Based on the novel by Thomas Harris.
Production draft, February 9, 2000.
More info about this movie on IMDb.com
FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY
INT. PANEL VAN - DAY
Clarice Starling is dead, laid out in fatigues across a bench
in the back of a ratty, rattling undercover van. Three other
agents sit perched on the opposite bench, staring at her
lifeless body.
BURKE
How can she sleep at a time like this?
BRIGHAM
She's on a jump-out squad all night;
she's saving her strength.
INT. UNDERGROUND GARAGE - DAY
Gray cement walls blur past as the panel van descends a
circular ramp to a lower level. As it straightens out, the
view through the windshield reveals a gathering of men and
vehicles - marked and unmarked DC police cars - and two black
SWAT vans.
The panel van - with Marcell's Crab House painted on its
sides - pulls to a stop. The back doors open from the inside
and Starling is the first one out - well-rested and alert -
hoisting down her equipment bag.
One of the DC policemen, the one whose girth and manner
say he's in charge, watches the woman by the van slip into a
Kevlar vest, drop a Colt .45 into a shoulder holster, and a
.38 into an ankle holster. She straightens up, approaches
the men and lays a street plan across the hood of one of
their cars.
STARLING
All right, everyone, pay attention.
Here's the layout -
BOLTON
Excuse me, I'm Officer Bolton, DC Police.
STARLING
Yes, I can see that from your uniform
and badge, how do you do?
BOLTON
I'm in charge here.
Starling studies him a moment. He sniffs as if that might
help confirm his weighty position.
STARLING
You are?
BOLTON
Yes, ma'am.
Starling's glance finds Brigham's. His says, Just let it
go. Hers says back, I can't.
STARLING
Officer Bolton, I'm Special Agent
Starling, and just so we don't get off
on the wrong foot, let me explain why
we're all here.
Brigham shakes his head to himself in weary anticipation of
her 'explanation.'
STARLING
I'm here because I know Evelda Drumgo,
I've arrested her twice on RICO warrants,
I know how she thinks. DEA and BATF, in
addition to backing me up, are here for
the drugs and weapons. You're here, and
it's the only reason you're here, because
our mayor wants to appear tough on drugs,
especially after his own cocaine
conviction, and thinks he can accomplish
that by the mere fact of having you tag
along with us.
Silence as the gathering of agents and policemen stare at her
and Bolton.
BOLTON
You got a smart mouth, lady.
STARLING
Officer, if you wouldn't mind, I'd
appreciate it if you took a step or two
back, you're in my light.
Bolton takes his time, but eventually backs away a step.
STARLING
Thank you. All right.
(re: the street plan)
The fish market backs on the water.
Across the street, ground floor, is the
meth lab --
EXT. FISH MARKET AND STREETS - DAY
The Macarena blares from a boom box. Snappers, artfully
arranged in schools on ice, stare up blankly. Crabs scratch
at their crates. Lobsters climb over one another in tanks.
One of the black SWAT vans turns down a side street. The
other takes an alley. The Marcell's Crab House van continues
straight along Parcell Street.
INT. PANEL VAN - DAY
A 150-pound block of dry ice tries to cool down the heat
from all the bodies in the van - Starling and Brigham, the
two other agents, Burke and Hare, and her new best friend,
Officer Bolton. As they drive along, Bolton watches as she
takes several pairs of surgical gloves from her equipment
bag, slips one pair on, and hands the rest to the others, the
last pair offered to him.
STARLING
Drumgo's HIV positive and she will spit
and bite if she's cornered, so you might
want to put these on.
(Bolton takes the gloves and
puts them on)
And if you happen to be the one who
puts her in a patrol car in front of the
cameras, and I have a feeling you will
be, you don't want to push her head down,
she'll likely have a needle in her hair.
EXT. FISH MARKET AREA - DAY
The swat vans pull into position, one to the side of the
building across from the fish market, the other around back.
As the battered van pulls to the curb in front, a mint low-
rider Impala convertible, stereo thumping, cruises past.
INT. PANEL VAN - DAY
The thumping fades, leaving the Macarena filtering in.
Starling pulls the cover off the eyepiece of a periscope
bolted to the ceiling of the van and makes a full rotation
of the objective lens concealed in the roof ventilator, catching
glimpses of:
A man with big forearms cutting up a mako shark with a
curved knife, hosing the big fish down with a powerful hand-
held spray.
Young men idling on a corner in front of a bar. Others
lounging in parked cars, talking. Some children playing by
a burning mattress on the sidewalk; others in the rainbow
spray from the fishmonger's hose.
The building across from the fish market with the metal door
above concrete steps. It opens.
STARLING
Heads up.
A large white man in a luau shirt and sandals comes out
with a satchel across his chest, other hand behind the case.
A wiry black man comes out the door behind him, carrying a
raincoat, and behind him, Evelda Drumgo.
STARLING
It's her. Behind two guys. Both
packing.
BRIGHAM
(into a radio)
Strike One to all units. Showdown.
She's out front, we're moving.
Starling and the others put on their helmets. Brigham racks
the slide of his riot gun. The back doors opena and Starling
is the first one out, barking -
STARLING
Down on the ground! Down on the ground!
No one gets down on the ground - not Evelda Drumgo, not her
men, none of the merchants or bystanders. The Macarena keeps
blaring.
Drumgo turns and Starling sees the baby in the blanketed
sling around her neck. She can also hear the roar of a big
V8 and hopes it's her backup.
Drumgo turns slightly and the baby blanket flutters as the
MAC 10 under it fires, shattering Brigham's face shield. As
he goes down, Hawaiian Shirt drops his satchel and fires a
shotgun, blowing out the car window next to Burke.
Gunshots from the V8, a Crip gunship, a Cadillac, coming
toward Starling. Two shooters, Cheyenne-style in the rolled-
down window frames, spraying automatic fire over the top.
Starling dives behind two parked cars. Hare and Bolton
fire from behind another. Auto glass shatters and clangs on
the ground.
Everyone in the market scrambling for cover, finally hitting
the fish-bloodied cement. The Macarena still blasting.
Pinned down, Starling watches the wiry black man drop back
against the building, Drumgo picks up the satchel, the gunship
slowing enough for someone to pull her in.
Starling stands and fires several shots, taking out Hawaiian
Shirt, the other man by the building, the driver of the accel-
erating Cadillac, one of the men perched on the window frames
- drops the magazine out of her .45 slams another in
before the empty hits the ground.
The Cadillac goes out of control, sideswiping a line of
cars, grinds to a stop against them. Starling moving toward
it now, following the sight of her gun. A shooter still
sitting in a window frame, alive but trapped, chest
compressed between the Cadillac and a parked car. Gunfire
from somewhere behind Starling hits him and shatters the rear
window.
STARLING
Hold it! Hold your fire! Watch the door
behind me! Evelda!
