Chapter 76

" WILL You focus the fucking thing, Cordell? "

In Mason's deep radio voice, with its lipless consonants, " focus" and " fucking" sounded more like " hocus" and " bucking. " Krendler stood beside Mason in the dark part of the room, the better to see the elevated monitor. In the heat of Mason's room he had his yuppie running suit pulled down to his waist and the sleeves tied around him, exposing his Princeton T-shirt. His headband and shoes gleamed in the light from the aquarium.

In Margot's opinion Krendler had the shoulders of a chicken. They had barely acknowledged one another when he arrived.

There was no tape or time counter on the liquor store security camera and Christmas business was brisk. Cordell was pushing fast-forward from customer to customer through a lot of purchases. Mason passed the time by being unpleasant.

" What did you say when you went in the liquor store in your running suit and flashed the tin, Krendler? You say you were in the Special Olympics? "

Mason was much less respectful since Krendler had been depositing the checks.

Krendler could not be insulted when his interests were at stake. " I said I was undercover. What kind of coverage have you got on Starling now? "

" Margot, tell him. "

Mason seemed to want to save his own scarce breath for insults.

" We brought in twelve men from our security in Chicago. They're in Washington. Three teams, one member of each is deputized in the state of Illinois. If the police catch them grabbing Dr Lecter, they say they recognized him and it's a citizen's arrest and blab blah. The team that catches turns him over to Carlo. They go back to Chicago and that's all they know. " The tape was running.

" Wait a minute-Cordell, back it up thirty seconds, " Mason said. " Look at this. "

The liquor store camera covered the area from the front door to the cash register.

In the silent videotape's fuzzy image, a man came in wearing a billed cap, a lumber jacket and mittens. He had full whiskers and wore sunglasses. He turned. his back to the camera and carefully closed the door behind him.

It took a moment for the shopper to explain to the clerk what he wanted and he followed the man out of sight into the wine racks.

Three minutes dragged by. At last they came back into camera range. The clerk wiped dust off the bottle and wrapped padding around it before he put it in a bag. The customer pulled off only his right mitten and paid in cash. The clerk's mouth moved as he said " thank you" to the man's back as he was leaving.

A pause of a few seconds, and the clerk called to someone off camera. A heavyset man came into the picture and hurried out the door.

" That's the owner, guy who saw the truck, " Krendler said.

" Cordell, can you copy off this tape and enlarge the customer's head? "

" Take a second, Mr. Verger. It'll be fuzzy. "

" Do it. "

" He kept the left mitten on, " Mason said. " I may have gotten screwed on that X ray I bought. "

" Pazzi said he got his hand fixed, didn't he? Had the extra finger off, " Krendler said.

" Pazzi might have had his finger up his butt, I don't know who to believe. You've seen him, Margot, what do you think? Was that Lecter? "

" It's been eighteen years, " Margot said. " I just had three sessions with him and he always just stood up behind his desk when I came in, he didn't walk around. He was really still. I remember his voice more than anything else. "

Cordell's voice on the intercom. " Mr. Verger, Carlo is here. "

Carlo smelled of the pigs and more. He came into the room holding his hat over his chest and the rank boar-sausage smell of his head made Krendler blow air out his nose. As a mark of respect, the Sardinian kidnapper withdrew all the way into his mouth the stag's tooth he was chewing.

" Carlo, look at this. Cordell, roll it back and walk him in from the door again. "

" That's the stronzo son of bitch, " Carlo said before the subject on the screen had walked four paces. " The beard is new, but that's the way he moves. "

" You saw his hands in Firenze, Carlo. "

" Si. "

" Five fingers or six on the left? "

" … Five. "

" You hesitated. "

" Only to think of cinque in English. It's five, I'm sure. ". Mason parted his exposed teeth in all he had for a smile. " I love it. He's wearing the mitten trying to keep the six fingers in his description, " he said.

Perhaps Carlo's scent had entered the aquarium via the aeration pump. The eel came out to see, and remained out, turning, turning in his infinite Mobius eight, showing his teeth as he breathed.

