299.-Hannibal (2001) by Steven Zaillian II. a

INT. STARLING'S LECTEREUM - DAY

A security tape of mostly-Japanese customers entering and

exiting an exclusive Tokyo perfumery plays on Starling's VCR.

The mail room boy watches it as Starling speaks on the phone -

STARLING

Is it possible it went out with the

regular mail?

YOUNG AGENT'S VOICE

No.  No, I over-nighted it.  I filled

out the slip myself.

INT. QUESTURA - INTERCUT

It's the same young agent who copied the security tape -

YOUNG AGENT

This was the day after your request.

I did it right away.  I don't understand

what happened.  You should have it.

INT. STARLING'S LECTEREUM - CONTINUED

There are three other tapes, marked with the names of stores

in Paris, Rome and Amsterdam, stacked on top of the machine

that plays the Japanese perfumery.

STARLING

I don't.  Can you send me another one?

YOUNG AGENT'S VOICE

I'll have to make another one.

STARLING

I'd appreciate it.

She hangs up.  Geoffrey gestures to the monitor.

GEOFFREY

Nothing, huh?

STARLING

Nothing yet.  Still waiting on Florence

and London.  London says they're sniffing

around.  I don't know, is that British

humor?

EXT. PALAZZO CAPPONI - DAY

Pazzi's clean finger presses a button on the intercom set

into the stone wall of the entry.  As he waits, he glances up

at the security camera, then down at the hammered-iron handle

on the door.  No way to get a print off that.

DR. FELL'S VOICE

Buongiorno.

PAZZI

Dr. Fell?  It's Inspector Pazzi.

DR. FELL'S VOICE

Yes, I can see.

A buzzer releases the lock and Pazzi pulls the door open.

INT. PALAZZO CAPPONI - DAY

As Fell leads Pazzi across the main salon upstairs, past

furniture draped with sheets, the inspector's glance darts

from object to object he'd like to steal for prints - a

glass, a book, a vase, a pen.

DR. FELL

I should've encouraged you to bring

someone along.  The cases, I'm afraid,

are on the heavy side.

PAZZI

Maybe you could help me with them.

DR. FELL

Hmmmm.

PAZZI

Just down the stairs I mean.

They reach two big suitcases, closed.  Two typewritten sheets

of paper rest on a small table next to them.

PAZZI

Is that the inventory?

DR. FELL

Yes.

PAZZI

May I see it?

DR. FELL

Of course.

Pazzi waits for Fell to hand it to him.  Unfortunately, it's

just as close to him.  Once it's clear Fell has no intention

of picking it up, Pazzi does - carefully, but not too

carefully - and pretends to read it.

DR. FELL

You are a Pazzi of the Pazzi, I think.

(Pazzi doesn't answer)

Wasn't it at the Palazzo Vecchio your

ancestor was hanged?  Francesco de'Pazzi?

Thrown naked with a noose around his neck

from the window?  Writhing alongside the

archbishop against the cold stone wall?

Pazzi stares at Fell, who only pleasantly smiles back.

DR. FELL

I found a nice rendering of it here in

the library the other day.  If you'd like

perhaps I could sneak it out for you.

PAZZI

I'd think that might jeopardize your

chances for permanent appointment to the

curatorship.

DR. FELL

Only if you told.

(Fell smiles again)

Remind me.  What was his crime?

PAZZI

He was accused of killing Giuliano

de'Medici.

DR. FELL

Unjustly?

PAZZI

No, I don't think so.

DR. FELL

Then he wasn't just accused.  He did it.

He was guilty.

A knowing look from Fell makes Pazzi wonder if he somehow

knows he knows he's Lecter.

DR. FELL

I'd think that would make living in

Florence with the name Pazzi

uncomfortable, even 500 years later.

PAZZI

Not really.  In fact, I can't remember

the last time - before today - someone

brought it up.

DR. FELL

But people don't always tell you what

they're thinking ...  They just see to it

you don't advance.

(then)

I'm sorry, I too often say what I'm

thinking.  I'll be right back to help

you.

Fell leaves Pazzi alone in the room ...

FELL'S VOICE

Any developments in the Il Mostro case?

PAZZI

I believe my colleagues are checking

suspects' homes to see if they have any

Botticelli prints.

FELL'S VOICE

In their homes?  That would be rather

obvious, wouldn't it?

PAZZI

Serial killers are obvious.  Their

primary motivation is to be obvious, to

be noticed.

FELL'S VOICE

But not caught.

In another room, Fell opens a drawer and takes out a pair of

leather gloves.

PAZZI'S VOICE

Yes, that too, I think.

DR. FELL

Not really.

PAZZI'S VOICE

Yes.

FELL'S VOICE

Hmmm.

In the salon, Pazzi peers closely at the handles of the

suitcases to see if he can tell which, if either, has the

better print.  It doesn't matter really; in a few moments

he'll get another, fresh one.

FELL'S VOICE

By the way, the room you're standing in was

built in the 15th-century.

PAZZI

It's beautiful.

FELL'S VOICE

Yes.  Unfortunately, I think the heating

system was installed just about the same

time.

Fell reappears pulling on the gloves.  Elaborating a shiver,

he rubs them together.

FELL

All right, let's drag these things down.

They're as heavy as bodies.

INT/EXT. PERFUMERY - DAY

From across the street, Pazzi watches Fell inside the small

shop browsing at the glass bottles that line the shelves, his

ungloved hands clasped behind his back like someone looking

at great art, his nose taking in the cacophony of scents.

The hands unclasp.  A finger reaches to a bottle - but

doesn't touch it - moving slowly back and forth an inch away

from the label as a reading aid.  The hands return then to

their clasped position behind the back.

EXT. CAFE - LATER

Fell, alone at a table, his hand grasping a wine glass

firmly, bringing it to his lips, and setting it back down.

Pazzi, watching from across the street, smiles ... until

Fell takes a last sip, touches a napkin to his lips, slides

the cloth across the glass in a single, mechanical motion,

gets up and leaves.

INT. JEWELRY STORE - DAY

Pazzi's hands peel tens of thousands of lira from his money

clip as a jeweler's hands rub a soft cloth at the blank face

of a silver ID bracelet.

JEWELER

What would you like engraved on it, sir?

PAZZI

Nothing.

JEWELER

May I apply an anti-tarnish coating?

PAZZI

No.

EXT. ROAD TO PRATO - DAY

Sollicciano, the dreaded Florentine jail.

INT. JAIL - WOMEN'S DIVISION - DAY

A young woman's eyes drift down from Pazzi's tie clasp, to

his wedding band, to his silver ID bracelet.  In a crowd on

the street, she could remove all three in an instant and he

wouldn't even notice they were gone until he got home.

ROMULA

What do you want?  Information?

PAZZI

What sort of information would you be

willing to give me, Romula?  Names and

descriptions of fifteen Gypsy pickpockets

who never existed?  No, what I want is to

get you out of here.  And to make your

arrest record permanently disappear.  In

exchange, all I want from you is the

usual thing.  Only I want you to fail.

EXT. FELL'S RESIDENCE - DAY

Fell emerges from his residence with a cloth shopping bag.

As he walks away on the cobblestoned street, a Vespa - with

Pazzi driving and Romula holding him around the waist - races

past and disappears into the traffic.

EXT. VERA DAL 1926 - LATER

Pazzi and Romula, on the parked scooter, watch Fell inside

the exclusive food shop selecting figs and white truffles.

PAZZI

When you fumble for his wallet, he'll

catch you by the wrist -

ROMULA

I've done this a few times, Inspector -

PAZZI

Not like this.  If there isn't a clean

print on that bracelet -

(on her wrist now)

- it's back to Sollicciano.

ROMULA

If there's a problem and someone helps,

don't hurt him.

My friend doesn't know anything, and

won't take anything, let him run off.

PAZZI

There won't be a problem.  The man can't

afford a problem.  He'll want to get away

from you more than you will from him.

Here he comes, out the door of the shop, the little bell

above it tinkling.  Pazzi waits a moment, then starts the

Vespa, puts it in gear.  As he blends in among cars racing

past Fell, the sound of a choir practicing - somewhere -

begins and carries over:

INT. CHURCH OF SAN CROCE - LATER

Tourists drop 200-lira pieces into coin boxes that trigger

light to be thrown across the great frescos of Christ.  The

clicking timers wind down after only a few moments and the

murals plunge back into incense-smoky darkness.

Pazzi, lurking in the vast cathedral by Galileo's grave,

points with his chin to a transept to the left of the main

altar.  There, Romula can see the kneeling shape of a lone

figure and the outline of his shopping bag.

Fell has brought along his art supplies and uses some now

to carefully make a charcoal rubbing of an inscription in the

stone.  To keep his hands clean, he wears a pair of thin

cotton gloves.

A bell sounds.  Midday closing.  Sextons coming out with

their keys to empty the coin boxes.  Tourists looking around

puzzled in the dark, not yet understanding they all have to

leave.  Pazzi watches Fell rise from his labors, carefully

place the charcoal rubbing in his shopping bag and pull the

gloves off.

PAZZI

(a whisper)

Okay?

She nods, moves away to the entrance of the church.  The

crowd will force Fell to pass right by her here.  Troubled by

something, though - a feeling - she looks down.  Sees she's

standing on the tomb of Michelangelo.  Steps off and whispers

to the slab -

ROMULA

Sorry.

Fell is coming toward her in the dark, oblivious to what is

about to happen.  Someone reaches into a purse and fishes out

a 200-lira coin.

Romula begins to move toward the dark shape moving toward

her.  Her friend and protector, Gnocco, falls in a couple

steps behind her.  A hand drops the coin in a slot.

Just as Romula and her target are upon one another, a light

goes on illuminating a fresco of a bloodied Christ and Fell's

eyes, looking straight into hers and chilling her heart.  The

ticking of the coin box accompanies an awkward moment before

Romula manages -

ROMULA

Excuse me.

She continues past Fell, the bracelet - untouched - jangling

dully on her wrist.  Fell looks back over his shoulder at the

woman.  She looks back over hers for a second, and the light

goes out leaving him in silhouette.

Fell walks away out past the doors and into the blinding

sunlight.  Pazzi wanders around in the dark and finally finds

Romula at a font, scrubbing her hands in the holy water.

ROMULA

That's the Devil.

She takes the bracelet off and hands it to Pazzi.  He watches

water drip from it and his hands to the floor.

PAZZI

So I'll drive you back to jail then.

ROMULA

Yes.

She splashes holy water on her face.  Pazzi shakes his head

and glances away, watches absently as a sexton empties one of

the coin boxes, then notices Gnocco, standing in the shadows.

EXT. PIAZZA SANTO SPIRITO - NIGHT

The dark water of the Arno drifts slowly under a bridge.  On

the left bank, by the fountain, Gnocco and some other Gypsies

share a joint.  In between hits, Gnocco slices up an orange,

his eyes hazy but his hand quick with the blade, the juice of

the fruit dripping onto his fingers.

GNOCCO

Two million lire.

PAZZI

Fine.

GNOCCO

Give me the bracelet.

PAZZI

Wash your fuckin hands.

EXT. VIA SAN LEONARDO - NIGHT

Steep cobbled ill-lit street.  Gnocco leaning in a dark,

gated niche built into a high stone wall protecting villas

inside.  He finishes a joint, tosses it away.  Spits on the

bracelet and wipes it clean with the tail of his shirt.  As

he's about to put it on his wrist, his jacket vibrates.  With

his free hand he removes a cell phone from the pocket.

PAZZI'S VOICE

He's coming.

The call disconnects.  Gnocco slips the phone back into the

pocket, clasps the bracelet around his wrist and steps out of

the shadows.

Several people appear around the corner, all of them well-

dressed.  A show must have just let out.  Gnocco walks up the

narrow street toward the column of advancing bobbing heads,

keeping his eyes on one of them.  Fell.

Gnocco and the group are upon each other.  Stoned and

swimming against the current, the pickpocket angles toward

his mark, bumps into him, reaches inside the elegant coat,

feels the wrist with the bracelet seized in a terrific grip,

twists it free hardly breaking stride, and emerges from

the tail of the throng.

He veers into another dark niche and bends over slightly

to catch his breath.  In a moment, quick footsteps announce

Pazzi's arrival.

GNOCCO

I got it.  He grabbed me just right.

Tried to hit me in the balls, but he

missed.

He holds out the arm with the braclet for Pazzi to take it

off.  As the Inspector works carefully at the clasp, Gnocco

sucks in another deep breath of air.

GNOCCO

Jesus -

PAZZI

What - ?

Gnocco suddenly collapses to one knee, the bracelet pulling

from Pazzi's hands.  Blood begins to gush out of a neat tear

in his pants.

More confuses than in pain, Gnocco looks down at the blood

only to have it spray up into his face.  Trying to ignore the

blood - even as it sprays on him - Pazzi works to get the

bracelet off, and finally frees it.

Gnocco stares dumbly at himself in his praying position,

then tries to stop the flow of blood with his hand.  As he

collapses against the iron gate.  Pazzi sets the bracelet in

the box it came in, pockets it, then reaches into Gnocco's

bloody pocket and takes the phone.

PAZZI

Here, let me help you.