The firing stops but the pounding of The Macarena doesn't.
STARLING
Evelda! Put your hands out the window!
Nothing for a moment. Then Drumgo emerges from the car, head
down, hands buried in the blanket-sling, cradling the crying
baby.
STARLING
Show me your hands!
(Evelda doesn't)
Please! Show me your hands!
Evelda looks up at her finally, fondly it seems, doesn't show
her hands.
DRUMGO
Is that you, Starling?
STARLING
Show me your hands!
DRUMGO
How you been?
STARLING
Don't do this!
DRUMGO
Do what?
She smiles sweetly. The blanket flutters. Starling falls.
Fires high enough to miss the baby. Hits Drumgo in the neck.
She goes down.
Starling crawling in the street, the wind knocked out of
her from the hits to her chest, to her vest. Reaches Drumgo,
blood gushing out of her onto the baby. She pulls out a
knife. Cuts the harness straps. Runs with the baby to the
merchant stalls as enterprising tourists click shots from the
ground with disposable cameras.
Starling sweeps away knives and fish guts from a cutting
table. Lays the baby down. Strips it. Grabs the handheld
sprayer and washes at the slick coating of HIV positive blood
covering the baby, a shark's head staring, Macarena pounding,
disposable cameras clicking, the river of bloody water
running along a gutter to where Brigham lies dead.
EXT. ARLINGTON CEMETERY - DAY
Gray sky. Rain coming down. A large gathering, many in
uniform, standing in wet grass around an open grave, the rain
spilling off the rims of their umbrellas.
A casket is being lowered in. Starling watches as it
decends, watches the gears of the hoist working and the box
disappearing beneath the edge of the muddy hole, not allowing
herself to cry, or to meet the eyes of certain other mourners
watching her.
EXT. ARLINGTON CEMETERY - LATER - DAY
Long line of parked cars, some marked, most not, many with
government plates. Smoke plumes from the exhaust of the one
idling nearest, a Crown Victoria.
Inside the car, Starling sits in the front passenger seat
with a cardboard box on her lap, a middle-aged man in Marine
dress blues beside her at the wheel. The wipers slap back
and forth.
HAWKINS
You like to think when it's over your
things would fill more than one cardboard
box.
Starling touches the things in the box: a BATF badge, a
couple of laminated clip-on ID cards with Brigham's face on
them, a medal, a pen set, a compass paper-weight, two guns
and a framed desk photo of a dog.
HAWKINS
John's parents don't want it. Any of
it. Except the dog. Don't want to be
reminded.
STARLING
I want to be reminded.
HAWKINS
I figured. He was your last compadre on
the street, wasn't he.
STARLING
My last compadre.
He sits watching her touch the things, and will continue to
do so as long as she wants. Eventually, she folds down the
cardboard flaps. Hawkins looks up ahead -
HAWKINS
All they'll get with tinted windows is
pictures of themselves, but it won't stop
them from trying. You ready?
She is. He pulls away from the curb. A handful of wet
photographers appears in the windshield's view up ahead. As
the car passes, their cameras swing around to point at
Starling's side of it and flash like stars.
INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - FBI DC FIELD OFFICE - DAY
The words "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity" skew as a glass
door opens. Starling comes in to find several men awaiting
her, all balanced on Florsheim wingtips and tasseled Thom
McAn loafers.
PEARSALL
Agent Starling, this is John Eldredge
from DEA; Assistant Director Noonan, of
course you know; Larkin Wayne, from our
Office of Professional Responsibility;
Bob Sneed, BATF; Benny Holcome, Assistant
to the Mayor; and Paul Krendler - you
know Paul. Paul's come over from Justice
- unofficially - as a favor to us. In
other words, he's here and he's not here.
A couple of the men bobbed their heads at the mention of
their names; none offered his hand. Starling sits a thin
manila folder on her lap. A silence stretches out as each
man regards her. Finally -
SNEED
I take it you've seen the coverage in
the papers and on television.
(nothing from Starling)
Agent Starling?
STARLING
I have nothing to do with the news, Mr.
Sneed.
SNEED
The woman had a baby in her arms. There
are pictures. You can see the problem.
STARLING
Not in her arms, in a sling across her
chest. In her arms, she had a MAC 10.
Mr. Pearsall? This is a friendly
meeting, right?
PEARSALL
Absolutely.
STARLING
Then why is Mr. Sneed wearing a wire?
Pearsall glances to Sneed and his tie clasp. Sneed sighs.
SNEED
We're here to help you, Starling.
That's going to be harder to do with a
combative attitude like -
STARLING
Help me what? Your agency called this
office and got me assigned to help you on
the raid. I gave Drumgo a chance - two
chances - to surrender. She didn't. She
fired. She shot John Brigham. She shot
at me. And I shot her. In that order.
You might want to check your counter
right there, where I admit it.
A silence before the man from the Mayor's Office speaks up -
HOLCOME
Ms. Starling, did you make some kind
of inflammatory remark about Ms. Drumgo
in the van on the way?
STARLING
Is that what your Officer Bolton is
saying?
(he chooses not to say)
I explained to him, and the others in
the van, that Drumgo was HIV positive and
would think nothing of infecting them,
and me, any way she could given the
chance. If that's inflamma -
HOLCOME
Did you also say to him at one point
that a splash of Canoe is not the same
as a shower?
(she doesn't answer)
Did Officer Bolton smell bad to you?
STARLING
Incompetence smells bad to me.
HOLCOME
You shot five people out there, Agent
Starling. That may be some kind of
record. Is that how you define
competence?
A beeper goes off. Every one of the men checks the little
box on his belt. It's Noonan's. He excuses himself from the
room.
STARLING
Can I speak freely, Mr. Pearsall?
(he nods)
This raid was an ugly mess. I ended
up in a position where I had a choice of
dying, or shooting a woman carrying a
child. I chose. I shot her -
FLASHCUT to Drumgo - hit in the neck by Starling's bullet -
silently falling to the ground -
STARLING
I killed a mother holding her child.
The lower animals don't do that. And I
regret it. I resent myself for it. But
I resent you, too - whichever of you
thinks that by attacking me, bad press
will go away. That Waco will go away. A
mayor's drug habit. All of it.
FLASHCUT to Drumgo, lying dead in the road, then back here
again to Starling, "watching" her in silence.
Noonan pokes his head in, gestures to Pearsall to join him
in the anteroom. Krendler invites himself along. Sneed and
Holcome get up and stare out the window. Eldredge paces, his
wingtips soundlessy dragging on the carpet.
WAYNE
I know you haven't had a chance to write
your 302 yet, Starling, but -
STARLING
I have, sir. A copy's on its way to
your office. I also have a copy with me
if you want to review it now. Everything
I did and saw.
She hands it to him. He begins leafing through it.
