Hannibal Rising Read online

  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.

  “Those aren’t for you,” Hannibal said.

  “You’re under arrest,” Popil said. When Hannibal was handcuffed, Popil stuck the flowers under his arm.

  In his office at the Quai des Orfèvres, Inspector Popil left Hannibal alone and let him wait for a half-hour in the atmosphere of the police station. He returned to his office to find the young man placing the last stem in a flower arrangement in a water carafe on Popil’s desk. “How do you like that?” Hannibal said.

  Inspector Popil slugged him with a small rubber sap and he went down.

  “How do you like that?” Popil said.

  The larger of the two policemen crowded in behind Popil and stood over Hannibal. “Answer every question: I asked you how do you like that?”

  “It’s more honest than your handshake. And at least the club is clean.”

  Popil took from an envelope two dog tags on a loop of string. “Found in your room. These two were charged in absentia at Nuremberg. Question: Where are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you want to watch them hang? The hangman uses the English drop, but not enough to tear their heads off. He does not boil and stretch his rope. They yo-yo a lot. That should be to your taste.”

  “Inspector, you will never know anything about my taste.”

  “Justice doesn’t matter, it just has to be you killing them.”

  “It has to be you too, doesn’t it, Inspector? You always watch them die. It’s to your taste. Do you think we could talk alone?” He took from his pocket a bloodstained note wrapped in cellophane. “You have mail from Louis Ferrat.”

  Popil motioned for the policemen to leave the room.

  “When I cut the clothes off Louis’ body I found this note to you.” He read aloud the part above the fold. “Inspector Popil, why do you torment me with questions you will not answer yourself? I saw you in Lyons. And he goes on.” Hannibal passed the note to Popil. “If you want to open it, it’s dry now. It doesn’t smell.”

  The note crackled when Popil opened it, and dark flakes fell out of the fold. When he had finished he sat holding the note beside his temple.

  “Did some of your family wave bye-bye to you from the choo-choo?” Hannibal said. “Were you directing traffic at the depot that day?”

  Popil drew back his hand.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Hannibal said softly. “If I knew anything, why should I tell you? It’s a reasonable question, Inspector. Maybe you’ll get them passage to Argentina.”

  Popil closed his eyes and opened them again. “Pétain was always my hero. My father, my uncles fought under him in the First War. When he made the new government, he told us, ‘Just keep the peace until we throw the Germans off. Vichy will save France.’ We were already policemen, it seemed like the same duty.”

  “Did you help the Germans?”

  Popil shrugged. “I kept the peace. Perhaps that helped them. Then I saw one of their trains. I deserted and found the Resistance. They wouldn’t trust me until I killed a Gestapo. The Germans shot eight villagers in reprisal. I felt like I had killed them myself. What kind of war is that? We fought in Normandy in the hedges, clicking these to identify each other.” He picked up a cricket clicker from his desk. “We helped the Allies coming in from the beachheads.” He clicked twice. “This meant I’m a friend, don’t shoot. I don’t care about Dortlich. Help me find them. How are you hunting Grutas?”

  “Through relatives in Lithuania, my mother’s connections in the church.”

  “I could hold you for the false papers, just on the con’s testimony. If I let you go, will you swear to tell me everything you find out? Will you swear to God?”

  “To God? Yes, I swear to God. Do you have a Bible?” Popil had a copy of the Pensées in his bookcase. Hannibal took it out. “Or we could use your Pascal, Pascal.”

  “Would you swear on Lady Murasaki’s life?”

  A moment’s hesitation. “Yes, on Lady Murasaki’s life.” Hannibal picked up the clicker and clicked it twice.

  Popil held out the dog tags and Hannibal took them back.

  When Hannibal had left the office, Popil’s assistant came in. Popil signaled from the window. When Hannibal emerged from the building a plainclothes policeman followed him.

  “He knows something. His eyebrows are singed. Check fires in the Ile de France for the last three days,” Popil said. “When he leads us to Grutas, I want to try him for the butcher when he was a child.”

  “Why the butcher?”

