"Does the beanbag make much noise?"

FRIDAY MORNING. A small room in the attic of the Palazzo Capponi. Three of the

whitewashed walls are bare. On the fourth wall hangs a large thirteenth

century Madonna of the Cimabue school, enormous in the little room, her head

bent at the signature angle like that of a curious bird, and her almond eyes

regarding a small figure asleep beneath the painting.

Dr Hannibal Lecter, veteran of prison and asylum cots, lies still on this

narrow bed, his hands on his chest.

His eyes open and he is suddenly, completely awake, his dream of his sister

Mischa, long dead and digested, running seamlessly into this present waking:

danger then, danger now.

Knowing he is in danger did not disturb his sleep any more than killing the

pickpocket did.

Dressed for his day now, lean and perfectly groomed in his dark silk suit, he

turns off the motion sensors at the top of the servants' stairs and comes down

into the great spaces of the palazzo.

Now he is free to move through the vast silence of the palace's many rooms,

always a heady freedom to him after so many years of confinement in a basement

cell.

Just as the frescoed walls of Santa Croce or the Palazzo Vecchio are suffused

with mind, so the air of the Capponi Library thrums with presence for Dr

Lecter as he works at the great wall of pigeonholed manuscripts. He selects

rolled parchments, blows dust away, the motes of dust swarming in a ray of sun

as though the dead, who now are dust, vie to tell him their fate and his. He

works efficiently, but without undue haste, putting a few things in his own

portfolio, gathering books and illustrations for his lecture tonight to the

Studiolo. There are so many things he would have liked to read.

Dr Lecter opens his laptop computer and, dialing through the University of

Milan's criminology department, checks the FBI's home page on the World Wide

Web at www.fbi.gov, as any private citizen can do. The Judiciary Subcommittee

hearing on Clarice Starling's abortive drug raid has not been scheduled, he

learns. He does not have the access codes he would need to look into his own

case file at the FBI. On the Most Wanted page, his own former countenance

looks at him, flanked by a bomber and an arsonist.

Dr Lecter takes up the bright tabloid from a pile of parchment and looks at

the picture of Clarice Starling on the cover, touches her face with his

finger. The bright blade appears in his hand as though he had sprouted it to

replace his sixth finger. The knife is called a Harpy and it has a serrated

blade shaped like a talon. It slices as easily through the National Tattler as

it sliced through the Gypsy's femoral artery - the blade was in the Gypsy and

gone so quickly Dr Lecter did not even need to wipe it.

Dr Lecter cuts out the image of Clarice Starling's face and glues it on a

piece of blank parchment.

He picks up a pen and, with a fluid ease, draws on the parchment the body of a

winged lioness, a griffon with Starling's face. Beneath it, he writes in his

distinctive copperplate. Did yon ever think, Clarice, why the philistines

don't understand you? It's because you're the answer to Samson's riddle: You

are the honey in the lion.

Fifteen kilometers away, parked for privacy behind a high stone wall in

Impruneta, Carlo Deogracias went over his equipment, while his brother Matteo

practiced a series of judo takedowns on the soft grass with the other two

Sardinians, Piero and Tommaso Falcione. Both Falciones were quick and very

strong - Piero played briefly with the Cagliari professional soccer team.

Tommaso had once studied to be a priest, and he spoke fair English. He prayed

with their victims, sometimes.

Carlo's white Fiat van with Roman license plates was legally rented. Ready to

attach to its sides were signs reading OSPEDALE DELLA MISERICORDIA. The walls

and floor were covered with mover's pads in case the subject struggled inside

the van.

Carlo intended to carry out this project exactly as Mason wished, but if the

plan went wrong and he had to kill Dr Lecter in Italy and abort the filming in

Sardinia, all was not lost. Carlo knew he could butcher Dr Lecter and have his

head and hands off in less than a minute.

If he didn't have that much time, he could take the penis and a finger, which

with DNA testing would do for proof. Sealed in plastic and packed in ice, they

would be in Mason's hands in less than twenty-four hours, entitling Carlo to a

reward in addition to his fees.

Neatly stored behind the seats were a small chain saw, long-handled metal

shears, a surgical saw, sharp knives, plastic zip-lock bags, a Black & Decker

Work Buddy to hold the doctor's arms still, and a DHL Air Express crate with

prepaid delivery fee, estimating the weight of Dr Lecter's head at six kilos

and his hands at a kilo apiece.

If Carlo had a chance to record an emergency butchery on videotape, he felt

confident Mason would pay extra to see Dr Lecter butchered alive, even after

he had coughed up the one million dollars for the doctor's head and hands. For

that purpose Carlo had provided himself with a good video camera, light source

and tripod, and taught Matteo the rudiments of operating it.