Pearsall and Krendler reappear -
PEARSALL
Assistant Director Noonan is on his way
back to his office, Gentlemen. I'm going
to call a halt to this meeting and get
back to you individually by phone.
Sneed cocks his head like a confused dog.
SNEED
We've got to decide some things here.
PEARSALL
No, we don't.
SNEED
Clint -
PEARSALL
Bob, believe me, we don't have to decide
anything right this second. I said I'll
get back to you.
(Pearsall's look to Starling
says she's free to leave; she
gets up)
And, Bob?
Pearsall grabs the wire behind Sneed's tie and pulls it down
hard, the adhesive tape taking some chest hair along with it -
judging from the grimace - as it comes away from his skin.
PEARSALL
You ever come in here wired again, I'll
stick it up your ass.
INT. HALL OUTSIDE - MOMENTS LATER
Krendler - the only man who didn't speak in the meeting -
idles outside. As Starling approaches -
KRENDLER
That was no free lunch, Starling.
I'll call you.
She keeps going. He admires the back of her legs.
EXT. COUNTRY CLUB - MIAMI - DAY
Jack Crawford misses a 20-foot putt by inches.
GOLF PAL
Oh ... bad luck, Jack.
Crawford stares at the missed shot. Then spikes across the
18th green, taps it in, and groans the way anyone over forty
does as he bends down to retrieve it.
Pocketing it he turns, sees Starling standing outside the
club house. She waves, bending just a couple of fingers, and
he smiles, pleased, but not surprised to see her.
EXT. MIAMI - DAY
Crawford and Starling driving in his car, the clubs in the
back seat. Palm trees float by.
STARLING
What's your handicap?
CRAWFORD
My handicap is I can't play golf.
STARLING
Maybe better clubs would help.
CRAWFORD
I play with the best clubs money can buy.
It's not the clubs, it's a woeful lack of
talent.
STARLING
Or interest.
He nods - yeah, that's the real problem with it - turns onto
another street.
CRAWFORD
Were my flowers at John's service okay?
Lot of times, flowers by wire, you never
know.
STARLING
They were canary daffodils.
(he groans)
I put your name on my flowers.
CRAWFORD
Thank you.
STARLING
Thank you. For the call. At the
Inquisition. I don't know what you said
to them, but it worked.
CRAWFORD
Don't thank me too quickly.
EXT. MIAMI - DAY
Downtown. Skyscrapers.
INT. BUILDING - DAY
Frameless glass doors in a sleek office building, etched:
Allied Security, Threat Assessment, Miami, Los Angeles, Rio
de Janeiro. Crawford holds one open for Starling and
follows her into a handsome reception area.
RECEPTIONIST
How was it? Better today?
CRAWFORD
The clubs are in the dumpster downstairs
if anyone wants them.
He leads Starling deeper into the place, past pairs of men
in nice suits conferring in the doorway of a kitchenette and
over by a long bank of filing cabinets. Male and female
secretaries move about.
CRAWFORD
Nice, huh? This could all be yours,
Starling. I can get you a PI ticket in
Florida tomorrow, you can chase insurance
scams, extortion against the cruise
lines, put down the gun and have some fun
with me.
Crawford accepts a handful of pink phone-message slips as
they come past his secretary's desk, holds another door open
and Starling steps into his office.
STARLING
Tempting.
CRAWFORD
Just wait.
The door closing softly behind her says, "expensive
hardware."
INT. CRAWFORD'S OFFICE - DAY
They sit, Crawford behind his mahogany desk, Starling in a
comfortable chair. As he rifles through the phone
messages -
CRAWFORD
The call I made wasn't to Assistant
Director Noonan. Whoever called him, I
don't know. I called Mason Verger.
He lets the name sink in, lets her dive for it, try to
place it. She can't. It's familiar but doesn't connect to
anything stable.
CRAWFORD
Lecter's fourth victim, Starling.
The one who lived, if you can call it
living. The rich one.
He slides over a couple of photographs of a young man with a
kind, trusting face. Now she remembers him.
CRAWFORD
I told Mason I wanted you off the
street. I told him what I told you when
I left the Bureau, "You go out with a gun
enough times, you will be killed by one."
I told him I want you where you belong,
in Behavioral Science. Know what he said?
STARLING
He can speak?
CRAWFORD
It's about the only thing he can do.
He said, after a very long pause, "Oh,
what a good idea, Jack."
(Crawford tries to smile)
Who he called, I don't know. Someone
higher up than anyone in that room with
you. Maybe Representative Vollmer, who
Mason may not own, but does rent from
time to time.
Silence as Starling tries to take it all in. She looks up
with a question forming in her mind, and Crawford nods before
she can say it. Very matter of fact -
CRAWFORD
Yeah, that's right, it means going back
on the Lecter case.
He busies himself with the phone messages again, arranging
them in little, prioritized piles on his desk, as if perhaps
this conversation is about nothing more important than a
simple missing person case.
STARLING
What if I said to you I'd rather not
do that? What if I said to you I prefer
the street?
CRAWFORD
You think this is a cheap deal? What
you were getting was a cheap deal. What
they say about federal examiners is true:
they arrive after the battle and bayonet
the wounded. You're not safe on the
street anymore.
Starling takes another look at the photographs of Verger.
STARLING
Has something happened on the case?
CRAWFORD
Has Lecter killed anybody lately? I
wouldn't know, I'm retired from all that.
Mason doesn't know either, but he does
apparently have some new information -
which he'll only share with you.
They consider one another for a long moment. Finally -
CRAWFORD
He's not pretty, Starling. And I don't
just mean his face.
EXT. MARYLAND - DAY
Bare trees. Overcast sky. Starling's Mustang growling along
the rain-slicked expressway.
INT. MUSTANG - MOVING - DAY
A Maryland state map spread out across the passenger seat.
Starling's eyes darting back and forth between the black and
red route-veins and the shrouded countryside out beyond the
slapping wiper blades.
An exit sign - and the exit itself - looms suddenly and
rushes across the right side of her windshield. She curses
to herself. It's the exit she wanted, but now it's gone,
shrinking in her rearview mirror into the mist.
EXT. THE VERGER ESTATE - DAY
Coming back the other way along a service road, Starling
slows to consider a chain-link gate stretched across a muddy
road, then continues on.
At the gate house of the main entrance, a security guard
checks her name against a list. He seems reluctant to get
himself or his clipboard wet, but not her identification,
handing it out past the edge of his umbrella to her.
The Mustang negotiates a long circuitous drive, taking her
deeper and deeper into vast forest land. Eventually, though,
a good mile from the gate house behind her, the trees give
way to a clearing, and she sees the big Stanford White-
designed mansion emerging from the mist up ahead.
A man waits under an umbrella out front, indicates to her
where to park - anywhere, one should think - there's enough
space for fifty cars - then comes around to the driver's side
and opens the door.