Gnocco looks up at Pazzi gratefully, feels his hand being

moved away from the wound and held, feels nothing pressed in

its place, feels his blood drainging out of his body, then

feels nothing.  He's dead.

Pazzi gets up.  Takes out a handkerchief.  Wrapped inside is

a used syringe.  He tosses it on the ground and walks away.

INT. VERGER'S CHAMBER - DAY

Verger, lying in the dark, watches a technician in a pool

of bright light in the sitting area using a cordless power

screwdriver to back out the screws that secure the bracelet

to the jeweler's stand.  Carefully, he lifts it out of the

velvet box and sets it on a china plate.

A few flecks of dried blood fall onto the porcelain.  More

dried blood encrusts the silver.  He dusts the bracelet with

Dragon's Blood powder, angles a hot lamp at it and

photographs the one - in situ - print.

He comes around the tripod then and lifts the print, tapes it

to a slide and compares it to Lecter's FBI print card under a

microscope.  The swirling lines come into sharp focus.

TECHNICIAN

Middle finger of the left hand.  Sixteen

point match.

EXT. SARDINIA - DAY

On a mountain farm deep in central Sardinia, a young man

wheels an empty, battered metal gurney along the fence-line

of a large pen.

Inside the adjacent shed, another young man picks through a

pile of old clothes.  In a corner, a third young man shuffles

through a small handful of audio cassette tapes.

Carlo and his gurney arrive.  His brother Matteo has chosen

an ensemble of pants and shirt, and lays it out on the sheet.

Carlo's cell phone rings.  He flips it open.

MASON'S VOICE

Carlo?

CARLO

Mason?

MASON'S VOICE

Ciao, Bello.  Come stai?  You have all

your shots?  There's a nasty winter flu

going around.

CARLO

Am I coming to see you?

MASON'S VOICE

Soon, I think, but first I need you to

pack off the boys.  Yes, I know, the day

you never thought would arrive, has.

Got a pencil?

Carlo grabs a pen and a scrap of paper from the trestle

table by the gurney, where his brother is now filling the

clothes with meat and acorns and entrails and bread.

MASON'S VOICE

You need to get certified cholera

inoculations - well, not you - and Ace-

promazine for sedation.  That's a-c-e-p-r-

oh, the hell with it, you'll find it.

Cordell will fax the Veterinary Service

forms directly to Animal and Plant Health

- but you need to get the veterinary

affidavits from Sardinia.

As Carlo scribbles the shipping instructions, Piero decides

on a tape, drops it in and carries the boom box outside.

MASON'S VOICE

The airbus will await you in Cagliari.

Count Fleet Airlines.  The crates can be

no larger than four-by-six - it's as bad

as carry-on rules.  An on-board inspector

has to travel with them.  They'll be met

at Baltimore-Washington Airport - not the

Key West quarantine facility - by my

people who will clear them through

Customs.  Va bene?

CARLO

Got it.

MASON'S VOICE

How are they?

CARLO

They're really big, Mason.  About two

hundred and seventy kilos.

MASON'S VOICE

Wow.

Someone starts screaming outside; a recorded male voice from

the boom box.  Matteo splashes some expensive cologne on the

stuffed clothes and wheels the gurney out.

MASON'S VOICE

Oh, I called at a good time.  I can

hear that.  Would it be too much trouble

to take the phone outside?

Carlo walks out to the pen with the phone.  Matteo is there,

lowering the gurney while Piero raises the volume on the boom

box.  The recorded screams echo out across the mountains - a

fitting overture for the dark shadows coming out of the

woods.

EXT. BANK - GENEVA - DAY

The unassuming facade of Geneva Credit Suisse.

INT. CREDIT SUISSE VAULT - DAY

A bank clerk and another man, both in business suits, work

their keys to open four deep lock boxes with brass plates.

INT. ADJACENT PRIVACY ROOM - DAY

Alone in this severe, scrubbed, very Swiss room, Pazzi can

hear the sound of wheels.  In a moment a cart with four large

metal deposit boxes is pushed in.

The clerk excuses himself.  The other man raises the lids of

the boxes revealing three hundred banded blocks of non-

sequential hundred dollar bills.

Pazzi watches the man tear the paper bands off ten of the

neat stacks and set the loose bills in a counting machine.

The numbers on the LCD display climb.

MR. KONIE

The full balance of the money is

payable upon receipt of the doctor alive.

(the same dry Swiss voice Pazzi

 heard on the phone recording)

Of course, you won't have to seize him

yourself, but merely point him out to us.

In fact, it's preferable to all concerned

if that's the extent of your involvement

from this point.

PAZZI

I prefer to stay involved.  To make sure

things go right.

MR. KONIE

Professionals will see to that, sir.

PAZZI

I'm a professional.

The glowing LCD display stops at $100,000.

INT. FLORENCE PERFUMERY - DAY

Flushed with the feeling that one of the bundles of money

makes against his thigh, Pazzi enters the exlusive shop and

browses at the bottles of scents on the shelves.

PERFUMER

May I help you, sir?

PAZZI

Yes.  Yes, you may.

INT. PAZZI'S APARTMENT - EVENING

An aria can be heard as Allegra Pazzi, sitting at her

dressing table in her underclothes, uncaps a small unlabeled

bottle of perfume and carefully touches a drop to her wrist.

Across the bedroom, knotting a new tie that drapes against a

handmade linen shirt that still shows the fold-creases, Pazzi

watches as his wife lifts the wrist to her beautiful face,

smells the scent on it and smiles to herself.

Pazzi smiles, too, to himself, as he watches her place

another drop on the other wrist and two more just under her

diamond-studded ear lobes.

It's almost like watching sex.

INT. TEATRO MICHAHELLES - NIGHT

The aria fills the grand darkened interior of the theatre.

In a private box overlooking the stage, Pazzi sits with his

wife's hand in his - he in his new Sulka suit, she in her new

evening gown.  The scalped tickets for these seats must have

cost him a fortune, but then he can afford it now.

A whiteness down below, caught by the bounce of a stage

light, draws Pazzi's attention from the diva.  The bright

glow belongs to the starched French cuffs of a white dress

shirt poking out of dark sleeves, the hands intertwined, the

chin resting on them.

It's Dr. Fell, engrossed in the drama, lost in the harrowed

beauty of the prima donna's voice.  But then, the head come

around like an owl's, the eyes peering up to the private box.

Pazzi had a second of opportunity to look away but missed it,

and now their eyes meet.

Pazzi involuntarily squeezes his wife's hand.  The pressure

draws a loving look from her, but Pazzi's is still locked on

Fell's enigmatic little smile, much as he wishes it wasn't,

until a crescendo in the music - finally - draws Fell's

head and eyes back to the stage.  Applause.

EXT. TEATRO PICCOLOMINI - NIGHT

A crush of theatergoers maneuvers for cabs.

DR. FELL

Enjoy the performance, Commendatore?

Pazzi and his wife, waiting for a free cab, turn to see Fell

standing behind them.  He smiles pleasantly.

PAZZI

Very much.  Allegra, this is Dr. Fell,

Curator of the Capponi Library.

DR. FELL

Curator protempore, Signora Pazzi.  I'm

honored.

Pazzi's eyes follow Fell's hand as it reaches to and holds

his wife's, his wrist bowing slightly.  Allegra smiles at his

grace and the graceful tone of his voice.

ALLEGRA

Is that an American accent, doctor?

DR. FELL

Canadian, wrung through the eastern sea-

board of America.

ALLEGRA

I've always wanted to visit.  New England

especially.

DR. FELL

Umm.  It's nice.  I've enjoyed many

excellent meals there.

Pazzi would very much enjoy leaving, and looks away hoping to

see a driver interested in his patronage.

DR. FELL

Did I notice you following the score,

Signora?  Hardly anyone does it anymore.

Would this interest you?

From a portfolio under his arm, he produces a hand-copied

score on parchment - c. 1688 - each page in a plastic sleeve.

DR. FELL

I've marked in overlay some of the

differences from the modern score, which

might amuse you.  Please take it.

ALLEGRA

Look at this, Rinaldo.

PAZZI

I can see it.

And both of their hands, Fell's and hers, on it.

ALLEGRA

I did have some trouble with the

recitative at the beginning.

DR. FELL

Dante's first sonnet from La Vita Nuova.

He saw Beatrice Portinari across a chapel

and he loved her at that instant and for

the rest of his life.  But then had a

disturbing dream -

ALLEGRA

(reading from text)

Joyous Love seemed to me, the while

he held my heart in his hands, and in his

arms, My lady lay asleep wrapped in a

veil -

DR. FELL

(continuing from memory)

He woke her then, and trembling and

obedient, she ate that burning heart out

of his hand.  Weeping, I saw him then

depart from me.

ALLEGRA

He saw her eat his heart!

(Fell likes that as much as

 she does)

Do you believe a man could become

so obsessed with a woman from a single

encounter?

DR. FELL

Could he daily feel a stab of hunger

for her?  Find nourishment in the very

sight of her?  I think so.  But would

she see through the bars of his plight,

and ache for him?

Allegra waits for the answer, but Fell doesn't have it; he

just looks away wistfully as his fingers slide away from the

plastic like snakes.

ALLEGRA

Thank you for this.

Fell's nod says, I'm your servant.  Pazzi pulls open the back

door of a cab.

DR. FELL

Commendatore.

(as he shakes Pazzi's hand)

A ...  lle ...  gra ...

It's all Pazzi can do to keep from arresting the man as he

watches Fell rape his wife with a kiss of her hand.  His head

stays down there longer than it should as he savors the aroma

emanating from her wrist.  Finally the head rises back up and

Pazzi all but shoves Allegra into the cab.  As Fell watches

after it driving away, a couple passes behind them.

THEATERGOER

Let's get something to eat.

DR. FELL

(to himself)

Yes, quite.

The hand that held Allegra's when he kissed it comes up to

his face.  He takes in the residue of the scent.

INT. STARLING'S HOUSE - LATE NIGHT

Empty coffee cup and dinner debris on Starling's desk.

Sitting at her computer, she types in a code summoning the

FBI's private VICAP site.  Navigating deep into it with other

codes, she reaches a page with a query panel and types in -

"cookies."

The screen fills with long lines of text - words and numbers

and slashes and hyphens - the "fingerprints" left by everyone

who has accessed the site over the last year.

Most have addresses within the FBI itself and Justice

Department; the majority of the rest from Interpol and other

internationl police organizations.  The scrolling list goes

on forever.

She narrows her search to show only those who have visited

the VICAP Lecter files, then narrows it further to those who

have "knocked" more than twenty times in the last month.

Her own screen name - "cstarling" - appears on the new list

more than any other.  There are also several flagged hits by

"pkrendler."  She smiles at one name - "jcrawford."  He isn't

supposed to be accessing the VICAP files anymore, now that

he's retired, but just can't help himself.

The next heaviest user is a name she doesn't recognize.

Someone who calls him or herself, "pfrancesco."  She stares

long at the screen name and finally whispers to it -

STARLING

Could that be you, Doctor?

EXT. CEMETERY - FLORENCE - NIGHT

We slowly approach - from someone's moving point of view -

a pair of young lovers walking toward us under the trees.  As

they draw closer - oblivious to us, and our breath, and our

footsteps on the cobblestone path -

Pazzi enters his own POV.  Once past the lovers, he takes

out a pencil-thin Maglite and rakes its narrow beam across

names on the chipped-marble tombstones he passes, the light

settling eventually on someone called "Lorenzo Mametti."

He tosses a cheap bunch of wilting flowers onto the grave

and looks around for whoever it is he's supposed to be meet-

ing here.  A shadowy figure emerges almost soundlessly from

behind a crypt and Pazzi finds the face with his pen light.

CARLO

Please.

Pazzi snaps it off.  Carlo comes out into the open looking

like a grave digger in his work clothes, perches on a squat

headstone, and first offering one to Pazzi, who declines,

lights himself a cigarette.

CARLO

I want him in the open street with not

a lot of people around.

PAZZI

How will you take him down?

CARLO

That's my business.

PAZZI

It's my business too.

CARLO

You're a cop, aren't you.

PAZZI

I asked you a question.

CARLO

Yeah, you're a cop, all right.  I'll stun

him with a beanbag gun, net him, give him

a shot.

PAZZI

He has to lecture tomorrow night.  It

won't be strange if I attend; he actually

thinks I'm interested.  Can you do it

that soon?

CARLO

Will you walk with him or are you afraid

of him?

PAZZI

I'll do what I'm paid to do and so will

you, only I'll be better paid for it.

Carlo removes his hat and bows his head as if to pray.

Someone is walking on a path intersecting theirs down by the

mausoleums.  The figure disappears behind the stone walls.

PAZZI

I want him out of Tuscany fast.

CARLO

Believe me, he'll be gone from the face

of the earth fast.  Feet first.

INT. STARLING'S LECTEREUM - DAY

Starling glances from an international number jotted down on

her blotter to the phone on which she's dialing it.  A paused

time-coded frame of Lecter at the Florence perfumery, taking

in a scent on his hand, glows on her television as she

listens to a European ring.

INT. QUESTURA - SAME TIME - EVENING

Pictures of Il Mostro's victims stare at the detective who

picks up the ringing phone.

