Chapter 87

MASON WHINING and crying to get back in his room, crying as he had when some of the smaller boys and girls fought him at camp and managed to get in a few licks before he could crush them under his weight.

Margot and Cordell took him up in the elevator on his wing and secured him in his bed, hooked up to his permanent sources of power.

Mason was as angry as Margot had ever seen him, the blood vessels pulsing over the exposed bones of his face.

" I better give him something, " Cordell said when they were out in the playroom.

" Not yet. He's got to think for a little while. Give me the keys to your Honda. "

" Why? "

" Somebody's got to go down there and see if anybody's alive. Do you want to go? "

" No, but-"

" I can drive your car into the tack room, the van won't go through the door, now give me the fucking keys. "

Downstairs now, out in the drive. Tommaso coming across the field from the woods, trotting, looking behind him. Think, Margot. She looked at her watch. 8: 20. At midnight, Cordell's relief would come. There was time to bring men from Washington in the helicopter to clean up. She drove to Tommaso across the grass.

" I try to catch up them, a pig knock me. He" – Tommaso pantomimed Dr Lecter carrying Starling – " the woman. They go in the loud car. She have due" – he held up two fingers – " freccette. " He pointed to his back and leg. Freccette. Dardi. Stick 'em. Barn. " Due freccette. "

He pantomimed shooting.

" Darts, " Margot said.

" Darts, maybe too much narcotico. She's maybe dead. "

" Get in, " Margot said. " We've got to go see. "

Margot drove into the double side doors, where Starling had entered the barn. Squeals and grunts and tossing bristled backs. Margot drove forward honking and drove the pigs back enough to see there were three human remains, none recognizable anymore…They drove into the tack room and closed the doors behind them.

Margot considered that Tommaso was the only one left alive who had ever seen her at the barn, not counting Cordell.

This may have occurred to Tommaso too. He stood a cautious distance from her, his dark intelligent eyes on her face. There were tears on his cheeks.

Think, Margot. You don't want any shit from the Sands. They know on their end that you handle the money. They'll dime you out in a second.

Tommaso's eyes followed her hand as it went into her pocket.

The cell phone. She punched up Sardinia, the Steuben banker at home at two- thirty in the morning. She spoke to him briefly and passed the telephone to Tommaso. He nodded, replied, nodded again and gave her back the phone. The money was his. He scrambled to the loft and got his satchel, along with Dr Lecter's overcoat and hat. While he was getting his things, Margot picked up the cattle prod, tested the current and slid it up her sleeve. She took the farrier's hammer too.

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