CORDELL
Ms. Starling. Hi. I'm Cordell. Mr.
Verger's private physician.
STARLING
How do you do?
She gathers her things out from under the map: file folder,
micro-cassette recorder, extra tapes and batteries. He helps
her out, then presses up against her to help maximize the
umbrella's effectiveness.
CORDELL
Shall we make a run for it?
As they hurry toward the porch - if it can be called a
porch, as grand an entrance as a king's, or English rock
star's manor - Starling notices the building's one modern
wing, sticking out like an extra limb attached in some
grotesque medical experiment.
INT. VERGER'S MANSION - DAY
They cross through a living room larger than most houses,
then down a hall, their shoes moving along a Moroccan runner,
sleeves past portraits of important-looking dead people.
As they cross a threshold there's an abrupt shear in style:
the rich carpet giving way to polished institutional floors,
the portrait-lined walls to shiny white enamel.
Cordell reaches for the handle of a closed door in the new
wing, and Starling notices line of lights appear around the
jamb where there were none.
As the door opens, she squints. Two small photographer's
spots on stands pitch narrow beams of light into her face and
seem to follow her progress into the room.
CORDELL
(a whisper)
One's eyes adjust to the darkness.
This way is better.
He leads her to a sitting area where a print of William
Blake's "The Ancient of Days" hangs above a large aquarium
divided in two by a wall of glass - an ell gliding around on
one side, a fish on the other. A bank of security monitors
completes the decor. To the spotlight -
CORDELL
Mr. Verger, Ms. Starling is here.
The light stands flank a hospital bed, the beams effectively
camouflaging the figure on it in their glare.
STARLING
Good morning, Mr. Verger.
MASON
Cordell, do you address a judge as Mr?
The voice is steady and resonant. An "educated" voice, not
unlike Lecter's. Before Cordell can answer him -
MASON
Agent Starling is her proper title,
not "Ms."
CORDELL
Agent Starling.
MASON
Correct. Good morning, Agent Starling.
Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.
STARLING
Thank you.
Starling sits with her things. Snaps open the little door of
her cassette recorder to verify there's a tape inside.
MASON
Was that a Mustang I heard out there?
STARLING
Yes, it was.
MASON
Five-liter?
STARLING
'88 Stroker.
MASON
Fast.
STARLING
Yes.
MASON
Where'd you get it?
STARLING
Dope auction.
MASON
Very good.
STARLING
Mr. Verger, the discussion we're going
to have is in the nature of a deposition.
I'll need to tape record it if that's all
right with you.
MASON
Cordell, I think you can leave us now.
CORDELL
I thought I might stay. Perhaps I could
be useful if -
MASON
You could be useful seeing about my
lunch.
Starling gets up, but not to see him out. Once he's gone -
STARLING
I'd like to attach this microphone to
your - clothing, or pillow - if you're
comfortable with that.
MASON
By all means.
She walks slowly toward the bed, or rather to the lights,
uncertain exactly what position Verger may be in - on his
back, his side; she has no way of knowing.
MASON
Here, this should make it easier.
A finger like a pale spider crab moves along the sheet and
depresses a button. The lights suddenly extinguish and
Starling's pupils dilate. As her eyes adjust to the darkness
Verger's face materializes in it like something dead rising
up through dark water:
Face is the wrong word. He has no face to speak of. No
skin, at least. Teeth he has. He looks like some kind of
creature that resides in the lowest depths of the sea.
She doesn't flinch. Maybe the hand with the microphone
recoils an inch or two, but that's it. She clips it to the
flannel lapel of his pajamas, drapes the skinny cord over the
side of the pillow and sets the recorder on the medical table
next to the bed.
MASON
You know, I thank God for what happened.
It was my salvation. Have you accepted
Jesus, Agent Starling? Do you have
faith?
STARLING
I was raised Lutheran.
MASON
That's not what I asked -
STARLING
This is Special Agent Clarice Starling,
FBI number 5143690, deposing Mason R.
Verger, Social Security number -
MASON
- 475-98-9823 -
STARLING
- at his home on the date stamped above,
sworn and attested.
(she drags over a chair)
Mr. Verger, you claim to have -
MASON
I want to tell you about summer camp.
It was a wonderful childhood experience -
STARLING
We can get to that later. The -
MASON
We can get to it now. You see, it all
comes to bear, it's where I met Jesus and
I'll never tell you anything more impor-
tant than that. It was a Christian camp
my father paid for. Paid for the whole
thing, all 125 campers on Lake Michigan.
Many of them were unfortunate, cast-off
little boys and girls would do anything
for a candy bar. Maybe I took advantage
of that. Maybe I was rough with them -
STARLING
Mr. Verger, I don't need to know about
the sex offenses. I just -
MASON
It's all right. I have immunity, so
it's all right now. I have immunity from
the U.S. Attorney. I have immunity from
the D.A. in Owings Mills. I have
immunity from the Risen Jesus and nobody
beats the Riz.
STARLING
What I'd like to know is if you'd ever
seen Dr. Lecter before the court assigned
you to him for therapy?
MASON
You mean - socially?
(laughs)
STARLING
That is what I mean, yes. Weren't you
both on the board of the Baltimore Phil-
harmonic?
MASON
Oh, no, my seat was just because my
family contributed. I sent my lawyer
when there was a vote.
STARLING
Then I'm not sure I understand how he
ended up at your house that night, if
you don't mind talking about it.
MASON
Not at all. I'm not ashamed.
STARLING
I didn't say you should be.
MASON
I invited him, of course. He was too
professional to just sort of "drop in."
I answered the door in my nicest come-
hither leather outfit.
FLASHCUT of the door opening, revealing Verger, in his
leather gear, his face young and pretty.
MASON
I was concerned he'd be afraid of me,
but he didn't seem to be. Afraid of me;
that's funny now.
FLASHCUT of Verger leading Lecter upstairs, each with a glass
of wine in hand.
MASON
I showed him my toys, my noose set-up
among other things - where you sort of
hang yourself but not really. It feels
good while you - you know.
FLASHCUT to some dogs watching Verger with the noose around
his neck, and Lecter offering him some amyl nitrite.
MASON
Anyway - he said, Would you like a
popper, Mason? I said, Would I. And
whoa, once that kicked in I knew it was
more than simple amyl, it was some kind
of custom meth-angel-acid highball.
Lovely. I was flying -
FLASHBACK to Mason's image in a full-length mirror shattering
as Lecter kicks it.
MASON'S VOICE
The good doctor came over with a piece
of broken mirror. Mason, he said -
LECTER
- show me how you smile to get the
confidence of a child.
Lecter holds a shard of mirror glass in front of him.
LECTER
Uh-huh. Do you ever smile? Oh, I see
how you do it.
