فصل پنجاه و دوم

52

THE MAID WAS laying out Grutas’ silk pajamas on the bed when he called for more towels.

The maid did not like to take towels into Grutas’ bathroom, but she was always summoned to do it. She had to go in there but she did not have to look. Grutas’ bathroom was all white tile and stainless steel, with a big freestanding tub and a steam room with frosted glass doors and a shower off the steam room.

Grutas reclined in his tub. The woman captive he had brought from the boat was shaving his chest using a prison safety razor, the blade locked in with a key. The side of her face was swollen. The maid did not want to meet her eyes.

Like a sense-deprivation chamber, the shower was all white, and big enough for four. Its curious acoustics bounced every crumb of sound. Hannibal could hear his hair crunch between his head and the tile as he lay on the white floor of the shower. Covered by a couple of white towels he was nearly invisible from the steam room through the frosted shower door. Under the towels he could hear his own breathing. It was like being rolled in the rug with Mischa. Instead of her warm hair near his face, he had the smell of the pistol, machine oil and brass cartridges and cordite.

He could hear Grutas’ voice, and he had not yet seen his face except through field glasses. The tone of voice had not changed—the mirthless teasing that precedes the blow.

“Warm up my terry robe,” Grutas told the maid. “I want some steam after. Turn it on.” She slid back the steam room door and opened the valve. In the all-white steam chamber the only color was the red bezels of the timer and the thermometer. They had the look of a ship’s gauges, with numbers big enough to read in the steam. The timer’s minute hand was already moving around the dial toward the red marker hand.

Grutas had his hands behind his head. Tattooed under his arm was the Nazi lightning SS insignia. He twitched his muscle and made the lightning jump. “Boom! Donnerwetter!” He laughed when the woman captive flinched away. “Noooo, I won’t hit you more. I like you now. I’m going to fix your teeth with some teeth you can put in a glass beside the bed, out of the way.” Hannibal came through the glass doors in a cloud of steam, the gun up and pointed at Grutas’ heart. In his other hand he had a bottle of reagent alcohol.

Grutas’ skin squeaked as he pushed himself up in the tub and the woman shied from him before she knew Hannibal was behind her.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Grutas said. He looked at the bottle, hoping Hannibal was drunk. “I’ve always felt I owed you something.” “I discussed that with Milko.”

“And?”

“He arrived at a solution.”

“The money of course! I sent it with him, and he gave it to you? Good!”

Hannibal spoke to the woman without looking down at her. “Wet your towel in the tub. Go over to the corner and sit down, and put the towel over your face. Go on. Wet it in the tub.” The woman doused the towel and backed into the corner with it.

“Kill him,” she said.

“I’ve waited so long to see your face,” Hannibal said. “I put your face on every bully I ever hurt. I thought you would be bigger.” The maid came into the bedroom with the robe. Through the open bathroom door she could see the barrel and the silencer of the extended gun. She backed out of the room, her slippers silent on the carpet.

Grutas was looking at the gun too. It was Milko’s gun. It had a breech lock on the receiver for use with the silencer. If little Lecter was not familiar with it, he would be limited to one shot. Then he’d have to fumble with the pistol.

“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.

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.