" Carlo, I think we may finish this soon, " Mason said. " You and Piero and Tommaso are my first team. I've got confidence in you, even though he did beat you in Florence. I want you to keep Clarice Starling under surveillance for the day before her birthday, the day itself, and the day after. You'll be relieved while she's asleep in her house. I'll give you a driver and the van. "

" Padrone, " Carlo said.

" Yes. " " I want some private time with the dottore, for the sake of my brother, Matteo. You said I could have it. "

Carlo crossed himself as he mentioned the dead man's name.

" I understand your feelings completely, Carlo. You have my deepest sympathy. Carlo, I want Dr Lecter consumed in two sittings. The first evening, I want the pigs to gnaw off his feet, with him watching through the bars. I want him in good shape for that. You bring him to me in good shape. No blows to the head, no broken bones, no eye damage. Then he can wait overnight without his feet, for the pigs to finish him the next day. I'll talk to him for a while, and then you can have him for an hour before the final sitting. I'll ask you to leave him an eye and leave him conscious so he can see them coming. I want him to see their faces when they eat his face. If you, say, should decide to unman him, it's entirely up to you, but I want Cordell there to manage the bleeding. I want film. "

" What if he bleeds to death the first time in the pen? "

" He won't. Nor will he die overnight. What he'll do overnight is wait with his feet eaten off. Cordell will see to that and replace his body fluids, I expect he'll be on an IV drip all night, maybe two drips. "

" Or four drips if we have to, " said Cordell's disembodied voice on the speakers. " I can do cut-downs on his legs. "

" You can spit and piss in his IV at the last, before you roll him into the pen, " Mason told Carlo in his most sympathetic voice. " Or you can come in it if you like. "

Carlo's face brightened at the thought, then he remembered the muscular signorina with a guilty sideways glance. " Grazie mille, Padrone. Can you come to see him die? "

" I don't know, Carlo. The dust in the barn disturbs me. I may watch on video. Can you bring a pig to me? I want to put my hand on one. "

" To this room, Padrone? "

" No, they can bring me downstairs briefly, on the power pack. "

" I would have to put one to sleep, Padrone, " Carlo said doubtfully.

" Do one of the sows. Bring her on the lawn outside the elevator. You can run. the forklift over the grass. "

" You figure on doing this with one van, or a van and a crash car? " Krendler asked.

" Carlo? "

" The van is plenty. Give me a deputy to drive. "

" I've got something else for you, " Krendler said. " Can we have some light? "

Margot moved the rheostat and Krendler put his backpack on the table beside the bowl of fruit. He put on cotton gloves and took out what appeared to be a small monitor with an antenna and a mounting bracket, along with an external hard drive and a rechargeable battery pack.

" It's awkward covering Starling because she lives in a cul-de-sac with no place to lurk. But she has to come out – Starling's an exercise freak, " Krendler said. " She's had to join a private gym since she can't use the FBI stuff anymore. We caught her parked at the gym Thursday and put a beacon under her car. It's Ni-Cad and recharges when the motor's running so she won't find it from a battery drain. The software covers these five contiguous states. Who's going to work this thing? "

" Cordell, come in here, " Mason said.

Cordell and Margot knelt beside Krendler and Carlo stood over them, his hat held at the height of their nostrils.

" Look here. "

Krendler switched his monitor on. " It's like a car navigation system except it shows where Starling's car is. "

An overview of metropolitan Washington appeared on the screen: " Zoom here, move the area with the arrows, got it? Okay, it's not showing any acquisition. A signal from Starling's beacon will light this, and you'll hear a beep. Then you can pick up the source on overview and zoom in. The beep gets faster as you get closer. Here's Starling's neighborhood is in street-map scale. You're not getting any blip from her car because we're out of range. Anywhere in metro Washington or Arlington you would. I picked it up from the helicopter coming out. Here's the converter for AC plug in your van. One thing. You have to guarantee me this thing never gets in the wrong hands. I could get heat from this, it's not in the spy shops yet. Either its back in my hands or it's in the bottom of the Potomac. You got it? "

" You understand that, Margot? " Mason said. " You, Cordell? Get Mogli to drive and brief him. "

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