Now Mason, let's say you had to hide
that kindly, fictitious mask? How would
you do it?
Verger tries to look serious, or mean, but his features are
just too sweet, even with a noose around his neck.
LECTER
No, I still see it. Try again.
(Verger tries again)
No. No, I'm afraid not. Try this.
(hands him the glass)
Try peeling off your face with this and
feeding it to the dogs.
As Verger lifts the broken glass to his face -
BACK TO the faceless Verger in the bed, his claw of a hand
gripping invisible glass -
MASON
Well, you know the rest.
(shrugs)
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Starling looks like someone who has just received much more
information than she ever needed or wanted. Cordell comes in
quietly with Verger's lunch on a rolling cart, and trying not
to interrupt, arranges the silverware and pours some water.
STARLING
Mr. Verger, you -
MASON
Are you shocked, Agent S?
STARLING
You indicated to -
(her eyes dart to the tape, and
his follow them)
- to my office - that you've received
some kind of new information.
MASON
Look in the drawer of the end table.
Starling takes out a pair of thin cotton gloves and puts
them on. In the drawer she finds a large manila envelope and
in it, an x-ray of an arm.
STARLING
Where did this come from?
MASON
Buenos Aires. I received it two weeks
ago.
STARLING
Where's the package it came in?
MASON
The package it came in... good question.
I don't know. There was nothing written
on it of interest. Did I throw it out?
Starling smells a rat, but keeps it to herself. Takes a
closer look at the x-ray while Cordell busies himself climb-
ing a step ladder next to the aquarium.
MASON
Think it will help? I hope so. I hope
it'll help you catch him, if for no other
reason than to heal the stigma of your
recent dishonor.
She switches off the tape recorder.
STARLING
Thank you, that's all I -
MASON
Did you feel some rapport with Dr.
Lecter in your talks at the asylum?
I know I did while I was peeling.
STARLING
We exchanged information in a civil way.
MASON
But always through the glass.
STARLING
Yes.
MASON
The eel and fish become accustomed to
each other through the glass. They're
even company for one another.
Cordell's gloved hand grips the snapper and transfers it to
the other side of the aquarium, where the eel at once rips a
piece out of it. Starling tries to ignore it and reaches to
unclip the microphone from Verger's pajames lapel.
MASON
Isn't it funny?
Nothing is particularly funny to her right now.
STARLING
What's that?
MASON
You can look at my face, but you shied
when I said the name of God.
INT. EVIDENCE STORAGE - QUANTICO - DAY
A clerk is cataloging strange items from another case as
Starling inspects what he brought her on Lecter. There's not
much there. One cardboard box-worth, some files, video tape.
CLERK
Not finding what you want?
STARLING
Are you sure this is all of it?
CLERK
That's all of it now. There used to be
more, but it's been picked over little by
little over the years. It's worth a lot
of money in certain circles. Like the
cocaine that disappears around here.
Little by little.
INT. BASEMENT - BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE - DAY
The room Starling's been given to work out of used to be
the department's basement darkroom. There's almost nothing
in it now. Couple of old enlargers, chemical trays, an ugly
rented couch, a metal desk, a computer, and a blackboard on
wheels she has chalked with the headings "Lecter" and
"Verger," a few scribbled notes under each name.
She's taken the video tape from the paltry contents of the
evidence box and puts in in a VCR. In a moment, a scene in
black and white, captured by a security camera at the
Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, plays out
in silence:
Lecter wired up for an EKG. A female nurse getting too
close. Lecter attacking her. Biting her. A black orderly
rushing in and roughly subduing him, breaking his arm in the
process, then attending to the fallen nurse.
INT. BASEMENT - BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE - LATER
A cursor blinks in a search panel. Starling types in
"Hannibal Lecter," enters it and waits.
The laptop screen fills with a listing of sites, the first
20 of 611,046, according to the engine. A banner to one side
offers, "Amazon.com ... Hannibal Lec ... Save up to 50% ...
Shop-4-Pokemon."
One of the listings is the FBI's own consumer site, others
refer to published articles by and about Lecter, but most
have names like, "Hannibal's Chamber of Horrors," and
"Fava Beans Anyone?"
Starling scrolls down to the bottom query panel to narrow
her search. Adds, "memorabilia," and hits Enter. The screen
fills with another listing of sites, like, "Kenny's Trading
Post," and, "World Wide Collectibles," with brief
descriptions of some of the wares offered:
"Credit card receipt from Dean & DeLuca w/genuine signature
of Hannibal Lecter, $550 OBO / PP."
"Mark McGuire 1998 season home run ball (#67), w/papers,
all reasonable offers considered."
"Flatware w/etched lions on handles, owned by Hannibal
Lecter. 24 pieces, one spoon missing. Real. No dealers.
$6,500."
"Hockey, basketball (and non-sports) trading cards."
"Lecter victim (#3) Sam Sirrah's death certificate. Not a
Xerox. Nice frame. Price upon request."
"Hannibal Lecter's '62 Mercedes. Really. Only two owners
since incarceration. Clean. 85,000."
"Valentine card from H. Lecter. Signed. Sweet sentiment.
Hate to part with it but need money. $950."
No x-rays. Starling thinks. Clears the address in the top
panel and types something else. A new screen appears, headed
with bold, colorful lettering: "eBay."
She types in "Hannibal Lecter" again. Hits the "Find it!"
button. An auction screen appears. 14 items. "H. Lecter x-
ray" second from the top. "Item #194482661." 61 bidders.
In red: "Ends in 49 Mins."
She highlights the item and is taken to the details screen.
Scrolls down. No photo, but there is a description: "Left
arm x-ray of Hannibal Lecter. Very rare. Slightly used
metal light box included."
She backs up to the previous screen. Last bid, "$7,200."
Next increment, $100. She types in "$10,000" and hits Enter.
INT. SCI-FI COMICS - DAY
Strange denizens - collectors - roam the shelves lined with
plastic-sheathed science fiction comic books - browsing and
humming - each in his own world.
In truth, they're not really browsing; they're stealing
glances at Starling, the only woman in the place, and the
most beautiful one any of them has ever seen in real life.
In truth, she isn't really browsing either. She's stealing
glances at the proprietor behind the glass-top, trading card-
filled, counter.
CUSTOMER
December you mean -
PROPRIETOR
No, not December. November. Volume
Four, Number Four. Worst. Issue. Ever.
The customer moves on. Starling wanders over and several
pairs of eyes wander with her. A tape of the X-Files plays
on a small television set at one end of the counter, which
the proprietor pays more attention to than her. Quietly -
STARLING
I'm interested in Hannibal Lecter
memorabilia.
The man's head slowly turns to her with the most withering
of looks. She's the last person on earth who'd be interested
in Hannibal Lecter memorabilia.