DETECTIVE

Questura.  Pandolfini.

STARLING'S VOICE

I'd like to speak with Chief Inspector

Rinaldo Pazzi, please.  I'm Agent Clarice

Starling with the American FBI.

The detective puts her on hold and shouts "Pazzi!" across

the room to where Pazzi was just grabbing his coat off the

rack to leave.  He holds the receiver up, then cradles it.

Pazzi groans.  Keeps his coat on.  Lifts the receiver of

another phone near him and pushes the blinking light.

PAZZI

Pazzi.

STARLING'S VOICE

Inspector Pazzi, it's Agent Starling with

the FBI.  How do you do?

He was doing fine until this instant.

INTERCUT him here and Starling in her basement room -

PAZZI

Actually I was just leaving for the day,

can I call you back tomorrow?

STARLING

This won't take long.  I'd appreciate it.

Pazzi groans again to himself as he glances to the clock.

STARLING

I wanted to thank you, first of all,

for sending me the security tape from the

perfume store.

The security tape?  Pazzi thought he buried that tape.

STARLING

When I say you, I mean your department.

Agent Benetti.  Is he there?  Can I speak

with him?

Pazzi is looking right at the young man pouring himself a cup

of water at the dispenser.

PAZZI

I'm sorry, he's gone home.

STARLING

That's all right.  I should tell you this

rather than him anyway -

PAZZI

I'm late for an important lec - an

important appointment -

STARLING

The person I'm looking for, Inspector -

who was indeed shown on that tape - is

Hannibal Lecter.

PAZZI

Who?

STARLING

Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  You've never heard

of him?  He's quite well-known, at least

in America.

PAZZI

I'm sorry, I'm not familiar -

STARLING

And the tape confirms that he is - or was

recently - in Florence.

PAZZI

Really.

STARLING

He's a very dangerous man, Inspector

Pazzi.  He's killed nine people - that we

know of.

PAZZI

We know about dangerous men around here,

too, unfortunately.

STARLING

Il Mostro.

PAZZI

Yes.

(pause)

You don't think -

STARLING

No, I don't.  The crimes of Il Mostro

bear no resemblance to Lecter's in ... in

style.

PAZZI

I really have to go, Miss -

STARLING

Starling.  Just another minute.  Are

you sure you've never heard of him?

PAZZI

I haven't -

STARLING

Because I'm confused.  I'm confused

by that because someone there has been

accessing our private VICAP files on Dr.

Lecter with some regularity, on your

computer.

PAZZI

Everybody uses everybody's computer here.

Maybe one of the detectives on Il Mostro

was looking at profiles of killers to -

STARLING

I'm speaking about the computer at your

home, sir.

Silence on both ends of the line.  A printout on her desk

shows the Internet trail.  Scribbled on a Post-It stuck to it

is "pfrancesco = rinaldo pazzi."

STARLING

You're trying to catch him yourself,

aren't you, Inspector?  For the reward.

I cannot warn you strongly enough against

that.  He killed three policemen down in

Memphis, while he was in custody, tearing

the face off one of them - and he will

kill you too if you -

He hangs up on her.

INT/EXT. PALAZZO VECCHIO - LATER - EVENING

As the sky darkens, floodlights across the piazza blink on

and wash across the rough stone walls of the Palazzo Vecchio.

As bats fly out from the jack-o'-lantern teeth of the

parapets the image suddenly goes to -

BLACK AND WHITE - a security monitor in the foyer, on which

a guard watches the creatures circling the building looking

for darker quarters.

A clunking sound draws our attention, but not his, to the

stairs, where we briefly glimpse the bottom half of a hand

truck - with something big strapped to it - as it's pulled

with some effort up the top steps.

UPPER HALL

The hand truck is wheeling toward us now, along the long

hall, and we see that it is a lectern - as big as a pulpit -

strapped to it.  We watch it coming, and the worker pushing

it - that same man again, the Palazzo's custodian - into -

THE SALON OF LILIES

- where the restorers are climbing down from their

scaffolding, closing up their cans of spirits and paints,

packing up to leave for the day.

Metal folding chairs have been arranged on the drop cloths

covering the floor in split rows of six.  Fell is at a small

table in back of them, setting up a slide projector.  He

turns it on and angle its bright white light onto a home

movie screen draping off the arm of its metal stand.

He sees the custodian coming in with the hand truck and

points out to him that he'd like the lectern up front, to one

side of the screen.

The screen.  It's too small.  The projector light spilling

way wide of its edges.  The drop cloth hanging from the

scaffolding behind it would work much better.

As the custodian unstraps and sets up the lectern, Fell takes

down the little screen, sets it aside, and stands before the

cloth, smoothing at its flickering folds.

The last of the restorers straggles out.  The custodian

unplugs and coils the long orange cord of the floor polisher,

hand-over-elbow.  Fell adds a brown extension cord to the

projector remote and snakes it along the ersatz aisle between

the chairs to the lectern.

He sets some books on the podium, places his hands on its

sides to test the comfort of its height - it's satisfactory -

and looks out over his invisible audience.

The custodian is finished straightening up.  Fell watches

him cross behind the back row of folding chairs, approach the

open doorway, and pauses for a few moments - too many moments -

to gaze up at the Botticelli before leaving.

EXT. PALAZZO VECCHIO - NIGHT

A great shadow rears up against the floodlit wall.  It

belongs to Pazzi, as he crossed the piazza, glancing once to

Carlo and his brother Matteo smoking next to a van before

disappearing into the palazzo's front entrance.

FELL'S VOICE

Avarice and hanging are linked in the

medieval mind -

INT. SALON OF LILIES - NIGHT

The "dragons" of the Studiolo - and Sogliato - face us in the

folding chairs, listening to the lecture -

FELL'S VOICE

St. Jerome writes that Judas' very

surname - Iscariot - means 'money,' or

'price.'

A ringing phone interrupts.  The heads all turn.  Pazzi,

standing just inside the doors, gropes for his cell phone,

extracts it from his jacket pocket.

FELL

Ah, Commendatore Pazzi.

STARLING'S VOICE

It wasn't easy, but I got this number

without telling them why, Inspector Paz -

He hangs up on her.  Switches off the phone's power.

PAZZI

Sorry.

FELL

Not al all.  Welcome.  Since you are

closest to the lights, would you be so

kind as to dim the lights?

Pazzi twists a dimmer on the wall and the lights come down.

FELL

Thank you.  You'll be interested in

this, Commendatore, since there is a

Pazzi already in Dante's Inferno.

An art slide appears on the drop cloth.  Fell improves the

focus with the remote.

FELL

Here is the earliest known depiction

of the Crucifixion, carved on an ivory

box in Gaul about A.D.  Four Hundred.  It

includes the death by hanging of Judas,

his face upturned to the branch that

suspends him.

(the slide changes)

And here he is, on the doors of the

Benevento Cathedral, hanging with his

bowels falling out as St. Luke the

physician described him in the Acts of

the Apostles - still looking up.

The shadow of a bat flies across the image, but everyone, so

accustomed to the occurence, ignores it.

FELL

In this plate, from a fifteenth-

century edition of the Inferno, Pier

della Vigna's body hangs from a bleeding

tree.  I will not belabor the obvious

parallel with Judas Iscariot.

Pazzi, still in the back of the room, tries desperately to

separate the legs of a folding chair without having them

squeak.

FELL

But Dante Alighieri needed no drawn

illustration.  It is his genius to make

Pier della Vigna, now in Hell, speak in

strained hisses and coughing sibilants as

though he is hanging still.  Listen as he

drags with the other damned his own dead

body to hang upon the thorn tree:

Fell's normally composed face pains as he recites from memory

Dante's words of the agonal Pier della Vigna -

FELL

Come l'altre verrem per nostre spoglie,

ma no pero ch'alcuna sen rivesta, che non

e giusto aver cio ch'om si toglie.

Qui le strascineremo, e per la mesta

selva saranno i nostri corpi appesi,

ciascuno al prun de l'ombra sua molesta.

A single metallic squeak from the back of the room punctuates

the last word.

FELL

Avarice, hanging, self-destruction,

with avarice counting as self-destruction

as much as hanging.  And what does the

anonymous Florentine suicide say in his

torment at the end of the canto?

(pained)

Io fei gibetto a me de le mie case.

I - I make my own house be my gallows.

(pause)

Thank you for your kind attention.

Now there are, gratefully, a lot of chair squeaks as the

scholars stand to applaud Fell and come around him to shake

his hand.  Pazzi has to step aside to keep from being knocked

over by Sogliato leaving.

The lights stay dimmed.  Pazzi makes his way to Fell and

waits, as an autograph-seeker waits, for the last of the fans

to shake the doctor's hand and step away.

PAZZI

I'm not a scholar, but I think you've

got the job.  Can I buy you a celebratory

drink?

FELL

How kind of you.  Yes, I'd like that.

I'll just be a minute gathering my

things.

As Fell takes his tomes from the lectern and carries them

back to the projector table, Pazzi switches the power back on

his cell phone.  Nothing happens.  He realizes he has pressed

the ring/vibrate, not the power button, powers it up now and

makes a call.

PAZZI

Allegra, cara, I'll be home just a

little later than I said.  I'm taking Dr.

Fell out for a drink.

INTERCUT Carlo, outside, watching the entry of the Palazzo.

CARLO

I can see the people coming out now.

Back in the Salon, Pazzi hangs up.  Fell gathers his slides.

FELL

Oh, I should've shown them this one.

I can't imagine how I missed it.  This

one will interest you.

He drops the slide in front of the projector bulb and the

image appears on the drop cloth:  a drawing of a man hanging

naked beneath the battlements of this palace, the Palazzo

Vecchio, from the exact same angle we saw on the security

monitor.

FELL

Can you make it out all right?

It's a little blurry but Fell works with the remote and the

illustration passes back and forth across the plane of focus.

Keeping the remote in one hand, he takes a rag from his

satchel with the other, and approaches Pazzi, his silhouette

against on the drop cloth looming large as he comes.

FELL

There's a name down here, can you see it?

Pazzi comes close to look.  The projector's focusing motor

purrs as Fell works it with the remote.  The lettering

sharpens:  Francesco Pazzi.  Cheerfully -

FELL

It's your ancestor, Commendatore.

Hanging beneath these very windows.  On

a related subject, I must confess to you

I'm giving serious thought to eating

your wife.

He pulls at the heavy drop cloth.  It comes down,

enveloping Pazzi.  Fell seizes him around the chest and

presses the ether-soaked rag over the canvas where Pazzi's

face must be - the image of his hanging ancestor splashed

across the wall under the scaffolding.

EXT. PALAZZO VECCHIO - NIGHT

At the back of the van, its doors open, Carlo unzips a black

vinyl guitar gig-bag.  Inside is his beanbag stun rifle.  He

sets it next to the case and leans past the side of the door

to check on his brother, Matteo, stationed across the piazza

at the far end of the palazzo.

From Matteo's position - if he were looking - he could

see that his brother Carlo would like him to pay attention.

Matteo is paying attention, only it's to a young couple in a

car parked in the shadows across the street, necking.

A rock hits Matteo's pant leg and he finally looks up to his

brother by the van, who is saying with the arm that threw the

rock, What's the matter with you?

Neither one of them pays any attention to the worker sitting

on the ledge of the fountain - the custodian from the Palazzo

Vecchio - who glances up from time to time from the tip of

his burning cigarette to the young lovers in the car.

INT. SALON OF LILIES - NIGHT

Pazzi's gun, his plastic handcuffs strips and his wallet sit

next to Fell's work permit and permesso di soggiorno on the

podium.

Fell himself is standing next to it, working the plug-end

of the long orange floor polisher cord into a hangman's noose

with the traditional thirteen wraps.  Finishing, he crosses

the room with it, the tail of the orange snake uncurling and

slithering after him.

FELL

If you tell me what I need to know,

Commendatore, it would be convenient for

me to leave without my meal.  I'll ask

you questions and then we'll see.

Pazzi is cinched to the hand truck with the same canvas

straps used to secure the lecturn on its journey up to the

salon.  With his mouth taped, it's difficult for him to

express his gratitude.

FELL

Was it Mason Verger you sold me to?

Blink twice for yes.  Yes.  Thank you.

Are his men waiting outside?  Umm hmmm.

And one of them smells like tainted boar

sausage?  Was that a single blink?  Oh,

now you're confused.  Try not to be

confused or I may have to fillet Signora

Pazzi after all.  Have you told anyone in

the Questura about me?  No, I thought

not.  Have you told A-lle-gra?  No.

You're sure?  I believe you.

Fell comes around behind Pazzi to the back of the hand truck,

hooks the cord-noose around one of its handles and gently

tips it back.

FELL

Here we go.  Hold on.

Pazzi struggles against the straps.  He struggles to speak,

to beg, but all that comes past the tape over his mouth is a

purr.  Fell wheels him close to a balcony, fully uprights the

hand truck again, takes the noose from the handle, drapes it

delicately around Pazzi's neck and tightens the slack.

FELL

Your heart is palpitating.  I can see it.

Pazzi's heart is beating so hard the fabric of his jacket is

fluttering.

FELL

No.  That's not your heart.

