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Milko made the slight adjustment of the heart that we make before we kill.
Hannibal went out of sight and Milko could only see his hand on the drawing board, sketching, sketching, making a small erasure.
Abruptly, Hannibal put down his pen, came to the corridor and turned on the light. Milko ducked back into the museum, then the light went off again. Milko peered around the door frame. Hannibal was working over the draped body.
Milko heard the autopsy saw. When he looked again Hannibal was out of sight. Drawing again. Fuck this. Walk in there and shoot him. Tell him say hello to Dortlich when he gets to Hell. Down the corridor on long strides in his socks, silent on the stone floor, watching the hand on the drawing board, Milko raised the pistol and stepped through the door and saw the hand and sleeve, the lab coat piled on the chair—where is the rest of him—and Hannibal stepped close behind Milko and sank the hypodermic full of alcohol into the side of Milko’s neck, catching him as his legs gave way and his eyes rolled up, easing him to the floor.
First things
first. Hannibal put the corpse’s hand back in place and tacked it on with a few fast stitches in the skin. “Sorry,” he said to his subject. “I’ll include thanks in your note.”
Burning, coughing, cold on Milko’s face now as he came to consciousness, the room swimming and then settling down. He started to lick his lips, and spit. Water pouring over his face.
Hannibal set his pitcher of cold water on the edge of the cadaver tank and sat down in a conversational attitude. Milko wore the chain cadaver harness. He was submerged up to his neck in formalin solution in the tank. The other occupants crowded close around him, regarded him with eyes gone cloudy in embalming fluid, and he shrugged their shriveled hands away.
Hannibal examined Milko’s wallet. He took from his own pocket a dog tag and placed it beside Milko’s ID card on the rim of the tank.
“Zigmas Milko. Good evening.”
Milko coughed and wheezed. “We talked about it. I brought you money. A settlement. We want you to have the money. I brought it. Let me take you to it.”
“That sounds like a superior plan. You killed so many, Milko. So many more than these. Do you feel them in the tank around you? There by your foot, that’s a child from a fire. Older than my sister, and partly cooked.”
“I don’t know what you want.”
Hannibal pulled on a rubber glove. “To hear what you have to say about eating my sister.”
“I did not.”
Hannibal pressed Milko under the surface of the embalming fluid. After a long moment, he seized the chain tether and pulled him up again, poured water in his face, flushing his eyes.
“Don’t say that again,” Hannibal said.
“We all felt badly, so badly,” Milko said as soon as he could talk. “Freezing hands and rotting feet. Whatever we did, we did it to live. Grutas was quick, she never—we kept you alive, we—”
“Where is Grutas?”
“If I tell you, will you let me take you to the money? It’s a lot, in dollars. There is a lot more money too, we could blackmail them with what I know, with your evidence.”
“Where is Grentz?”
“Canada.”
“Correct. The truth for once. Where is Grutas?”
“He has a house near Milly-le-Forêt.”
“What is his name now?”
“He does business as Satrug, Inc.”
“Did he sell my pictures?”
“Once, to buy a lot of morphine, no more. We can get them back.”
“Have you tried the food at Kolnas’ restaurant? The sundaes aren’t bad.”
“I have the money in the truck.”