His capture equipment got just as much attention. Piero and Tommaso were

expert with the net, now folded as carefully as a parachute. Carlo had both a

hypodermic and a dart gun loaded with enough of the animal tranquilizer

acepromazine to drop an animal of Dr Lecter's size in seconds. Carlo had told

Rinaldo Pazzi he would commence with the beanbag gun, which was charged and

ready, but if he got a chance to put the hypodermic anywhere in Dr Lecter's

buttocks or legs, the beanbag would not be needed.

The abductors only had to be on the Italian mainland with their captive for

about forty minutes, the length of time it took to drive to the jetport at

Pisa where an ambulance plane would be waiting. The Florence airstrip was

closer, but the air traffic there was light, and a private flight more

noticeable.

In less than an hour and a half, they would be in Sardinia, where the doctor's

reception committee was growing ravenous.

Carlo had weighed it all in his intelligent, malodorous head. Mason was no

fool. The payments were weighted so no harm must come to Rinaldo Pazzi-it

would cost Carlo money to kill Pazzi and try to claim all the reward. Mason

did not want the heat from a dead policeman. Better to do it Mason's way. But

it made Carlo itch all over to think what he might have accomplished with a

few strokes of the saw if he had found Dr Lecter himself.

He tried his chain saw. It started on the first pull.

Carlo conferred briefly with the others, and left on a small motorino for

town, armed only with a knife and a gun and a hypodermic.

Dr Hannibal Lecter came in early from the noisome street to the Farmacia di

Santa Maria Novella, one of the best-smelling places on Earth. He stood for

some minutes with his head back and eyes closed, taking in the aromas of the

great soaps and lotions and creams, and of the ingredients in the workrooms.

The porter was accustomed to him, and the clerks, normally given to a certain

amount of hauteur, had great respect for him. The purchases of the courteous

Dr Fell over his months in Florence would not have totaled more than one

hundred thousand lire, but the fragrances and essences were chosen and

combined with a sensibility startling and gratifying to these scent merchants,

who live by the nose.

It was to preserve this pleasure that Dr Lecter had not altered his own nose

with any rhinoplasty other than external collagen injections. For him the air

was painted with scents as distinct and vivid as colors, and he could layer

and feather them as though painting wet on wet. Here there was nothing of

jail. Here the air was music. Here were pale tears of frankincense awaiting

extraction, yellow bergamot, sandalwood, cinnamon and mimosa in concert, over

the sustaining ground notes of genuine ambergris, civet, castor from the

beaver, and essence of the musk deer.

Dr Lecter sometimes entertained the illusion that he could smell with his

hands, his arms and cheeks, that odor suffused him. That he could smell with

his face and his heart.

For good, anatomic reasons, scent fosters memory more readily than any other

sense.

Here Dr Lecter had fragments and flashes of memory as he stood beneath the

soft light of the Farmacia's great Art Deco lamps, breathing, breathing. Here

there was nothing from jail. Except - what was that? Clarice Starling, why?

Not the l'Air du Temps he caught when she opened her handbag close to the bars

of his cage in the asylum. That was not it. Such perfumes were not sold here

in the Farmacia. Nor was it her skin lotion. Ah. Sapone di mandorle. The

Farmacia's famous almond soap. Where had he smelled it? Memphis, when she

stood outside his cell, when he briefly touched her finger shortly before his

escape. Starling, then. Clean, and rich in textures. Cotton sun-dried and

ironed. Clarice Starling, then. Engaging and toothsome. Tedious in her

earnestness and absurd in her principles. Quick in her mother wit. Ummmm.

On the other hand, bad memories for Dr Lecter were associated with unpleasant

odors, and here in the Farmacia he was perhaps as far as he ever got from the

rank black oubliettes beneath his memory palace.

Contrary to his usual practice, Dr Lecter bought quite a lot of soaps and

lotions and bath oils on this gray Friday. A few he took with him, and he had

the Farmacia ship the rest, making out the shipping labels himself in his

distinctive copperplate hand.

"Would the Dottore like to include a note?" the clerk asked.

"Why not?"

Dr Lecter replied, and slipped the folded drawing of the griffon into the box.

The Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella is attached to a convent in the Via Scala

and Carlo, ever devout, removed his hat to lurk beneath an image of the Virgin

near the entrance. He had noticed that air pressure from the foyer's inner

doors made the exterior doors puff ajar seconds before anyone comes out. This

gave him time to conceal himself and peep from hiding each time a customer

left. When Dr Lecter came out with his slim portfolio, Carlo was well

concealed behind a card vendor's stall. The doctor started on his way. As he

passed the image of the Virgin, his head came up, his nostrils flared as he

looked up at the statue and tested the air.

Carlo thought it might be a gesture of devotion. He wondered if Dr Lecter was

religious, as crazy men often are. Perhaps he could make the doctor curse God

at the end - that might please Mason. He'd have to send the pious Tommaso out

of earshot first, of course.