Fell slips a hand under the taut lapel as if to extract

Pazzi's heart.  Instead he finds in there the cell phone.

It vibrates silently in Fell's hand.

FELL

Who could that be?  Should I answer it?

Why not.  Fell flips it open.

FELL

(brightly)

Pronto.

STARLING'S VOICE

I've gone above you, Inspector.  I've

spoken to your section chief.  Someday

you'll thank me - or you won't - I

don't care - you'll be alive.

(silence)

Inspector Pazzi?

LECTER

I'm afraid I have bad news, Clarice.

INT. STARLING'S LECTEREUM - SAME TIME

Dead silence except for a low rumble from the boiler room.

Starling at her desk, like a statue clutching a phone.

Finally -

STARLING

Is he dead?

LECTER'S VOICE

You got my note.  I hope you liked the

hand cream.  I had it made especially for

you.

STARLING

Is he dead, Dr. Lecter?

LECTER'S VOICE

Clarice, there's nothing I'd love

more in the world than to chat with you.

Unfortunately, you've caught me at an

awkward moment.  Forgive me.

INT. SALON OF LILIES - CONTINUED

Lecter closes up the phone.  Switches off the power.  Returns

it to Pazzi's breast pocket.

LECTER

An old friend.

He glances off with the faintest hint of wistfulness.  The

wall behind the scaffolding is still displaying the slide of

the hanging Francesco Pazzi.  Fell looks back to his great-

great-great-great-great-cousin.

LECTER

What do you think?  Bowels in?  Or out,

like Cousin Francesco?

Pazzi's eyes blink and blink and blink and blink in terror.

LECTER

Oh, now you are confused.  I'll decide

for you, if you'll permit me.

Flash of a knife as it comes up Pazzi's front.  Another

swipe as it severs his attachment to the dolly.  One push and

the railing catches Pazzi at the waist.  He goes over it, the

orange cord trailing, the ground coming up in a rush, the

floor polisher yanked down and sliding across the floor,

gathering up the drop cloth and slamming against the railing.

Pazzi's neck snaps and his bowels, and phone, spill out.

EXT. PALAZZO VECCHIO - NIGHT

The lovers in the car break their embrace at the sound of the

phone clattering to the ground, and stare up into the face of

the palazzo custodian - Il Mostro - standing just outside the

windshield with a big knife in his hand.  He runs.

Carlo is running too, from the the van toward the palazzo,

yelling to his brother -

CARLO

Cover the back.  If he comes out just

kill him, cut him.

Matteo hurries around back.  Carlo jumps the steps three at

a time to the front doors as the security guard comes out to

see the thing in color that he couldn't quite make out in

black and white on his monitor.

INT. SALON OF LILIES - NIGHT

The great doors of the salon stand ajar.  Carlo swings his

gun around them onto the projected illustration of the

hanging figure on the wall.

EXT. ALLEY - NIGHT

Matteo, knife out, stands before the back door of the

palazzo.  Breathing hard, he reaches slowly for the handle,

careful to position himself in a way that will allow the door

to act as his shield if it opens.  He grasps the handle and

pulls.  It's locked.  As the hand is letting go and coming

away, the door suddenly swings open hard into his face -

INT. SALON OF LILIES - NIGHT

Carlo hears the cry coming from the rear of the building.

He runs from the salon and down the back stairs, stumbling

down them, catching himself, reaching the back door that's

standing open.

EXT. ALLEY - NIGHT

He emerges from the doorway, leading with his gun, sees his

brother on the ground, covered in blood, hurries to him and

kneels.  Matteo's dead.

EXT. PIAZZA VECCHIO - NIGHT

A crowd is gathering, peering up at the spectacle that is

Rinaldo Pazzi swaying slowly back and forth against the stone

walls, lit up as if in a stadium under the floodlights.

A motorcycle comes toward the square on a narrow side street.

A figure steps out into the glare of its headlight.  The

cyclist slows to a stop.

LECTER

Young man, if I'm not at the Piazza

Bellosquardo in ten minutes, my wife will

kill me.

Lecter's gloved hand offers a 50,000-lira note.

MOTORCYCLIST

That's all you want?  A ride?

LECTER

That's all.

He hands the cyclist the bill and climbs on back, careful not

to touch the young man with his hands, lest he get the wrong

idea.  The Moto-Guzzi turns around and speeds off the way it

came, away from the piazza.

FADE TO BLACK

And out of the black materializes -

A BLACK AND WHITE image of Pazzi, small and stark in the

floodlights, swinging against the wall of the Palazzo

Vecchio.

INT. STARLING'S LECTEREUM - DAY

The event, captured on tape by the security camera across the

piazza, copied and sent by the Questura at her request, plays

on Starling's VCR setup.  As she watches it -

INT. VERGER'S CHAMBER - DAY

A copy of a copy of the tape - at the same point in the

action - plays for Verger.  Noticing something - some move-

ment in an upper corner of the frame - he reverse-searches

the tape with his remote to look at it again.

The movement belongs to a silhouette of a figure appearing

briefly on the balcony above the hanged Pazzi.  An arm of the

figure rises up and the hand waves - not down to Pazzi - but

across to the viewer.  Verger freezes the image and studies

it for a long moment in silence.  Eventually -

MASON

Cordell?  To you:  Does that look like

a wave goodbye? ... Or hello?

INT. STARLING'S LECTEREUM - CONTINUED

Starling's copy of the tape frozen on the same frame.  She,

too, reverse-searches it and plays the wave again, no doubt

wondering the same thing Verger is.  Her phone rings.

STARLING

Starling.

CRAWFORD'S VOICE

Don't tell anyone but I'm sitting here

watching an mpeg off the VICAP of a man

swinging from a rope against a building

in Florence.

STARLING

It's an electrical cord, Mr. Crawford,

and you know you shouldn't be doing that.

INT. CRAWFORD'S OFFICE - MIAMI - SAME TIME

The same image glows on Crawford's computer screen.

CRAWFORD

Ummm, I can't see it that clearly but I

can see his intestines hanging out.  And

the figure on the balcony waving.

INT. STARLING'S LECTEREUM - CONTINUED

She unpauses her better quaility tape and the wave plays

again.

STARLING

If I was concerned -

CRAWFORD'S VOICE

You should be concerned.  Where do you

think he'll go, now that you've disturbed

his comfortable life?

STARLING

Not here.  Somewhere else he can live

without denying himself the things he

likes.

CRAWFORD'S VOICE

What does he like?

STARLING

You know.  Good food, good wine, music,

books -

CRAWFORD'S VOICE

He likes you, Starling.  Seven years

gone, not a trace, and he writes to you.

You know what that means.

STARLING

No.

CRAWFORD'S VOICE

The stalker who says he likes you is

far more dangerous than the one who says

he wants to kill you.

EXT. VERGER'S FARM - DAY

The holes in the side of the livestock truck aren't big

enough to see what's inside.  The guard at the main entrance,

clipboard in hand, jumps back when something bangs up against

the metal wall of the trailer.  To the driver -

GUARD

You have to turn around - or back down

- go half a mile up the frontage road to

a gate - then up the service road.

As the truck begins to turn around, the guard waves

Cordell's car through.  Barney is in the passenger seat.

INT. VERGER'S CHAMBER - DAY

A man with glasses and a dry comb-over sits staring into the

glare of Verger's bed-lights.

DR. DOEMLING

I don't understand what you think he can

offer.

MASON

A second opinion, doctor.  I know that's

anathema to those in your profession, but

it's not in mine.

Cordell leads Barney into the darkened chamber.

MASON

Speak of the devil.  Welcome, Barney.

I'm Mason.  This is Dr. Doemling, who is

head of the Baylor University Psychology

Department.  He holds the Verger Chair.

BARNEY

How do you do?

Barney sets down a pink dessert box tied with stirng and

offers his hand to the doctor, receiving back for his trouble

a limp shake.  Peering into the lights he can see beyond them

only the vague shape of the figure in the hospital bed.

MASON

I see you've brought dessert.  That's

very kind.  Cookies?  I might be able to

get a cookie down somehow.  So Barney -

is Barney your real name by the way?

BARNEY

Yes.

MASON

First of all, Barney, thank you for the

wealth of wonderful items you've provided

me from your personal Lecter treasure

trove.  I've enjoyed them immensely.

BARNEY

Thank you for outbidding everyone.  Is

Mason your real name?

MASON

Oh, yes.  Please sit.  Yes, beside Dr.

Doemling is fine.  That's his real name,

too.  There.  Good.  Now -

DR. DOEMLING

Barney, if I could ask, what exactly is

your professional training?

BARNEY

I have an LPN.

DR. DOEMLING

You're a licensed practical nurse.

BARNEY

Yes.

DR. DOEMLING

Good for you.

MASON

Okay, everybody has everybody's real

names and credentials now.  Except mine.

Mine are, well, I'm just very wealthy,

aren't I?  Okay.  Let's begin.

DR. DOEMLING

Barney, while you were working at the

state hospital - I assume not as licensed

practical nurse -

BARNEY

- as an orderly -

DR. DOEMLING

- as an orderly - you observed Clarice

Starling and Hannibal Lecter interacting.

BARNEY

Interacting?

DR. DOEMLING

Talking to one another.

BARNEY

Yes.  Yes, it seemed to me they -

DR. DOEMLING

I can see you're eager to justify your

consulting fee, but why don't we start

with what you saw, not what you thought

about what you saw.

MASON

Barney's smart enough to give us his

opinion.  Barney, give us your opinion of

what you saw.  What was it between them?

BARNEY

Most of the time Dr. Lecter didn't

respond at all to visitors, he would

just, for instance, open his eyes long

enough to insult some academic who was

there to look him over.

(he looks Doemling over)

With Starling, though, he answered her

questions.  She interested him.  She

intrigued him.  He thought she was

charming and amusing.

MASON

Uh-huh.

DR. DOEMLING

You can judge what Hannibal Lecter found

amusing?  Just how do you go about that,

Nurse Barney?

BARNEY

By listening to him laugh, Dr. Dumling.

DR. DOEMLING

Doemling.

BARNEY

Sometimes Dr. Lecter and I would talk

when things got quiet enough.  About the

science courses I was taking and -

DR. DOEMLING

Some kind of mail-order courses in

psychology?

BARNEY

No, sir.  I don't consider psychology a

science, and neither did Dr. Lecter.

A small laugh from behind the lights.

MASON

And about her?  You talked about her?

BARNEY

I can just repeat what he told me about

her.

MASON

That's why you're here.

BARNEY

He said things like how she was

charming the way a cub is charming a

small cub that will grow up to be a big

cat - one that you can't play with later.

She had a cub-like earnestness, he said.

MASON

Does she still in your opinion?  Have

you seen her lately?

BARNEY

Yes, I have, and no, I don't think she

does.  That quality in her, I think, is

gone.

MASON

So Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter

became ... friendly.

BARNEY

Inside a kind of formal structure, yes.

MASON

And he was fond of her.

BARNEY

Yes.

MASON

Thank you, Barney.  Thank you very

much for your candor.  And keep all those

wonderful products coming.  Cordell, see

that Barney receives a real nice tip.

DR. DOEMLING

Goodbye, Nurse Barney.

BARNEY

(picking up the pink box)

Mr. Verger -

MASON

The cookies.  Yes, let's have one.

BARNEY

It's not cookies.

He opens the box.  It's the Lecter mask.  Verger stares long

at it in reverential silence.  Finally -

MASON

How much?

BARNEY

Two hundred and fifty.  Thousand.

MASON

Cut Barney a check, Cordell.  Now.

Barney sets the mask on the bed and leaves.  Verger hooks a

talon-like finger over the wire and holds on.  Eventually he

comes out of his reverie -

MASON

So what do you think, doctor?  Does

Lecter want to fuck her or kill her or

eat her or what?

DR. DOEMLING

Probably all three, though I wouldn't

want to predict in what order.

MASON

Hmmm.

DR. DOEMLING

No matter how Barney might want to

romanticize it and try to make it Beauty

and the Beast, Lecter's object - as you

know from personal experience - is always

degradation and suffering.  He comes in

the guise of a mentor - as he did to you -

and her - but it's distress that excites

him.  To draw him - if that's the goal -

she needs to be distressed.  If you want

to make her attractive to him, let him

see her distressed.  Let the damage he

sees suggest the damage he could do.

MASON

When the fox hears a rabbit scream, he

comes running ... but not to help.

EXT. VIRGINIA STATE PARK - DAY

A rabbit on a path, staring, listening, hears the footsteps

before we do and bounds away back into the woods.  Starling

appears a moment later, running on the same dirt path through

the trees, two or three miles into her five-mile run, working

up a sweat.

She hears footsteps before we do, too, and, like a rabbit,

bounds off the path.  Stopping just off it, she bends to

catch her breath, then picks up a dead branch.

The footsteps and the panting close in.  She lets the first

running man go past, but grabs the second one, throws him to

the ground, straddles him and pushes the branch against his

throat.  At once calm but firm -

STARLING

Don't say a word.

She needn't warn him; the young man seems too terrified to

speak.  Starling reaches behind his track suit, pulls out his

.38, and keeping the branch tight against his neck, lets the

other runner, who's running back now, know that she has his

friend's gun.  To him, again very calmly, as he nears -

STARLING

Stop.  Catch your breath.  Take your

gun out very slowly with your left hand,

set it on the ground and take five steps

away from it.

