las Vegas was already under alien control. Hannibal was assured that the professional negotiator would tell him exactly what to say; they just needed him to say it.

So, after opening a back window to give his injured passenger some air, and taking a sip of his coffee, Hannibal was off to the little neighborhood where all the excitement was. There were all kinds of people on the scene. The suspect was believed to be armed and dangerous. Paula Kepler was there. She met Hannibal on the sidewalk some distance from the action. As she was filling him in on the details, the Jack Russell in the back seat of Hannibal’s Volvo jumped up to look out the window. What happened next was inexplicable.

The dog went absolutely wild. She barked and yelped and then launched herself out of the window that was open just enough to allow her room. She hit the ground running, running straight for Paula. Unfortunately, Paula had been the victim of a vicious dog attack as a small child and now had a full-blown phobia of dogs. Her eyes were as wide as saucers when she saw the dog jump from the car, and as she back-pedaled, her heel stuck in a crack in the sidewalk. She fell backwards, losing a shoe and ending up with her skirt around her waist struggling to crabwalk backwards in total panic.

Hannibal did the only thing he could. He grabbed the dog before she found her mark. This was no easy feat however, and Hannibal ended up face down on the grass with one hand around the frantic dog’s back leg. That was the picture a lucky reporter took that made the front page of the Tattler. Paula was in the upper right hand corner of the picture in a not-too-complimentary pose, and Hannibal was in the lower left with his jacket bunched up around his shoulders, both arms straight out in front of him, his face in an awful grimace. The dog was in the center of the picture.

Paula never lived that picture down, and although the hostage situation ended without incident due in part to Hannibal’s being a Welshman, she never forgave Hannibal for the embarrassment he caused her.

Paula had demanded that the dog be immediately euthanized on the grounds that it was a “mad dog.” Fortunately for the dog however, the worried owners stepped forward and, since the dog had not physically touched Paula, there were no grounds for even quarantining her. Oddly, the dog had never even tried to bite Hannibal.

With that kind of history between them, Hannibal thought there must be some serious downside to his new assignment. He just couldn’t think of it yet. He was on his way to interview Barbara Wainscot, Clarice Starling’s fifth victim and, the only one to survive.

Ms. Wainscot lived on the west side of town in a luxurious house with beautifully kept gardens within very tall, stucco enclosure walls. To his knowledge, Ms. Wainscot had never been married, but the background he had on her indicated that she had two sons, one of whom was currently living with her. Ms. Wainscot’s story was a particularly horrific one. She had made her fortune, it was reputed, by illegally raising chinchillas under abominable conditions and selling their pelts to unscrupulous fur dealers.

She had met Dr. Clarice Starling through a mutual “friend.” At some point during Dr. Starling’s descent into madness, she had aligned herself with some individuals who dealt in the illegal animal trade. That way she had direct access to many people who made their living from the serious abuse of animals.

Ms. Wainscot needed a vet because some of her best chinchilla breeding stock had come down with a serious respiratory infection. The rest of the chinchillas, those soon to be slaughtered, did not matter so much. What Dr. Starling found when she first arrived at Ms. Wainscot’s luxury compound was an ugly scene. Hundreds of chinchillas were crammed into cages with wire bottoms so that the waste would drop through and not mar their fur. From the piles of waste heaped under the cages and from the smell, it looked like no one had cleaned up in a long time. The animals that were being prepped for slaughter were being fed a horrible fermented mixture of garbage to fatten them up without costing much money. A fat chinchilla has more fur. Dr. Starling made two visits to the chinchilla “factory.” On the first visit, Dr. Starling assessed the situation and treated those animals that had a chance of surviving. On the second visit, she shut down the operation.

Dr. Starling arrived in the evening for her second visit. Ms. Wainscot was expecting her, and because the first visit had gone so well with the charming young vet, she felt there was no need to have her son, who was not living there at the time, come out to the house that evening. That had been a big mistake.

Dr. Starling subdued Ms. Wainscot with a cloth soaked in chloroform. When she came to, Ms. Wainscot found herself hog-tied and gagged with duct tape on a table in the chinchilla pen. Dr. Starling pushed the table up to one of the cages housing the animals that were next in line for slaughter. The garbage solution they had been given to eat had left them ravenously hungry. The normally docile little rodents milled about in their crowded cage, their beady eyes searching expectantly for some decent food. Dr. Starling pushed open the cage door and shoved Ms. Wainscot’s head into the cage bringing the door down tightly on her neck. The chinchillas wasted no time. They chewed her ears and nose, they chewed her eyelids and cheeks, they even chewed off the duct tape and tried to gnaw her lips. Some chinchillas met a nasty end in Ms. Wainscot’s teeth.

All the while the grisly chewing scene was taking place, Dr. Starling was loading the other chinchillas into her van. In order to park close to the cages that were located in the back of the house, Dr. Starling had driven the van through the narrow alleyway between the garage and the enclosure wall, breaking both mirrors off the van and scraping the sides. Her only concern had been for the animals, she did not give the van a second thought. There were a number of animals however, that were too ill to make a recovery. These Dr. Starling decided to sacrifice. She pulled Ms. Wainscot’s bloody shredded head out of the cage and piled the now sticky animals into a new cage that she put in the van. She then moved the sick animals into the empty cage and put Ms. Wainscot’s head back in. She left Ms. Wainscot writhing on the table, frantically straining to get loose of the duct tape. Her bubbling screams and moans had been a part of the scene since the gag was chewed off. Unfortunately, Ms. Wainscot’s neighbors were much too far away to hear her, and the sounds of her agony did not bother Dr. Starling in the least.

Ms. Wainscot continued to struggle long after the taillights of the van had vanished around the corner of the garage. The sick chinchillas did not tear at the exposed flesh with the same gusto that the first group did, but they squeaked and nibbled at a maddeningly steady rate. Ms. Wainscot worked and worked to squirm her way to the edge of the table. She only realized what a bad idea it was when it was too late. As her plump body slipped off the table, her descent to the floor was halted only by her head, which was held tightly in place by the sturdy cage door. Her neck took the brunt of the impact.

Her son found her the next morning. She had survived her ordeal, but she was left a paraplegic - and not a pretty one at that. As for the chinchillas, Dr. Starling had a network of animal activist contacts who, for the most part, were unaware of her mounting insanity and recent deeds, helped transport them safely to their native Chile, where they were released into the wild.

Hannibal shuddered at the thought of the crime scene pictures he had looked at this morning in preparation for his meeting with Ms. Wainscot. He drove up the long driveway and parked in the shade under a tall tree that overhung the stucco wall just to the right of the three-car garage. He carefully pried the lid off of the Starbuck’s Café Americano he had picked up 20 minutes ago and took a big gulp - it was finally cool enough to drink. That was the problem with ordering Café Americano he thought to himself. On the one hand you were assured that it was fresh, because you could watch them make the espresso and then add the scalding water to it to dilute it to a coffee-like strength. On the other hand it was always so damned hot, a good half of the time you burned your tongue because you just couldn’t wait until it was cool enough.

“Hi, are you Agent Lecter? I’m Jeffrey Wainscot,” said the face that was suddenly at the driver’s side window.

Hannibal jumped a mile, spilling his “coffee” onto the electric window buttons that are located on a flat panel just in front of the middle armrest in his Volvo.

“Damn!”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, it’s just that my mother is anxious to talk to you.”

“No. It’s fine, I’m sorry,” Hannibal said as he sopped up the mess that was running down the console between the seats. The mopping-up process seemed to take forever.

“Okey-Dokey, I’m all set now,” he said as he got out of the car.

Jeffrey Wainscot led the way across the driveway and up the stone steps to the front door of the house without saying another word. He was a small man, probably in his early thirties, with an odd sort of shuffling gait. His huge ears, sticking out from the thick mat of badly-cut curly brown hair, made him look a bit too much like Mr. Peepers of Saturday Night Live for Hannibal’s comfort. He had the sudden urge to give Jeffrey an apple.

The younger man pulled open one of the heavy front doors and disappeared from the bright sunshine of the front steps into the relative darkness inside without looking back, and without holding the door. Hannibal grabbed the door before it shut and followed him inside. Mr. Peepers would probably possess similar manners, he thought to himself.

From the front hallway, Jeffrey shuffled off to the right, through a long sitting room with a large fireplace and into what appeared to be the library. This room was also long, with windows at each of the far ends and shelves of books above a dark leather couch along one wall and more shelves of books above cabinets on the other wall. The windows in front looked out onto the driveway, the ones in back looked out onto the gardens in the yard.

Hannibal stepped closer to the north facing windows to get a better view of the back yard. Looking to the right, the area he was trying to see was obstructed by very tall, impossibly square hedges. Hannibal knew that the chinchilla pens had been just behind the garage, probably on the other side of those hedges he guessed. When he turned from the window to see if Jeffrey was still there, he nearly collided with a beautifully groomed Collie that had not been there just a moment ago. The Collie stuck her pointy nose directly into Hannibal’s crotch.

“Nice dog,” Hannibal said as he took a step back and held his hand out in front of the dog’s nose.

“That’s Sammy. She won’t hurt you,” Jeffrey smiled oddly as his eyes drifted past Hannibal to the square green hedges outside. “Not much of a watch dog, our Sammy. Didn’t even bark when we came in.” He straightened his shoulders and raised his thick eyebrows as if he had just gotten a great idea. “If you could just wait here with Sammy, I’ll go and tell my mother that you’re here.” And he was gone, back out of the room the same way they had come in.

As Hannibal watched Jeffrey shuffle out of the room, Sammy was back at his crotch.

“Hey, OK, enough,” he said pushing the dog’s nose away with one hand and petting her head with the other. She was a beautiful dog, every bit the image of Lassie. She wagged her tail as Hannibal pet her, but never backed off the constant pressure against his hand - the one keeping her away from his crotch.

“Now this is getting bothersome. I know, a pretty girl like you, I’ll bet you can sit for me. SIT,” he backed up a step and held his right hand out motioning down with his palm.

Sammy sat. She looked expectantly at Hannibal, first raising one eyebrow and then the other. She gave a quiet bark.

“What is it girl? A fire? An earthquake? A meteor, perhaps? Did an old friend stop in from out of town?”

Sammy shifted her weight back and forth on her front paws, yipping and “speaking” softly in response to each of Hannibal’s questions.

“I’ve always wanted to ask a Collie those questions. Thank you Sammy.” He looked around the room. You could always tell something about a person by the books they read. There was an entire shelf dedicated to medical books, Gray’s Anatomy, etc, etc. There were many copies of the bible - King James version, New Revised Standard Version, a translation of the New Testament by Richmond Lattimore - as well as many other religious books, five on the Dead Sea Scrolls alone. There were reference books, some law books, a few popular, New York Times bestseller kinds of books, and a whole section of books about birds. Popular field guides as well as some veterinary manuals detailing all aspects of ornithology. Well, whatever that’s worth, Hannibal thought. He turned back to the dog.

“I don’t suppose you’d run out to the car and get my coffee like a good girl would you? Hmmmm?”

Sammy yipped.

“No? OK then. Let’s see what else you can do, can you shake hands?”

He reached out to her with his right hand and she daintily put her left paw in it.

“Good girl. How about the other paw?” he said without switching hands.

Sammy put her left paw down and offered her right paw without further prompting.

“Very good,” Hannibal stood up. “Lie down.”

Sammy stretched her front paws out and lowered herself to the ground.

“Down.”

She put her head down on her paws.

“OK, here’s one I’ll bet you don’t know. Play dead.”

She looked up at him, hesitating.

“Play dead.”

This time she rolled onto her right side and stretched out in a perfect dead dog pose.

“Well, well. Except for the coffee thing, Lassie has nothing on you. OK, up!”

Sammy didn’t move.

“Hmmm. Take your acting seriously do you? OK, up! C’mon Sammy, your only requirement in the world of the living is to stay away from my pants. Get up. No more dead dog.”

Sammy didn’t move.

Hannibal moved toward her, and poked her belly with his foot. He lifted one front paw with the toe of his shoe and let it drop back down again. This was getting weird. Against his better judgment, he squatted down next to her and reached out to stroke the side of her neck. Nothing. Even her eyes were closed.

With a sigh, Hannibal stood up shaking his head. Nothing ever went as expected when it came to dogs. He decided to ignore her, reasoning that she would eventually snap out of it like someone who has been hypnotized, eventually they come to, even if the hypnotist goes home without waking them. He snooped around the room a bit, and sneezed a few times. Jeffrey had been gone a long time, what could that mean? Sneeze.

Hannibal glanced over at dead Sammy. Sneeze. She still did not move. Now, his eyes as well as his nose were getting quite itchy. He had a small tape recorder and a notebook in one jacket pocket and nothing in the other pocket, not even a Starbuck’s napkin. Sneeze. Almost at the point of emergency, Hannibal saw a box of tissues on a small end table and grabbed a handful.

“Mother’s ready to see you now.”

Hannibal spun around to find Jeffrey disturbingly close to him.

“How did you…”

“Please follow me, she’s waiting for you on the back porch.”

“Sure, yeah. Um, there is one other thing, about the dog here,” Hannibal pointed to Sammy who was still in exactly the same position.

“Ketchup!” Jeffrey said.

Sammy jumped up onto her feet, wagging her tail.

“This way please, Agent Lecter.”

“That was very impressive. Ira Levin would be proud,” Hannibal said as they walked toward the sitting room.

“Who?”

“Ah. Never mind,” he supposed it could just be a coincidence, but not too likely. “You wouldn’t be one of those boys from Brazil, would you?” Hannibal asked.

“What?” Jeffrey looked back over his shoulder.

Hannibal just shook his head - maybe he was just having a moment alone. Lately, he felt like he was having more and more moments alone.

Jeffrey brought Hannibal back through the front hallway with Sammy in tow. They went straight past the main staircase into a much narrower hallway that led past the kitchen. At the back of the house, a doorway opened onto a three-season porch with a beautiful slate floor, it had probably been an open patio at one time. Hannibal sneezed into his handful of tissues. His first glance around the porch solved the mystery of his sudden onslaught of symptoms. There were at least eight birds in the room. Two large parrots, a large green and yellow Macaw and an African Grey, were simply on perches. The other birds, a black mynah, what looked like a white baby Cockatoo and assorted finches and lovebirds, were all in cages hung around the room. Hannibal was terribly allergic to birds.

“Mother, this is Agent Lecter…”

“Thank you Jeffrey. That will be all for now,” croaked Ms. Wainscot. She was in her wheelchair at a table by the open louvered windows that overlooked the western end of the garden. Facing her on the table was an open laptop computer and an empty coffee cup. The African Grey parrot was just behind her stalking back and forth on his perch and bobbing his head.

“Please sit down Agent Lecter. We have some things to talk about.” She motioned to the empty chair across from her, but made no effort to shake his hand, which was a good thing because his right hand was full of tissues.

“Yes, thank you Ms. Wainscot.” He noticed that Jeffrey and Sammy had already disappeared, and he sneezed again. In a way, Hannibal was thankful for his allergies. Ms. Wainscot’s ravaged face was very difficult to look at without feeling like you were staring at an accident. Although cosmetic surgeons had done what they could, there was still a massive amount of scarring where the chinchillas had eaten away most of the flesh and muscle of her face. Even her ears had been reconstructed surgically. A good bout of sneezing served to break the tension that Ms. Wainscot seemed to be courting.

“I do apologize for my allergies. It’s the birds, you do have quite a collection here.”

“They have all been obtained legally, if that’s what your wondering. They keep me company these days since I’m not really strong enough to do much entertaining.” She managed a dry laugh. “No, your friend Clarice Starling put an end to my social life.”

Completely ignoring the “your friend” comment, Hannibal stuffed most of the tissues into his empty jacket pocket and took out a notebook and pen from his other pocket. “Ms. Wainscot, you had indicated that you have a new piece of evidence in the Starling case that might lead us to her present whereabouts?”

“Yes that’s right. I thought you might be particularly interested in any new developments since you had spent so much time with her while working on that other case. I’ve heard over the years from different people that you became somewhat intimate with her, in a sense. I understand your conversations were frequently far from what one might consider to be, ah, strictly business.” She focused her beady eyes on Hannibal and made an attempt to smile with reconstructed lips that did not respond well to her mental commands. The result was a frightening kind of grimace.

“Ms. Wainscot, *sneeze* I don’t know who you have been talking with, but I can assure you that Dr. Starling is not someone to make idle chit chat with. At the time when I interviewed her, we each had an agenda and I think we both got what we wanted. She wanted personal information from me that she could then use to taunt me with, or embarrass me in some way, and I got what I needed to find the puppy farm killer. That was all there was to it.” This was not going well. Hannibal was beginning to doubt whether she had anything of value to offer in this case. It seemed that maybe she just wanted to taunt him. Join the club, he thought.

“One person who I have been talking with, who is a friend of mine, is Paula Kepler. She was privy to your conversations with Starling, was she not? Anyway, it doesn’t matter I suppose. What’s done is done. Agent Lecter,” she leaned forward and stabbed a finger in the air, “I know in my heart that on Judgment Day all will be made right. A sacrifice will be made. It has to be made because ours is a vengeful God.”

