Hannibal (Hannibal Lecter 3)

Pazzi spotted him when the lights went up briefly after the first movement, and in the moment before Pazzi could look away, the doctor’s head came round like that of an owl and their eyes met. Pazzi involuntarily squeezed his wife’s hand hard enough for her to look round at him. After that Pazzi kept his eyes resolutely on the stage, the back of his hand warm against his wife’s thigh as she held his hand in hers.

At intermission, when Pazzi turned from the bar to hand her a drink, Dr. Lecter was standing beside her.

“Good evening, Dr. Fell,” Pazzi said.

“Good evening, Commendatore,” the doctor said. He waited with a slight inclination of the head, until Pazzi had to make the introduction.

“Laura, allow me to present Dr. Fell. Doctor, this is Signora Pazzi, my wife.”

Signora Pazzi, accustomed to being praised for her beauty, found what followed curiously charming, though her husband did not.

“Thank you for this privilege, Commendatore,” the doctor said. His red and pointed tongue appeared for an instant before he bent over Signora Pazzi’s hand, his lips perhaps closer to the skin than is customary in Florence, certainly close enough for her to feel his breath on her skin.

His eyes rose to her before his sleek head lifted.

“I think you particularly enjoy Scarlatti, Signora Pazzi.”

“Yes, I do.”

“It was pleasant to see you following the score. Hardly anyone does it anymore. I hoped that this might interest you.” He took a portfolio from under his arm. It was an antique score on parchment, hand-copied. “This is from the Teatro Capranica in Rome, from 1688, the year the piece was written.”

“Meraviglioso! Look at this, Rinaldo!”

“I marked in overlay some of the differences from the modern score as the first movement went along,” Dr. Lecter said. “It might amuse you to follow along in the second. Please, take it. I can always retrieve it from Signor Pazzi—is that permissible, Commendatore?”

The doctor looking deeply, deeply as Pazzi replied.

“If it would please you, Laura,” Pazzi said. A beat of thought. “Will you be addressing the Studiolo, Doctor?”

“Yes, Friday night in fact. Sogliato can’t wait to see me discredited.”

“I have to be in the old city,” Pazzi said. “I’ll return the score then. Laura, Dr. Fell has to sing for his supper before the dragons at the Studiolo.”

“I’m sure you’ll sing very well, Doctor,” she said, giving him her great dark eyes—within the bounds of propriety, but just.

Dr. Lecter smiled, with his small white teeth. “Madame, if I manufactured Fleur du Ciel, I would offer you the Cape Diamond to wear it. Until Friday night, Commendatore.”

Pazzi made sure the doctor returned to his box, and did not look at him again until they waved good night at a distance on the theater steps.

“I gave you that Fleur du Ciel for your birthday,” Pazzi said.

“Yes, and I love it, Rinaldo,” Signora Pazzi said. “You have the most marvellous taste.”

CHAPTER

34

IMPRUNETA IS an ancient Tuscan town where the roof tiles of the Duomo were made. Its cemetery is visible at night from the hilltop villas for miles around because of the lamps forever burning at the graves. The ambient light is low, but enough for visitors to make their way among the dead, though a flashlight is needed to read the epitaphs.

Rinaldo Pazzi arrived at five minutes to nine with a small bouquet of flowers he planned to place on a grave at random. He walked slowly along a gravel path between the tombs.

He felt Carlo’s presence, though he did not see him.

Carlo spoke from the other side of a mausoleum more than head high. “Do you know a good florist in the town?”

The man sounded like a Sard. Good, maybe he knew what he was doing.

“Florists are all thieves,” Pazzi replied.