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A HUSH over Muskrat Farm like the quiet of the old Sabbath. Mason excited, terribly proud that he could bring this off. Privately, he compared his accomplishment to the discovery of radium.

Mason’s illustrated science text was the best-remembered of his schoolbooks; it was the only book tall enough to allow him to masturbate in class. He often looked at an illustration of Madame Curie while doing this, and he thought of her now and the tons of pitchblende she boiled to get the radium. Her efforts were very much like his, he thought.

Mason imagined Dr. Lecter, the product of all his searching and expenditure, glowing in the dark like the vial in Madame Curie’s laboratory. He imagined the pigs that would eat him going to sleep afterward in the woods, their bellies glowing like lightbulbs.

It was Friday evening, nearly dark. The maintenance crews were gone. None of the workers had seen the van arrive, as it did not come by the main gate, but by the fire road through the national forest that served as Mason’s service road. The sheriff and his crew had completed their cursory search and were well away before the van arrived at the barn. Now the main gate was manned and only a trusted skeleton crew remained at Muskrat:

Cordell was at his station in the playroom—overnight relief for Cordell would drive in at midnight. Margot and Deputy Mogli, still wearing his badge from cozening the sheriff, were with Mason, and the crew of professional kidnappers were busy in the barn.

By the end of Sunday it would all be done, the evidence burnt or roiling in the bowels of the sixteen swine. Mason thought he might feed the eel some delicacy from Dr. Lecter, his nose perhaps. Then for years to come Mason could watch the ferocious ribbon, ever circling in its figure eight, and know that the infinity sign it made stood for Lecter dead forever, dead forever.

At the same time, Mason knew that it is dangerous to get exactly what you want. What would he do after he had killed Dr. Lecter? He could wreck some foster homes, and torment some children. He could drink martinis made with tears. But where was the hard-core fun coming from?

W

hat a fool he would be to dilute this ecstatic time with fears about the future. He waited for the tiny spray against his eye, waited for his goggle to clear, then puffed his breath into a tube switch: Anytime he liked he could turn on his video monitor and see his prize …

CHAPTER

82

THE SMELL of a coal fire in the tack room of Mason’s barn and the resident smells of animals and men. Firelight on the trotting horse Fleet Shadow’s long skull, empty as Providence, watching it all in blinders.

Red coals in the farrier’s furnace flare and brighten with the hiss of the bellows as Carlo heats a strap of iron, already cherry-red.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter hangs on the wall beneath the horse skull like a terrible altarpiece. His arms are outstretched straight from his shoulders on either side, well bound with rope to a singletree, a thick oak crosspiece from the pony cart harness. The singletree runs across the doctor’s back like a yoke and is fastened to the wall with a shackle of Carlo’s manufacture. His legs do not reach the floor. His legs are bound over his trousers like roasts rolled and tied, with many spaced coils, each coil knotted. No chain or handcuffs are used—nothing metal that would damage the teeth of the pigs and discourage them.

When the iron in the furnace reaches white heat, Carlo brings it to the anvil with his tongs and swings his hammer, beating the bright strap into a shackle, red sparks flying in the semidark, bouncing off his chest, bouncing on the hanging figure of Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Mason’s TV camera, odd among the ancient tools, peers at Dr. Lecter from its spidery metal tripod. On the workbench is a monitor, dark now.

Carlo heats the shackle again, and hurries with it outside to attach it to the forklift while it is glowing and pliable. His hammer echoes in the vast height of the barn, the blow and its echo, BANG-bang, BANG-bang.

A scratchy chirping from the loft as Piero finds a re-broadcast of the soccer game on shortwave. His Cagliari team is playing hated Juventus in Rome.

Tommaso sits in a cane chair, the tranquilizer rifle propped against the wall beside him. His dark priest’s eyes never leave Dr. Lecter’s face.

Tommaso detects a change in the stillness of the bound man. It is a subtle change, from unconsciousness to unnatural self-control, perhaps no more than a difference in the sound of his breathing.

Tommaso gets up from his chair and calls out into the barn.

“Si sta svegliando.”

Carlo returns to the tack room, the stag’s tooth flicking in and out of his mouth. He is carrying a pair of trouser legs stuffed with fruit and greens and chickens. He rubs the trousers against Dr. Lecter’s body and under his arms.

Keeping his hand carefully away from the face, he seizes Lecter’s hair and raises his head.

“Buona sera, Dottore.”

A crackle from the speaker on the TV monitor. The monitor lights and Mason’s face appears….

“Turn on the light over the camera,” Mason said. “Good evening, Dr. Lecter.”

The doctor opened his eyes for the first time.

Carlo thought sparks flew behind the fiend’s eyes, but it might have been a reflection of the fire. He crossed himself against the Evil Eye.