PROPRIETOR
I don't handle Hannibal Lecter
memorabilia. Hannibal Lecter memorabilia
- real Hannibal Lecter memorabilia -
would have to be stolen. I don't deal in
stolen goods. Try Sotheby's.
STARLING
I'm confused.
PROPRIETOR
You're a policeman, of course you're
confused.
STARLING
Not exactly.
PROPRIETOR
Oh, all right. Police woman. I keep
the politically-correct comics in the
back. By the toilet scrubber.
She show him her identification. Her FBI shield. Some
of the other customers see it, too, and - crushed - begin
gliding toward the door.
STARLING
I'm confused because I just paid you ten
thousand dollars for an x-ray of Hannibal
Lecter. I don't want to wait for you to
send it, I want to pick it up now.
The dime drops. Just a fleeting spark of realization.
PROPRIETOR
No, if you paid me ten thousand dollars
for an x-ray of Hannibal Lector, I would
possess a money order, or cashiers check,
for ten thousand dollars, which I do not.
You bid ten thousand dollars for an
x-ray of Hannibal Lecter. I've decided,
in the interim, not to sell it. You're
free to write a nasty comment about me
on the e-Bay message board.
STARLING
I'm free to write a nasty comment about
you on your arrest report.
PROPRIETOR
(sighs)
The x-ray I was thinking of selling,
but have now decided against, is not of
Hannibal Lecter. How do I know this?
Because it's of me. This arm.
(pointing to it, then to the
other one)
No, this one.
Now she sighs. She should just leave.
PROPRIETOR
Wait a minute. I know you.
(he brightens considerably)
You're -
He rummages behind the counter and comes up with a recent,
plastic-wrapped issue of the National Tattler tabloid, with
gory pictures of the shoot-out and the screaming headline -
"DEATH ANGEL: CLARICE STARLING, THE FBI'S KILLING MACHINE."
PROPRIETOR
Would you be so kind, Miss Starling,
as to sign this for me? I apologize for
my - um - my -
CUSTOMER'S VOICE (O.S.)
Rude -
PROPRIETOR
Rude - behavior - before.
He delicately slips the newspaper from its plastic cover.
Checks the condition of the tip of a fine-line Sharpie. His
eyes are eager now, his demeanor painfully solicitous, like a
sweetly disarming little boy waiting for the baseball players
to finish batting practive. Starling turns and leaves.
EXT. MARYLAND-MISERACORDIA GENERAL HOSPITAL - DAY
A wailing siren. Ambulance pulling up in front of an
Emergency Entrance. Paramedics climb out, hoist down a
gurney and the bleeding gunshot victim on in, and hurry him
in past the automatic doors. The doors thump shut.
A moment later they open again and an orderly - same one
from the tape - steps out, finished with his shift, coat over
his uniform. He hitches up his collar and steps out into the
drizzling rain as Starling, across the street in a hooded
sweatshirt, watches.
EXT. STREETS - LATER - DAY
The orderly moves along a wet sidewalk, heading home,
Starling following at a distance. He stops. She stops. He
glances to something in the middle of the street. A dead
dove, one wing fluttering in the wind. He looks up. Sees
its mate pacing on a wire. Car tires hiss past below.
Starling watches as he crosses to the center of the street,
picks up the dead dove and pockets it, crosses back and
continues on. She, and the surviving bird, follow.
INT. APARTMENT BUILDING - UPSTAIRS HALL - DAY
Starling knocks. Waits. The door opens and the orderly
peers out with the dead dove in his hands.
STARLING
Hi, Barney. I need to talk with -
BARNEY
Would you agree, for the record, Officer
Starling, I've not been read my rights?
STARLING
This is just informal. I just need to
ask you about some stuff.
BARNEY
How about saying it into your handbag?
Starling opens her purse and speaks down into it as though
there were a troll inside -
STARLING
I have not Mirandized Barney. He is
unaware of his rights.
Barney widens the door so she can come in.
INT. BARNEY'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS
Barney sets the dove on a desk and drags a computer mouse
to the "file close" x. Just before the screen reverts to the
AOL Welcome page, Starling glimpses the site he was on when
she interrupted him with her knock - stock quotes.
STARLING
How you been?
He doesn't answer. Sits his huge frame down on his desk
chair. She moves some newspapers aside on a couch, one of
which shows a photo of her from the Drumgo raid. They
consider each other for a moment. Eventually -
STARLING
Barney, back when you turned Dr. Lecter
over to the Tennessee Police -
BARNEY
They weren't civil to him. And they're
all dead now.
STARLING
Yeah. They only managed to survive his
company three days. You survived him six
years at the asylum. How'd you do that?
It wasn't just being civil.
BARNEY
Yes, it was.
They both hear something - a flutter - and glance out to the
fire escape. The dead dove's mate has landed on the railing.
STARLING
Did you ever think, once he escaped,
he might come after you?
BARNEY
No. He told me once that, whenever
feasible, he preferred to eat the rude.
"Free-range rude," he called them.
He smiles. Glances out the window again to the cooing dove.
Picks up the dead one, carries it out and sets it down on the
wet grating.
STARLING
Any idea what happened to all his stuff?
His books and papers and drawings and -
BARNEY
Everything got thrown out when the place
closed.
He comes back in. She starts to say something, hesitates.
Once she starts on this subject, she knows one of them will
wind up very unhappy.
STARLING
Barney, I just found out that Dr.
Lecter's signed copy of The Joy of
Cooking went to a private collector for
sixteen thousand dollars.
BARNEY
It was probably a fake.
STARLING
The seller's affidavit of ownership
was signed, Karen Phlox. You know Karen
Phlox? You should. "She" filled out
your employment application, only at the
bottom she signed it, Barney. Same thing
on your tax returns.
Long silence. Then Barney sighs.
BARNEY
You want the book? Maybe I could get
it back.
STARLING
I want the x-ray. From when you broke
his arm after he attacked that nurse.
Barney gets up again, but doesn't run off to get it. He
slowly paces around.
BARNEY
We talked about a lot of things, late at
night, after all the screaming died down.
We talked about you sometimes. Want to
know what he said?
STARLING
No, just the x-ray.
BARNEY
Is there a reward?
STARLING
Yeah. The reward is I don't have my
friend the Postal Inspector nail you on
Use of the Mails to Defraud, you don't
get ten years, and you don't come out
with a janitor's job and a room at the Y,
sitting on the side of your bunk at night
listening to yourself cough.
He stares at her, gets up finally, disappears into the
bedroom. Starling looks out to the fire escape again. The
surviving dove has dropped down and is now walking in circles
around its lifeless mate.
Barney returns with a file box and a large envelope. Hands
it all to her. She unfurls the string-clasp. Pulls out an x-
ray of an arm. A radiologist's and Lecter's names are on it.
BARNEY
I'm not a bad guy.