All the while they had been talking, the many birds had been skittering about and occasionally squawking or chirping. At the mention of Judgment Day however, they reacted as if on cue. “JUDGGMENT DAY JUDGGMENT DAY,” the Macaw shrieked as the other birds chimed in with assorted noises and words. This was a speech they had heard often. The mynah bird had the clearest speech of all. It kept repeating “SAA KRII FICCE,” in its eerie bird voice long after the others had settled down. It seemed to be looking directly at Hannibal. He sneezed again and had to exchange soggy tissues for dry ones in his pocket. He was going to have to get out of here.

“Maybe you could tell me about whatever new piece of evidence you have?” Hannibal said hopefully and flashed a quick reflexive smile that never reached his red-rimmed eyes.

“Oh, of course Agent Lecter, it’s right here.” She pulled an X-ray film from a large folder she had by the side of her wheelchair and pushed it across the table to Hannibal. Holding it up to the light, he saw that it was the X-ray of someone’s left hand.

“It’s an X-ray,” Ms. Wainscot explained unnecessarily. “It’s from Buenos Aries. You’ll notice that the webbing between the three last fingers is more defined than flesh of the fingers themselves, indicating the existence of cartilage. This is a film of Clarice Starling’s left hand.”

“How can you be sure it’s Dr. Starling’s hand?” Hannibal asked frowning at the film.

“Because the condition is rare, and because it is dated just shortly after she escaped from custody. It only makes sense that she would need to alter her appearance if she were to evade capture. I have eyes and ears all over the world, unfortunately this report took some time to come to light.”

The name of the patient on the edge of the X-ray was J. Foster and the date did make sense with respect to the time of Starling’s escape. Her trail had run remarkable cold just weeks after she had made her daring break. There had been numerous sightings over the years in foreign countries as well as in the U.S., but they never panned out. It was believed that Starling had had some extensive cosmetic surgery in order to disappear so successfully. The telltale webbing on her left hand would certainly have been the first to go. Dr. Starling had insisted that her webbing had aided her in an incredible dolphin rescue from a salt-water pool where it was being kept as a pet. The cost of the dolphin’s freedom had been the “owner’s” life, of course.

Hannibal’s head felt like it was going to explode. “Even if this is Dr. Starling’s hand, it is years old. Do you have the envelope that this came in? And was there any report with it? There’s a name of a surgical center here, but no address.” And, he was thinking, with the recent unrest in Argentina, it would be impossible to track down anything useful about one old X-ray.

“No, we didn’t keep the envelope, there was nothing of interest on it. The surgical center is in Buenos Aries, I’ve already told you that. That is all I know. Do you think that will help you find her? Of course, she will come to justice whether or not you catch her. On Judgment Day she will not be one of the 144,000 sealed for the bodily resurrection. My life has already been sacrificed for the salvation of my soul, but her life continues to put her soul on a course to eternal damnation.” Barbara Wainscot’s voice rose in an evangelical crescendo. The birds sensed her agitation and replied in kind.

This marked the end of Hannibal’s visit with Ms. Wainscot. Jeffrey arrived right on time to show him out, and none too soon. Hannibal’s nose was so congested he could only breathe through his mouth and his eyes looked like he had a serious drug problem. Jeffrey saw him to the door and then hurriedly turned and headed back into the house, toward the cacophony that could still be heard from the porch.

Alone on the front steps, Hannibal squinted in the bright sunlight and stuffed the last of tissues he was holding into his jacket pocket. What a waste of time. This bit of ancient evidence, if it even was evidence, did not warrant the special attention Paula Kepler seemed to be giving it, and him. If he had a bad feeling about this earlier, it was getting steadily worse.

Walking across the driveway, he felt equally glad to get away from Barbara Wainscot and her birds. Not that he had anything against birds, in fact aside from the inconvenience of an occasional allergy attack, near an aviary at a zoo or in the presence of a caged bird, he rather like them. Well, except for pigeons. His most memorable run-in with pigeons occurred when a pair nested in the ventilation shaft that connected to the office he shared with two other agents. He was the first affected because of his allergies, although at the time, no one knew why he was getting an almost instant head cold whenever he sat at his desk. Soon enough however, when all three of them started itching and comparing the red scaly patches that had developed on their arms and legs, it became apparent that something nasty was lurking in that office.

It seems that pigeons can carry any number of parasites that can just as happily set up housekeeping on humans. Hannibal and his coworkers were diagnosed with scabies. The small unnoticeable parasites had burrowed into their skin and laid eggs. The weepy red itchy patches were signs that the eggs were successfully hatching. They were advised to burn their clothing and sheets, try to disinfect any kind of upholstery they may have sat or slept on, and to shower twice a day with Quell soap. Hannibal was convinced that Quell soap was really just another name for lye acid. The idea seemed to be to burn your skin off along with any eggs that may be embedded there. The condition had been so revolting however he had almost wanted to burn his egg-laden skin off.

As he got into his car, Hannibal threw the X-ray onto the passenger seat and made a mental note to send the jacket he was wearing to the cleaners, there were a lot of birds in that room and you could never be too careful. From where he was parked, he could see that directly in front of his car was a narrow pathway between the enclosure wall on his right and the garage. More of those tall square hedges created a kind of dead end to the alley where the garage ended. His headache was already feeling better, but now his arms were getting itchy, this jacket had to go.

Back out of the car now, he looked down the path as he pulled off his jacket. He looked around at the house. No one was in sight. He opened the back door of his car but thought better of it and put the jacket, with it’s pocket full of used tissues, in the trunk. He was never going to wear that again. As he rolled up his sleeves to check for the burgeoning scaly patches that he imagined growing on his arms, he headed off down the path. In the shade now, the hedges looked very dark and forbidding. They filled the gap between the wall and the garage completely. He tried to look through, but they were too thick, so he flipped his tie over his shoulder and pressed himself, belly first against the garage and pushed sideways through the prickly barrier. He was scratched and ruffled by the hedges, but he made it through in one piece without losing an eye.

He sneezed, “Damn, no tissues.” To his left, behind the garage stood the old chinchilla pen. It was a wood and wire structure that stood about eight or nine feet tall and enclosed an area about the size of an average-sized living room. It had a wire roof and a dirt floor. There were no smaller cages inside, as there had been when the chinchilla trade was thriving here, but it was not empty. There was a steady whir of movement that looked at first glance like a single black mass swaying within the wire, almost like a lava lamp. Hannibal sneezed again. The whirring noise from the cage was accented by chirping. He stepped closer and put a hand to his mouth as he resolved the black mass into individual shapes. Starlings. The cage was filled with hundreds and hundreds of starlings.

Chapter Three

Clarice Starling replaced the carton of soymilk on the top shelf of the refrigerator and closed the door. She stood for a moment looking at the printout of a newspaper picture that was taped to the freezer door. There was Hannibal, hapless as ever, sprawled on someone’s front lawn holding back a small dog from a wild-eyed Paula Kepler, whose panties were showing. Clarice smiled every time she looked at that picture. There were other pictures out on the Internet of Special Agent Hannibal Lecter, but none that so epitomized his plight as this one. He always seemed to be a day late and a dollar short, to use an old cliché. Clarice regularly patrolled the websites and chat rooms that had sprung up as a result of interest in her killing spree just to marvel at people’s unrelenting love affair with all things macabre - at least that’s what she told herself. There were really two other reasons that motivated her late night forays.

The first was self-preservation. Since she had escaped seven years ago, she had changed her appearance, her name, and her occupation, but there would always be things about her linking her back to that previous, Most Wanted, identity. It seemed that every few months there was some new nonsense out there about “sightings” and other results from amateur sleuthing from around the world, but never anything close to home. Some people saw her as a sort of Robin Hood for animals and even championed her methods, from the safety of their living rooms. She never intended to have anyone side with her. In fact, she was never entirely certain what she had intended at all. That is where things always seemed to get fuzzy. She had just wanted to put things right, but exactly how her barbarous acts were going to achieve that goal, she did not know. And what was it that she needed to put right? Maybe it was the horror and injustice that was burned into her mind so long ago at the farm where she had been a foster child. Her foster father had slaughtered lambs and sold the meat. She still heard their screams in nightmares that sometimes seeped into the light of day.

The other reason was an inexplicable draw to Hannibal Lecter. When he had been sent to interview her at the prison, she was puzzled by the FBI’s choice of agents. She had turned the whole interview process around at their first session without much protest from him. She was in control for the most part, and he dutifully picked up the crumbs of information that she carefully doled out to him. He was, and continued to be an enigma to her. She had never tired of talking to him, baiting him, trying to embarrass him. And yet, in his quiet resignation, he was able to get from her what he needed to apprehend the killer he was profiling. Hannibal was otherworldly in his stillness, and oftentimes seemed to be enjoying some private joke, with the smallest of smiles playing across his lips and a penetrating, dark blue stare that focused somewhere far behind her.

Lately, she found herself thinking of him often. So much so in fact, that she indulged in a bit of whimsy and bought a pair of sandals for him. She remembered his loathsome Rockport shoes and decided that he could do with a pair of Birkis constructed entirely of manmade materials. His shoe size, 11 ½, was large for a man who was only 5’ 7.” The European size that that roughly translated to was 45. Somehow, that shoe size made buying those sandals all the more amusing.

Some days after she had sent the package off through a re-mailing service, she was surprised and a little unnerved to find that Hannibal had been reassigned to her case. She had expected some increase in the search for her since the appearance of a new website offering a sizeable reward for information leading to her capture. She suspected that Barbara Wainscot might be behind the new site, although she did not know for sure. It was the recent announcement on the news of the reassignment of Agent Lecter however, that had really gotten her web fans in a lather. She could not deny that it had sparked her curiosity as well. Of course she did not see the news story personally since it was not the stuff of headlines here in Wellington, New Zealand.

She hoped that her peaceful existence as a naturalist at the Wellington Zoo would not be interrupted, but she did not have a good feeling about it. Maybe things had been too quiet for too long, she thought as she clipped her nametag that said ‘Julia Moore,’ into position over the left breast pocket of her khaki uniform. She gave her three-legged pit bull, Mr. Stevens, a pat on the head and stepped out onto the porch to get her bicycle. Standing in the driveway with the bike leaning against her hip, she pulled on her gloves. Since she had had the webbing removed from between the last two fingers of her left hand, she never missed an opportunity to wear gloves. It was something she had never been able to do comfortably before. Her neighbor, Dotty called over a good morning.

“Hey Dotty, how’s it going?” she called back.

“Just fine, Julia. Hey, Katy asked me this morning if I would find out from you if she can take Mr. Stevens for a walk when she gets home from school today. She just loves that dog. If you get tired of him, you know he’s got a home over here with us.” Dotty’s daughter had been helping take care of Mr. Stevens since the first day Julia took him home from the shelter. Julia had asked for the dog that was least likely to be adopted. They brought out a pit bull with a horribly damaged front leg. Julia took the dog and did what she could for the leg, but in the end it had to be amputated. Now, Mr. Stevens was almost as good as new, hobbling along without much difficulty, and he had a fabulous personality.

“Thanks. No problem about the walk. You know I leave the back door open, and Katy knows where the leash is,” Julia said, and she was off on her bike.

October brought with it beautiful springtime weather to New Zealand, and the Wellington Zoo was hopping. Julia spent the morning giving tours and answering questions. The tours were tiring with their scripted speeches and often-inattentive audiences, but in general, Julia enjoyed her time at the zoo. The animals were well cared for, with spacious enclosures and varied diets, and the veterinary team was top-notch. Julia had even managed to maintain a few cursory friendships with some of her colleagues. She was careful to keep her distance, although all her papers and her new history as Julia Moore were in perfect order. Money also was no object. Long before her career as a serial killer, Clarice Starling had been named in the will of a billionaire thoroughbred racehorse breeder. Her unbelievably quick rise to prominence as the chief vet at the horse farm had snubbed the noses of many longtime, old boy associates who had worked there for as many years as Clarice had been alive. They hated her, and spread rumors that it was her talent in bed rather than her talent as a vet that got her where she was. In truth, it was a little bit of both. Nevertheless, the will held up in court and Clarice became a very wealthy woman. She handled the money expertly and now had enough to buy whatever subterfuge she needed.

The afternoon tours of the zoo ended at the Nocturnal House, where at set intervals the naturalists would try to quietly lead groups of visitors through the darkened corridor past the aquariums and enclosures that housed animals like the Tuatara, the Giant Weta, and the elusive Brown Kiwi. The Giant Weta, a fat grasshopper the size of a fist, never failed to elicit gasps of horror from the uninitiated. By the time the visitors got to the glass front of the Kiwi enclosure, which was the last exhibit, it was often something of a let down. Even Julia had to admit that the small flightless bird was a little ratty in appearance, and many times, as its title implies, the elusive kiwi was not even visible.

This particular group, the last of the day, consisted of some Japanese tourists, a few locals, and two Americans. Switching off her headset microphone, Julia went through the speech about flash photography being prohibited and the need to keep voices down to a whisper because of the sensitive nature of the nocturnal animals they were about to see. The group made their way through the exhibit without incident. After they had left, and the park’s closing was announced over the PA system, Julia, carrying her headset, went back into the exhibit to find her sunglasses that she thought she left on a bench near the entrance. She could never keep track of sunglasses. When she rounded the corner into the darkness she was temporarily blinded by a bright strobe light.

“OK, OK, that’s enough. Someone is gonna come in here and have a fit if they catch us,” said one of the Americans.

“Yeah, alright. I just wanna make sure I get a good shot of that little rat bird.”

The strobe went off again.

Julia, infuriated by the women’s disrespect, ordered them out of the exhibit in the loudest whisper she could manage.

“Uh-oh. Busted,” said one of the offenders, loudly.

“OK, we’re coming. We’re done in here anyway.”

When they got outside, Julia could not control her outrage. She foolishly got into a shouting match with the tourists, who at first tried to just shrug it off and walk away, but then turned back and were every bit as confrontational as Julia was.

“I should confiscate that film. You had no right to take those pictures and put that kind of stress on the animals!” Julia shouted at the dark haired woman with the camera.

“You just try it,” the woman replied in a most deliberate tone. “You can’t prove a damn thing, and I suggest you and your cute little khaki outfit just stroll over to the concession stand and soak your head.”

The pointing and shouting had drawn a small crowd, and the crowd then attracted the attention of Doug Pelton, one of the zoo’s security guards. He overheard parts of the argument as he approached.

“Alright ladies, alright. Break it up,” he turned to Julia and gave her a wink. “Do I need to take these two to the lock-up, or can we let them walk?”

Julia was not in the mood for his cheerfulness, but she took a breath, turned to the Americans and said, “Just go on, but don’t let me catch you upsetting so much as an ant on your way out.”

The dark haired woman with the camera looked at Doug’s nametag and said, “Thank you Doug. You might want to make sure she takes her Prozac as directed next time.” She leaned in close to him and whispered, “I think she has an anger management problem.” With that, the two women smiled and walked away smugly, some derisive laughter drifted back over their shoulders to where Julia and Doug were standing.

“The park’s closing and there’s no more to see here,” Doug said to the few spectators who stayed for the anti-climatic end. He turned to Julia, “Hey, I can’t believe how mad you got at them. You’re shaking. I didn’t get the whole thing from what I heard. Were they taking pictures or tapping on the glass?”

“I lost my cool. Could we just forget it?” Julia walked off intent to get her bicycle from the employee’s hut and ride home as fast as she could to cool off. But Doug would not be put off that easily.

“Listen why don’t I give you a ride home? I have my truck; you can put your bike in the back. You are way too rattled to ride through Newtown traffic. Good idea?” He said nodding his head.

She stopped, took a deep breath and blew it out hard, “Yes, good idea Doug. Thanks.”

“Good, I knew you’d see sense. I just have a couple of things to finish up and I’ll meet you at the hut in a few minutes.” He trotted off, back toward the Meerkat exhibit.

Julia looked down to see she was still holding the microphone headset with the cord wrapped around her hand a couple of times. She shook her head, good thing she had forgotten about that, the last thing she needed was an assault charge for trying to strangle a tourist.

On the way home, Doug talked her into stopping for pizza. He was incessantly cheerful, and chatted nonstop while still managing to eat most of the pizza. He was pleasant looking, about Julia’s age, and recently divorced. Julia half listened to him while her mind drifted back over the afternoon’s ridiculous incident and anything else that happened to bubble up in her thoughts. She was glad that Katy had taken her dog, Mr. Stevens out for a walk.

“…and I just can’t believe how much weird stuff there is out there, can you?” Doug was saying.

“Out where?”

“On the Internet. That’s what we’re talking about Julia. I mean, just as an example, there are tribute fansites to this one woman, who was like a defender of animals, only she killed a whole bunch of people in the process of defending the animals. There are actual websites about her run by people who are fans. They think what she did was right. Really radical Right-to-Animal Life kind of people I guess. Anyway there’s lots of fodder out there about her, and she’s still on the lamb. Escaped from prison and who knows where she is now. She’s probably looking at those fansites and laughing.”

He couldn’t possibly know. Panic rose up in her throat. She hadn’t killed anyone in a long time, and she did not want to start with Doug, but if she had to, she would. She curled her left hand into a loose fist, hiding the scars.