  “It’s a juvenile crime, Etienne, a crime of passion. I don’t want a conviction, I want him declared insane. In an asylum they can study him and try to find out what he is.”

  “What do you think he is?”

  “The little boy Hannibal died in 1945 out there in the snow trying to save his sister. His heart died with Mischa. What is he now? There’s not a word for it yet. For lack of a better word, we’ll call him a monster.”

  54

  AT LADY MURASAKI’S building in the Place des Vosges, the concierge’s booth was dark, the Dutch door with its frosted window closed. Hannibal let himself into the building with his key and ran up the stairs.

  Inside her booth, seated in her chair the concierge had the mail spread before her on her desk, stacked tenant by tenant as though she were playing solitaire. The cable of a bicycle lock was buried nearly out of sight in the soft flesh of her neck and her tongue was hanging out.

  Hannibal knocked on Lady Murasaki’s door. He could hear the telephone ringing inside. It sounded oddly shrill to him. The door swung open when he pushed his key into the lock. He ran through the apartment, looking, looking, flinching when he pushed open her bedroom door, but the room was empty. The telephone was ringing, ringing. He picked up the receiver.

  In the kitchen of the Café de L’Este, a cage of ortolans waited to be drowned in Armagnac and scalded in the big pot of boiling water on the stove. Grutas gripped Lady Murasaki’s neck and held her face close to the boiling pot. With his other hand he held the telephone receiver. Her hands were tied behind her. Mueller gripped her arms from behind.

  When he heard Hannibal’s voice on the line, Grutas spoke into the phone. “To continue our conversation, do you want to see the Jap alive?” Grutas asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Listen to her and guess if she still has her cheeks.”

  What was that sound behind Grutas’ voice? Boiling water? Hannibal did not know if the sound was real; he heard boiling water in his dreams.

  “Speak to your little fuckboy.”

  Lady Murasaki said, “My dear, DON’T—” before she was snatched away from the telephone. She struggled in Mueller’s grip and they banged into the cage of ortolans. The birds screeched and twittered among themselves.

  Grutas spoke to Hannibal. “‘My DEAR,’ you have killed two men for your sister and you have blown up my house. I offer you a life for a life. Bring everything, the dog tags, Pot Watcher’s little inventory, every fucking thing. I feel like making her squeal.”

  “Where—”

  “Shut up. Kilometer thirty-six on the road to Trilbardou, there is a telephone kiosk. Be there at sunrise and you’ll get a call. If you are not there you get her cheeks in the mail. If I see Popil, or any policeman, you get her heart parcel post. Maybe you can use it in your studies, poke through the chambers, see if you can find your face. A life for a life?”

  “A life for a life,” Hannibal said. The line went dead.

  Dieter and Mueller brought Lady Murasaki to a van outside the café. Kolnas changed the license plate on Grutas’ car.

  Grutas opened the trunk and got out a Dragunov sniper rifle. He gave it to Dieter. “Kolnas, bring a jar.” Grutas wanted Lady Murasaki to hear. He watched her face
with a kind of hunger as he gave instructions.

  “Take the car. Kill him at the telephone,” Grutas told Dieter. He handed him the jar. “Bring his balls to the boat below Nemours.”

  Hannibal did not want to look out the window; Popil’s plainclothesman would be looking up. He went into the bedroom. He sat on the bed for a moment with his eyes closed. The background sounds rang on in Hannibal’s head. Chirp chirp. The Baltic dialect of the ortolan.

  Lady Murasaki’s sheets were lavender-scented linen. He gripped them in his fists, held them to his face, then stripped them off the bed and soaked them quickly in the tub. He stretched a clothesline across the living room and hung a kimono from it, set an oscillating fan on the floor and turned it on, the fan turning slowly, moving the kimono and its shadow on the sheer curtains.

  Standing before the samurai armor, he held up the tanto dagger and stared into the mask of Lord Date Masamune.

  “If you can help her, help her now.”

  He put the lanyard around his neck and slipped the dagger down the back of his collar.

  Hannibal twisted and knotted the wet sheets like a jail suicide, and when he had finished the sheets hung from a terrace railing to within fifteen feet of the alley pavement.