The second young man does exactly as he's told.  Then -

STARLING

All right.  Who are you?

2ND RUNNER

We work for Jack Crawford.  We're

supposed to keep an eye on you.  To keep

you safe from - you know - Hannibal the

Cannibal.

STARLING

Show me.

He knows what that means, and shows her identification from

Crawford's private security firm.

She gets up off the other one then, tosses the branch away

and walks over to the gun resting on the fallen leaves.  She

picks it up.

STARLING

Okay, here it is:  I don't need you

looking after me.  I'm not in any danger.

If you talk to him before I do tell him

that.

2ND RUNNER

Yes, ma'am.

She returns the guns to each of them, first giving the one on

the ground a hand up.

STARLING

Sorry if I hurt you.

She leaves them, continues on her run.  As the one she threw

to the ground dusts himself off, the perspective changes to -

A VIEW THROUGH BINOCULARS

- of the two private security men off in the distance.

They blur then as the binoculars are shifted.  Trees, too,

blur across the lenses.  The view overtakes Starling, returns

and follows her, focusing as she runs through the trees,

staying on her until she disappears down a sloping path.

Lecter lowers the small, expensive field glasses.  Returns

them to their case slung over his shoulder.  Crosses the dirt

parking area to her mustang.  Peers inside and sees no

blinking red light on the dash.

He takes out a slim jim.  Slips it down and across the

driver's side jamb, tripping the lock.  He opens the door

and sits in the bucket seat a long moment before delicately

touching the ten and two o'clock points on the leather-clad

steering wheel where her hands rest most often.  He leans

closer to smell her on the leather.  Then licks it.

INT. KRENDLER'S DC TOWNHOUSE - NIGHT

Krendler, just back from a jog himself, sweaty T-shirt and

headband, sits with Cordell and reads a postcard from London

sheathed in plastic, written in Lecter's distinctive copper-

plate.  Finishing, he looks up at a speaker phone -

KRENDLER

I'm not sure I understand.

MASON'S VOICE

You don't have to understand, Paul.  All

you have to understand is what it's worth

to you.

KRENDLER

No, I don't understand why she didn't

turn this over; she's such a - straight

arrow.

INT. VERGER'S CHAMBER - SAME TIME

Looking at his speakerphone, Verger sighs.  Maybe he's making

a terrible mistake.  Maybe Krendler is just too stupid to be

of any real use to him.  As if to a child -

MASON

She didn't turn it over because she

didn't receive it.  She didn't receive

it because it was never delivered to her.

It was delivered to me for a nice

gratuity to a not-so-nice mail room boy.

KRENDLER'S VOICE

Oh.  Ohhh.

The realization, and Krendler's look of admiration that

follows it, only make Verger worry more about his stupidity.

MASON

So what do you think?

KRENDLER'S VOICE

I think you'd have been better off if

you hadn't gotten her out of trouble in

the first place.

MASON

Woulda, shoulda, coulda - I meant, what

do you think of the money?

INT. KRENDLER'S TOWNHOUSE - CONTINUED

KRENDLER

Five.

MASON'S VOICE

Well, let's just toss it off like,

"five."  Let's say it with the respect it

deserves.

KRENDLER

Five hundred thousand dollars.

MASON'S VOICE

That's better, but not much, but don't

say it again.  Will it work?

Krendler considers the forged postcard again.  Eventually -

KRENDLER

It won't be pretty.

MASON'S VOICE

What ever is?

INT. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR NOONAN'S OFFICE - DAY

Starling sits next to her boss, Pearsall, and across from

his boss, Noonan.  Krendler, too, is there, and a federal

marshal standing in a corner of the quiet room.

NOONAN

Would you identify yourself, please,

for the record.

STARLING

Special Agent Clarice Starling.  Is

there a record, Director Noonan?  I'd

like there to be since I have no idea

what this is about.  Do you mind if I

run a tape?

She takes a little Nagra from her purse, sets it on the desk

and turns it on.

NOONAN

Tell her the charges.

KRENDLER

Withholding evidence and obstruction of

justice.

The marshal sets the postcard with the familiar-looking

copperplate in front of Starling.  Her eyes move quickly back

and forth across the lines of words.  She doesn't touch it.

NOONAN

Like to comment?  On tape?

STARLING

Yes, I would.  I've never seen this

before in my life.

KRENDLER

How do you account for it being found in

your - office - your - basement?

STARLING

Found by who?

KRENDLER

By me.

STARLING

I don't think you want me to answer that,

Mr. Krendler.  Let me ask you this:  What

possible reason might I have to withhold

it?

KRENDLER

Perhaps because of the nature of its

content.  It reads like a - like a love

letter to me.

As Krendler comes over and hovers over her shoulder, it's all

she can do to keep herself from slugging him.

STARLING

Has it been tested for prints?

NOONAN

No prints on it.  None on the last one.

STARLING

Handwriting (analysis) - ?

KRENDLER

(before Noonan can answer)

Did you ever think, Clarice, why the

Philistines don't understand you?  It's

because you're the answer to Samson's

riddle:  You are the honey in the lion.

Sounds like him to me.

STARLING

Do you mean, Mr. Krendler, like a

homosexual?

KRENDLER

Like a nut with a crush.

Noonan, not a bad guy, chooses his next words carefully -

NOONAN

Clarice, I'm placing you on

administrative leave until Document

Analysis tells me, unequivocally, a

mistake's been made.  In the meantime

you'll remain eligible for insurance and

medical benefits.

Please surrender your weapons and

identification to Agent Pearsall.

Looking steadily at Krendler, Starling takes out her .45,

drops the clip into her hand, shucks the round out of the

pistol's chamber and sets it all down on the desk.  As she

places her ID next to it, Pearsall asks her sadly -

PEARSALL

Backup sidearm?

STARLING

Locked in my car.

PEARSALL

Other tactical equipment?

STARLING

Helmet and vest.

NOONAN

(to the marshal)

You'll retrieve those when you escort

Miss Starling from the building.

The marshal comes toward her.

STARLING

I want to say something.  I think I'm

entitled.

NOONAN

Go ahead.

STARLING

I think Mr. Mason Verger is trying to

capture Dr. Lecter himself for the

purpose of personal revenge.  I think Mr.

Krendler is in collusion with him and

wants the FBI'S effort against Dr. Lecter

to work for Mr. Verger.  I think Mr.

Krendler is being paid to do this.

KRENDLER

It's a good thing you're not sworn here

today.

STARLING

Swear me!  You swear, too!

NOONAN

Starling.  If the evidence is lacking,

you'll be entitled to full reinstatement

without prejudice - if you don't do - or

say - something in the meantime that

would make that impossible.

Starling just keeps staring at Krendler as she gathers her

Nagra and purse.  Finally, she glances over to her boss and

friend, Pearsall, who mouths -

PEARSALL

Sorry, Starling.

She lets the marshal lead her from the room.

INT. DEPARTMENT STORE - DAY

Lecter, clutching a shopping bag, stands in the electronics

department before a wall of television sets all tuned to the

same channel, local news, a talking head with an inset of a

photograph of Starling.

TALKING HEAD

- relieved of field duty pending an

internal investigation into the charges.

Starling, a 7-year vetern on the Bureau

began her career with an assignment to

interview lethal madman, Hannibal Lecter -

LECTER

- Doctor -

SALES CLERK

May I help you, sir?

Lecter glances to the young sales clerk, a teenager with a

name tag.

LECTER

I was looking for some good steak knives,

Toby, but I'm afraid I got distracted.

SALES CLERK

Kitchenware, right over there.

LECTER

Thank you.

The clerk walks away.  Lecter glances back to the TVs to see

that a black and white inset photograph of himself has been

added to the one of Starling.

TALKING HEAD

- receiving information from him which

led to killer Jame Gumb and the release

of his hostage Catherine Martin, daughter

of the former U.S. Senator from

Tennessee.

Lecter glances over to "Toby," who is busy pointing out to

a customer the features of various VCRs, his back to the

screens.  Footage of Krendler appears on them -

KRENDLER ON TV

FBI and the Justice Department are

looking carefully into the charges, and

yes, they are serious.  But I want to say

this:  Starling's one of the best agents

we have and having known her for a number

of years now, I would be very surprised

if the accusations turn out to be true.

It's much too soon to condemn her.

Lecter smiles at Krendler's image.  He always smiles upon

finding himself in the presence of bad liars.

INT. STARLING'S HOUSE - NIGHT

Silent.  Still.  Then the lock turning in the front door.

It opens.  Starling, looking weary, carries in a cardboard

box, her things from her desk at "the office," no bigger than

Brigham's was.  As she passes us -

Later.  Laundry room.  Absently dropping clothes in a

washing machine filling with water, she then slides down to

the floor in despair, her back against the warm enamel -

Later.  Living room.  Pouring herself a neat Jack Daniels

to the accompaniment of the first message on her answering

machine, the voice sounding almost as tired as her -

CRAWFORD'S VOICE

Hey.  It's Jack.  How you doing?  I'm

sure it's not as bad as it looks.  I feel

it's my fault.  I got you into all this.

Call me.  Make me feel better.

She carries the drink to the sofa, lies down, hasn't bothered

to turn off any lights.  Drinks as the second message plays -

BARNEY'S VOICE

It's Barney.  Remember me?  I got your

number from, uh - I mean I know it's un-

listed, but, I, ummm, I'm pretty good on

the computer ...

- save a few bucks on my phone bill,

don't arrest me -

(she smiles; closes her eyes)

I'm sorry, uh - about what happened to

you.  I feel bad.  For you.  I was, umm,

wondering if you might want to call me if

you get the chance - 555-7026.

(in a firmer tone:)

I think she's nice.  She's always been

nice to me.  Polite.  Don't you think?

Tight on Starling's cassette deck - the spindles turning

the tape inside.  Stack of other tapes she got from Barney

lying next to it.

LECTER'S VOICE

Do you know what a roller pigeon is,

Barney?

Starling is asleep on the sofa now.  Still in her clothes.

LECTER'S VOICE

They climb high and fast, then roll

over and fall just as fast toward the

earth.  There are shallow rollers and

deep rollers.  You can't breed two deep

rollers, or their young will roll all the

down, hit, and die.  Officer Starling is

a deep roller, Barney.  We should hope

one of her parents was not.

The tape reaches its leader an stops.  The green power

light stays on.  Then it goes off, then comes back on again:

an electrical interruption that is quickly reestablished.

INT. BASEMENT - STARLING'S HOUSE - SAME TIME

A basement window slightly open.  A piece of insulated wire

clipped to the alarm contacts.  A shadow of a figure floating

away from it.

The figure moves toward the stairs, passing a rusty bicycle

hanging on the wall and some shooting trophies gathering dust

on a shelf, and begins up the stairs.

INT. STARLING'S HOUSE - MOMENTS LATER

The microwave oven's glowing reset numbers "88:88" are

obsured a moment as the figure soundlessly passes.  Ice

tumbles from the refrigerator's ice-maker into the bin.

In the living room, Starling is still asleep, her empty

glass resting on a wood coffee table.

A digital desk clock blinks "00:00."  Tiny sounds echo in the

dark house - the hum of the furnace, the whistle of a pant

leg touching fabric on a chair, slick pages being turned ...

a sigh.

EXT. STARLING'S HOUSE - DAWN

The basement window, closed now, reflecting the glow of

sunrise.  Power lines against the red sky.  A pigeon sitting

on the wire, calling out once.

INT. STARLING'S HOUSE - DAWN

Starling wakes in the same position she fell asleep.  In

front of her is her empty glass.  Set down not on top of the

wood as she left it, but on a thick magazine.

She knows that's not right.  Sits up enough to see the

cover of the magazine.  Italian Vogue.  Edge of a Post-It

peeking out from the pages.  She uses the Post-It to turn

to the marked page.  A glossy Prada advertisement for

expensive - unsensible - shoes.

He's been in her house.  Right here as she slept.  She's up

fast, rushing to her bedroom.  The the closet.  Pulling down

from the top shelf the box containing Brigham's guns and ID.

She slams a clip into the .45.  As she's loading the little

.38, the phone rings, startling her.  She stares at it on the

night stand next to the alarm clock:  10:30 A.M.  It rings

again.  She slowly crosses toward it.  Another ring.  She

lifts the receiver.  Says nothing.  Hears nothing.  Until -

RECORDED VOICE

If you're not receiveing frequent flyer

miles on your credit card, you're missing

out on -

She hangs up.  Returns to loading the gun.  The cell phone

on her hip rings, and a bullet falls to the floor.  She pulls

the phone from its holster.  Answers it, again, by saying

nothing.  Only listens.  Hears a little static.  Connection

to another cell phone probably.  Then -

LECTER'S VOICE

The power on that battery is low,

Clarice.  I would've changed it, but I

didn't want to wake you.  You're going to

have to use the other one.  In the

charger.  Hopefully the light on it is

green by now.

The charger is right in front of her on the dresser.  And the

light on it is green - fully charged.