“That’s kind of a weird topic of conversation over dinner, don’t you think?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess so. A better topic is porn. Do you have an email address? I just got one a few months ago; maybe that’s why I’m so freaked out by everything. I keep getting emails from people and places that I don’t know that have titles like “Barely Legal Teens Just For You,” and “Butts Being Banged,” and stuff like that. Do you get emails like that? I’m kind of wondering if those teens would be interested in doing some yard work. My placed is a real mess and I just………….”

No he did not know. It was just a coincidence. She suddenly felt very tired. “Doug, are we finished here? I think I’d just like to get home now.”

He drove her home and insisted on bringing her bike up to the porch. Mr. Stevens met them at the door, wagging his tail and running about on his three legs.

“Hey, can I use the bathroom? I got a long drive home.” Doug pushed past her into her kitchen.

“Sure, it’s upstairs on your right,” she was not feeling comfortable about this. She filled Mr. Stevens’ dish with vegetable-based dry dog food and changed his water. He was busy crunching and snuffling in his bowl when Doug returned to the kitchen.

“This is a nice little house. Real neat,” Doug was looking around with his hands in his pockets. “Yep, real nice.” Now he was looking at the refrigerator, at the photo taped onto the freezer. “Hey Julia, did you get this picture off the Internet? I recognize it, can you believe that?” He turned toward her. “This guy here,” he reached back and put his finger on Hannibal’s picture, “He’s looking for the woman who killed some people in the name of animal rights. Remember me talking about that at dinner? That’s the guy. He hung out with her when she was in prison. I’m kind of into that case, I mean I’m not a fan; I’m just interested in it. There is even a reward for helping catch her. Not sure if the reward is for real though.” He smiled and shrugged. “Hey you really look tired, I guess I better get going.” He patted Mr. Stevens on the rump and waved goodbye to Julia as he closed the door.

Julia sat for a long time with her head in her hands at the kitchen table. Mr. Stevens’ whining finally broke the spell. She let him out, hooking a long rope to his collar. Could the thing with Doug just be coincidence? She looked at Hannibal’s picture. “What the hell is going on here Special Agent Lecter? What would you have to say about all this? Something like, “Seems like an odd confluence of events Dr. Starling,” right?” She shook her head. “Odd is right,” she said.

Upstairs, she took a look in the bathroom. Doug had used the bathroom, that’s all, what was she expecting to find? The seat was down, one point for Doug. But, wait. Something was not right. Her toothbrush. Where was her toothbrush?

Hannibal was talking on the phone in the kitchen, sitting with his back to the wall on a chair he had pulled to the side of the table. His bare feet were propped up on another chair and he was doodling a grotesque spider-like creature on a message pad that was on the table. He was tired after cooking a sizeable amount of Wiener schnitzel for a catering order, and now he had been on the phone for almost an hour and wanted to end the conversation.

“I don’t know what else to tell you, Reina,” he said, sighing. “The hardest part of making braised lamb is having the patience to see it through. You can do all the prep work and most of the cooking tomorrow, so that on Monday all you’ll have to do is cook down the gelatin, caramelize some canned tomatoes and heat the whole thing through in the oven for about half an hour. That should take in total, I dunno, an hour maybe, an hour and a half max. And, yes, I think he’ll like it. You said he liked lamb, how can you go wrong with this?”

He knew what she was hinting around for. He had been teamed up with Reina for various FBI assignments over the past few years. She was young, and pretty and had a frighteningly intense type-A personality. Hannibal liked spending time with her. Sometimes he felt he could ride on a wave of the energy she exuded and temporarily be lifted out of his perpetual existential crisis. That was not what was going on today, however. Reina was a terrible cook and was trying to push him into ghost-cooking braised lamb for her. He doubted she wanted him there the next day when she took credit for making a fabulous dinner to celebrate her new boyfriend’s birthday.

“Listen, I have an idea,” she said a little too enthusiastically. “You said you had some broken tiles in your bathroom and you were going to call someone to come and repair them? Right? Did you do that yet?”

“No,” Hannibal crossed his ankles and colored in the eye of his message pad monster.

“Well why don’t I come over tomorrow? We can go to Home Depot, get replacement tiles, then we can go to the grocery store and get lamb stuff, and then I can help you with the tiles and you can help me with the lamb? That’s a deal isn’t it? You can’t beat that with a stick.”

“No, but there are times when I would like to beat you with a stick. Fine, OK. I’ll go along with the food part, but Home Depot gives me a headache. And besides, how do you know how to put in tile?”

“It’s easy Lecter, you’ll see. We’ll get both projects done, food and tiles. It won’t be a problem. We could even put in some accent tiles, depending what you want to do. That plain white is boring. I think…”

“I think that if I don’t get off the phone, I’m going to miss the Discovery show about giant squids.”

“OK, OK, just one more thing…”

“Did you know that the giant squid has a sort of horned beak in its center, in between its tentacles? I’ve often wondered, throughout all of human history, if there has ever been a woman who was born with a similar type of feature.”

“I’m gone, see you tomorrow around eleven.”

“I knew that would do it. Bye,” Hannibal grinned as he pushed the OFF button. Reina was so much fun to play with sometimes.

“Dude, did you know that a cordless phone gives you the freedom to roam about the house? That people no longer have to sit in their uncomfortable kitchens, tethered by a phone cord? Those Reina conversations are unbearable.” Ely called from the dining room.

“Don’t you have somewhere to go? It’s Saturday night, why don’t you go bore someone who professes to be your friend?”

“My plans for tonight fell through, but you better believe I am going to make myself scarce tomorrow for the Hannibal and Reina show. I cannot deal with a whole afternoon of smarmy comments and barely veiled flirtations.” Ely clacked away at his keyboard as he spoke. There was no response from the kitchen. Proud of his cleverness, he said, “Are you ignoring me because I’ve hit too close to home?” Nothing. He turned to Titus who was sleeping on the dining room table next to the printer, “Your owner is as quiet as you when he stalks around the house.”

Ely got up, tucking Titus under his arm, and peeked into the kitchen. It was empty. He took a step toward the table to get a closer look at Hannibal’s drawing. “That is one freaky squid.” He picked up the pad and showed it to Titus who pawed at it once. “C’mon Titus, let’s go disrupt the giant squid show. God forbid he tapes anything.”

Ely and Titus found Hannibal in the living room, sitting in the leather chair in front of the television. He had a pack of baking soda dental gum in his hand and was already chewing three pieces. A scientist was on the TV, dressed in rubber fisherman’s overalls and rolling a giant squid over on a stainless steel table. The program’s narrator was saying that the biggest specimens found to date have come from the waters around New Zealand.

“Why are you in here?” Hannibal asked without taking his eyes off the television.

“Because me and Titus want to know what’s up with you and Reina and the giant squids. We have inquiring minds.”

“Titus has a brain stem,” Hannibal turned his glare to Ely. “Put him down, he doesn’t want to be lugged about by you.”

Ely put Titus down on the couch. The cat immediately jumped down and padded out of the room.

“I thought you were with me on this,” Ely called out to the cat. “Fine, be that way. So, what about you and Reina?” he turned back to his uncle. “I mean, why is she always calling you and stuff?”

“She uses me when it is convenient for her. Besides, she won’t be around much after tomorrow, for a while anyway, she has a new boyfriend.”

“She’s pretty hot. I know she gets you to cook stuff for her sometimes, but what else does she ‘use’ you for?”

Hannibal’s attention was back to the TV. A one-man diving bell was being lowered into the ocean with the hope of getting a glimpse of a live giant squid.

“Dude, have you ever slept with her?” Ely persisted.

Hannibal put a fourth piece of dental gum in his mouth, “Want a piece of gum?” he said holding the pack out to Ely.

“No, I want you to answer my question.”

“Why do you think I cook for her?”

“I think it’s either because you want to sleep with her, or because you want to sleep with her again. And I’m asking which one is it.”

“Did you know that no one has ever seen a live giant squid? We only know they exist because of dead ones washed up on the shore, or dead ones caught in fisherman’s nets. What if they only existed as dead bodies? Do you know what I mean? What if there never were any live giant squids? Do you ever think about that Ely? I do. I think about it a lot.”

“OK, I’m gone.” Ely strode out of the room.

“I knew that would do it,” Hannibal grinned and swallowed the big wad of gum he had stuffed in his mouth.

When the squid show was over and Hannibal was making a mental note to check on the price of plane tickets to New Zealand, Ely came back in the room carrying a package.

“Hey, I almost forgot, this came for you today.”

Hannibal took the package from him. It was a shoebox that had been wrapped in plain brown paper. The paper was torn and the box was open. There was no return address and the postmark was from Las Vegas. “What tipped you off that this is for me? Was it the strange symbols here on the top that only the trained eye could interpret to mean ‘Hannibal Lecter?’ Of course you would have only noticed that after you had already opened it.”

Ely grinned, “Actually, it was because they were too big for me. Then I looked at the strange symbols.”

Hannibal opened the shoebox and took a pair of sandals out. “Who would have sent me a pair of Birkenstocks? I never wear sandals.”

“Yeah, but you never wear shoes or socks either. Not in the house anyway.”

“What has that got to do with anything?” Hannibal had put the sandals on the floor and took the packing paper out of the box, looking for a note. He found one. It was a plain piece of printer paper folded twice like a letter. He opened it up and dropped it on the ottoman in front of him with a wave of recognition. “What an unexpected surprise.”

“Ely, we shouldn’t have been touching any of this. They’ll want to dust everything for fingerprints.”

Ely had been looking over Hannibal’s shoulder, reading the letter. “Do you think it’s really from her?” he said in amazement.

“Yeah, I’m sure of it. That’s her handwriting, and there’s no mistaking her style.”

“Then Dude! She’s in Las Vegas. You can go and catch her, or whatever.”

“No, I’m quite sure she’s not in Las Vegas. She would never be that careless. This package was mailed some time ago and has gone through some kind of re-mailing service. She could be anywhere.”

“Well, go on and try on those sandals.”

“Ely, do you not listen to anything? We cannot touch any of this. I have to take everything to the office tomorrow, or maybe Monday, and let the professionals at the lab do what they can to verify that it really came from her.”

“Yeah, but prints wouldn’t stick to that textured manmade material. Probably the only shot at lifting a good print is off the box. I watch CSI. I know what I’m talking about. C’mon, try them on. They’re size 45, Dude. Size 45.” Ely had a stupid, awed look on his face.

What the hell, Hannibal thought. He had to admit that this little surprise completely eclipsed his giant squid interest. He was genuinely pleased that Dr. Starling had made contact with him. He was also a little alarmed at how excited he was by the thought of possibly seeing her again. Get a hold of yourself, old man, he thought as he stood up and pushed the ottoman out of the way to make room to try on his new sandals.

“Well, do they fit? They look like they fit.”

“Yeah, they are the right size. I really won’t be able to walk in them though, not without a strap in the back.” Hannibal sat back down to adjust the straps over the tops of his feet. “This is really crazy. Why would she write to me out of the blue like this? It is obvious that she sent this before I was re-assigned to the case.”

“How did she know your shoe size?”

“I told her.”

“She asked you, or you just offered?”

“No, she asked me, I’m sure of it. She commented once on how big my hands are and then asked if I had feet to match.”

“Did she ask you how big anything else was?” Ely laughed a dopey sounding laugh.

“What the hell is it with you?”

“Nothing, it’s just that Clarice is a real hottie. Way more than Reina.”

“She’s also a convicted serial murderer. There, I think these are good to go now.” Hannibal stood up and took a couple of cautious steps. He pushed past Ely, walking slowly out of the room. He turned, and came back in. “No big deal really,” he said shrugging. “I don’t know if I want to venture out with them on just yet, but I think I can manage in the house.”

“They look good, Hannibal. She totally wants you, that why she sent you a present, you don’t have to wreck your brain about that. And, you are standing here in your living room wearing the present that Clarice Starling, convicted serial killer, sent to you, so don’t even tell me that you don’t think she’s a hottie.”

“OK, yes, of course she’s attractive, but she is really crazy and dangerous. Deadly, actually.”

“Admit it Uncle, there were times when you were sitting there, checking her out thinking about having a little conical visitation time.”

“That’s conjugal, Ely, conjugal. And, if you think I’m going to discuss my fantasy life with you, you are out of your mind. You have already expressed a clear lack of interest in giant squids.”

“You’re not gonna get me with that again. Imagine if Clarice was here, right here in this room. She stopped by to see how you look in your new sandals. What would you do? If she was right here?”

“I’d slap a pair of handcuffs on her.”

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Dude, I am listening.”

At that, Hannibal laughed and shook his head. “Walked right into that, didn’t I? Well done, you idiot.” Hannibal sat in his leather chair, still smiling, and looked at the open letter on the ottoman. “What do you suppose she means by ‘using the tools that are available to me’?”

“I think she’s talking about that increasingly powerful research tool that is available to the general public known as ‘the world wide web’,” Ely said, making quotation marks in the air with the first two fingers of each hand.

“Well maybe it’s time you showed me some of your self-professed prowess. I’ve come up with absolutely nothing since the charming Ms. Wainscot volunteered that useless X-ray. Can we try and find what Dr. Starling is talking about here? I really haven’t trolled around on the Internet lately and it seems that she believes there is a reward being offered for her.”

“Your wish is my command. Please walk this way to my headquarters.” Ely hunched his back and drew his arms in toward his chest. He hobbled out of the room dragging his right leg. “C’mon Hannibal, walk this way, like this.”

“Just go. I am not going to walk that way in my new sandals. It’s all fun and games ‘til someone breaks a hip.”

Ely sat down at the computer, and motioned for Hannibal to pull up another dining room chair. The war over the dining room was long since over and Ely was clearly the victor. The table was piled with computer hardware, most of it old and not working but of great value, or so Ely insisted.

“First we’ll just do a search and see what comes up. You with me so far?”

Hannibal rolled his eyes. With their faces eerily reflecting the light from the monitor, it was hard to tell they were related. Ely’s sharp hawkish features were in direct contrast with Hannibal’s rounded, reptilian face. Beneath the surface however, they were not as different as they appeared. Both were underachievers who now found themselves drifting through life, and although they seldom admitted agreeing with one another, there were many things about which they held similar views. Over the six months they had been living together, they had learned how to deal with each other, and at times even enjoyed the arrangement. This slow-growing mutual affection was never verbalized.

“Here’s all the old stuff, news stories and what-not about her crimes, about how she was caught,” Ely said as he scrolled down the listings containing the name ‘Clarice Starling.’ “Here’s stuff about when you were getting friendly with her. Look, here’s a picture of you at a news conference after you found that guy, the Starling copycat guy. Man, you looked a lot younger there - and thinner too. The years have not been kind. I wonder how Clarice looks now?”

“You are not adding any value here. I don’t know why I waste my time with you.” Hannibal pushed his chair back and stood up.

“Hey, easy, easy. I just have to snoop around a little. We’ll find something. Sit back down, I won’t make any more comments on how much less hair you have now.” Ely grinned into the monitor. “Dude, sit down, give me another minute or two.” When there was no response, Ely turned to find he was alone in the dining room. “How the hell does he do that?” he said out loud. He turned his attention back to his task and was able to find, in about ten minutes, a website that offered a reward for information leading to the apprehension of Clarice Starling. It did not say ‘arrest,’ and it was not, from what Ely could tell, affiliated with the FBI. “Hannibal! Hey! Hannibal, I found something.”

“Yeah. What is it?” Hannibal was standing at Ely’s right elbow. He had come in the dining room through the front room.

“Damn, I need to put a bell on you. You lost the sandals, that’s how you got so quiet.”

“I left them under the table,” Hannibal said as he bent down to pick up Titus who had also come into the room silently. “You have our attention.” He stepped around Ely, pulled up his chair and settled in with Titus on his lap.

“Well, here’s the reward,” Ely pointed to the screen as he leaned back.

The reward was for $3,000,000, and the website gave a phone number to call for more details.

“How long has this site been up?” Hannibal asked.

Ely worked the mouse, found what he was looking for and said, “Only about six weeks.”

“Hmmm. So Dr. Starling was right. I guess that number gives me a place to start. I wonder if this reward offer is enough to put pressure on her, wherever she is.”

“Before you call anybody let me see if I can find out who created this site.” Ely was already clacking at the keyboard. The information displayed on the screen changed several times.

“How can you tell that? You cannot get at anything the creators don’t want you to see,” Hannibal turned to look at the side of his nephew’s face. The young man was intensely focused on the screen.

“Dude, didn’t anyone ever tell you? Sometimes life is just like the movies. You need to crack that alien code? Maybe you want to hack into the Pentagon. All you have to do is set a cool young computer geek on the trail and in a few minutes you have all the info you need. The genius hacker can usually perform the necessary task under a great deal of stress or in any distracting situation. Did you see the movie where these dudes gave this hacker sixty seconds to break into a system or they were going to kill him or something, and he had to do it while this hottie gave him a blowjob? Did you see that one?”

“No, but I’m not sure where you are going with this. If anything even vaguely erotic appears on that screen while I am sitting next to you in what used to be my dining room, your ‘command center’ will be immediately shut down by order of the FBI and this room will revert back to once again serve the purpose for which it was intended.”

