"Do I have to ask why?"

"Not unless you want me to tell you. It doesn't fall under the Humane Slaughter Act," Mason said, and giggled. Talking had exhausted him. He gestured to Margot.

She carried a clipboard into the light and read from her notes. "We want everything you get and we want it before Behavioral Science sees it, we want Behavioral Science reports as soon as they're filed and we want the VICAP and National Crime Information Center access codes."

"You'd have to use a public phone every time you access VICAP," Krendler said, still talking out into the dark as though the woman wasn't there. "How can you do that?"."I can do it," Margot said.

"She can do it," Mason whispered from the dark.

"She writes workout programs for exercise machines in gyms. It's her little business so she doesn't have to live off of Brother."

"The FBI has a closed system and some of it's encrypted. You'll have to sign on from a guest location exactly as I tell you and download to a laptop programmed at the justice Department," Krendler said. "Then if VICAP hides a tracer cookie on you, it will just come back to Justice. Buy a fast laptop with a fast modem for cash over-the-counter at a volume dealer and don't mail any warranties. Get a zip drive too. Stay off the Net with it. I'll need it overnight and I want it back when you're through. You'll hear from me. Okay, that's it."

Krendler stood and gathered his papers.

"That's not quite it, Mr. Krendler…"

Mason said. "Lecter doesn't have to come out. He's got the money to hide forever."

"How does he have money?"

Margot said.

"He had some very rich old people in his psychiatric practice," Krendler said. "He got them to sign over a lot of money and stocks to him and he hid it good. The IRS hasn't been able to find it. They exhumed the bodies of a couple of his benefactors to see if he'd killed them, but they couldn't find anything. Toxin scans negative."

"So he won't get caught in a stickup, he has cash," Mason said. "We've got to lure him out. Be thinking of ways."

"He'll know where the hit came from in Florence," Krendler said.

"Sure he will."

"So he'll want you."

"I don't know," Mason said. "He likes me like I am. Be thinking, Krendler."

Mason began to hum.

All Deputy Assistant Inspector General Krendler heard was humming as he went out the door. Mason often hummed hymns while he was scheming: You've got the prime bait, Krendler, but we'll discuss it after you've made an incriminating bank deposit – when you belong to me.

Chapter 45

ONLY FAMILY remains in Mason's room, brother and sister.

Soft light and music. North African music, an oud and drums. Margot sits on the couch, head down, elbows on her knees. She might have been a hammer thrower resting, or a weight lifter resting in a gym after a workout. She breathes a little faster than Mason's respirator…The song ends and she rises, goes to his bedside. The eel pokes his head out of the hole in the artificial rock to see if his wavy silver sky might rain carp again tonight. Margot's raspy voice at its softest. "Are you awake?"

In a moment Mason was present behind his ever-open eye. "Is it time to talk about – a hiss of breath – what Margot wants? Sit here on Santa's knee."

"You know what I want."

"Tell me."

"Judy and I want to have a baby. We want to have a Verger baby, our own baby."

"Why don't you buy a Chinese baby? They're cheaper than shoats."

"It's a good thing to do. We might do that too."

"What does Papa's will say… To an heir, confirmed as my descendent in the Cellmark Laboratory or its equivalent by DNA testing, my estate entire upon the passing of my beloved son, Mason. Beloved son, Mason, that's me. In the absence of an heir, the sole beneficiary shall be the Southern Baptist Convention with specific clauses concerning Baylor University at Waco, Texas. You really pissed Papa off with that muff-diving, Margot."

"You may not believe this, Mason, but it's not the money – well, it is a little bit, but don't you want an heir? It would be your heir too, Mason."

"Why don't you find a nice fellow and give him a little nooky, Margot? It's not like you don't know how."

The Moroccan music is building again, the obsessive repetitions of the oud in her ear like anger.

"I've messed myself up, Mason. I shriveled my ovaries with all the stuff I took. And I want Judy to be part of it. She wants to be the birth mother. Mason, you said if I helped you – you promised me some sperm.

Mason's spidery fingers gestured. "Help yourself. If it's still there."

"Mason, there's every chance that you still have viable sperm, and we could arrange to harvest it painlessly-"

"Harvesting my viable sperm? Sounds like you've been talking to somebody."

"Just the fertility clinic, it's confidential."

Margot's face softened, even in the cold light of the aquarium.

"We could be really good to a child, Mason, we've been to parenting classes, Judy comes from a big, tolerant family and there's a support group of women parents."

"You used to be able to make me come when we were kids, Margot, Made me shoot like a belt-fed mortar. And pretty damn fast too."

"You hurt me when I was little, Mason. You hurt me and you dislocated my elbow making me do the other – I still can't curl more than eighty pounds with my left arm."

"Well, you wouldn't take the chocolate. I said we'll talk about it, Little.Sister, when this job is done."

"Let's just test you now," Margot said. "The doctor can take a painless sample-" "What painless, I can't feel anything down there anyway. You could suck it till you're blue in the face, and it wouldn't be like it was the first time. But I've made people do that already and nothing happens."

"The doctor can take a painless sample, just to see if you've got motile sperm. Judy's taking Clomid already. We're getting her cycle charted, there's a lot of stuff to do."

"I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Judy in all this time. Cordell says she's bowlegged. How long have you two been an item, Margot?"

"Five years."

"Why don't you bring her by? We might… work something out, so to speak."

The North African drums end with a final slap and leave a ringing silence in Margot's ear.

"Why don't you manage your little hookup with the Justice Department by yourself?" she said close to his war hole. "Why don't you try to get in a phone booth with your fucking laptop. Why don't you pay some more licking guineas to catch the guy that made dog food out 'your face? You said you'd help me, Mason."

"I will. I just have to think about the timing."

Margot crushed two walnuts together and let the reps fall on Mason's sheet. "Don't think too goddamned long, Smiley."

Her cycle pants whistled like building steam as she walked out of the room.