  He took his time going down. When he let go of the sheet the last drop through the air seemed to take a long time, the bottoms of his feet stinging as he hit and rolled.

  He pushed the motorcycle down the alley behind the building and out into the back street, dropped the clutch and swung aboard as the engine fired. He needed enough of a lead to retrieve Milko’s gun.

  55

  IN THE AVIARY OUTSIDE the Café de L’Este the ortolans stirred and murmured, restive under the bright moon. The patio awning was rolled up and the umbrellas folded. The dining room was darkened, but the lights were still on in the kitchen and the bar.

  Hannibal could see Hercule mopping the bar floor. Kolnas sat on a barstool with a ledger. Hannibal stepped further back into the darkness, started his motorcycle and rode away without turning on his lights.

  He walked the last quarter-mile to the house on the Rue Juliana. A Citroën Deux Cheveaux was parked in the driveway; a man in the driver’s seat took the last drag off a cigarette. Hannibal watched the butt arc away from the car and splash sparks in the street. The man settled himself in the seat and laid back his head. He may have gone to sleep.

  From a hedge outside the kitchen, Hannibal could look into the house. Madame Kolnas passed a window talking to someone who was too short to see. The screened windows were open to the warm night. The screen door to the kitchen opened onto the garden. The tanto dagger slid easily through the mesh and disengaged the hook. Hannibal wiped his shoes on the mat and stepped into the house. The kitchen clock seemed loud. He could hear running water and splashing from the bathroom. He passed the bathroom door, staying close to the wall to keep the floor from squeaking. He could hear Madame Kolnas in the bathroom talking to a child.

  The next door was partly open. Hannibal could see shelves of toys and a big plush elephant. He looked into the room. Twin beds. Katerina Kolnas was asleep on the nearer one. Her head was turned to the side, her thumb touching her forehead. Hannibal could see the pulse in her temple. He could hear his heart. She was wearing Mischa’s bracelet. He blinked in the warm lamplight. He could hear himself blink. He could hear the child’s breathing. He could hear Madame Kolnas’ voice from down the hall. Small sounds audible over the great roaring in him.

  “Come, Muffin, time to dry off,” Madame Kolnas said.

  Grutas’ houseboat, black and prophetic-looking, was moored to the quay in a layered fog. Grutas and Mueller carried Lady Murasaki bound and gagged up the gangway and down the companionway at the rear of the cabin. Grutas kicked open the door of his treatment room on the lower deck. A chair was in the middle of the floor with a bloody sheet spread beneath it.

  “Sorry your room isn’t quite ready,” Grutas said. “I’ll contact room service. Eva!!” He went down the passageway to the next cabin and shoved open the door. Three women chained to their bunks looked at him with hate in their faces. Eva was collecting their mess gear.

  “Get in here.”

  Eva came into the treatment room, staying out of Grutas’ reach. She took up the bloody sheet and spread a clean sheet beneath the chair. She started to take the blood-stained sheet away but Grutas said, “Leave it. Bundle it there where she can see it.”

  Grutas and Mueller bound Lady Murasaki to the chair.

  Grutas dismissed Mueller. He lounged on a chaise against the wall, his legs spread, rubbing his thighs. “Do you have any idea what will happen if you don’t find me some bliss?” Grutas said.

  Lady Murasaki closed her eyes. She felt the boat tremble and begin to move.

  Hercule made two trips out of the café with the garbage cans. He unlocked his bicycle and rode away.

  His taillight was still visible when Hannibal slipped into the kitchen door. He carried a bulky object in a bloodstained bag.

  Kolnas came into the kitchen carrying his ledger. He opened the firebox of the wood-burning oven, put in some receipts and poked them back into the fire.

  Behind him, Hannibal said, “Herr Kolnas, surrounded by bowls.”

  Kolnas spun around to see Hannibal leaning against the wall, a glass of wine in one hand and a pistol in the other.

  “What do you want? We are closed here.”

  “Kolnas in bowl heaven. Surrounded by bowls. Are you wearing your dog tag, Herr Kolnas?”

  “I am Kleber, citizen of France, and I am calling the police.”