“You have issues, Hannibal.”

“Hah. Yes, indeed. Probably more issues than you could imagine.” Hannibal picked Titus up and kissed the top of his head. The cat purred loudly.

“Here, here, here. Here we go,” Ely shook a finger at the screen. “Here’s the email address of the person behind the reward site. See, it’s BABAWAWA.”

Hannibal looked over his shoulder half expecting to see Lorne Michaels standing there. Well, people have all sorts of email address names, don’t they? “So are you telling me that I can email whoever designed the site?”

“Yeah, that’s one thing.” More clacking. “I think I can get into BABAWAWA’s mailbox and see who he’s been emailing.”

“You are making this up,” Hannibal sounded incredulous. Titus even sensed the tone and jumped down.

“No, I’m not. Look at what I have here. There’s a whole bunch of email traffic between BABAWAWA and JOHANNES1571. Where’s the love Hannibal? A few more minutes and maybe we can see what these two have been talking about.”

“That second address, JOHANNES1571, is pretty clever,” Hannibal said. “That would be Johannes Kepler of astronomy fame. He was born in 1571.” Just then he had an uneasy feeling. Kepler. The unwelcome image of the newspaper picture of the ‘Jack Russell Incident’ flashed in his mind. He leaned closer to Ely, “You can’t really get into their emails can you?”

“What did I tell you about life imitating art? Feast your baby blues on this, the contents of one of the longer emails, for starters anyway. These two have made it easy for us, when they write back and forth, a lot of the time they keep attaching history.”

“Ely, if this really is what it appears to be,” Hannibal edged closer to the screen, his eyes darted back and forth over the black letters and came to rest on the last few lines.

“Barbara Wainscot and Paula Kepler,” Hannibal whispered, the hair rising on the back of his neck. “This is going to seriously ruin my Monday.”

Clarice Starling looked around her new home with some satisfaction. Everything had happened so fast, she hardly had time to think. It was clear that Doug strongly suspected her true identity, and was well on his way to making a positive ID. She had no choice but to leave New Zealand in a hurry. Fortunately, Mr. Stevens was most happy in his new home with Katy, next door. Clarice had explained that she had to attend to a family emergency near Auckland, and was not sure when she would return. There would be no suspicions there for a few weeks anyway.

Her decision about where to go was not so easy. Should she go back to South America or should she give in to her recent homesickness and return to the United States - even though some serious danger probably awaited her there? In the end, her desire to return home won out. She relied on one of her older, well-established aliases that had a flawless credit record. She was very skilled in life as a successful fugitive, and within a couple of weeks she had everything she needed to settle down and decide what to do next.

The house she had chosen was a furnished two-bedroom cape with a nice sized wooded lot and neighbors on only one side. The other side bordered some property owned by the state. There were trails for walking/running and some horse trails that were used by the riding stable located about two miles down the road. Inside, the house was tidy, but not to Clarice’s taste with respect to décor. The absentee landlord was clearly a “Country Living” kind of person. Every room had some kind of border along the ceiling and there were far too many wooden items (tiny sleighs, decorative birdhouses, little rocking horses), tucked into every available space. All in all however, it was a fine place to temporarily call home.

Sitting in her kitchen eating dinner that consisted of lentil soup and a whole-wheat bagel, Clarice tried to sort out her chaotic emotions. She thought that by coming to the United States, she would feel less restless than she had over the past year or so. But now, with everything she needed in place, she felt even more restless. And the frequency of her nightmares was increasing. In her dreams she had always been trying to save the lambs to stop the awful screaming. Weighed down by the strange slow motion that often happens in dreams, she was never able to get close enough to do anything but listen. All she could ever do was struggle in vain and listen to the screaming until her head pounded and her chest felt tight, making it hard to breathe. Lately though, her dreams seemed to be changing. Within the dream itself she was starting to realize that she could not save the lambs. She began to see that the only way to stop the horror was to let the lambs die. Maybe they had to be sacrificed.

Eating her soup, she looked at a recent picture of Hannibal that she had printed from the local news website. It was taken only a couple of weeks ago when reporters were asking Hannibal if the FBI was any closer to bringing ‘the escaped Dr. Starling’ to justice. He looked much older than she remembered, and he looked tired. She was worried about him. His mediocre career at the FBI did not match well with what Clarice knew about his abilities. Hannibal’s continued underachievement was clearly why she had a never-ending interest in him. She could think of no other reason.

Clarice started her surveillance of the riding stable by running along the trails that led from the back of the property she now rented to the back of the stable’s property. From there she ran along the farm’s private paved road, through the parking lot, past the barns and outside rings, and onto the road out front. She then took a left and followed the road back to her house. Maybe a five-mile run altogether. She timed her outings so that she could get a good idea of what happened at The Horse and Hoof (H&H for short), throughout the day. She was especially interested in what time the veterinarian came by. Fortunately for Clarice, it became apparent very soon that the vet visited the H&H for more than the horses. His old station wagon filled with veterinary supplies for large animals was at the stable just about every day around two o’clock. Feigning a stitch in her side, Clarice was able to linger in the parking lot long enough one afternoon to discover that the vet was dating the owner of the H&H and that they frequently had lunch together. She also overheard their plans to go to out of town for the weekend. Clarice sat at the far edge of the small parking lot and pulled off her running shoe. She busied herself looking for a nonexistent pebble.

“Just drive your car down by the barn and take your bag over to the house. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes,” the stable owner’s voice drifted across the parking lot. The vet said something in reply, but Clarice did not hear it. She had her shoe back on and was silently running on the grass along the edge of the parking lot. She was gone, and she was unnoticed.

That night, Clarice walked back through the woods dragging a plastic wheelbarrow that she found in the garage. She left the wheelbarrow at the edge of the woods and crept across the field to the side of the barn where the old station wagon was parked. She heard the whinny of a horse, but no other noises. She had seen two dogs around the stable in the daytime and could only hope they were far from the barn. She used a slimjim to unlock the back door of the car and it opened noiselessly. From the side cargo pocket of her pants she pulled out a roll of duct tape and a knife. She cut a small piece of tape and put it over the button on the inside of the doorframe to shut off the car’s dome light. She shined a small, but surprisingly bright, blue sapphire light around the interior of the car keeping it down low. Paydirt. There were two plastic milk crates with all sorts of veterinary supplies.

She lifted the boxes out and put them on the ground, stacking them one on top of the other. They were heavy, but not impossible to carry. She then pulled the piece of tape off the doorframe, pushed the lock button down, and tried to shut the heavy old door quietly. She pushed, but it wouldn’t catch. She held it closed and gave it a hard bump with her hip, nothing. It just quietly swung open again. It would not do to have the theft discovered any sooner than necessary, so she closed her eyes and gave the door a slam. It caught, but several of the horses inside the barn were startled. They whinnied, and she could hear them moving around. She carried the milk crates to the back of the barn and waited. No sense getting caught out in the open field away from any possible hiding place if the horses attracted attention. The horses settled down and still there were no barking dogs to alert anyone of her presence.

With her unwieldy burden, Clarice made her way across the dark field. The whole time she felt like she was moving through Jell-O. Finally after what seemed like forever, she made it back to the safety of the woods. She piled the milk crates into the wheelbarrow, which was more like a plastic bucket on wheels, and started off for home, her blue sapphire light shining weirdly in the night.

In the driveway of her house, the plastic wheels made a loud, hollow sound that started the dogs next door barking madly. Damn, she thought. She had forgotten that the neighbors sometimes left their two golden retrievers out in the pen in the backyard. It was three o’clock in the morning; she couldn’t afford to have a scene after getting so far with the goods. She pulled the wheelbarrow off the driveway, around the side of the detached garage, and sat down in the wet cold grass. Please dogs, please just simmer down. Simmer down now, she thought. They did. No lights came on in the house next door. “Okey-Dokey,” she whispered to herself, “let’s get these crates in the house.”

The next day, Saturday, Clarice was trying to choose between going for her usual run by the stables, and going to the Y for a swim. In addition to running, she had been swimming a few miles a week. Physical activity helped quiet the storm of indecision in her mind, temporarily at least. After about an hour of moving from room to room, putting things away and generally straightening up her house, she settled on swimming. She grabbed the bag containing her suit and goggles, and the car keys.

Right in front of her house, her neighbor was walking past with his two golden retrievers. She considered trying to duck back in the front door to avoid him, but it was too late.

“Hi,” he called to her, holding two leashes and trying not to let the rambunctious retrievers drag him away. He was tall and very slim, probably about forty years old. “My name is Jim, Jim Bond, and no, I’m not kidding.” He grinned.

Walking across her front lawn to meet him, Clarice said, “Hi, I’m Jody Foster, and I’m not kidding either.” She put down her bag and knelt down to greet the dogs that were jostling and bumping one another to get to her first. “These guys are beautiful, they look young. About a year?”

“A year and a half now.” He pulled on the leashes, “That’s enough you guys! Laurel! Hardy! Sit!” They half sat, but their wagging tails made it impossible. “They’re brothers, they have great personalities but they’re not too bright. We, Frank and I, were only supposed to have them for a year and then they were going to become guide dogs for the blind, but they didn’t pass the IQ test. So here they are.”

“Well we can’t all be geniuses,” she said, standing up.

“I hope they didn’t wake you up last night. They started barking like crazy at about three. I was almost going to get them and put them in the house, but they finally settled down. I like to keep them in the house at night, but they have too much energy sometimes, especially if we don’t walk them, and they keep Frank awake. He’s a very light sleeper.”

“I must have really been out like a light last night, I didn’t even hear them.” She smiled at him. There was that weird kind of silence that so often happened when Jody was talking with someone. She patted both dogs and said, “Well, I’m off to the Y.”

“Are you some kind of triathlete? I know that you run, not that I’m spying on you, but I have seen you on the road out here, and I think I saw a mountain bike too.”

“Yeah, I just picked up a cheap bike, always nice to have one. I don’t compete, but I do run, swim and bike quite a bit,” she shrugged.

“What brings you here?” He leaned toward her over the dogs, “If I’m being too nosy just tell me.”

With that said, there was no way that she could get out of answering his questions. “I’m a zoologist. I’m on sabbatical, writing a paper.” She hoped that would do it. Be vague and never say more than you have to, that was her motto.

“Oh my gosh, that is so cool. Wow, an intellectual right next door. I’m a CAD designer, Computer Aided Drafting, and Frank is head of security at the mall. Nothing as interesting as what you do I’m sure. You’ll have to come over for dinner, maybe one night next week. I really feel that people should know their neighbors better than they know the characters on their favorite sitcom. Are you with me on that one?” he said nodding.

“Of course I agree. Thanks, dinner would be great. I’m, um, a little busy with my writing, but just keep me in mind.” What else could she say? Hindsight is 20/20 - next time, no neighbors.

“Well I’ll let you go. So nice to meet you, Jody. C’mon boys, let’s go.” He tugged on the leashes to get the two dogs headed in a similar direction. As they walked away, Jody noticed that one dog was favoring his left back leg.

“Hey, Jim,” she dreaded calling him back. “Did you know that one of your guys has a limp?”

“Yes, I do. It’s Laurel. It started yesterday, but it doesn’t seem too bad so I thought I’d just keep an eye on it. He still wants to go for walks, but he just won’t let me near his leg to get a look at it. He fusses and runs around and thinks I want to play every time I try.”

“Maybe I could take a look at it. Let’s put Hardy in the pen, then Laurel will be more cooperative.” Her soothing professional voice came back to her all at once.

In Jim’s backyard, he opened the door to the big wire dog pen that had two doghouses, a big water trough, and a makeshift roof over half of it. Hardy went in without protest.

“Can you tell them apart? I can’t,” she asked.

“It’s hard sometimes, that’s why we put the lavender collar on Laurel and the tweed collar, Herringbone actually, on Hardy.”

Jody knelt by Laurel and smoothed the fur along his back. “Good dog. Good boy. Can you just hold him by the collar while I try and pick up his back leg?” she said looking up at Jim.

Hardy spun around and around in the pen, but Laurel held still. He allowed Jody to pick up his back leg and look at his paw. He whimpered and pulled his paw away when she pressed on one of his pads. Before he pulled away however, she was able to see what the problem was. “He’s got a piece of glass caught between the pads of his paw and it’s worked its way into the pad one side. Do you notice him licking at this paw much?”

“Yeah, he’s been at it since yesterday. Maybe I should call the vet and see if I can take him in right now?” This was more of a question that a statement. Jim sounded like he didn’t want to have to make an emergency vet run.

“I think we can just take it out right here. If you bring me some water and if you have some peroxide, that would be good. We’ll take it out and it should just heal right up. If it is still bothering him on Monday, then you should take him in.”

Jim was more than happy to comply with Jody’s suggestion of minor home surgery. Laurel was a model patient while Jody removed the glass piece, even though he tried to pull his paw away again. She cleaned up the wound and told Jim to keep the dog in the house for the next day so that his paw stayed clean.

Jim shook his head in amazement, “Are you sure you’re not a vet? Man, you were just great with him. He would have never behaved for me.”

“No, no, I just like animals. Laurel was on his best behavior because we’ve only just met. If there’s a next time, I’m sure he will react differently.”

Jim walked Jody back to the front of the house. “Frank and I are going away the middle of next week for about 10 days. We are driving to New York. I’ve never been there. We are going to see the sights and we have tickets to The Producers! I can’t wait to see a Broadway musical!” he said excitedly. “About the dogs, we were thinking about boarding them. Do you think they’ll do OK at a kennel?”

“Oh I’m sure they’ll be fine, especially if you request that they be kept together. Of course if you wanted to save some money, I really wouldn’t mind looking after them.” She knew that this was not a good idea, but she just couldn’t help herself.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that. You’ve already done too much doctoring up Laurel.”

“Really, it would be no problem. I’m going to be home anyway.”

“Oh my gosh! Thank you so much!” He took one of her hands in both of his. “I can’t wait to tell Frank. He was a little worried about them getting kennel cough or something.”

“No problem. I’ll stop by later this evening and you can give me the run down on what you feed them and when exactly you’ll be away.” She had extracted her hand and was backing away to where she had dropped her gym bag. “See you later.”

“Thanks! I’m taking Laurel in the house right now.” He tugged on the leash, which was lavender to match Laurel’s collar.

The rest of the day was uneventful. The Y was not as crowded as she expected, which was a pleasant surprise, and she managed to get out of dinner with Jim and Frank because they were having pot roast. They promised of course, to treat her to a scrumptious vegan dinner when they came back from New York.

Although it was only a little past nine o’clock, she could not keep her eyes open. She had been channel surfing to find something interesting to no avail. She flipped to the History channel and, surprised to find they had something on besides Hitler, she put down the remote. The documentary, about real life sea monsters, was not enough to keep her awake however. The last words she heard were about scars found on sperm whales that were presumably made by giant squids.

At the same time that Jody was drifting off the to terrifying image of giant squid tentacles, Julian Wainscot was making a telephone call to his mother.

“Ma, I’m absolutely sure of it now. The scar in between the fingers of her left hand? Yep, I saw it clearly.”

“Tell me the name she is using again.”

“Jody Foster. That’s what it said on her membership card.”

“You know Jules, I can hardly believe our luck. J. Foster is the name on that old X-ray that we’ve had for years. Did you talk to her at all?”

“I just said ‘Hello Ms. Foster, are you new in the area?’ and she said that she was. That’s all, but that was really enough to get a good look at her hand and to watch how she moves. She looks a little different in the face, but Ma, it’s the same woman that hurt you.”

“And you are sure that she didn’t recognize you?” Neither one of Barbara Wainscot’s sons was Mensa material, but they were fiercely loyal.

“Positive. I’ve grown this beard since the last time she saw me, and besides I don’t think she even looked at me that night.”

Julian had been at the house with his mother on the evening that Dr. Starling had made her first visit. Julian had done a good deal of staring at the pretty young doctor, so Ms. Wainscot was inclined to believe her son’s recent discovery. “Even though this seems too good to be true, in a way I’m not entirely shocked that she is back home. I knew that Special Agent Lecter held some sway over her. I have no doubt that they will be meeting very soon. We have two choices, Jules. One, you follow Starling. Two, you follow Lecter. Which is easier for you?”

“Well, probably easier to follow Lecter. That way I can just start off following him and I won’t have to explain where I’m going to anyone. If I follow her, even though I’m just a volunteer at the Y, it might seem odd if I go running out as soon as she leaves. I guess I could try and find her address, but I wouldn’t want to get caught looking her up on the system. Besides she pays her dues in cash so maybe the address she gave is phony.”

“Of course you are right. I want no unnecessary risks taken. You are becoming quite the spy, Jules.” She coughed into the phone. “Well, I’ll make sure that Agent Lecter is easy to follow. I have some calls to make. Monday afternoon you can start by watching his house. I’m quite sure he’ll be home.”

Jody turned restlessly in the chair in front of the television without waking up. The lambs were screaming again. The dream was different this time however. She was sitting on a hillside looking down toward the bottom of the hill. A man was tied there. He was struggling and screaming a lamb’s scream. She knew she could not help him. She knew he had to die in order for the screaming to stop. She recognized the man. She recognized Hannibal Lecter.