LECTER'S VOICE

- because this is going to be a long

call and I can't let you off because -

even though you've been stripped of your

duties, I know you won't abandon them,

you'll try to put on a trace.  So we'll

disconnect only long enough for you to

exchange the battery in the phone for the

one in the charger.  Shall we say - three

seconds?  That should be enough.  You can

change the clip on a .45 quicker than

that.  So when I tell you to, disengage

the dying battery.  That'll disconnect

us.  I'll speed dial back.  If you've

succeeded in your task in the allotted

time - wonderful.  If not? Well maybe

some other time.  Are you ready?

STARLING

Yes.

LECTER'S VOICE

Go.

It looks like changing the clip in a gun - the low battery

falling away from the body of the phone into her hand, the

charged one slapped in its place in just over two seconds.

She hits the power button.  The LCD display lights up and

beeps.  The phone rings and she flips it open.

LECTER'S VOICE

Very good.

STARLING

Thank you.

LECTER'S VOICE

Get in your car.

She begins gathering the guns and holsters and ammo.

LECTER'S VOICE

Oh, all right, bring the guns if you

want.  But remember, if you get caught

with a concealed, unlicensed firearm in

the District of Columbia, the penalty

is pretty stiff.

INT. STARLING'S MUSTANG - MOVING - DAY

She's in the far right lane of a highway.  Keeping just under

the speed limit.  The cell phone rests atop the open ashtray.

LECTER'S VOICE

The reason we're doing it like this,

Clarice, is because I'd like to see you

as we speak.  With your eyes open.  No,

it doesn't excite me.  Yes, it pleases

me.  You have very shapely feet.

Call it out.

STARLING

Exit 14-A.  Three hundred yards - two

hundred - one hundred - fifty -

LECTER'S VOICE

Take it.

She veers onto the ramp without a signal.  A van, several

lengths back, takes the exit, too.

INT. UNION STATION - DAY

Starling enters the huge, echoing interior of the station

with a crush of travelers and Christmas shoppers.  She has

the phone to her ear, and through it, can hear the sounds not

dissimilar to those around her.

LECTER'S VOICE

I thought, to begin, you might tell me

how you're feeling.

STARLING

About what?

LECTER'S VOICE

The masters you serve and how they've

treated you.  Your career, such as it is.

Your life, Clarice.

The place is not just trains, but also a mall of stores, many

of them playing Christmas music.  Outside one of them, on the

second tier, Lecter, cell phone to his ear, watches Starling

trying to sort out the cacophony of sounds down below.

STARLING'S VOICE

I thought we might talk about yours.

LECTER

Mine?  What is there to say about mine?

I'm happy.  Healthy.  A little nomadic at

the moment but that'll soon change.  You,

though.  You, I'm worried about.

Carlo and Piero, without phones, have entered the building

and brush past people as they scan its interior, looking for

and eventually spotting Starling rising up an escalator.

STARLING

I'm fine.

LECTER'S VOICE

No, you're not.  You fell in love with

the Bureau - with The Institution - only

to discover, after giving it everything -

that it doesn't love you back.  That it

resents you, more than the husband and

children you gave up to it ever would.

Lecter is going down an escalator as Starling approaches

where he was just moments ago, outside the Gap Kids store.

LECTER

Why is that, do you think?  Why are you

so resented?

STARLING'S VOICE

Tell me.

LECTER

Tell you?  Isn't it clear?  You serve

the idea of order, Clarice - they don't.

You believe in the oath you took - they

don't.  You feel it's your duty to

protect the sheep - they don't.  They

don't like you because they're not like

you.  They're weak and unruly and

believe in nothing.

She's lost him.  Peers down over the railing.  Listens to the

background sounds in her phone.

STARLING

Mason Verger wants to kill you, Dr.

Lecter.  Turn yourself in to me and I

promise no one will hurt you.

LECTER'S VOICE

Will you stay with me in my prison cell?

Hmmm?  I suppose it wouldn't be that much

worse than yours.

She hears a bell clanging.  Sees a Salvation Army "soldier"

in the far distance below, his back to her, his arm moving up

and down, but can't tell if it synchronizes with the sound in

her phone.

LECTER'S VOICE

Mason doesn't want to kill me, Clarice,

any more than I wanted to kill him.  He

wants me to suffer in some - unimaginable

way.  He's rather twisted, you know.

Always has been.  Have you had the

pleasure?

STARLING

I have.

LECTER'S VOICE

Attractive, isn't he.  But back to you -

She steps off the down escalator and heads toward the

Salvation Army soldier and his little kettle hanging from the

tripod, the bell in her phone diminishing proportionally, it

seems, as she nears the live one.

LECTER'S VOICE

I want to know what it is you think you

will do, now that all you cared about in

the world is gone.  Will you work as a

chambermaid at a motel on Route 66, like

Mom?

STARLING

I don't know, Dr. Lec -

LECTER'S VOICE

Don't you want to harm those who have

forced you to consider it?  I know you

never would, but wouldn't you like to?

Wouldn't it feel good?  It's all right to

admit it.  It's perfectly natural.  To

want to taste the enemy.

She stops moving.  Listens.  Hears Jingle Bells in her phone.

LECTER'S VOICE

Are you thinking?  Or tracking, Ex-

Special Agent Starling?

Jingle Bells begins to fade in her phone.  He's moving again.

She turns.  Carlo and Piero do an abrupt about-face.  But not

before Starling sees them.

STARLING

They're following me, Dr. Lecter.

LECTER'S VOICE

I know.  I see them.  Now you're in a

real dilemma, aren't you?

Do you continue to try to find me,

knowing that you're leading them to me?

Do you have so much faith in your

abilites that you believe you could

somehow - simultaneously - arrest me -

and them?  It could get messy, Clarice.

Like Memphis.

She can hear another voice - both "live" and in the phone -

"Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas" - and can see above heads in

the distance, a department store Santa Claus in a painted

plywood sleigh.  She moves toward him.

LECTER'S VOICE

What if I did it for you?

STARLING

Did what?

LECTER'S VOICE

Harmed them, Clarice.  The ones who've

harmed you.  What if I made them scream

apologies?  No, I shouldn't even say it

because you'll feel - with your perfect

grasp on right and wrong - that you were

somehow - accompli - even though you

wouldn't be.

STARLING

Don't - help me.

LECTER'S VOICE

No.  Of course not.  Forget I said it.

She's closing in on the sleigh and the barricade of kids and

parents around it, her free hand settling on the stock of her

.45, Carlo and Piero closing with her several steps back.

SANTA CLAUS

Ho - Ho - Ho.

Lecter sees her and the Sardinians pushing through the crowd.

LECTER

Ho, ho, ho, indeed.  I think I'll be

going now.  I have some shopping to do

anyway.  Chin up, Clarice.  Merry

Christmas.

He disconnects the call.  Starling breaks through the front

of the crowd, moving just in front of the sleigh to scan the

faces all around her.  Lecter is gone.

EXT. D.C. DOWNTOWN - DAY

Traffic crawls past Christofle.

INT. CHRISTOFLE - DAY

An armed security guard's glance drifts across Lecter

pointing out to a saleswoman the Gien French china he'd like

to purchase.

Later, she rings up several purchases as Lecter looks on,

credit card out:  the plates, a set of aperitif glasses and

Riedel crystal, linen place mats and napkins, 19th-century

silverware with a pleasing heft like good dueling pistols.

INT. HAMMACHER SCHLEMMER - DAY

Lecter chooses a set of exquisite copper saute pans and a

couple of whisks.  Elsewhere, a salesman demonstrates for him

the adjustable height of the flame on a portable 35,000 BTU

stainless stell grill.

INT. MEDICAL SUPPLY STORE - DAY

And finally, to complete his batterie de cuisine, he pays for

a newly-new Stryker autopsy saw.

EXT. CHESAPEAKE BAY - EVENING

A late-model, but not new, Ford Ranger pickup pulls into

the driveway of a small yet charming cottage nestled in the

woods.

Lecter climbs out and gathers his bungy-corded shopping bags

from the truck bed, including the one with the distinctive

powder blue coloring.

He leaves the boxed Parker grill in back, at least for the

moment, carries the rest of his purchases to the front door,

fiddles with the lock to get it open and disappears inside.

INT. STARLING'S HOUSE - EVENING

Light bleeds along the edges of a scanner.  Images appear

on Starling's computer screen:  Brigham's FBI identification

next to a photo-booth picture of her.  Using a paint-program,

she replaces his photo with hers and prints it out.

INT. WINE STORE - ANNAPOLIS - DAY

As a wine merchant leans slightly to take a closer look at

Starling's new ID, laminated now, she closes its leatherette

holder.  Christmas Muzak plays softly from somewhere.

STARLING

You're sure it was Chateau d'Y quem.

WINE MERCHANT

Not only was it Chateau d'Y quem, it was

Chateau d'Y quem - sixty-seven.  The best

bottle of wine in the store.

STARLING

Can I see the tape?  If his car was

parked out front, you may have caught the

license plate.

EXT. STREET - ANNAPOLIS - SAME TIME

The rear license plate of the Ford Ranger.  10-foot Noble

Christmas tree in back.  The pickup parked across the street

from the shopping center the wine store is part of.

Behind the windshield, Lecter carefully surveys the people

and vehicles in the large parking lot and those appearing and

disappearing in his side and rearview mirrors, well aware

that one of them could contain the Sardinians.

INT. WINE STORE - CONTINUED

Starling has come behind the counter to join the merchant as

he fast-forwards through a security tape on a small black and

white monitor.

EXT. STREET - CONTINUED

Still in his truck, Lecter watches the parking lot across

the street.  He watches the trunk lid of a yellow cab spring

open and the driver setting his elderly fare's grocery bags

into it.  He watches a man struggling to twine a big Douglas

fir to the roof of a sub-compact that's too small for it.  He

watches a rolling, rattling cart without anyone attached to

it.

INT. WINE STORE - CONTINUED

Starling watches the fuzzy video tape.  Watches the man come

in wearing a parka and mittens and a billed cap pulled low

enough to hide his face, but can't make out the license

plates on the cars parked outside.

EXT. STREET / PARKING LOT - SAME TIME

Lecter puts the same hat on, unlatches his door, climbs

down.  He crosses the street to the lot and walks past parked

cars, a box in his hand wrapped in Christmas angels paper.

INT. WINE STORE - CONTINUED

The video tape shows the wine merchant returning from the

back room, wiping dust from a bottle and displaying its label

to the man in the billed hat.  Through the window of the

store now, if she was looking, she would see the same man

approaching her Mustang.

EXT. PARKING LOT - CONTINUED

A slim jim drops down the sleeve of Lecter's overcoat into

his hand.  A barrel of a rifle, somewhere, rises.  The blade

of the slim jim slides down between the driver's side jamb

and trips the lock.  Something slaps at the air across the

lot.  Something silver embeds itself in Lecter's neck.

INT/EXT. WINE STORE / PARKING LOT - CONTINUOUS

Starling glances up at the air-rifle sound.  Glimpses a

figure outside collapsing against the open door of her car.

Squealing tires.  A van racing across the lot sends a cart

crashing into the door panel of an Audi.

The Christmas gift falls to the pavement.

Starling pulls out Brigham's .45 and the wine merchant

retreats quickly to the back room.  She runs from the store

and kneels to aim at the van just as a Lincoln Towncar pulls

up right in front of her, blocking her view.

The van's back doors fling open and two men leap down,

grabbing Lecter.

Starling back on her feet, aims over the hood of the Lincoln.

STARLING

Hold it!  FBI!  On the ground!

The handicapped parking placard and two old panicked faces

in the windshield of the Lincoln.  The screech of its tires

as it almost runs Starling over as she comes around it.

The back doors of the van yanked shut from inside.

Starling running toward the van, then kneeling again to aim

as it takes off -

An oblivious couple sharing the weight of a Christmas tree

twenty yards ahead, blocking the clear shot she almost had.

The van sliding into the street and accelerating.

Starling running to her car and writing down the license

plate number in the dirt on its hood.

Then seeing beside her slashed front tire, the trampled

Christmas package.  The box torn open.  The Prada shoes.

INT. FBI DC FIELD OFFICE - AN HOUR LATER - DAY

Halos around the mundane contents of a purse as it passes

through an x-ray machine; the visitor it belongs to stepping

through the metal detector.  Shouldering the purse she

crosses the lobby to the elevators, passing Pearsall coming

the other way.  He strides to where Starling waits - on the

street side of the security station - unable, in her current

lowly status, to get any deeper into the building.

STARLING

I know the first thing a hysteric says

is, "I'm not a hysteric," but I'm not a

hysteric.  I'm calm.

PEARSALL

I'll ask you one time.  Think before you

answer.  Think about every good thing you

ever did here.  Think about what you

swore.  What did you see?

STARLING

Two men in a van.  A third driving.

Another man shot and put into the back.

I've given you the license plate and I'm

reporting it all again to you, Clint

Pearsall, at SAC Buzzard's Point.

He glances at the purse hanging from her shoulder.  No doubt

her Nagra is in it and taping.  Finally -

PEARSALL

All right.  I'll go with it as a

kidnapping.  I'll send someone out there

with the local authorities - if he'll let

us on the property without a warrant -

STARLING

I'm going, too.  You could deputize -

PEARSALL

You're not going.  Unless you want to be

arrested.  You're going home where you'll

wait for me to call and tell you what, if

anything, we found.

