Hannibal Rising (Hannibal Lecter 4)

Swinging the sword to make Xs in Paul now, Paul’s eyes wide in shock, the butcher trying to run, caught across the clavicle, an arterial hiss that spatters Hannibal’s face. The next two blows sliced him behind the ankles and he went down hamstrung and bellowing like a steer.

Paul the Butcher sits propped against the stump. He cannot raise his arms.

Hannibal looks into his face. “Would you like to see my drawing?”

He offers the pad. The drawing is Paul the Butcher’s head on a platter with a name tag attached to the hair. The tag reads Paul Momund, Fine Meats. Paul’s vision is darkening around the edges. Hannibal swings the sword and for Paul everything is sideways for an instant, before blood pressure is lost and there is the dark.

In his own darkness, Hannibal hears Mischa’s voice as the swan was coming, and he says aloud, “Oooh, Anniba!”

Afternoon faded. Hannibal stayed well into the gloaming, his eyes closed, leaning against the stump where stood the butcher’s head. He opened his eyes and sat for long minutes. At last he rose and went to the dock. The fish stringer was made of slender chain and the sight of it made him rub the scar around his neck. The fish on the stringer were still alive. He wet his hand before he touched them, turning them loose one by one.

“Go,” he said. “Go,” and flung the empty chain far across the water.

He turned the crickets loose as well. “Go, go!” he told them. He looked in the canvas bag at the big cleaned fish and felt a twinge of appetite.

“Yum,” he said.

22

PAUL THE BUTCHER’S violent death was no tragedy to many of the villagers, whose mayor and several aldermen had been shot by the Nazis as reprisals for Resistance activity during the occupation.

The greater part of Paul himself lay on a zinc table in the embalming room at Pompes Funebres Roget, where he had succeeded Count Lecter on the slab. At dusk a black Citroën Traction Avant pulled up to the funeral home. A gendarme stationed in front hastened to open the car door.

“Good evening, Inspector.”

The man who got out was about forty neat in a suit. He returned the gendarme’s smart salute with a friendly nod, turned back to the car and spoke to the driver and another officer in the backseat. “Take the cases to the police station.”

The inspector found the funeral home proprietor, Monsieur Roget, and the Commandant of Police in the embalming room, all faucets and hoses and enamel with supplies in cases fronted with glass.

The commandant brightened at the sight of the policeman from Paris.

“Inspector Popil! I’m happy you could come. You won’t remember me but …”

The inspector considered the commandant. “I do, of course. Commandant Balmain. You delivered De Rais to Nuremberg and sat behind him at the trial.”

“I saw you bring the evidence. It’s an honor, sir.”

“What do we have?”

The funeral director’s assistant Laurent pulled back the covering sheet.

Paul the Butcher’s body was still clothed, long stripes of red diagonally across him where the clothing was not soaked with blood. He was absent his head.

“Paul Momund, or most of him,” the commandant said. “That is his dossier?”

Popil nodded. “Short and ugly. He shipped Jews from Orléans.” The inspector considered the body, walked around it, picked up Paul’s hand and arm, its rude tattoo brighter now against the pallor. He spoke absently as though to himself. “He has defense wounds on his hands, but the bruises on his knuckles are days old. He fought recently.”

“And often,” the mortician said.

Assistant Laurent piped up. “Last Saturday he had a bar fight, and knocked teeth from a man and a girl.” Laurent jerked his head to illustrate the force of the blows, the pompadour bobbing on his petite skull.

“A list please. His recent opponents,” the inspector said. He leaned over the body, sniffing. “You have done nothing to this body, Monsieur Roget?”

“No, Monsieur. The commandant specifically forbade me …”

Inspector Popil beckoned him to the table. Laurent came too. “Is this the odor of anything you use here?”

“I smell cyanide,” Mortician Roget said. “He was poisoned first!”