It was 8:30, Monday morning when, as Reina was pulling into the parking lot of the FBI building, Hannibal was pulling out. He pretended not to see her, but she beeped and motioned for him to stop. She had some last minute questions about the braised lamb. Everything seemed straightforward at Hannibal’s house yesterday, but when she got the mostly cooked beast home last night, she felt a little panicky. She had to back up a little to make her window parallel with his.

“Where are you going? I have to talk to you.” Her cheery face was nicely framed by the eye-catching powder blue of her Vapor colored Volkswagen Beetle. In absolute contrast was his grim expression that was made even more clouded by the surrounding darkness of his blood clot colored Volvo with black leather interior.

“I’m going home Reina.”

“You don’t look so good. Are you sick? You weren’t sick yesterday.”

“I got busted and I’m being sent to my room without dinner.”

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” She looked in her rearview mirror. Another car had just passed through the security gate behind her. “Wait, let me park. I’ll be right over.” She was gone before he could protest.

He drove through the outgoing security gate and pulled to the curb to wait for her. He knew that if he left and just drove home that she would probably be at his house before he got there. She was nothing if not persistent.

“OK, what’s going on now?” She got into the passenger side with her keys, cell phone, palm pilot, and a bagel wrapped in wax paper clutched to her chest with her left hand. “Damn, I forgot my coffee.”

“Too bad.” Hannibal pulled away from the curb. “I’ve been suspended,” he said unceremoniously.

“Omigod. You got caught with that assault rifle, I told you to just turn that thing in or lose it somehow.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s something much more mundane. I was caught moonlighting. I always knew I was taking a risk, and it really wasn’t the money. I just liked doing it I guess and I never thought Tony would turn me in. Well, I suppose he was under all kinds of pressure and had no choice. Paula wants to hang me and she’ll take down anyone in her way I’m sure.” Hannibal was musing to himself more than he was talking to Reina.

“What are you talking about, Lecter? Moonlighting doing what?”

“Doing some catering for a business owned by a sort of friend.” He had never told Reina about his extra-curricular activities.

“A ‘sort of friend?’ Well those are the kind to get you in trouble.”

“And I am certainly in trouble this time.” He filled her in on the ugly details. Everything from the phone call he received late last night telling him to be in Paula Kepler’s office at 7:30 Monday morning, to the surrendering of his weapon and the escort to his car. “You know they were still watching to make sure I drove out when you flagged me down. They know I’m driving around telling you everything. I’m not sure that is such a good reflection on you, Special Agent Mierkowski.”

“Yeah well, I don’t care.”

They drove for a while in silence. Hannibal kept going over the morning’s events in his mind. As soon as he had stepped foot in Kepler’s office, he knew the situation was hopeless. They had all the hard evidence they needed to prove that he had a part time catering job - and that was enough to fire him. In a misguided attempt to save himself, he tried to establish his value to the FBI with respect to the Starling case. He weakly pushed back at Kepler by stating that he had some ‘evidence’ of collusion between the FBI and one of Starling’s victim’s who was bent on revenge. Of course, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and he saw no fear reaction from Kepler, he knew he had just tightened the noose around his own neck, if it could get any tighter.

Bringing Hannibal back to the reality of driving, Reina said, “Hey, pull in here. Let’s see if Macarthur Park is still melting.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be melting now, because it’s not dark,” he said, turning into the park.

Reina hummed and mumbled to herself, looked up and said, “You’re right. I just don’t think that I can take it.” She looked out the window thoughtfully, “It just…it just took so long to bake it. And you know what else?”

“Let me guess. You’ll never have that recipe a-gain.”

“Oh no, Lecter,” she said, patting his thigh. “Oh, no.”

Hannibal was glad Reina had shown up when she did. He did not mind postponing the inevitable rumination about why he had put himself in such a bad position with respect to his career. The possible loss of a pension was a gruesome thought.

When Hannibal had stopped the car near the park’s little pond, Reina said, “Let’s take a walk. I want to feed this bagel to the swans; I’m not very hungry anymore. You don’t think they’ll come too close to me, do you?” Reina shuddered at the memory of the scabies incident.

“No, I’m sure we’ll be alright as long as we stay up wind of them.”

They got out of the car and walked down to the pond. Two huge white swans paddled obediently on the water. They sat down on the bench, Hannibal hunched forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Reina ripped off bite-sized chunks of bagel and threw them near the edge of the water. The swans headed directly for the food.

Hannibal and Reina had a complex relationship. They had worked on many cases together, often being partnered for long and boring stakeout assignments. Hannibal endured much ribbing from his male colleagues who marveled at his luck for being paired with such a ‘pretty young thing,’ especially for assignments that involved travel…. and hotels. But Hannibal never propositioned Reina. Not once. And, after a while, Reina began to relax around him, not needing to fend off the advances she expected. In fact, since Hannibal did not behave the way she was used to having men behave around her, he became an enigma to her. He was most certainly her mentor, but he also became her friend. A mutual affection grew between them, and eventually, it was Reina that encouraged their first exploration into a non-professional relationship. It was simply an extension of their friendship. They were not jealous or possessive of one another, and Hannibal usually let Reina lead the way. He made few demands on her.

Sitting beside him now on the park bench, Reina said, “Listen, a lot of times they just do this to scare people. I’ve known people who were suspended as a kind of slap on the wrist, but then they were reinstated at the hearing. Their gig was up and they just couldn’t moonlight anymore. Remember Pat? She was working at a nursing home as an LPN at night. Someone found out and made a fuss so it looked like she was going to get fired, but then she wasn’t fired.”

Reina’s youthful optimism was starting to wear thin. Hannibal knew he was not going to get reinstated, but he did not have the energy to argue facts with Reina right now. She went on to recount several other suspensions and near-firings, but Hannibal was not listening. He got up, shoved his hands in his pockets and took a few steps toward the pond. The swans had eaten all the bagel pieces and were looking expectantly at him. He stared back at them, not blinking. They dropped their gaze and paddled back out across the pond to the other side.

Reina came to stand beside him. She threaded her arm through his and put her head on his shoulder. He leaned his cheek against her dark red hair and resisted the urge to press his lips against the top of her head.

“Well, I’ll just have to wait it out and see what happens,” he sighed. “Right now I think I just want to go home and go back to bed.”

Reina turned to face him. They were almost the same height, and were now standing nose to nose. She slid her arms inside his suit jacket and kissed him on the mouth, turning her head to avoid his big nose. One kiss, and he remained the immovable object. With the second kiss, she heard him inhale against her cheek. She pulled back just a little and then kissed him again, this time brushing her tongue against his lips. He opened his mouth to accommodate her and pulled his hands out of his pockets, putting his arms around her. He was surprisingly strong, and he nearly crushed her against him. She had learned not to panic when he squeezed her hard. Once he warmed up, he became much less fierce. She turned her mouth from his and kissed his cheek.

“Reina, don’t. I don’t need any mercy.” He was still holding her pressed against his hips.

“Mercy?” she looked into his dark blue eyes. “Who said anything about mercy? I have my Palm Pilot in the car, you can look for yourself - you’re on my ‘To Do’ list for today.” This was meant to be alluring, but they both laughed at just how ridiculous it actually sounded.

His wide grinchy smile was a little frightening this close. He sighed, raised his eyebrows and asked, “What about Roger, the braised lamb birthday boy?”

“Oh he’s on the list too. I’ve decided to arrange you in descending order according to age.”

“Age,” he said pushing her away a little roughly.

“Come on Lecter, you have the whole week to mope about this before the hearing. Why not try and forget about it for a little while? It’ll be nice.” She reached out and hooked her fingers under his belt buckle and tugged.

“You’re being silly,” he said. “You should go back to work. They saw you leave with me. I’m a very bad influence.”

She stepped closer to him, now with four fingers in his pants behind his belt buckle. “Let’s go to your house.” She kissed his ear. “All this time that we’ve been, um whatever it is that we’ve been, I’ve never been in your bed.”

“Ah, Reina. How can I resist such an illogical argument?”

Ely stumbled into the hallway on his way to the bathroom. It was before noon, and he was awake. These were the makings of a good Monday morning. He paused outside the bathroom door when he noticed Titus in the hallway by Hannibal’s room. The door was closed. Weird, Hannibal never closed his door because Titus liked to sleep on the bed in the morning sun. Standing in his flannel pants and long sleeve T-shirt, Ely thought he heard a voice coming from Hannibal’s room. A female voice. He took a couple of cautious steps down the hallway. It was a female voice. It was Reina’s voice. “Titus, Dude, what is goin’ on around here?” Ely whispered to himself. He was getting a most pleasing mental image of Reina in the bedroom, sounding like she knew Victoria’s Secret, when he heard his uncle’s muffled baritone. They were not exactly having a conversation.

“Augh,” he whispered as he pounded the heel of his hand against his forehead in an effort to dislodge the suddenly frightening mental image that now danced in his frontal lobe. “Titus, this place is not fit for man nor beast. C’mon let’s go downstairs and have some pop-tarts.” He quickly padded to the end of the hall and picked up the old grey cat.

In the relative safety of the dining room, Ely and Titus quickly became absorbed in a real-time computer game that Ely was playing against another gamer in Argentina. Titus sat on Ely’s lap watching the screen where all sorts of things were moving around and getting blown up. Every so often, Titus would reach out a paw and tap at the keys. “You cats just love to type, huh?” Ely was so lost in the game that he was a little startled when he heard someone in the kitchen. Then he remembered the primal scene upstairs. He put Titus on the table, and went around to the kitchen. The refrigerator door was open and Reina’s butt, clad in tailored dark blue slacks, was sticking out from behind it.

“What are you looking for?” Ely asked.

Reina stood up with a start. “Omigod! Ely. I totally forgot you were here.” She had one hand on the open door and one hand over her heart. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Well, as long as you don’t give my uncle a heart attack,” he grinned at her.

“Nice bed head Ely.” She grabbed a Diet Coke from the second shelf and shut the door. “Don’t you have a job?”

“Of course he has a job, sitting around my house all day, breathing all that air and eating all that food, it’s real work,” Hannibal said as he came into the kitchen. He went to the cabinet by the sink and got a glass that he filled with water from a gallon bottle that was sitting on the counter. Hannibal downed the entire glass of water without really swallowing; he just poured it down his throat. At the same time, Reina had uncapped the Diet Coke and was glugging out of the bottle.

“Thirsty work, being in the FBI,” Ely said with a giggle.

Reina, still holding the bottle of soda, went over to Hannibal who had put his empty glass down and was leaning against the counter. She put a hand on his chest and they kissed - a long, wet, gratuitously sloppy kiss, just for Ely’s benefit. They parted with a loud smack. After glancing over smugly at Ely, she said to Hannibal, “I gotta run, I’ll call you tomorrow.” With that, she turned and walked to the front door. She was gone without looking back.

“Hannibal, what the hell, man?”

“I really don’t want to hear anything from you right now.” Hannibal poured another glass of water.

Ely continued as if her did not hear, “I guess there’ll be no braised lamb birthday party tonight. I mean unless it’s over here.”

“Oh no. She’s still on with Roger tonight.” Hannibal drained the second glassful in one smooth gulp.

“What? She’s gonna bang both of you in one day?”

Hannibal pulled the top rack of the dishwasher out for his glass and said, “In descending order, according to size.”

“Dude, whatever. He shoots, he scores. Way to go, uncle.” Ely punched Hannibal in the arm.

“Don’t touch me Ely.”

“What are you getting hostile about? She’s so hot. Don’t even question why she’s hanging with you. You got your piece, right?” He punched Hannibal in the arm again. This time Hannibal let loose with a vicious back-fist straight into Ely’s bicep. It landed with a meaty thuck.

“Shit! Are you insane? What’d you do that for? Oh my God, I think you separated my bicep.” Ely was holding his arm and wincing in pain. But still he didn’t learn. “What happened anyway? Did your Viagra wear off while you were trying to nail her?”

“You little cock-sucker, I ought to kill you!” Hannibal lunged at Ely. The reality of his perilous job situation was settling in on him with a vengeance. With surprising ease, he transferred his anger and frustration from Paula Kepler to Ely. Ely had no idea what he was in for. Because of his youth, he was quick enough to get his hands up to protect himself against the initial onslaught before Hannibal got a firm chokehold on his throat. While they were struggling against the refrigerator, the front door of the house opened.

“HEY!” Reina called from the doorway. Hearing the scuffle, she ran to the kitchen. “What the hell are you guys doing?”

Hannibal turned, one huge hand still around Ely’s throat, but his grip had loosened. Ely slapped his uncle’s hand away and collapsed into a chair by the kitchen table. He said quietly, “Jesus Christ. He was gonna kill me.”

Both men, panting from exertion, looked at Reina.

“I’m not even going to ask what’s going on here, it’s just enough that it’s stopped. I waited outside hoping you would remember that I needed a ride back to work, Lecter. Guess it was a good thing I ruined my dramatic exit when I did though. I always like to prevent a homicide whenever possible.”

“Oh God, Reina. I’m sorry, I completely forgot you didn’t have your car here.” Hannibal smoothed his hair back with his left hand and offered his right hand to Ely. “Sorry…. sorry, I have a lot on my mind.”

Ely did not take his hand. He stood up; he was a good four inches taller than Hannibal, and said, “Go fuck yourself.” He put a hand to his bruised throat, pushed past Hannibal and headed for the stairs. Reina saw that his eyes were filled with tears.

Hannibal looked up at the ceiling, both hands at his sides. “Goody-Goody, another situation to take care of. Well, one thing at a time. Let’s get you back to work.”

“Are you going to be alright, Lecter?”

“Yeah, fine. Go.” He motioned for her to go ahead of him.

As they walked to the door, Reina looked back at him and said, “Shoes. Where are your shoes?” Hannibal was wearing jeans and a denim shirt - one of his Glamour Don’t outfits according to Reina - and had bare feet.

“I have a pair of sandals in the car.”

“Since when do you wear sandals?” she asked.

“Since now.”

On his way back from dropping Reina off, Hannibal called his sister Mischa on his cell phone. Mischa worked at a high-end cosmetics shop at the mall. No animal testing. Before Hannibal’s ornery cell phone cut off, Mischa confirmed that Ely had in fact called her, and that he begged to move back home. Mischa was very upset. Her hands were tied since Bryan, the evil stepfather, had positively forbidden Ely’s ever returning home long ago when he initially kicked him out of the house. Hannibal promised to make amends with Ely, and said the whole thing was just a misunderstanding.

“He said you tried to kill him. Did you hit him? Did you get into a physical fight?”

“Well, yes and no. I mean, no and yes. No I did not try to kill him, I just…Mischa? Hello?” Nothing. “Goddamn stupid phone.” He looked at the tiny screen that blinked a low battery warning at him twice before shutting down completely. He threw the phone over his shoulder into the back seat. “No my dear sister, I didn’t try and kill your son. I simply tried to choke him into unconsciousness,” he said to himself.

He pulled into a gas station, filled up his car and then parked over by the convenience store. He thought this week might be a good time to conduct some medical experiments on himself. First, he thought, it was high time he took up smoking. He had initially intended to buy a simple carton of cigarettes, but when he looked at the staggering display of cigarette brands, he decided to create a 20-pack sampler instead. He bought an assortment of Lights, Mediums, Menthol, Low Tar, 100’s, 120’s, Wides, a good old-fashioned pack of Marlboro’s in a red and white hard pack, and a lighter in the shape of a dolphin.

The clerk who rang up his purchase gave him a questioning look. Hannibal flashed a lizardly smile and said, “Halloween is coming up and I don’t want to give out fried chicken embryos again.”

From there Hannibal made two more stops. One at the grocery store where he bought the most vile items he could imagine. Frozen dinner entrees, cans of condensed soup, macaroni and cheese, canned vegetables, Jell-O; his masochistic mood knew no bounds. His last stop was the video store where he picked up an armload of smarmy DVDs that he would further torture himself with.

When he finally arrived home, it was mid-afternoon. He was surprised to see Ely’s old beater car still in the driveway. In the house, Ely was busy stacking all his possessions in the front room near the door. He did not look up when Hannibal came in.

“Moving out?”

“Yeah.”

“Where to?”

“What do you care? I won’t be here, that’s all you need to know.”

Hannibal brought the first load of plastic bags into the kitchen and headed back out to the car to get the rest. When he came back in, Ely was busy in the dining room, taking apart his computer. He was serious.

Hannibal dumped the contents of the bag from the gas station onto the kitchen table. He spread out all the brightly colored packs and tried to determine, objectively, which pack was most appealing to the average consumer. He chose the Camel Lights. He liked the camel. He opened the pack and tapped out a cigarette. Time to start on that cough. The dolphin lighter was very small, and he had trouble working the little roller ball with his thick thumb. He finally got the cigarette lit and was looking for something to use as an ashtray when Ely came into the kitchen and said, “What are you doing? You don’t smoke.” He frowned at the bizarre display on the table.

“I do now. I got fired today Ely. Well, it won’t be official until next week, but you can rest assured that Paula will finally have me burned at the stake. So, since I’ve been fired, I thought I should smoke.” He turned to Ely with a wicked smile, blue smoke curling from the cigarette in his right hand.