He turns and strides away.

EXT. VERGER'S ESTATE - NIGHT

Cordell standing amidst several idling marked and unmarked

police cars as the officers climb in and shut the doors.

OFFICER

Please thank Mr. Verger for letting us

look around.  Sorry if we inconvenienced

him.

CORDELL

Not at all.  He's always happy to see

you.  He also wanted me to wish you and

your families a Merry Christmas for him,

and to assure you this'll not effect, in

any way, his annual contribution to the

Police Benevolence Fund.

One of the plain clothes men speaks into a cell phone -

FBI AGENT

Nothing here, Clint ... We're sure.

INT. VERGER'S CHAMBER - SAME TIME

The flashing lights of the patrol cars flare across the

black and white security monitors as the police drive away.

Verger, watching from his bed, presses a button on a remote

that dials a number.

INT. VAN - NIGHT

The ringing of a cell phone cuts through the voices and

static of a police scanner.  Carlo answers it.

MASON'S VOICE

How is he?

Lecter lies unconscious, handcuffed and bound on the floor

of the van.  One of Piero's hands - perilously close to the

doctor's mouth - feels for the pulse on his neck.  The

other holds a milk shake.

CARLO

Sleeping.

MASON'S VOICE

Bring him home.

EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT

The van's headlights blink on as it pulls out of the fast food

restaurant.

INT. STARLING'S HOUSE - NIGHT

The phone rings here in the darkened house.  The machine

answers it.

PEARSALL'S VOICE

Pick up, Starling... There was nothing

out there... I'm going to say it again in

case you didn't hear me clearly before:

You are not a law officer while on

suspension.  You're Joe Blow.  For your

sake I hope you're just in the bathroom.

EXT. VIRGINIA HIGHWAY NEAR VERGER'S FARM - NIGHT

The police cars, their flashing lights dark now, pass

Starling's Mustang, headlights off, parked on a turn-out.

INT. VERGER'S MANSION - NIGHT

Cordell's shoes move along the same Moroccan runner as in

the first scene; only now there are others, work boots, three

sets, moving along with them, and the wheels of a hand truck.

They all cross onto the polished linoleum floor.

INT. VERGER'S CHAMBER - NIGHT

The hand truck stops.  Strapped to it is a singletree, a

thick oak crosspiece from a horse cart harness, and tied to

it with rope, Hannibal Lecter, wearing the famous mask from

The Silence of the Lambs.  Just coming out of the sedative

from the dart, he squints into the lights surrounding the

hospital bed.

MASON

Hylochoerus Meinertzhageni ...

Does that ring a bell from high school

biology, doctor?  No?  I could list its

most conspicuous features if that would

help jog the memory.

Suddenly the lights go out, allowing Lecter - and us - to see

Verger in the shadows in his bed.

MASON

Three pairs of incisors, one pair of

elongated canines, three pairs of molars,

four pairs of pre-molars upper and lower,

for a total of forty-four teeth.

Lecter is conscious, but seems not be particularly interested

in the science lecture.

MASON

The meal will begin with an apertivo

tartare.  Your feet.  The main course -

the rest of you - won't be served until

seven hours later, but during that time

you'll be able to enjoy the effects of

the consumed appetizer with a full-

bodied saline drip.

No reaction, that can be read at least, from Lecter.

MASON

Much as I'd love to, I won't be joining

you at the table since I can't move, but

I will be watching a 3-camera video feed

here, and I'll try to stay awake.

(he smiles as much as he's

 able; then)

I guess you wish now you'd fed the rest

of me to the dogs?  Hmmm?

LECTER

No, Mason.  I much prefer you the way

you are.

MASON

(pause; then buoyantly)

So.  Dinner at eight?  Bon appetit.

EXT. VERGER'S ESTATE - DAY

Starling's Mustang creeps along the service road without the

aid of its headlights.  Up ahead about a quarter mile, in the

trees, she can see the glare of a floodlight.

She stops.  Pulls the trunk release.  Climbs out and comes

around to it.  Rummages around the debris inside and selects

four pairs of cuffs, extra ammo, a knife and a flashlight.

She leaves the trunk ajar, aims the flashlight down, switches

it on and leads herself with its beam - careful to keep it no

more than two or three steps ahead - into the woods.

INT. BARN - NIGHT

Lecter, still trussed to the singletree, prone now on the

hand truck, stares up at the rafters where Tommaso sits in a

cane chair, a rifle in his lap.

Below, one of three closed-circuit video cameras mounted

on tripods watches as Carlo, not being too careful about it,

pierces his wrist with an IV needle.

LECTER

Your brother must smell worse than you

do by now.

The blade of Carlo's knife is against Lecter's throat in

an instant.  From an intercom -

MASON'S VOICE

No, no, no - don't hurt him.

Lecter smiles at the Sardinian.  The knife slowly comes away

from his neck, leaving only a little blood.

Piero meanwhile is adjusting the angle of a gilt-framed

mirror hanging above the slatted gate Lecter's feet will soon

be stuck through.

MASON'S VOICE

And turn off that radio, I can't hear

anything.

A shortwave radio on a wooden table that's broadcasting a

soccer game in Italian.  As Piero crosses to it -

EXT. WOODS - NIGHT

Starling, still, listens as the already-faint sound of the

Italian announcer's voice fades to nothing.  She continues on

again toward the floodlit area beyond the trees until another

sound stops her.  Another recorded voice.  Begging and

screaming in Italian.

Suddenly, through the trees all around her, dark shapes are

moving fast.  She wants to but dares not point the flashlight

at them; if they're armed, the beam may as well be a painted

target on her chest.

She crouches.  Catches a glimpse of something big running

close to the ground past the trucks of the trees near her.

Then it's gone.

INT/EXT. BARN - NIGHT

The wild boars appear in the reflection of the large-gold-

framed mirror, jostling into a semi-circle like berserk

linemen posing for a team photo.

Piero dials down the screaming tape.  Carlo rights the hand

truck, hooks a saline bag to it, and wheels it toward the

slatted gate.  Tipped back, rolling slowly closer to his

death, Lecter begins humming Pomp and Circumstance.

INT. VERGER'S CHAMBER - NIGHT

Verger, glancing between three monitors displaying the

upcoming live event, glimpses something in one of them as it

darts along the fence line of the pen, then disappears.

MASON

What was that?  Cordell?  Did you see

that?

INT/EXT. BARN - NIGHT

A boom of a .45 echoes in the barn.  Tommaso, still up in

the loft, throws himself down against the planks.

STARLING

Hold it!  Hands where I can see -

Carlo's hand swings around with a .357 in it.  Starling

fires once, knocking him back against the gate.  Piero makes

a move toward the fallen gun, but stops when he sees a slat

splinter right next to it, the boars surging at the gate to

get to Carlo on the ground just inside it.

STARLING

Down!

Piero kneels with his empty hands aloft.  Starling crosses

quickly with a set of handcuffs.  In the loft, Tommaso crawls

along the planks as she disappears from his view.  Down below

Lecter cranes his head to watch Starling pick up the gun.

LECTER

Good evening, Clar -

STARLING

Shut up.

She kneels.  Lecter tries to bend his head to watch her snap

a cuff around one of Carlo's wrists.

STARLING

Can you walk?

LECTER

Well, I don't know.  May I try?

The boars pound against the gate, trying to get at Carlo.

Starling drags him a couple of feet away and pulls a knife

from an ankle strap.

STARLING

I'm going to cut you loose.  If you touch

me, I'll shoot you.

LECTER

Understood perfectly.

STARLING

Do right and you'll live through this.

LECTER

Spoken like a Protestant.

She cuts one of his arms free, keeping her gun trained on

Piero, still on the ground by Carlo.  The boars shatter

another slat.

LECTER

This might go a little quicker if you

give me the knife.

She hesitates.  Then gives it to him.  As he cuts at the

ropes, she works to lock the other end of Carlo's cuffs onto

Piero's wrist.  As he removes the mask -

LECTER

Clarice?

STARLING

What.

LECTER

My back was turned when you came in.

Was that a warning shot, or did you kill

the one in the loft?

She spins around, aiming up, just as the bullet from the

rifle slams into her unvested abdomen.  Going down, she pulls

off three quick shots, hitting Tommaso in the chest.

As he falls from the loft, the boars come crashing through

the gate.  Piero desperately tries to get away, dragging the

dead weight of Carlo behind him.  Lecter lifts Starling from

the ground, blood running onto his fingers.

Piero is pulled down.  Lecter, holding Starling, surrounded

by the animals, too, stands perfectly still as the boars

ravage the three Sardinians.

INT. VERGER'S CHAMBER - SAME TIME

Verger stares in disbelief at the monitor that shows nothing

but the moving mass of the boars thrashing around but leaving

alone Lecter's legs.

MASON

Why aren't they - ?  Cordell -

CORDELL

I have to go now -

MASON

No.  In the drawer - right by your

hand.  Open it.  Open it!

Cordell opens the drawer revealing a semi-automatic pistol.

MASON

Take it.  Go down there.  Shoot him.

CORDELL

No, I -

MASON

You're involved is what you are.

He's frightened is what he is.  He's a medical doctor, for

Christ's sake, not a hunter of madmen.  He stares at Verger.

CORDELL

What did you say - ?

MASON

I said you're involved.  In all of it.

Cordell seems to understand, nods in resignation, and turns

as if to take the gun.

MASON

Good.  Now -

Cordell plunges his hand into the aquarium and turns back

holding the writhing eel.  Watching him approach the bed with

it, Verger, for once, is speechless, staring at the serpent's

clicking teeth.

CORDELL

Good night, Mason.

As Cordell thrusts the head of the eel toward Verger's gaping

mouth -

INT/EXT. BARN - SAME TIME

Lecter, carrying Starling, stares a couple of the boars in

the eye, wades through them with impunity, steps out past the

splintered gate and disappears into the woods ...

EXT. CHESAPEAKE BAY - EVENING

A pair of distant headlights floating along the shoreline.

INT. KRENDLER'S CAR - EVENING

Krendler, trying to keep the agitation out of his voice,

speaks with an assistant on his car phone as he negotiates

the dark ribbon of road.

KRENDLER

I'll be out at my weekend place

through Sunday.  I don't want any calls

forwarded.  No, not even him.  Nobody.

He hangs up.  Wipes at beads of sweat just below the

sweatband of his jogging ensemble as his destination, his

weekend cottage, comes into view through the windshield.

EXT. KRENDLER'S COTTAGE - NIGHT

The car pulls into the driveway.  Krendler gathers up the

grocery bag from the passenger seat and carries it toward the

front door of his cottage, which also happens to be Lecter's.

INT. KRENDLER'S/LECTER'S COTTAGE - NIGHT

Krendler comes into the darkened kitchen.  Tries a light

switch that doesn't work.  Sets the grocery bag on a counter,

pulls open a drawer and takes out a corkscrew.  As he takes a

bottle of cheap Chianti from the bag, he notices a simple

strand of Christmas lights around a window.  Doesn't remember

hanging them.  Stares, cocking his head the way he does.

LECTER'S VOICE

Oh, good, you brought wine.

Before Krendler can turn, his mouth is covered with an ether-

soaked dish towel.

INT. KRENDLER'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

Starling's eyes open and slowly take in her surroundings:

the small, unfamiliar room, the bed she's in, the night stand

and the empty morphine vials on it, the silver tray with the

crumpled bullet on it.

She eases the blanket down enough to see her T-shirt, eases

the T-shirt up enough to see the bandage, ease the bandage

away enough to see the stitched gunshot wound.

She hears quiet Christmas music and muffled voices from

elsewhere in the house.  Two men speaking in conversational

tones.  She drags herself from the bed, steadies herself,

slowly crosses the room to, and down, a hallway.

At the end of it, she see:  A decorated Christmas tree.

An archway to a dining room, candles on the dining table.

Krendler, in his running clothes and sweatband, sitting at

the head of it.  Lecter, standing beside a portable grill on

a service cart, stirring at a saute pan with a wooden spoon.

KRENDLER

Are those shallots?

LECTER

Ummm.  And caper berries.

KRENDLER

The butter smells wonderful.

Starling glances from Krendler's face to his hands.  He

doesn't seem to notice or care that they're duct-taped to the

arms of a wheelchair.

INT. BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER

Back in the bedroom, Starling uses her teeth to strip the

4-pin telephone wire that's been yanked from the wall jack.

INT. DINING ROOM - SAME TIME

As Lecter executes a modest flambe with a little brandy -

LECTER

I hope you're hungry, Paul.

KRENDLER

Very.  What's the main course?

LECTER

Oh, you never ask.  It spoils the

surprise.

Lecter notices, but seems unconcerned, as the line-light

blinks on a telephone.

INT. BEDROOM - CONTINUED

Starling searches drawers for some kind of weapon as she

whispers into the phone -

STARLING

I don't have the address, but I think

the house belongs to the hostage, whose

name is Paul Krendler -

911 OPERATOR

I have it from the phone number.  Now

if you can safely do it, get out of the

house.  Otherwise, stay on the line where

you are.  The response time should be ten

minutes.  I'm putting you on hold for

just a moment.