Rinaldo Pazzi in the late afternoon wrote a letter to his wife including his

effort at a sonnet, composed early in their courtship, which he had been too

shy to give her at the time. He enclosed the codes required to claim the

escrowed money in Switzerland, along with a letter for her to mail to Mason if

he tried to renege. He put the letter where she would only find it if she were

gathering his effects.

At six o'clock, he rode his little motorino to the Museo Bardini and chained

it to an iron railing where the last students of the day were claiming their

bicycles. He saw the white van with ambulance markings parked near the museum

and guessed it might be Carlo's. Two men were sitting in the van. When Pazzi

turned his back, he felt their eyes on him.

He had plenty of time. The streetlights were already on and he walked slowly

toward the river through the black useful shadows under the museum's trees.

Crossing over the Ponte alle Grazie, he stared down for a time at the slowmoving Arno and thought the last long thoughts he would have time to

entertain. The night would he dark. Good. Low clouds rushed eastward over

Florence, just brushing the cruel spike on the Palazzo Vecchio, and the rising

breeze swirled the grit and powdered pigeon droppings in the piazza before

Santa Croce, where Pazzi now made his way, his pockets heavy with a .380

Beretta, a flat leather sap and a knife to plant on Dr Lecter in case it was

necessary to kill him at once.

The church of Santa Croce closes at six P.M., but a sexton let Pazzi in a

small door near the front of the church. He did not want to ask the man if "Dr

Fell" was working, so he went carefully to see. Candles burning at the altars

along the walls gave him enough light. He walked the great length of the

church until he could see down the right arm of the cruciform church. It was

hard to see, past the votive candles, if Dr Fell was in the Capponi Chapel.

Walking quietly down the right transept now. Looking. A great shadow reared up

the chapel wall, and for a second Pazzi's breathing stopped. It was Dr Lecter,

bent over his lamp on the floor where he worked at his rubbings. The doctor

stood up, peered into the dark like an owl, head turning, body still, lit from

beneath by his work light, shadow immense behind him. Then the shadow shrank

down the chapel wall as he bent to his task again.

Pazzi felt sweat trickle down his back beneath his shirt, but his face was

cold.

There was yet an hour before the meeting at the Palazzo Vecchio began and

Pazzi wanted to arrive at the lecture late.

In its severe beauty, the chapel which Brunelleschi built for the Pazzi family

at Santa Croce is one of the glories of Renaissance architecture. Here the

circle and the square are reconciled. It is a separate structure outside the

sanctuary of Santa Croce, reached only through an arched cloister.

Pazzi prayed in the Pazzi chapel, kneeling on the stone, watched by his

likeness in the Della Robbia rondel high above him. He felt his prayers

constricted by the circle of apostles on the ceiling, and thought perhaps the

prayers might have escaped into the dark cloister behind him and flown from

there to the open sky and God.

With an effort he pictured in his mind some good things he could do with the

money he got in exchange for Dr Lecter. He saw himself and his wife handing

out coins to some urchins, and some sort of medical machine they would give to

a hospital. He saw the waves of Galilee, which looked to him much like the

Chesapeake. He saw his wife's shapely rosy hand around his dick, squeezing it

to further swell the head.

He looked about him, and seeing no one, said aloud to God, "'thank you,

Father, for allowing me to remove this monster, monster of monsters, from your

Earth. Thank you on behalf of the souls we will spare of pain."

Whether this was the magisterial "We" or a reference to the partnership of

Pazzi and Clod is not clear, and there may not be a single answer.

The part of him that was not his friend said to Pazzi that he and Dr Lecter

had killed together, that Gnocco was their victim, since Pazzi did nothing to

save him, and was relieved when death stopped his mouth.

There was some comfort in prayer, Pazzi reflected, leaving the chapel - he had

the distinct feeling, walking out through the dark cloister, that he was not

alone.

Carlo was waiting under the overhang of the Palazzo Piccolomini, and he fell

into step with Pazzi. They said very little.

They walked behind the Palazzo Vecchio and confirmed the rear exit into the

Via del Leone was locked, the windows above it shuttered.

The only open door was the main entrance to the Palazzo.

"We'll come out here, down the steps and around the side to the Via Neri,"

Pazzi said.

"My brother and I will be on the Loggia side of the piazza. We'll fall in a

good distance behind you. The others are at the Museo Bardini."

"I saw them."

"They saw you too," Carlo said.

"Does the beanbag make much noise?"

"Not a lot, not like a gun, but you'll hear it and he'll go down fast."

Carlo did not tell him Piero would shoot the beanbag from the shadows in front

of the museum while Pazzi and Dr Lecter were still in the light. Carlo did not

want Pazzi to flinch away from the doctor and warn him before the shot.

"You have to confirm to Mason that you have him. You have to do that

tonight," Pazzi said.

"Don't worry. This prick will spend tonight begging Mason on the telephone,"

Carlo said, glancing sideways at Pazzi, hoping to see him uncomfortable. "At

first he'll beg for Mason to spare him, and after a while he'll beg to die."