“But you were here all morning, remember? A little romp with your colleague and then an attempted murder here in the kitchen. Why…why would you get fired anyway? Are you serious or are you just being creepy? You’re really starting to freak me out.” He backed up a step.

As Hannibal recounted the morning’s unsavory events, they cautiously sat down at the kitchen table.

Ely shook his head. “That sucks. I mean, the pension thing, that really sucks.”

“Yes, Major League sucks,” Hannibal agreed. He lit another cigarette, already getting better at handling the tiny dolphin head. “And the other thing that’s got me a little out of sorts is this thing with Reina.” He took a drag off the cigarette and inhaled deeply. He blew most of the smoke out in a gray cloud, the rest escaped from his mouth and nose in little puffs as he spoke. “I really want Reina to be happy. I think that she really likes this new fellow, even though she’s only been seeing him for a month or so. She seems happier with him than with anyone else I’ve known her to date.” He tapped the ash into a glass. “See, I’ve never felt possessive towards her because there was never any serious threat to our odd little relationship. But now I feel there is a threat, and I’m not feeling so magnanimous anymore. I… I just…” He hung his head. “I hate feeling this way, you know? It’s so hopeless to wish with all your heart that you could be younger. That you could be,” his voice caught. He blinked, and a tear fell onto his thigh, with a soft plop against the denim. He looked across the table through the hazy smoke at Ely. “That’s funny isn’t it Ely? To wish that I could be the one?”

“No, it’s not funny. You’re just getting all freaky because of all the shit dumped on you today. I mean, on the one hand if she were with you, you know as like your whatever, girlfriend or wife maybe, there’d never be any broken tile in the bathroom. On the other hand, you’d grow to hate her in like five days tops. Can you imagine? She would drive you crazy, running her mouth 24/7. I’ve never seen her when she wasn’t talking. I mean, take this morning right? That’s how I knew you guys were in there. I heard her voice all the way down the hall.”

Despite everything, Hannibal chuckled. “Oh my God, I feel so sorry for myself. Thank you for that small bit of reality. I suppose things are as they should be. This way I can, I dunno, love Reina in my own strange way and not have to kill her.”

“There you go. And, who’s to say, even if she marries braised lamb boy, she might still need a little sugar on the side. I know you’re not too proud for that.”

“No, I’m not. I’m a shining example of morality.” He got up to put the melting frozen food in the freezer. With his back to his nephew he said, “I wish you would reconsider about moving out. Of course it’s your choice, and I understand completely.”

Ely stood up and turned toward the dining room, his back to Hannibal. “Maybe I’ll just hang for the week. Just until I get my plans in order.”

“Sure, take as long as you need.”

“I’ll just bring my stuff back upstairs for now.” He paused, “Hey, how are those sandals working out?”

“I feel like I’ve worn them all my life.”

Wednesday evening of that same week, found Clarice Starling in her living room watching a tape of an earlier newscast. Paula Kepler was being assailed by reporters wanting to know what allegations were being brought against Hannibal Lecter and if they had anything to do with the Starling case. Kepler replied that there was an investigation being conducted into his activities, but since she knew him to be an honest and reliable agent, she was certain he would be cleared of any wrongdoing. She would not comment any further. There was something insincere about her.

“What kind of activities?” Clarice wondered out loud. Laurel looked up at her and thumped his tail on the floor in reply. Hardy was sleeping on the couch. Earlier in the day, Jim and Frank had left on their New York vacation. As soon as they were gone, Clarice took the dogs to her house where they would be having a vacation away from the outdoor pen. She had picked up most of the Country Living knick-knacks that were in reach of the bumbling Goldens. Still, she had to take a little wooden sled out of Hardy’s mouth - she had no idea where he had found that one.

She rewound the tape and played the snippet of news again. “Well Laurel, I’m starting to think that Ms. Kepler may have some personal issue with Hannibal. It looks like I might have to call on my favorite special agent if I want the real E! True Hollywood story.” She smiled at the thought of seeing Hannibal again. Laurel whined and Clarice reached down to scratch behind his ears. “Maybe you and I should pay a visit to Ms. Kepler too. I hear she likes dogs.”

Hannibal now looks back on the five days that began on Monday morning with his suspension from the FBI and ended on Friday afternoon with a series of extraordinary events that changed his life, as ‘the lost week.’ He had finally hit rock bottom and made a conscious decision to stay there, covered in muck. He stayed in the house, talked to no one, slept too much, and smoked. By the end of the week, his throat was raw and he could no longer decide which cigarettes tasted better than others. Ely had become increasingly unnerved by his uncle’s behavior. Any attempt at communication had been squashed by Hannibal’s silent, unwavering glare. Even Reina had no luck drawing him out of his shell when she stopped by mid-week. She continued to call several times a day, but Hannibal would not come to the phone.

“Alright, that’s it,” Ely marched into the hazy living room. It was Friday afternoon and he was determined to snap Hannibal out of his torpor, even if it meant getting into another fight. Ely grabbed the remote control off the arm of Hannibal’s chair and shut off the television. “How many times are you gonna watch this? The ending is the same every time, she dies and he adopts her son. There is no more to get out of this.”

Hannibal turned his bloodshot eyes to Ely. “You’re right. Better switch to ‘Remains of the Day.’ That one is sort of a two-for. The butler never gets the woman, and you know what’s in store for Christopher Reeve. Why don’t you change discs for me while you’re up?”

Ely was surprised to get this much conversation out of him. “No. No more movies. I have a deal for you. I’ll make something to eat if you go take a bath. You Englishmen like baths right? Remember? Soap and water?”

Hannibal ran a hand across his chin. His beard was coming in nicely; too bad it was mostly white.

“C’mon, let’s go. This place reeks and you are really scaring me.”

“Welsh,” Hannibal said.

“Oh for God’s sake, Welch’s Grape Jelly. Whatever. Are you just gonna rot here or are you gonna get moving?”

Hannibal got up.

“I want to hear that bath water running,” Ely said.

“Bitch,” Hannibal sneered on his way out of the room.

Ely was most satisfied with the results of his effort. He did indeed hear the bath water running upstairs. He had plans with some of his friends that night and he did not want to waste any energy worrying about his uncle while he was out. It was really weird how things worked out sometimes.

Ely did not know what had gotten into Hannibal on Monday at the grocery store, but he certainly was happy with the resulting stockpile of delicious food items. All week long Ely had indulged in a salty, fatty feast, while Hannibal had hardly eaten anything at all. Faced with the many remaining choices, Ely had trouble deciding what to make. Fish sticks and Tater Tots, or cheese weenies? He decided on macaroni and cheese with some hot dogs cut up and thrown in - a new savory dish he creatively called Mac-n-Cheese Weenies. He had a sneaking suspicion that Hannibal would balk at such a culinary delight, but he was prepared for that. For an appetizer, Ely rolled a decent sized joint from the stash that he kept in a little Tupperware container labeled ‘Don’t throw this out,’ in the freezer.

Reina called while Ely was cooking. They talked over the ‘Hannibal situation.’ She was encouraged by Ely’s latest update, but disagreed strongly with his plan to alter Hannibal’s mood with a controlled substance.

“He’s not going to go for that. He’s going to flip out, or worse yet go back to his chair and watch ‘Shadowlands’ again.”

“Look he’s smoked like a million ciggies, he’s gonna be cool with this.”

“No he’s not Ely. And I can’t come over there now and referee. You’re on your own with this one.”

“How’s Roger? Are you hangin’ out with him tonight?”

“Yeah. But listen, I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

“OK. Maybe you can perk up Hannibal the Cannibal a little tomorrow, you know, before he has to face the music on Monday?”

“I’ll do what I can. I hope he decides to shave.”

“He’s been up there a long time. He’s either shaving or he’s slitting his wrists.” That last comment produced a little anxiety in both Ely and Reina. “Hey, I better go,” he said.

“Sure, you have my cell number, right? Otherwise, see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Ely hung up and went to the bottom of the stairs. “DUDE! Dinner is ready. Are you coming down tonight, or did you drown?” No answer. “HEY!”

“Hey.” Hannibal appeared at the top of the stairs clean-shaven and dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a black shirt, tucked in with a belt, as always. He looked almost back to normal. “I was hungry until I smelled whatever it is that you’ve been cooking,” he said as he came down the stairs. “Who was it that called?”

“It was Reina. She said that she thinks Roger’s dick is bigger than yours, but she might come over tomorrow just to check.”

In the kitchen, Hannibal picked up the phone and then looked into the pan on the stove. “I’ll be right back to make something to eat in a minute.” He went off into the living room. Ely overheard bits of the conversation. Hannibal was talking to Reina and sounding flirty. Ordinarily this would have made Ely shudder, but now he felt relieved. Maybe things were getting back to normal, which in retrospect was not all that bad. And, maybe Reina was right about the weed. He took out the little Tupperware container and was putting the joint in it for the time being when Hannibal asked, “Why would you roll that and then put it back in the freezer?”

“Damn, I can’t believe how you can sneak up on me like that! In all honesty, I rolled it for you. I figured you needed to relax a little bit.”

“You’re full of shit. You’re going out with your geeky friends aren’t you?”

“You know for someone who dropped out of everything for a week, you seem to know a lot about what’s going on. Yeah, I’m outta here tonight, but this was for you, not them. Reina said you’d freak out though, so I was just putting it away for future use.”

“When have you ever known me to freak out?”

“I guess the last time was Monday, when you tried to strangle me.”

“Yeah, good point. Well, if you expect me to eat what you’ve cooked there, you’d better light that up.”

“Dude, that was my thought exactly. Really? You’re OK with this? I’ll go get Mr. Dolphin head, I think I saw it in the other room.”

Standing by the sink, Ely lit the paper at one end of the joint and blew out the flame. He held the twisted paper at the other end to his lips and inhaled deeply. He looked at Hannibal and grinned stupidly, couldn’t keep from laughing and expelled his entire lungful. “Don’t look at me.” He took another long drag and handed the joint to Hannibal.

They smoked while standing at the kitchen sink carrying on a weirdly protracted conversation, holding their breath as long as possible and squeaking out a few words here and there during the process.

“Christ, I’m dizzy from holding my breath. I’ve got to get more exercise.” Hannibal said when they had dropped the tiny bit that remained down the garbage disposal. The words around the drain said ‘SINK-ER-ATOR.’ He had never noticed that before. He wondered if Ely had noticed the words, but suddenly he could not really say for sure whether he had just wondered that or if he had already asked Ely. His heart was racing.

“You want some Mac-n-Cheese Weenies?” Ely was already filling up two bowls with the lurid yellow and pink goop.

Hannibal winced and held up a hand, “I need something to drink first. My throat is killing me. Too much smoke-filled fun this week.” He went to pour a glass of water but then seeing a Diet Coke on the table, changed his mind. In the ‘fridge, Ely had about 40 Diet Cokes stacked up. It was kind of an interesting formation really. He forgot why he had the refrigerator door open. Thirsty, Diet Coke, OK back on track.

Hannibal and Ely wolfed down their processed cheese-food dinner in silence. The act of eating was entirely absorbing. Hannibal was amused by the slimy goodness of the nitrate laden, starchy glop. It was to die for. When it was gone, they moved right on to a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies.

“Chips Ahoy,” Hannibal said, looking at the bag with its stay fresh tabs.

“Ahoy Matie,” Ely snickered.

“That is so stupid. Ahoy my ass.” That was it. They both laughed like idiots. Hannibal had no idea how long they had been at the table but it seemed like forever. His sides hurt from alternately laughing and trying not to choke to death on the cookies he kept shoveling into his mouth. They were making a half-hearted attempt to clean up the kitchen when the doorbell rang. It was Ely’s friend, Jason, picking him up on his way to another friend’s house.

“Are you gonna be alright now?” Ely asked Hannibal as he grabbed his house keys off the counter.

“I’m fine. My heart no longer feels like it is going to explode.”

“Just don’t drive anywhere for a while, you’re not as fine as you think.”

Jason, who was now in the kitchen doorway said, “Man, you guys are wasted.”

Ignoring Jason entirely, Hannibal patted his front pockets and asked, “Ely where’s Mr. Dolphin head?”

“Here, catch.” He tossed the lighter to Hannibal who missed it by a mile. It dropped to the floor with a clatter. “See what I mean. Have some more cookies and take it easy.”

“Yeah, I have a few more packs of cigarettes to kill.”

Ely headed for the door, “Bye.”

“Take it easy, Hannibal,” Jason chuckled as he went to follow Ely.

Hannibal was too busy to notice. He was certain he had seen some dried apricots in the cabinet somewhere.

Hannibal was finally settled in his leather chair with a glass of wine, bag of dried apricots, a new pack of very long, very thin cigarettes, and a chunk of cheddar cheese. He thought that ought to hold him for a while. He did not have the energy to put in another DVD, and he could not bear Shadowlands again, so he put on the History channel to check in with Hitler - nothing like a little Nazi history to dampen one’s spirits. It was a documentary about the Aryan breeding program spearheaded by Himmler. He decided to stay with that for now. He lit a cigarette and was a little distracted by a distant buzzing sound. Two buzzes in short succession, very faint. He tried to ignore it, but it would not stop. Brrrrt, brrrrt. What the hell was that? Then he remembered, the dreaded cell phone.

He got up and tracked down the phone. The last he had seen of it, it was in the backseat of his car. Ely must have rescued it. Sure enough, it was in the dining room, plugged into the wall charging up. Hannibal pulled the plug out and flipped open the little phone, “Yeah,” is all he could manage.

“Hello Hannibal.”

“Why would you call me on this phone? You know I hate this thing. I’m at home, call me on the real phone.” Hannibal folded the phone and put it back on the sideboard. It started to ring again.

He answered the cell phone again, this time with, “Reina what’s your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem. I think you do, and I’m not…Reina.”

No, it did not sound like Reina now that he thought about it. It could not be Kepler; she would have one of her lackeys call him if she needed something.

“Dr. Starling?”

“Very good, Hannibal. Now I want you to get in your car, you’re going to go for a little drive.”

“That’s probably not the best idea right now.” He was getting a headache, and this was all just a little confusing. “Never mind, I’m sure it will be fine. Let me just find my keys.” Fortunately, the keys were hanging on the peg where they should be. Now the question of the phone - he had a ‘hands free’ earpiece, but he had not seen it in about a year, so he was just going to have to hold it. “Dr. Starling, this cell phone gets very poor signal around here, so please don’t be surprised if it cuts off.”

“Where are you now?”

“In my kitchen. Where are you?”

“Hannibal, please get in your car.”

“Right. OK. Just have to find my sandals. By the way, thank you very much. I really like them.”

“I’m glad, I was afraid you were still wearing those Rockports.”

“Well, yeah I have to wear those to work. Or when I had a job, I used to wear those to work.” There was no response. “Dr. Starling are you still there?” He looked at the phone. The screen was blank. Now what, he wondered. Did she intend to meet him somewhere, or was she just going to ask him to drive around in circles? Well, if she were foolish enough to show herself in person, he would have to be prepared. On Monday he had surrendered his weapon, which was just as well since currently he was not in any shape to handle a gun. But he still had a pair of handcuffs and luckily they were right there on the counter. He tucked them in his back pocket. If he came face to face with her, he would make every effort to bring her to justice even if his days of being an FBI agent were numbered.

He jumped when the phone rang in his hand. He pushed the OK button, “Dr. Starling?”

“Where are you now Hannibal?”

“Still in my kitchen. Give me a minute, I’ll get it together.”

Finally in his car, holding the little phone to his ear since it was too small to clamp between his head and shoulder, Hannibal realized that he was still quite spaced out. He started the car and backed out of the driveway without incident, but once he was on the road, maintaining a normal speed seemed to be a problem. At twenty-five miles an hour he felt like he was doing seventy-five. He had to really concentrate in order to increase his speed, but the moment anything distracted him, he was down to twenty-five again. Using all his mental ability just to move along with the flow of traffic and follow Dr. Starling’s directions, Hannibal never noticed the black van behind him.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Dr. Starling directed him to turn into Macarthur Park. There was a secondary parking lot at the far end of the park; she had him stop there. Thankful not to be driving anymore, Hannibal looked around. There were still quite a few cars and people in the lot. It had been a beautiful day. “Why have you brought me here?” he asked, stepping out of the car.

“We need to talk about Paula Kepler. I think she has some kind of personal vendetta against you.”

“Yeah, there’s no secret there. Have you seen the old newspaper picture, with me and the dog and Kepler?”

“I keep that picture on my refrigerator.”

“No kidding? She never got over that. She never liked me anyway, even before that. Wait, there’s something else. It’s not Kepler, um, yeah, I remember. Kepler and Barbara Wainscot. I think they are trying to set a trap for you Dr. Starling. Are you in this park or are you far from here? I think it would be unwise of you to get too close to Wainscot and sons.” Hannibal scanned the parking lot for Starling. There was a woman sitting at a picnic table, her brown hair was tied back in a ponytail and she was looking into the stroller that was next to her. He could not tell if there was a baby in the stroller.

“Oh I know they are out to get me. They’ve been planning for some time now. But it’s you and Paula Kepler that have me concerned. Which of your ‘activities’ are they investigating?”

