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“I can’t help it if a local jurisdiction gets him. Or Crawford’s outfit lucks up and catches him, I can’t control that.”

“How many states with death penalties could Dr. Lecter be charged in?” Margot asked. Her voice was scratchy but deep like Mason’s from the hormones she had taken.

“Three states, multiple Murder One in each.”

“If he’s arrested I want him prosecuted at the state level,” Mason said. “No kidnapping rap, no civil rights violations, no interstate. I want him to get off with life, I want him in a state prison, not a maximum federal pen.”

“Do I have to ask why?”

“Not unless you want me to tell you. It doesn’t fall under the Humane Slaughter Act,” Mason said, and giggled. Talking had exhausted him. He gestured to Margot.

She carried a clipboard into the light and read from her notes. “We want everything you get and we want it before Behavioral Science sees it, we want Behavioral Science reports as soon as they’re filed and we want the VICAP and National Crime Information Center access codes.”

“You’d have to use a public phone every time you access VICAP,” Krendler said, still talking out into the dark as though the woman weren’t there. “How can you do that?”

“I can do it,” Margot said.

“She can do it,” Mason whispered from the dark. “She writes workout programs for exercise machines in gyms. It’s her little business so she doesn’t have to live off of Brother.”’

“The FBI has a closed system and some of it’s encrypted. You’ll have to sign on from a guest location exactly as I tell you and download to a laptop programmed at the Justice Department,” Krendler said. “Then if VICAP hides a tracer cookie on you, it will just come back to Justice. Buy a fast laptop with a fast modem for cash over-the-counter at a volume dealer and don’t mail any warranties. Get a zip drive too. Stay off the Net with it. I’ll need it overnight and I want it back when you’re through. You’ll hear from me. Okay, that’s it.” Krendler stood and gathered his papers.

“That’s not quite it, Mr. Krendler …” Mason said. “Lecter doesn’t have to come out. He’s got the money to hide forever.”

“How does he have money?” Margot said.

“He had some very rich old people in his psychiatric practice,” Krendler said. “He got them to sign over a lot of money and stocks to him and he hid it good. The IRS hasn’t been able to find it. They exhumed the bodies of a couple of his benefactors to see if he’d killed them, but they couldn’t find anything. Toxin scans negative.”

“So he won’t get caught in a stickup, he has cash,” Mason said. “We’ve got to lure him out. Be thinking of ways.”

“He’ll know where the hit came from in Florence,” Krendler said.

“Sure he will.”

“So he’ll want you.”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “He likes me like I am. Be thinking, Krendler.” Mason began to hum.

All Deputy Assistant Inspector General Krendler heard was humming as he went out the door. Mason often hummed hymns while he was scheming: You’ve got the prime bait, Krendler, but we’ll discuss it after you’ve made an incriminating bank deposit—when you belong to me.

CHAPTER

45

ONLY FAMILY remains in Mason’s room, brother and sister.

Soft light and music. North African music, an oud and drums. Margot sits on the couch, head down, elbows on her knees. She might have been a hammer thrower resting, or a weight lifter resting in a gym after a workout. She breathes a little faster than Mason’s respirator.

The song ends and she rises, goes to his bedside. The eel pokes his head out of the hole in the artificial rock to see if his wavy silver sky might rain carp again tonight. Margot’s raspy voice at its softest. “Are you awake?”

In a moment Mason was present behind his ever-open eye. “Is it time to talk about”—a hiss of breath— “what Margot wants? Sit here on Santa’s knee.”

“You know what I want.”

“Tell me.”

“Judy and I want to have a baby. We want to have a Verger baby, our own baby.”

“Why don’t you buy a Chinese baby? They’re cheaper than shoats.”