Starling hears an unusual sound from the other room, but

not so unusual that she doesn't recognize it:  It's the whir

of an autopsy saw.  She sets the receiver on the bed and -

911 OPERATOR

I'm back.  Ma'am - ?

The phone goes dead as Starling yanks the 25-foot cord from

the wall and wraps it quickly around her hand, taking it with

her, perhaps to use as a garrote, as she leaves the room.

INT. HALL / DINING ROOM - MOMENTS LATER

She's moving along the hall again.  Hears the whir of the

saw grinding through - something - then stop.  She picks up a

heavy glass paperweight from a bookcase shelf and conceals it

in her hand.

She reaches the doorway to the living room and adjacent

dining area.  Sees Lecter straightening Krendler's sweatband.

The doctor glances up and regards her calmly.

LECTER

Clarice.  What are you doing up?

You should be resting.  Get back to bed.

STARLING

I'm hungry.

Krendler's head slowly turns to follow her as she crosses

into the dining room unsteadily.

STARLING

Hello, Paul.

He doesn't respond.  He seems in some kind of trance.

LECTER

Paul.  Don't be rude.  Say hello to

Agent Starling.

KRENDLER

Hello, Starling.  I always wanted to

watch you eat.

As Lecter lays out another place setting of fine china (but

not silverware) for Starling, she sees the spent syringe and

the autopsy saw on a trivet next to the butane grill.

LECTER

Would you like to say grace?

KRENDLER

Me?  Grace?  Okay.

He bows his head.  Starling and Lecter don't.  She glances to

the twisting pendulum of a hurricane clock.  The doctor just

smiles faintly, well aware of the response time.

KRENDLER

Father, we thank thee for the blessings

we are about to receive and dedicate them

to Thy mercy.  Forgive us all, even white

trash like Starling here, and bring her

into my service.  Amen.

As his head comes back up, a single rivulet of blood drips

out from under the sweatband.  Lecter stirs at his beurre-

noisette.

LECTER

Paul, I have to tell you, the Apostle

Paul couldn't have done better.  He hated

women, too.

Krendler smiles rather stupidly at Starling.  As much as she

hates him, she doesn't want to see what she thinks Lecter has

in store for him, and tries to forestall it with conversation

and requests -

STARLING

May I have some wine?

LECTER

I don't think that's a good idea,

Clarice.  Not with the morphine.  Better

you should have some broth.

Lecter sets about ladling her and Krendler tureens of it.

KRENDLER

By the way, Starling, that was a job

offer I worked into the blessing.  I'm

going to Congress, you know.

STARLING

Are you?

KRENDLER

Come around campaign headquarters.

You could be an office girl.  Can you

type and file?  Can you take dictation?

Take this down:  Washington is full of

cornpone country pussy.

STARLING

I already took that down.  You said it

before.

LECTER

Paul.  Please.  Now you are being rude.

Drink your broth.

As Lecter puts a straw in the tureen to Krendler's lips

and whispers something in his ear, Starling eyes the sharper

utensils on the other side of the table next to the grill.

KRENDLER

This soup's not very good.

LECTER

I admit I added a little something extra

to yours.  Perhaps it's clashing with the

cumin.  I assure you, though, you'll love

the second course, that is if I can serve

it before Clarice bashes my head in.

He commands her to show him what's in the hand in her lap

with a smile and a slight tip of his head.  She obeys,

setting the paperweight weapon on the table.

KRENDLER

Hey, that's mine.

Lecter rakes it across to him with a folk like a croupier.

As Krendler shakes it and watches snow fall on the Capital

building, he's oblivious to Lecter taking off his sweatband

revealing the neat incision carved all the way around.

Starling can do little more than we can as Lecter lifts

the top of Krendler's head off - staring in disbelief at the

pinky-gray dome of Krendler's exposed brain.  Lecter reaches

for a set of tonsil spoons as the butter in the saute pan

sizzles to a golden brown.

STARLING

I really would like some wine.

Lecter, poised over Krendler's brain with the tongs, looks at

her disapprovingly.  She's holding out her empty glass like

Oliver as the pendulum twists back and forth.

LECTER

All right.  But just a little.

He sets the spoons down.  Pours some Chateau d'Y quem into

her glass as he glances to the twisting pendulum.

LECTER

Unlike Paul, I unfortunately can't

offer you a job in government.  But I am

curious.  What will you do now?

Right now her hand is slowly inching across the tablecloth

toward a serrated knife.  Lecter picks it up and one of the

tongs and deftly severs the thalamus of Krendler's brain -

STARLING

Doctor Lec -

LECTER

You certainly can't return to the

bureau.  Not that you'd want to.  Even

if you could convince them to take you

back after all this, the Stain of Rein-

statement would never go away.

Krendler's eyes look up as if to see what's going on, then

follow Lecter's hands as he sets his prefrontal lobe in the

saute pan.

KRENDLER

What did you say?

STARLING

I didn't say anything.

KRENDLER

I had plans for that smart mouth, but

I'd never hire you now.  Who gave you an

appointment anyway?

Lecter picks up the tongs again to scoop out another lobe.

LECTER

The brain itself feels no pain, Clarice,

if that concerns you.  And Paul certainly

won't miss this - the prefrontal lobe is

the seat of manners.

STARLING

Dr. Lecter, your profile at the border

stations has five features.  I'll trade

you.  Stop now and I'll tell you what

they are.

LECTER

Trade?  How does that word taste to you,

Clarice?  Cheap and metallic like sucking

on a greasy coin to me.  Your soup is

getting cold.

He spoons out a second lobe and stirs it into the pan -

KRENDLER

That smells great.

LECTER

Have a taste, Paul.

He slides a taste of the "second course" onto a small plate,

forks a piece and slips it into Krendler's open mouth.

KRENDLER

Ummm, it is good.

STARLING

Dr. Lec -

LECTER

No, I think a new life lies before you.

A better life.  With me?  Hmmm, there's a

thought.

Is he serious?  He seems to be.  Krendler glances stupidly

from him to her and back again.

LECTER

I came halfway around the world just to

watch you run in the woods.  Run with me,

Clarice.

KRENDLER

Who's Clarice?

LECTER

Agent Starling, Paul.  If you can't keep

up with the conversation, it's better you

don't try to join in at all.

KRENDLER

Who?

STARLING

Me, Paul.  I'm Starling.

KRENDLER

I don't think you could even answer my

phones, whoever you are.  That accent is

just too - Appalachian.  "The Honorable

Paul Krendler's office."

LECTER

Paul?

KRENDLER

What.

LECTER

Remember what I said before?  If you

can't be polite to the other guests, you

have to sit at the kids' table.

He sets the plates and sauce pan and all the utensils -

including the knife - in Krendler's lap, and unlocks the

wheels of the chair.

LECTER

I'll just be a minute cleaning up,

Clarice.  Don't get up, Paul will help me

clear.

As Lecter pushes Krendler toward the kitchen, he glimpses

on the way the headlights of a line of cars coming silently

along the shoreline.

LECTER

Think about what I said, but don't drink

any more wine while you do.  Doctor's

orders.

As soon as the door to the kitchen swings shut, she gets

up, too fast, almost faints, sits back down.  Listening for a

moment to the scraping of plates, she tries again to stand,

slower this time.  she blows out a candle, grasps the stem of

the heavy brass holder and with it and the phone cord, slowly

crosses toward the closed kitchen door.

She slowly eases it open, revealing:  Lecter, his back to

her, scraping the leftovers into Krendler's head and setting

the plates neatly in the dishwasher.  He closes its door then

and switches it on, and, keeping his back to her, begins

wiping down the counters with a dish towel.

She eases past the door, gripping the heavy candlestick, and

slowly approaches Lecter from behind, grateful for the hum of

the dishwasher that covers the creaking of the floorboards.

Krendler is staring right at her as he shakes his Capital

paperweight.  She places a finger to her lips to tell him not

to speak, and he glances away to the tiny falling snow.

KRENDLER

Would you like to swing on a star -

Carry moonbeams home in a jar -

The candlestick comes up and hangs there - as if Starling

isn't entirely sure she wants to crack Lecter's skull open -

but then it does come down hard right at his head, and -

Turning, he catches her wrist in his hand and pushes her

roughly against the refrigerator, toppling the wheelchair and

Krendler, the rest of his brain and some leftovers spilling

onto the floor.  Lecter holds Starling firmly in his grip,

staring at her, intending, it appears, to kill her.  But

then, quietly -

LECTER

That's my girl.  If you hadn't tried,

I would have killed you ... But don't try

again ... I mean it.

He lets her hands go and she immediately lunges for him

again.  He grabs her wrists again, pushes her back up against

the fridge, opens it enough to catch her pnytail in the door

and shoves the candlestick through the side-by-side handles.

LECTER

Oh, Clarice, you are the honey in the

lion.  In times to come, whenever you see

yourself naked, whenever you see the scar

- the quality of the stitching - you'll

remember this moment -

His face, his sharp teeth, come threateningly close to her.

He kisses her hard on the mouth.

LECTER

- and your lips will burn.

He steps away, past Krendler and the wheelchair, picks up

a small Tupperware container from the counter and walks out,

leaving her to try to free herself.

EXT. THE COTTAGE - MOMENTS LATER

Starling comes slowly out onto the porch.  Looks for

movement in the dark shapes of the trees across the road and

sees none.  Looks out across the Chesapeake and sees nothing

in its dark water - except that the little rowboat, once

tied to the dock, is now gone.

Feeling faint again - or just tired of it all - she sits on

the porch swing, slows her breathing and the pounding of her

heart, listens to the creak of the chains and the growl of

the approaching police cars, and watches the glare of the

approaching headlights play across the dark trees of the

forest ...

 DISSOLVE TO:

A VERMEER

hanging in a gallery.  Foreign museum visitors strolling

past, giving it a glance before moving on.  One man, though,

seems unable to get enough of it, standing before it as if

before a shrine as the others keep moving past.  It's

Barney.  The painting, Woman Holding the Balance -

DISSOLVES TO:

A RECLINING WOMAN

asleep on a blanket on a beach.  Starling.  A beach ball

and a Walkman resting beside her.  The cord runs up across

the scar on her exposed midriff to a light pair of head-

phones.  Instead of music, she hears static, before -

MAN V/O

How are you covering yourself?

WOMAN V/O

Polaroids, monkey business, and none of

your business.  I'm not going to run.

One-point-five-mil, Ricky, flat fee.

The conversation is overtaken by static again.  Keeping her

eyes closed, Starling nudges the beach ball and the voices of

the man and woman, just two tiny figures waist deep in the

Miami beach surf, reemerge from the static -

WOMAN V/O

No discussion.  Just yes or no.

MAN V/O

Yes.  We'll make the transfer at the

Sun Trust conference room in the vault.

I'll bring my lockbox, you bring yours.

A beachcomber passes, walking along the wet sand between

Starling on the beach and the couple in the water.  Crawford.

In the headphones Starling hears -

CRAWFORD V/O

And we'll join the party, too.  That's

it, Starling.  You just made us our ten

percent.  And all you had to do was put

on sun screen.

She smiles without opening her eyes.  Reaches down out of

habit to adjust her top to cover the scar.

CRAWFORD V/O

You don't need to hide it.  Your doctor

did a nice job.  You can hardly see it -

The roar of a jet covers his last word -

 DISSOLVE TO:

A RECLINING SLEEPING BOY

in a darkened 747 cabin, window shades down, movie

flickering.  Stewardesses move down the aisle gathering the

last of the lunch trays.

Sitting in coach next to the sleeping six year old boy,

Lecter, in Toronto Maple Leafs sweats, waits until he's sure

no one is looking at him, then, careful not to wake the boy,

reaches down under the seat in front of him, finds a box

and sets it on his lap.

It's from Dean & DeLuca.  Tied with a ribbon.  Lecter unknots

it.  Opens the lid.  Inside are Anatolian figs, pate de foie

gras, a half-bottle of St. Estephe and some silverware.

BOY

What's that?

Lecter sighs.  Then turns to the boy and makes a smile.

LECTER

Which?

BOY

That.

LECTER

Liver.

BOY

What are those?

LECTER

Figs.

BOY

And that?

Something in a plastic container.

LECTER

That I don't think you'd like.

BOY

It looks good.

LECTER

It is good.

BOY

Can I have some?

LECTER

You're a very unusual boy, aren't you?

BOY

I didn't eat what they gave me.

LECTER

Nor should you have.  It's not even food,

as I understand the definition.  Which is

why I always travel with my own.

(the boy smiles; Lecter

 smiles)

Are you sure your mother wouldn't

disapprove of your accepting food from

a stranger?

BOY

She would.

LECTER

Ah, but she's asleep.

The boy's eyebrows lift conspiratorially.

LECTER

Which would you like to try?

The boy points to the plastic container.

LECTER

This?

The boy nods.  Lecter thinks about it.  Finally -

LECTER

I suppose it's all right.  After all,

as I'm sure your mother tells you - mine

certainly did:  It is important to always

try new things.

As Lecter dips his fork into the appetizer and feeds it to

his young, grateful, adventurous fellow traveler -

FADE TO BLACK

Itsukushima Shrine.