There was a large dog trotting around in the parking lot. It was loose and it seemed to be searching for something. “I was caught moonlighting. As you know, the Bureau frowns on any extra source of income supplementing their oh-so-generous pay scale.” The dog was now in the middle of the parking lot directly in the path of a black van that had already circled the area twice.

“Do you think it’s the end of your career? Will you be pulled off of my case even before we’ve had any fun?”

“I am certain I will be made redundant.” The black van seemed to accelerate toward the dog. Then suddenly there was a squeal of brakes and the dog dodged to the far side out of Hannibal’s sight. A few people ran over to the scene to offer help or get a closer look, and the passenger of the van got out. A young woman in black bike shorts and a green shirt appeared at a full run from a wooded area at the edge of the parking lot. This was all happening so fast, and there was something about the Collie. The Collie. Oh no, Hannibal thought, Sammy. “Dr. Starling are you still there?” he said into the phone. No of course not. There she was across the parking lot helping Jeffrey Wainscot load Sammy, who looked badly injured, into the back of the van.

“NO! Dr. Starling! It’s a set-up!” Hannibal ran toward the van. Starling turned her head and met his eyes for one brief moment, and then she hopped up into the van after Jeffrey Wainscot. A hand reached out and slammed the back door shut and the van quickly drove off.

“Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?” Hannibal ran back to his car intent on following the van. The keys were not in the ignition. He looked in all the compartments in the console. Nothing. He got back out of the car and checked his pockets. No keys. He looked around the parking lot to no avail. Back in the car, he frantically looked on the floor, between the seats, everywhere. In frustration he laid his head on the steering wheel. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glint of his brass Volvo tag in the compartment on the door. He grabbed the keys and started the car. What an uncharacteristic thing to do, he thought. He never put anything in those side pockets. Then again, it was a most uncharacteristic week.

As soon as he started rolling, he realized that following the van was going to be impossible. Not only was the van long gone, but also now that dusk was approaching, there was a line of cars driving out of the park blocking his way. He could probably drive crazily and get past them all, but what for? He knew where the van was going.

He parked the car again and picked up his phone that he had thrown on the passenger seat and was surprised to see that it was still connected. Out of the car now, he walked over to the trees where Dr. Starling had been. He found her cell phone on the ground next to a dark green mountain bike. He put the phone in his pocket and wheeled the bike back to his car. Now what. He had not gotten a look at the license plate of the van, although he knew whom it belonged to. There was no kidnapping to report since Dr. Starling clearly entered the van of her own volition - there were plenty of witnesses to that. Standing there in his sandals, Hannibal decided on a plan of action from which he could not turn back. He pulled the release on the front hub of the bike and removed the wheel. The bike fit easily into the big square trunk of the Volvo.

At home, he went directly to the linen closet upstairs. Propped up against the left hand side of the closet, wrapped in a beach towel, was an illegal, automatic assault rifle. It was a machine gun really. He grabbed the gun, popped in a loaded clip, and took a second loaded clip with him along with the beach towel. No sense in alarming the neighbors. He paused at the front door for moment, put down the gun, and went back into the house. Titus was sleeping on the dining room chair at Ely’s computer. Hannibal knelt down, kissed the old grey cat on the head and said, “Remind Ely about your blood pressure pills. I know he’s watched me give them to you and he knows how to do it.” Hannibal scratched Titus’ neck and gave him one more kiss on the head. “See you ‘round.”

“Well, well, well, Dr. Starling. We meet again at last.” Barbara Wainscot, flanked by her two sons, gloated over her prize. Once inside the van, Jeffrey had landed a fearsome punch to Clarice’s jaw as she attended to the injured Collie. Now she was coming awake to find herself duct taped to an ancient wheelchair with the taste of blood in her mouth.

“What…” she pulled against the tape. As her vision cleared, she saw the Collie sitting beside Jeffrey. The steady thump of the dog’s tail against the floor seemed to coincide with the pounding in her head. “It was all a set-up,” she winced. “I should’ve listened to Hannibal.”

“You know Dr. Starling, I’m so glad that you’ve remained friends with that useless cretin. Otherwise I would have had a much more difficult time finding you. Paula Kepler was delighted to help me goad you into running to him in his time of need. It’s all so touching.” She wheeled forward to get a closer look at Starling. “I just want to make sure you are fully recovered from your little lost time episode. I don’t want you to miss a moment of what I have planned for you this evening. Even Sammy here is going to enjoy the show. I am ever so grateful for your concern over Sammy’s health.” She threw back her head and laughed a high, thin, gasping laugh. Sammy barked.

“Jules, will you please help Dr. Starling get dressed for the show? Jeffrey, please take me to the video monitor, I want to run a final check on the lighting.” The Wainscot boys moved into action at their mother’s command. Jeffrey wheeled Ms. Wainscot off in one direction and Julian pushed Clarice in another.

It was fully dark when Hannibal drove down Barbara Wainscot’s long driveway. He was surprised not to see the black van. He had to settle down. Everything looked normal; the van was probably in the garage. What the hell was he expecting? A neon sign? - This Way Hannibal, Quick.

He pulled the assault rifle from the back seat, loaded a round into the chamber, sighed a very loud sigh, and stepped onto the gravel driveway. With a second thought, he grabbed the little Buck knife he kept in the console of his car and tucked it into his pocket. He walked down the narrow alleyway between the garage and the enclosure wall, to the wall of hedges. Closing his eyes, he pushed his way through as quietly as possible. As it turned out, he did not need to be all that quiet. Once on the other side, he paused, listening to the loud whirring of all those agitated starlings flying at full tilt in the makeshift aviary. The starling cage was eerily lit from the inside as well as being illuminated by powerful lights mounted on the back of the garage. He crept toward the cage and sneezed.

Inside the cage, Julian was positioning Clarice in front of the video cameras. He wore a yellow rubber fisherman’s suit complete with hood and protective goggles. Clarice was still duct taped to the old rusty wheelchair, but now she was topless and smeared with a thick coating of suet encrusted with birdseed. In her mouth, Julian had wedged an orange. It was his mother’s intention to have Clarice’s mouth free so that her screams would be recorded for posterity, but Julian was almost bitten twice while trying to get her shirt off. He decided to disobey his mother for his own safety.

The birds had not been fed for some time in anticipation of this event. They were ravenous, and some had already turned to cannibalism. Once he was sure she was in position under the heavy metal dome that shielded the industrial length fluorescent lights, Julian stepped through the sea of birds to the door. His boots squished in the deep layer of bird droppings. There were already hundreds of birds tearing into Dr. Starling. They scratched and pecked every inch of her exposed skin. She squeezed her eyes shut desperately trying to keep them from puncturing her eyeballs.

Julian backed out of the door quickly, only letting a handful of birds escape. As he bent to latch the door, Hannibal swung the rifle with all his might, smashing the butt of the gun into the base of Julian’s skull. The crack of Julian’s spine was not loud enough to be heard over the roar of the feeding frenzy taking place inside the cage. Julian crumpled in a heap and Hannibal rolled him to the side. He pulled on the door and used Julian’s body to prop it open. A steady stream of birds burst from the cage.

Hannibal stepped inside the cage, slipped on the slick layer of droppings and fell hard on his back. The birds were on him immediately, but were startled away every time he sneezed. He was sneezing with almost every breath now, so the settling and startling of birds on and around him almost resembled a heartbeat. With the rifle in one hand, he pushed his other hand into the thick goo on the ground, and stood up. The birds were not leaving the cage fast enough. They were too intent on the easy meal that had been laid out for them.

“Dr. Starling!” Hannibal sneezed and skidded his way over to the wheelchair. When he sneezed, the birds temporarily startled off of Clarice. She was bleeding from a thousand small wounds all over her upper body. She unclenched her eyes to see Hannibal opening the knife blade. He had the rifle tucked under his arm. He cut the tape off one of her hands, and while he sneezed and worked at the other hand, Clarice pulled the orange from her bruised and swollen jaw.

“Hannibal, there’s another brother. Give me the knife and watch for him, I know he has a weapon.” She held out her hand for the knife. He sneezed, tried to look toward the house, but could not see through the swirling mass of starlings. “Hannibal! Give me the knife.”

“Don’t even, *sneeze*, think about running. *sneeze* Nice outfit.” He handed her the knife and swung the rifle into his hands.

Coming out of the house to get a front row seat for what was to be the Grand Finale, Jeffrey was pushing his mother in her wheelchair. She had a shotgun across her lap, just in case anything went awry. She was certain she had prepared for every possibility and was congratulating Jeffrey on a job well done when she saw the open cage door and the lurid yellow shape of Julian curled on the ground.

Jeffrey broke into a trot, still pushing his mother’s wheelchair. It was hard to tell what was going on in the cage at first. But as they got closer, both Wainscots saw Hannibal at the same time.

“Shoot him! Jeffrey, shoot him!” Ms. Wainscot shrieked and pointed, nearly insane with panic.

Jeffrey grabbed the shotgun, and standing only about ten feet away, with only the wire of the cage and a writhing mass of birds between them, leveled the gun at Hannibal. At the same time Hannibal caught a glimpse of Jeffrey’s silhouette backlit by the floodlights from the garage. For once in his life, Hannibal did not hesitate. With the gun held at his hip, he squeezed the trigger and let fly a barrage of bullets that ripped through Jeffrey’s midsection. Hannibal kept on the trigger and with the gun jerking crazily at the recoil of every rapid-fire shot; he shifted his weight and blindly sent a cluster of bullets straight into Ms. Wainscot’s ravaged face.

At the precise moment that Jeffrey was nearly cut in two, he squeezed the trigger of the shotgun. Already falling backward, the shotgun blast went high and hit the far end of the heavy dome of the fluorescent lights. Sparks rained down and the rusted chain holding that end of the light to the ceiling of the cage broke away. The heavy metal dome swung down in an arc, held to the ceiling now by only one end. The edge of the dome crashed into the side of Hannibal’s head with a sickening crunch. The momentum of the impact sent Hannibal sprawling face first at Clarice’s feet. She had just cut herself free from the last of the duct tape as the swinging light winked out.

The birds had thinned out considerably. The majority had found the open door. Clarice stood up, her bare feet digging for stable footing on the slick floor of the cage. She could see well enough by the floodlights that she was the only one left standing. She could not tell however, the extent of Hannibal’s injuries. She squatted and hooked her forearms under his armpits. “C’mon Special Agent, can’t let you drown in this shit.”

Grunting with the effort, she stood up and dragged him outside of the cage where she rolled him over onto his back on the grass. What a mess. Hannibal was covered with bird feces and had an enormous amount of blood spilling from his head wound. He was still breathing, but was very congested sounding.

Clarice pulled the fisherman’s jacket off of Julian, who was growing cold on the ground, and took his shirt. “Sorry Jules, I look crazy enough as it is, can’t afford to get stopped by the police for driving battered and topless.” Even her eyelids had been pecked and wounded by the birds. Alfred Hitchcock definitely was on to something.

She turned back to Hannibal, grabbed him under the arms and dragged him over to the hedge wall. Even with Clarice’s extreme athleticism, it was a real struggle. Getting Hannibal’s dead weight through the dense greenery was almost impossible, but she did it. She considered another route either around or through the house, but time was of the essence and all other options would have been a much longer haul, literally.

When she got to his car, she praised Buddha to see the keys hanging in the ignition. She opened both the back doors and pushed and pulled Hannibal across the back seat. In the dim interior of the old Volvo, Clarice got the first good look at his head wound. It was ghastly. It was clear to her now that his skull had been cracked and that he was probably slipping into a coma. His eyes were rolled lifelessly back in his head. “And if this isn’t enough,” she said, “we are covered with an unimaginable number of bacteria and parasites from our ever shitting feathered friends. OK, no problem here. I’ll just get you home and take care of this oozing mess that is your head. Kind of gives new meaning to what Bernie Mac says, huh? ‘I’m gonna bust yo’ head ‘til the white meat shows.’ I understand if you don’t find that funny right now.” She lifted his bare feet into the car; he had lost his sandals along the way. Around the other side, by his blood soaked head, she found a beach towel on the floor. She bunched it up under his neck in an unsuccessful effort to secure his head for the ride. “Just hold on, just hold on,” she said through the tears welling up beneath her swollen eyelids. “Please don’t die right now.”

It was dark and cold. There were distant sounds, but he could not make out what they were. He tried to move, but was unable to. The pain was excruciating. It ripped through his head unabated. He struggled against the crushing weight that seemed to be pressing down on his eyes. No response, his eyes would not open. The sounds grew fainter. He faded.

Sometime later, he surfaced again. Not so cold this time, and not so dark. With a tremendous effort, Hannibal managed to separate his eyelids enough to peer out. At first, he could only sense that there was light. Then a sharp noise sent a bolt of pain through his skull that caused him to cry out. Twice more the noise tore into Hannibal’s tenuous consciousness. He slipped back into darkness.

The next thing he was aware of was a bright light directly in his eyes. He heard himself groan, but it sounded far away. The light dimmed. He looked out into the room.

“Hello Hannibal. Can you hear me?”

His vision cleared enough for him to recognize the form of Clarice Starling. She was sitting on the edge of the bed with a small flashlight in her hand. She was holding his left hand. “Can you hear me, Agent Lecter?”

“Uh,” the pain in his head stopped him. He tried again, “Yes, I can hear you.” His voice was barely audible.

“Good. Can you feel this?” She stabbed the palm of his left hand with a pin.

“Mmmh, yeah.”

“How about this?” She moved to the end of the bed, pulled the covers off of his right foot and stabbed him with the pin again.

“Yeah, stop.”

“Good, I’m hopeful that you might make a reasonable recovery from your injuries.” She came back to the side of the bed and sat down. She pulled his right eyelid back, “Although I don’t like the look of this eye. Can you follow my hand with your eyes?” She moved her hand in front of his face from left to right. He watched her hand until it disappeared just to the right of his nose.

“Well, maybe when the swelling in your brain goes down you’ll regain some vision.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“How much do you remember?”

“I remember…. I remember driving to Barbara Wainscot’s. They were going to torture you. I don’t know what happened after that,” he whispered.

“They were most definitely going to torture me, Hannibal. In fact they had already started when you arrived quite literally in the nick of time, and killed the Family Wainscot. In the scuffle, your head got in the way of a heavy metal object and you sustained some serious head trauma. I brought you here to my house; your car is in my garage. I’ve done all I can to try and prevent infection while keeping the wound open so it can drain. Hopefully, the risk of forming a clot in your brain is over. I’m very glad that you’re awake, I was afraid you were not going to regain consciousness.”

“Maybe I should go to hospital?”

“I suppose if you want to go to prison for the rest of your life, or possibly get the death penalty, then the hospital would be an excellent choice. You killed three people Hannibal. Two of them you mowed down with an illegal assault rifle.”

“Well, I guess I don’t feel much like traveling right now anyway.” Hannibal moved his arms tentatively. Everything seemed to work. He was able to move his feet as well. “How long have I been here?” He noticed the IV bottle by the side of the bed.

“Since Friday night, so that’s four days. It’s Tuesday afternoon now.” She got up and went to the dresser where there was a blue plastic milk crate.

Four days was a long time. “Why don’t I have to pee?” Hannibal asked.

“Because I put a catheter in,” she answered.

“A catheter,” Hannibal said with alarm. His head was throbbing. “But you’re a vet.”

“We’re all animals,” she said.

“What kind of catheter?”

“A human catheter, Hannibal. In a relaxed state, and you and I both know that counts for very little, you appear to be well proportioned, but you’re no stallion.” She turned to look for something in the milk crate. Hannibal reached his hand under the covers and felt between his legs. He was wearing only a T-shirt, no shorts. He was relieved to find everything in order with no appliances attached. With her back still to him, Dr. Starling said “Don’t worry, I took the catheter out a little while ago when Sammy started barking. I knew you were close to waking up then.”

“Sammy? The Wainscot’s Collie?”

“Yeah, he’s out in the hall now. When I was driving away, he came running around to the front of the house. I have no idea where he came from. My guess is he probably worked open a door and, finding his owners all dead in the backyard, just ran to the front when he heard the car. He had blood all over his paws and he was really agitated. He’s been very protective of you since then. I let him stay in here and if you move or make any sounds he barks to alert me.”

That explained the shrilly, painful noise he heard earlier. “What’s in the milk crate?”

“You are just full of questions aren’t you? Some veterinary supplies. I stole them so don’t ask. I think you may be out of the woods enough to tolerate a little painkiller. Your head must be killing you.”

“It is. Where did you get the human catheter?”

“Am I under investigation?”

“No. Just curious. Besides, I used to be a dick but I’m not a dick anymore.”

“I love that movie.”

“What movie?”

“Never mind.” Dr. Starling had a needle in her hand. She injected its contents into the IV drip. “Say good night, Gracie.”

Dr. Starling’s athletic body felt so good next to his it was intoxicating. He let his weight press against her. With her hands she stroked and squeezed him. He pushed his hips against her, enjoying this perfect moment. Perfect except that he had to pee. The urgency came and went, but eventually it was enough to wake him. He was lying on his side and when he opened his eyes. Sammy, who had been lying on the floor by the bed, barked his ear-splitting Collie bark.