STARLING
I didn't say you were.
BARNEY
Dr. Chilton is a bad guy. After your
first visit, he began taping your conver-
sations with Dr. Lecter.
He produces from his jacket pocket several cassette tapes.
As he hands them to her -
BARNEY
I was good to you. Tried to make it
easy for you the first time you came down
to the violent ward to interview Dr.
Lecter. Remember?
STARLING
Yes.
BARNEY
You remember saying thank you?
She doesn't because she didn't, and now regrets it.
STARLING
I'm sorry. Thank you.
BARNEY
You mean it?
STARLING
Yes.
BARNEY
I'm going to show you something then.
I don't have to show it to you, remember
that. But I believe your gratitude is
sincere.
He goes to a fuse box on the wall. Takes something out of
it. Turns around to face Starling, wearing the famous mask
from Silence of the Lambs, and her hand flashes toward her
sidearm, a movement quickly stopped.
BARNEY
This is my retirement fund.
(removes the mask)
If you'll let me keep it. I can a lot
of money for this and get out of here for
good. I want to travel, and see every
Vermeer in the world before I die.
She thinks about it, doesn't immediately answer him. He
walks out onto the fire escape again and addresses the bird -
BARNEY
Go on. You've grieved long enough.
He shoos the dove away, picks up the dead one, comes back
in and drops it in the wastebasket by his desk.
STARLING
What did he say? About me? Late at
night.
BARNEY
We were talking about inherited, hard-
wired behavior. He was using genetics in
roller pigeons as an example.
They go way up in the air and roll over
backwards in a display, falling toward
the ground. There are shallow rollers
and deep rollers. You can't breed two
deep rollers or the offspring will roll
all the way down, crash and die. He
said, "Officer Starling is a deep roller,
Barney. Let's hope one of her parents
was not."
As Starling gets up and gathers everything except the mask,
she hears the surviving dove call out once from somewhere in
the trees.
INT. FBI LAB - DAY
The two x-rays, one overlaid on the other, clipped to a
light box. A technician adjusts them so the bone structures
correspond in position as closely as possible and points out
to Starling -
TECHNICIAN
They're the same arm. The discrepancy is
the dates. This one -
He slides the x-rays apart, touches a thin gray line on one
of them -
TECHNICIAN
- shows the hairline fracture he
sustained in the fight with the orderly.
This one -
(the other x-ray)
- the more recent one, supposedly,
doesn't. This is the newer of the two -
(the other one)
- the one from the asylum.
INT. BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE - LATER
Starling puts the earliest-dated cassette into a player,
presses "play," walks up to the blackboard and under Verger's
heading - below "Meat-packing heir" and some other notes -
writes, "He lies." From the tape player -
LECTER'S VOICE
Surely the odd confluence of events
hasn't escaped you, Clarice. Jack Craw-
ford dangles you in front of me, then I
give you a bit of help. Do you think
it's because I like to look at you and
imagine how good you would taste?
There's a pause. Starling, remembering the moment clearly
even now, mouths along with her recorded voice -
STARLING'S VOICE
I don't know. Is it?
INT. CELL - BALTIMORE STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE CRIMINALLY
INSANE - DAY - (FLASHBACK - 1994)
It's Lecter's cell. And it's almost pitch black. Then,
as he turns a rheostat, the lights slowly rise, revealing the
cell to be almost empty, stripped of its books. He's lying
on his cot.
LECTER
I've been in this room for eight years,
Clarice. I know they will never - ever -
let me out while I'm alive. What I want
... is a view.
EXT. FLORENCE - DAY
One of the most magnificent views in the world.
Drifting across it, then down, reveals a piazza below.
Outside a cafe, a figure in a dark overcoat, his back to us,
drops crumbs to a hundred pigeons surrounding him.
Closer, the pigeons swirl around his shoes. And slowly the
figure turns to face us. It's not Hannibal Lecter. It's
someone we don't recognize.
He lets go the last of the crumbs, brushes his gloves
together, and crosses toward the ancient Palazzo Vecchio,
glancing once at its high, stone walls and arched windows,
its medieval bell tower soaring into the sky.
INT. PALAZZO VECCHIO - DAY
Checking his watch, but in no hurry, he climbs a flight
of marble steps. Unlike here, one more often smokes indoors
than out, and the man lights an MS cigarette, his reward for
reaching the landing.
ECHOING VOICE
The Capponi correspondence goes back to
the 13th Century. Dr. Fell might hold in
his hand, in his non-Italian hand, a note
from Dante Alighieri himself, but would
he recognize it? I think not -
He follows the echoing voice to the open doorway of a large
frescoed room, the Salon of Lilies, where another gentleman,
loitering outside it, pats at his pockets. The man we've
been following offers, along with an outstretched hand
holding his pack of cigarettes -
PAZZI
They're still arguing.
RICCI
(nodding)
The curatorship. Sogliato wants the
job for his nephew. The scholars seem
satisfied with the temporary guy they
appointed.
Pazzi lights Ricci, glances down the hall to the far end,
where a janitor slowly guides a floor polisher back and forth
like a big, weak motorcycle, then crosses to and peers into
the Salon:
It's under long-term restoration, scaffolding everywhere.
A large assembly of men ranging in age from middle-aged to
the Middle Ages, it seems, are gathered around a long 12th-
century table. The echoing voice belongs to -
SOGLIATO
You have examined him in medieval
Italian, and I'll not deny his language
is admirable. For a straniero. But what
if he came upon a note in the Capponi
library, say, from Guido de'Cavalcanti to
Dante? Would he recognize it? I think
not.
Pazzi isn't sure which one is Fell. Scanning the room
from the doorway, he tries to locate the source of the voice,
but it's difficult, the high ceillings playing hell with the
acoustics -
DR. FELL
Professor Sogliato, if I might.
Cavalcanti, as we all know, replied
publicly to Dante's first sonnet in La
Vita Nuova. If he commented privately as
well, if he wrote to a Cappono, to which
would it be? In your opinion?
(Sogliato clearly can't even
name the Capponi)
No? Not even a guess? Andrea, don't you
think? Since he was more literary than
his brothers.
Several of the other scholars nod their heads in agreement,
which only embarrasses Sogliato more. Pazzi knows which man
at the table Fell is now, however he - and we - still can't
see his face, seated as he is with his back to the door.
SOGLIATO
If he is such an expert on Dante let
him lecture on Dante - to the Studiolo.
Let him face them, if he can.
DR. FELL
I'd look forward to it. Shall we set
the date now?
Sogliato has had enough and gets up, noisily gathering his
things. As the meeting breaks up some of the other committee
members shake Fell's hand. Pazzi comes in and approaches
Fell - from behind - as the others straggle out.
PAZZI
Dr. Fell?
Fell turns. Of course, it's Hannibal Lecter.