  “Let me call them for you.” Hannibal put down his glass and picked up the telephone. “Do you mind if I call the War Crimes Commission at the same time? I’ll pay for the call.”

  “Fuck you. Call who you please. You can call them, I’m serious. Or I’ll do it. I have papers, I have friends.”

  “I have children. Yours.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I have both of them. I went to your home on the Rue Juliana. I went into the room with the big stuffed elephant and I took them.”

  “You are lying.”

  “‘Take her, she’s going to die anyway’ that’s what you said. Remember? Tagging along behind Grutas with your bowl.

  “I brought something for your oven.” Hannibal reached behind him and threw onto the table his bloody bag. “We can cook together, like old times.” He dropped Mischa’s bracelet onto the kitchen table. It rolled around and around before it settled to a stop.

  Kolnas made a gagging sound. For a moment he could not touch the bag with his trembling hands and then he tore at it, tore at the bloody butcher paper inside, tore down to meat and bones.

  “It’s a beef roast, Herr Kolnas, and a melon. I got them at Les Halles. But do you see how it feels?”

  Kolnas lunged across the table, bloody hands finding Hannibal’s face, but he was off his feet stretched over the table and Hannibal pulled him down, and he brought the pistol down on the base of Kolnas’ skull, not too hard, and Kolnas’ lights went out.

  Hannibal’s face, smeared with blood, looked like the demonic faces in his own dreams. He poured water in Kolnas’ face until his eyes opened.

  “Where is Katerina, what have you done with her?” Kolnas said.

  “She is safe, Herr Kolnas. She is pink and perfect. You can see the pulse in her temple. I will give her back to you when you give me Lady Murasaki.”

  “If I do that I am a dead man.”

  “No. Grutas will be arrested and I will not remember your face. You get a pass for the sake of your children.”

  “How do I know they are alive?”

  “I swear on my sister’s soul you will hear their voices. Safe. Help me or I will kill you and leave the child to starve. Where is Grutas? Where is Lady Murasaki?”

  Kolnas swallowed, choked on some blood in his mouth. “Grutas has a houseboat, a canal boat, he moves around. He’s in the Canal de Loing south of Ne
mours.”

  “The name of the boat?”

  “Christabel. You gave your word, where are my children?”

  Hannibal let Kolnas up. He picked up the telephone beside the cash register, dialed a number and handed Kolnas the receiver.

  For a moment Kolnas could not recognize his wife’s voice, and then “Hello! Hello! Astrid?? Check on the children, let me speak to Katerina! Just do it!”

  As Kolnas listened to the puzzled sleepy voice of the awakened child, his face changed. First relief and then curious blankness as his hand crept toward the gun on the shelf beneath the cash register. His shoulders slumped. “You tricked me, Herr Lecter.”

  “I kept my word. I will spare your life for the sake of your—”

  Kolnas spun with the big Webley in his fist, Hannibal’s hand slashing toward it, the gun going off beside them, and Hannibal drove the tanto dagger underneath Kolnas’ chin and the point came out the top of his head.

  The telephone receiver swung from its wire. Kolnas fell forward on his face. Hannibal rolled him over and sat for a moment in a kitchen chair looking at him. Kolnas’ eyes were open, already glazing. Hannibal put a bowl over his face.

  He carried the cage of ortolans outside and opened it. He had to grab the last one and toss it into the moonbright sky. He opened the outdoor aviary and shooed the birds out. They formed up in a flock and circled once, tiny shadows flicking across the patio, climbing to test the wind and pick up the polestar. “Go,” Hannibal said. “The Baltic is that way. Stay all season.”

  56

  THROUGH THE VAST NIGHT a single point of light shot across the dark fields of Ile de France, the motorcycle flat out, Hannibal down on the gas tank. Off the concrete south of Nemours and following an old towpath along the Canal de Loing, asphalt and gravel, now a single lane of asphalt overgrown on both sides, Hannibal once zigging at speed through cows on the road and feeling a tail-brush sting him as he passed, swerving off the pavement, gravel rattling under the fenders, and back on again, the motorcycle shaking its head and catching itself, settling into speed again.