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“Did you see the things I have in this house, Hannibal? Opportunities from the war! You are accustomed to nice things, and you can have them. We are alike! We are the New Men, Hannibal. You, me—the cream—we will always float to the top!” He raised suds in his hand to illustrate floating, getting little Lecter used to his movement.
“Dog tags don’t float.” Hannibal tossed Grutas’ dog tag into the tub and it settled like a leaf to the bottom. “Alcohol floats.” Hannibal threw the bottle and it smashed on the tile above Grutas, showering stinging fluid down on his head, pieces of glass falling in his hair. Hannibal took from his pocket a Zippo to light Grutas. As he flipped open the lighter, Mueller cocked a pistol behind his ear.
Gassmann and Dieter grabbed Hannibal’s arms from both sides. Mueller pushed the muzzle of Hannibal’s gun toward the ceiling and took it from his hand. Mueller stuck the gun in his waistband.
“No shooting,” Grutas said. “Don’t break the tile in here. I want to talk with him a little. Then he can die in a tub like his sister.” Grutas got out of the tub and stood on a towel. He gestured to the woman, now desperate to please. She sprayed him with seltzer over his shaved body as he turned in place, his arms extended.
“Do you know how that feels, the fizzy water?” Grutas said. “It feels like being born again. I’m all new, in a new world with no room in it for you. I can’t believe you killed Milko by yourself.”
“Someone lent me a hand,” Hannibal said.
“Hold him over the tub and cut him when I tell you.”
The three men wrestled Hannibal to the floor and held his head and neck over the bathtub. Mueller had a switch knife. He put the edge to Hannibal’s throat.
“Look at me, Count Lecter, my prince, twist your head and look at me, get your throat stretched tight and you’ll bleed out fast. It won’t hurt so long.”
Through the steam room door, Hannibal could see the hand of the timer moving tick by tick.
“Answer this,” Grutas said. “Would you have fed me to the little girl if she were starving? Because you loved her?”
“Of course.”
Grutas smiled and tweaked Hannibal’s cheek. “There. There you have it. Love. I love myself that much. I would never apologize to you. You lost your sister in the war.” Grutas belched and laughed. “That burp is my commentary. Are you looking for sympathy? You’ll find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Cut him, Mueller. This is the last thing you will ever hear, I’ll tell you what YOU did to live. You—”
The explosion shuddered the bathroom and the sink jumped off the wall, water spurting from the pipes, and the lights went out. Wrestling in the dark on the floor, Mueller, Gassmann, Dieter swarming on him and tangled up with the woman. The knife got into Gassmann’s arm, him cursing and shrieking. Hannibal caught someone hard in the face with his elbow and was on his feet, a muzzle flash as a gun went off in the tiled room and splinters stung his face. Smoke, heavy smoke, curled out of the wall. A gun was sliding across the tiles, Dieter after it. Grutas picked up the gun, the woman jumping on him with her nails at his face and he shot her twice in the chest. Climbed to his feet, the gun coming up. Hannibal snapped the wet towel across Grutas’ eyes. Dieter on Hannibal’s back, Hannibal threw himself backward on top of him and felt the impact as the edge of the tub caught Dieter across the kidneys and Dieter let go. Mueller on him now before he could get up, trying to jam his big thumbs under Hannibal’s chin. Hannibal butted Mueller in the face, slid his hand between them, finding a gun in Mueller’s waistband, and pulled the trigger with the gun still in Mueller’s pants, the big German rolling off him with a howl, and Hannibal ran with the gun. He had to slow in the dark bedroom, then fast into the corridor filling with smoke. He picked up the maid’s pail in the corridor and carried it with him through the house, once hearing a gun go off behind him.
The gate guard was out of the blockhouse and halfway to the front door. “Get water!” Hannibal yelled to him. He handed the man the bucket as he rushed past. “I’ll get the hose!” Running hard down the driveway, cutting into the trees as soon as he could. He heard shouts behind him. Up the hill to the orchard. Quick the ignition, feeling for the wire in the dark.
Compression release, twist a little gas, kick, kick. Kick, kick. Touch of choke. Kick. The BMW awakened with a growl and Hannibal exploded out of the brush, down an allée between the trees, knocking loose a muffler on a stump and then on the road, roaring off into the dark, the hanging pipe against the pavement leaving a trail of sparks.
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bsp; The firemen stayed late into the night, hosing embers in the basement of Grutas’ house, shooting water into the spaces in the walls. Grutas stood at the edge of his garden, smoke and steam rising into the night sky behind him, and stared in the direction of Paris.
53
THE NURSING STUDENT had dark red hair and maroon eyes about the same color as Hannibal’s. When he stood back from the fountain in the medical school corridor so that she could drink first, she put her face close to him and sniffed. “When did you start smoking?”
“I’m trying to quit,” he said.
“Your eyebrows are singed!”
“Careless lighting up.”
“If you’re careless with fire you shouldn’t be cooking.” She licked her thumb and smoothed his eyebrow. “My roommate and I are making a daube this evening, there’s plenty if …”
“Thank you. Really. But I have an engagement.”
His note to Lady Murasaki asked if he might visit. He found a branch of wisteria to go with it, suitably withered in abject apology. Her note of invitation was accompanied by two sprigs, watermelon crepe myrtle and a sprig of pine with a tiny cone. Pine is not sent lightly. Thrilling and boundless, the possibilities of pine.
Lady Murasaki’s poissonnier did not fail her. He had for her four perfect sea urchins in cold seawater from their native Brittany. Next door the butcher produced sweetbreads, already soaked in milk and pressed between two plates. She stopped by Fauchon for a pear tart and last she bought a string bag of oranges.
She paused before the florist, her arms full. No, Hannibal would certainly bring flowers.
Hannibal brought flowers. Tulips and Casablanca lilies and ferns in a tall arrangement sticking up from the pillion seat of his motorcycle. Two young women crossing the street told him the flowers looked like a rooster’s tail. He winked at them when the light changed and roared away with a light feeling in his chest.
He parked in the alley beside Lady Murasaki’s building and walked around the corner to the entrance with his flowers. He was waving to the concierge when Popil and two beefy policemen stepped out of a doorway and seized him. Popil took the flowers.