“SSShhhh, Sammy please.” Hannibal’s head felt only slightly better than it did the last time he was awake. He pushed himself upright and slowly swung his feet to the floor. He was wearing boxers now, which he was boldly poking out of. “Nice to see that mornings are getting back to normal,” he whispered to himself. He pulled the covers over his fading erection when he heard Dr. Starling coming up the stairs.

“Hannibal, you shouldn’t sit up by yourself yet,” she said from the doorway.

“Gotta go to the bathroom.” He noticed that the IV needle was no longer in his arm.

“Two choices, you can pee in a bottle, or I can help you to your feet and we’ll see if you can take a few steps to the bathroom which is right around the corner.”

“Help me up.”

He leaned heavily on her to stand up and was surprised by how incredibly strong she was. The pain in his head made him nauseous and the walk to the bathroom was a long one. Eventually, summoning all his strength, he released her and was able to manage solo. Back in the bedroom, she helped him settle into an upholstered chair. It took a great deal of effort to remain sitting upright, but he was starting to feel a little more human.

“I’m going to leave Sammy with you and go downstairs for a minute. I’ll be right back with something to eat. Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“I want you to try to eat anyway. It’s Wednesday morning, that’s a long time with no food. I kept you pretty well hydrated, but I couldn’t pilfer any tube feeding equipment so you are going to have to do this on your own.”

Hannibal looked around the small dormered bedroom. “Everything looks sort of flat.”

“Mmmm, I know. Your right eye is not right.” She left the room and came back with a small mirror. Handing it to him she said, “I’ll be right back with some food.”

When she was gone, he held the mirror up to his face. He gasped at the sight in that small square of glass. The entire right side of his face was purple and swollen. He could see the outline of a horrid gash on the right side of his head. The meaty edges of the wound were puckered where many crude sutures held them together. But worst of all was the reflection of that sightless right eye. It was no longer blue. The black pupil had expanded to virtually encompass the entire iris. It did not respond to light.

He stared into the mirror as the gravity of his situation slowly became real to him. A silent tear slid down his cheek. How could his life have turned out like this? Now, if what Dr. Starling told him was true, he could not go back to the life he had. What was going to happen now? He was completely dependent on a woman with a known history of gruesome violence. Was he going to survive long enough to worry about the future? Then again, why would she nurse him back to relative health if she meant to do him harm? He felt so helpless. He put the mirror down and waited for his breakfast.

By Thursday evening, Hannibal was feeling well enough to venture downstairs. He was dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, sitting at the kitchen table while Dr. Starling ground up peanuts in a machine that made peanut butter. Sammy was sitting beside him, but the two retrievers were outside. They were a little too much for Hannibal - especially the way they hungrily eyed his still raw head wound. As it was, the sound of the peanut grinder was getting painful. When there was a pause in the process, Hannibal asked, “How much peanut butter do you intend for us to eat?”

“You really never know when you are going to need it,” was the answer.

“Yes, of course.” He had already learned not to question a statement like that. Changing the subject he said, “Your starling-pox is really healing up nicely.”

“Those little birds just didn’t have long enough to do a real number on me. Now if I don’t scratch them they won’t scar, right? Hey, will you write out a grocery list, I’m going to go to the store tomorrow. I’ll tell you what we need. I think you’ll be well enough for a little celebratory dinner on Saturday.” She called out items as she looked in the refrigerator and the cabinets. When she glanced over at Hannibal, she saw that he was not writing.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“My handwriting,” he looked up with a terrified expression. “It’s not right. It’s not my handwriting.”

“Alright, don’t panic.” She came over to the table. He had written the word ‘peanuts’ several times. Each time the letters were small and oddly rounded. The word was legible but would not win any penmanship awards. “I don’t write like this,” he looked up at her.

“It’s probably just a little brain damage.” She put her arm around his shoulders and tried to smile. “What can I tell you? At least I can read it. It does say ‘peanuts,’ right?”

He put his arms around her waist and buried his face in her side. “This all feels so crazy. What am I going to do, Dr. Starling?” His voice was muffled against her.

“You’re going to write what I tell you to write. However you write it, that’s your new handwriting. OK? Maybe it’s just temporary, anyway. You have no choice but to wait it out.” She touched his cheek and held him for a moment. “OK?”

“Maybe it is just temporary. Like my eye, huh?” Shaking his head gingerly, he turned back to the paper on the table. “Right, what else, uh, what else do we need besides peanuts?”

On Friday, Dr. Starling went to the grocery store and to the video rental store. Back at home she brought the stack of videos up to Hannibal’s room. “Tomorrow, I have a number of things to take care of. I’m planning a little treat for you so I want to make sure you rest while I’m out. I thought these might keep you busy.”

Hannibal had been trying to read the newspaper, but his head still hurt too much to concentrate long enough to finish an article. He looked at the tapes. She had rented the German submarine film ‘Das Boot,’ the latest rendition of ‘Dracula,’ and the controversial ‘Last Temptation of Christ.’

“That’s an interesting trio of movies,” he said.

“They’re some of my favorites.”

“’Last Temptation of Christ.’ That’s one of my favorites too. What do you think about faith, Dr. Starling? Do you believe in God?”

“I don’t know. What I do believe in is planning. Making a plan and carrying it out.” There was an uncomfortable silence that had not occurred during their time together until now. “Want to watch the news bits that I taped for you? The ones that report on the Wainscot murders?”

“Yes, I would like to see them. You know I’ve just taken your word on that whole matter.”

“C’mon downstairs. You know I don’t lie. There’s even a brief clip of your partner, Reina. She looks very distraught over this whole thing. You thought I was Reina when I first called you, remember?”

Hannibal felt a stab of pain. He had not thought about Reina this whole time and now, at the mention of her name, he suddenly missed her terribly.

“I can see from the news clip that she cares for you a great deal. I’d even venture to say, based on her brief display of emotion that she might be your lover, as unlikely as that seems. Am I right Hannibal?”

He hesitated before answering. The atmosphere in the room suddenly felt uncomfortable. “Yes, sometimes. I mean, it was more like I was her sometimes lover.” The last word fell like a brick. He was having trouble judging things. This situation was feeling dangerous. Maybe it had been dangerous all along but he had not seen it. Better living through brain damage. It certainly seemed to help cut down those everyday worries.

“I’m sure she’s a lovely girl. Let’s go. I’ll make some tea and you’ll see I’ve been telling you the truth about how you cut down the Wainscot family tree.”

Hannibal spent most of Saturday in a drug-induced haze. Dr. Starling had given him an injection before she left the house around midmorning. He did not resist, in fact he welcomed the opportunity escape from his increasing unease. She clearly had a plan that she was carrying out. He suspected that his future depended on making sure he had an ongoing role to play in that plan. For now, however, he did as she suggested. He rested and watched movies.

Dr. Starling was back home in the afternoon. He could hear her moving around in the kitchen and talking to the dogs. At some point she brought him a peanut butter sandwich and hung a black linen suit on the closet door.

“In a little while I’m going to run a bath for you. Not too hot, I think you’ll be all right. Might not be a bad idea to give that gash a quick rinse with a little soap and water either. Then maybe you’ll wear this suit for me. I think it will fit.” She went back to her work downstairs.

As promised, in about an hour she ran a bath filled with bubbles. When he had gotten into the tub, Dr. Starling came into the bathroom to have a closer look at his head.

“Head Trauma Hannibal. Kind of has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?” he asked.

“You are going to have a hellish scar here. I never mastered the finer art of suturing for cosmetic effect. Not that important on horses or pets I suppose.” She squeezed some water onto his head with a sponge and then felt the wound with her fingertips.

“Ow. Is this really necessary?”

“Yes, I think it is. There is one bone chip here that is already working its way out. I’m just going to give it a little tug.”

“Ouch! Ouch, are you insane?” He pulled his head away from her and saw the little bone chip in her hand. It was bloody.

“That’s it. Kind of looks like a thorn, doesn’t it?” she said holding out the splinter of bone. “Everything else looks pretty good. I won’t hurt you again, I promise.” She washed his head and hair with some mild baby shampoo and water and patted him dry. “All set,” she said standing up.

“You’ve done everything but anoint me with oil,” he said, focusing his one good eye on her.

“What an odd thing to say, Hannibal.” She took a syringe from the side of the sink. “This is just a little something to help you relax. Dinner is in an hour. Please be careful shaving.” She sunk the needle into a large blue vein on his forearm. Leaning forward, she kissed his forehead.

Staring back from the mirror, the reflection of his blown-out pupil was quite unnerving. Marilyn Manson’s got nothing on me - and mine’s real, he thought. When he had finished shaving he went back to the bedroom to get dressed. Dr. Starling had laid out the black suit, a white shirt, striped tie and new underwear. Also on the bed was a shoebox with new faux leather dress shoes. She had thought of everything. Unfortunately, the attire looked more appropriate for a funeral, than for dinner.

Dressed in his new clothes, Hannibal made his way downstairs. Whatever Dr. Starling was cooking smelled wonderful. Some kind of curry, with peanuts maybe, he thought. In the dining room, Dr. Starling, dressed in an elegant black dress, was at the sideboard mixing some dressing into a bowl full of greens. But it wasn’t Dr. Starling that caught his attention. It was Paula Kepler, bound with duct tape to a dining room chair.

“Hannibal, you look so handsome,” Dr. Starling said when she noticed him there. At the same time Paula Kepler made frantic muffled sounds as she struggled against the tape. “Paula, how rude of me. Of course you’d like to say ‘hello’ to Agent Lecter.” Dr. Starling ripped the tape off of Kepler’s mouth in one sharp movement.

“You stupid fucking bastards! You’ll both get lethal injections for this! This house is being watched right now. We were onto you days ago.” Kepler was flushed and her eyes were wild. She lowered her voice in a strained attempt to be conciliatory. “Look, don’t do anything foolish. If you just let me go, I can help you. Think about it. I have influence, I can help you.”

“How kind of you to offer, Paula. Unfortunately for you, no one has any idea where you are right now, and rest assured, I don’t need any help from you. All I need is for you to look appetizing.” Dr. Starling smiled sweetly.

Paula turned her attention to Hannibal. “I always knew you were a worthless piece of shit. You certainly have Reina fooled. That little moron is so sad. She thinks you’ve been kidnapped by Starling - it’s pretty clear that Starling was the one behind the massacre at the Wainscot’s. Then there’s all that blood, your blood, on the ground at the crime scene - most people think you were shot, maybe killed. But here you are Lecter, all dressed to kill for your psycho girlfriend. That goes a long way to explain the assault rifle we found covered with your grimy fingerprints.”

“Please sit down, Hannibal. Have some salad.” Dr. Starling put the salad bowl on the table near Hannibal’s place. He sat down heavily. Sighing, he looked at Paula but could not find the energy to respond to her acid comments.

“Why don’t you give Reina a call? I’m sure she’d be relieved to hear that Starling is sucking your cock rather than cutting it off.”

Dr. Starling sliced a piece of duct tape from the roll that was on the table. Slapping it hard across Paula’s mouth she said, “You really are such a charmer, it’s a shame I have to do this, but I have to finish the preparations for our guests.” She went into the kitchen and returned with a large stainless steel saucepan and a spatula.

“How did you get her here?” Hannibal asked Starling.

“It wasn’t hard. I called claiming to be a courier for Ms. Wainscot’s attorney. Said I had a package to be hand delivered for a transaction completed before Ms. Wainscot’s tragic death. Paula’s greed made her careless.” Starling was matter-of-factly spreading warm peanut butter over Kepler’s face and neck. “I am thankful for my recent experience at the hands of the Wainscots though. It taught me something about fear.” The front of Kepler’s shirt was now covered in peanut butter and Starling was working to evenly coat her hands.

The bizarre scene seemed very unreal to Hannibal. He helped himself to some salad. “Are you going to eat, Dr. Starling?”

“Yes, but please go on and start without me. I’m almost done here.” With that she carefully tipped Kepler’s chair over on its side so that her peanut buttered head was on the floor. “Time to feed our guests.” Starling went out the back door.

“I’m having a little trouble concentrating lately, Paula, so I really can’t tell you what’s going on.” Hannibal looked at the helpless sticky beige woman on the floor and put a forkful of salad in his mouth. Just then there was a loud commotion as the two young golden retrievers scrambled into the dining room. They skidded to a halt, one falling right onto Paula and the other crashing into the first.

“Good Boys! Good Dogs! It’s OK, go ahead, Paula loves good doggies like you!” Starling said in her most animated whoop-them-into-a-frenzy voice. The dogs went wild. They slobbered all over Paula licking the peanut butter from her face, neck, and hair with their sloppy pink tongues.

“I gave Paula an injection of a mild stimulant so she would enjoy this moment all the more,” Starling said as she watched the tawny beasts reduce Paula Kepler to a regressive state. Starling’s hand was on Hannibal’s shoulder.

“It’s her worst fear,” he chuckled. “Really couldn’t happen to a nicer person.” He laid his cheek against Starling’s hand. She pulled it away abruptly.

“Are you ready for dinner?” she asked.

“I haven’t felt this hungry in days. What are we having?”

“Mixed mushrooms and tofu in a Thai peanut-coconut curry sauce, over short grain brown rice. I couldn’t let Laurel and Hardy have all the peanuts.”

After dinner, Dr. Starling and Hannibal carried Kepler, chair and all, down into the basement. They put her in the remotest corner of the basement, where the floor was still hard packed dirt, and left Sammy to watch over her. He barked every time she whimpered sending her eyes rolling back into her head.

“She didn’t expect to see another dog. That was a fabulous surprise,” Hannibal said as they climbed the cellar stairs.

Starling agreed. “She’s quite ready for an inpatient stay and some Haldol I think.”

They moved to the living room to have a cup of coffee. Sitting on the couch, Hannibal noticed the roll of duct tape and the knife on the table. It was his little Buck knife, the one he usually kept in his car. The one he kept extremely sharp.

They talked about the future and about dreams. It was an abstract conversation and it was turning macabre.

“It’s always been up to me, but now I know I can’t stop the lambs from screaming without shedding the blood of an innocent,” she said sadly.

So that was it, he thought. She has decided on what she has to do, but she was not yet committed to it. She was hesitating. This was his only chance. His tongue was still thick from the sedative she had given him earlier. He concentrated hard and said, “You never consider letting someone help you. You believe that you are alone, that you have to save the lambs alone. Why not let me help you?” He put down his coffee cup. “I know you don’t want to kill anymore. You even showed mercy to Kepler. Please let me help you save the lambs.”

She watched him closely as he untied his tie and pulled it from around his neck. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it open. The wooly hair on his chest was thick and white. He reached a hand out to her and said, “Save the lambs, Clarice.”

She came to her knees in front of him and laid her head against his chest. He was soft and warm under her cheek. She listened to his heart beating and felt safe for the first time in a long time. Maybe he could help her.

It was cold in the little cottage. It was always cold here on the small wind swept island in the Outer Hebrides. Months had passed and although Hannibal was never truly at ease, he was beginning to let his guard down a little.

Clarice had had a deal in the works from the time when she still lived in New Zealand to purchase the island sheep farm from the family who had owned it for generations. The pieces all fell into place and now here they were, the new owners making tentative inroads with the locals on the mainland. Everything was going well. Sammy was becoming a marvelous sheep dog and Clarice was in her element. Hannibal still had trouble concentrating and his right eye, as well as his handwriting, never returned to normal.

It was early evening and Hannibal was alone, sitting at the computer. He was trying to find Ely’s website. He could not remember the name; there were so many things he could not remember lately. Out of frustration, he searched on ‘Titus’ and was opening the results at random when he found what he was looking for. It was a picture of Titus, his Titus. In the margin were the words, ‘A Note To My Uncle.’ Hannibal clicked on the title and brought up a message from Ely.

At the bottom of the page, there was a place to click to send an email to the creator of the page. It had to be Ely. Who else would ask that question? Hannibal thought rather than sending an email, he should send Ely a letter through a re-mailing service. The kind Clarice had used to send the sandals. The problem was, he could not quite remember how a re-mailing service worked. He sighed. Anyway, contacting old friends and relatives always leads to trouble, he thought.

He heard the front door open and quickly minimized the web page. Clarice took off her boots and coat in the hallway and came padding in to where Hannibal sat.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just looking to see if we can get those diet supplements for the sheep any cheaper.”

“Doesn’t matter what you find. We have to get them from the people on the mainland, can’t risk raising any ire.” She came up behind him and untucked his quilted flannel shirt. She ran her hands up his sides and brushed her fingertips over his nipples.

“Ah! Your hands are freezing.”

“It’s freezing outside. I’m going upstairs to take a shower and warm up. Don’t be too long.” She squeezed his nipples and kissed the back of his neck.

“No, I’ll be right up.” He watched her go up the stairs and then brought Ely’s web page back up on the monitor. Should he reply or not? He heard the water turn on upstairs.

“Hannibal?” she called down. He had not heard his old name in some time.

“What?”

“Why don’t you come upstairs now? You wash my back, I’ll wash yours.”

“Quid pro quo Clarice,” he answered with a grinchy smile spreading across his face. “I’ll be right there.” He clicked to reply and wrote:

He hit send, and shut down the computer.