PAZZI
Chief Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi of the
Questura.
DR. FELL
(shaking his hand)
Commendatore. How can I be of service?
PAZZI
I'm investigating the disappearance of
your predecessor, Signore de Bonaventura.
I was wondering if -
DR. FELL
Predecessor implies I have the job.
Unfortunately, I don't. Not yet. Though
I'm hopeful. They are letting me look
after the library. For a stipend.
Fell begins gathering his books and papers, placing them
neatly in his satchel.
PAZZI
Yes. Well -
DR. FELL
What do you think happened to him?
PAZZI
To your - to the Signore - who can say?
Perhaps he ran off. Bad debts. Bad love
affair. I was wondering if you might -
DR. FELL
Not another victim of Il Mostro?
PAZZI
What? No. That I'm sure. We find Il
Mostro's victims. He makes sure we find
them.
DR. FELL
Or she.
PAZZI
Or she.
DR. FELL
I never actually met Signore de
Bonaventura. I have read several of his
monographs in the Nuova Antologia.
PAZZI
The officers who first checked, didn't
find any sort of - farewell or - suicide
note. I was wondering if -
DR. FELL
If I happen to come across anything in
the Capponi Library, stuffed in a book or
a drawer - yes, I'll call you at once.
He accepts Pazzi's card and slips it under a paperclip
holding some of his notes together.
PAZZI
Thank -
DR. FELL
You've been reassigned.
Pazzi was just turning to leave. Turns back.
PAZZI
Pardon?
DR. FELL
You were on the Il Mostro case, I'm sure
I read.
PAZZI
That's right.
And it was a humiliation being taken off of it, which he
would no doubt rather not discuss here.
DR. FELL
Now you're on this. This is much less -
grand - a case, I would think.
PAZZI
If I thought of my work in those terms,
yes, I guess I'd agree.
DR. FELL
A missing person.
Fell says it like it's not worth saying. Pazzi's had enough
and turns to leave again.
DR. FELL
Were you unfairly dismissed from the
grander case? Or did you deserve it?
Pazzi looks back again. Fell isn't even looking at him;
putting things in his case.
PAZZI
Regarding this one, Dr. Fell. Are the
Signore's personal effects still at the
Palazzo?
DR. FELL
Packed neatly in two cases with an
inventory. Alas, no note.
PAZZI
I'll send someone over to pick them up.
Thank you for your help.
He starts to leave again.
DR. FELL
Have you thought about Botticelli?
Pazzi looks back again. What is Fell talking about?
PAZZI
Not since middle school art class, I'm
afraid.
DR. FELL
Those awful pictures in the papers
of The Monster's victims. His careful
arrangement of the young lovers' bodies.
The flowers. The women's exposed left
breast. The tableaux remind me of
Botticelli. Don't they, you?
Frankly, it never occurred to him. Fell points to a place
just behind Pazzi and he turns to see a beautiful Botticelli
in a carved gold frame, the woman lying in flowers, her left
breast exposed. Fell shrugs as he closes his satchel.
DR. FELL
Maybe a clue.
EXT. FELL'S RESIDENCE - NIGHT
A row of family palaces in an ancient street. A figure
walking on the cobblestones. Only vaguely familiar, his path
leads us to the front of an old residence, its windows behind
iron grates, all but one on an upper floor dark. The figure
continues on down the street, but we go inside -
INT. FELL'S RESIDENCE - NIGHT
Even though the foyer is dark, we can tell it's large and
high-ceilinged. We become aware of music - Bach's Goldberg
Variations - but can't be sure where it's coming from.
We notice a staircase and decide to climb it. It's longer
than we thought at first - its steps made of thick slabs of
ancient stone, its rail of cold hammered iron.
We reach the landing. Notice a small darkened room to
one side. But the music seems to be coming from elsewhere, so
we continue on, down the hall to a pair of tall double doors,
open, allowing us into the main salon. The music seems to be
coming from somewhere in here.
We move through the room, illuminated only faintly by the
occasional candle, look up to see that the height of the room
disappears into darkness, then down again as we are almost
upon the figure sitting at a piano.
Lecter's fingers move among the yellowed ivory keys. He
plays the Bach piece well, every so often glancing to a lyre-
shaped music stand. But coming slowing around the stand, we
discover there is no sheet music on it, but instead a copy of
the National Tattler with a picture of a black woman dead in
the street, and another picture of Clarice Starling - the
FBI's "ANGEL OF DEATH" - washing down a baby next to the
head of a shark.
LECTER'S VOICE
Dear Clarice, I have followed with
enthusiasm the course of your disgrace
and public shaming. My own never
bothered me, except for the inconvenience
of being incarcerated, but you may lack
perspective -
The music continues over:
INT. FELL'S RESIDENCE - LATER - NIGHT
Sitting at a 16th Century refectory table in a pool of lamp
light, Lecter dips the tip of a fountain pen into an etched
glass bottle of ink and signs the letter he has just written.
LECTER'S VOICE
In our discussions down in the dungeon,
it was apparent to me that your father -
the dead night watchman - figures large
in your value system.
He adds a brief post-script, folds the linen-fiber paper over
once, careful to line up the edges, gives it a sharp crease.
LECTER'S VOICE
I think your success in putting an end to
Jame Gumb's career as a couturier pleased
you most because you could imagine your
father being pleased.
He places the letter in an envelope that is already addressed
to Special Agent Clarice Starling, and seals it with wax. He
places it into another, slightly larger envelope that already
has written on it a Las Vegas, Nevada, address.
EXT. FLORENCE - DAY
Lecter strolls across a bridge over the Arno and drops his
envelope into a post box on the other side.
LECTER'S VOICE
Now you are in bad odour with the
FBI, alas. Do you imagine Daddy shamed
by your disgrace? Do you see him in his
plain pine box, crushed by your failure?
The sorry, petty end of a promising
career?
EXT. LAS VEGAS - DAY
A U.S. Mail carrier's truck pulls into the parking lot of a
strip mall.
LECTER'S VOICE
Do you dream now, not of screaming
lambs, but of yourself doing the menial
tasks your mother was reduced to after
the addicts busted a cap on Daddy?
INT. RE-MAILING SERVICE - LAS VEGAS - DAY
Piles of mail on the counter. A middle-aged man slits open
the envelope from Italy, takes out the smaller envelope, puts
a stamp on it, drops it onto a pile of outgoing mail and
throws the larger envelope away.
LECTER'S VOICE
What is worst about this humiliation?
Is it how your failure will reflect on
them? Is your worst fear that people
will forever now believe your parents
were indeed trailer camp tornado-bait
white trash? That you are? Hmmm?
INT. FBI BASEMENT - DAY
The letter is among stacks of others in a metal cart as it is
wheeled along a basement corridor.
LECTER'S VOICE
I couldn't help noticing on its rather
dull public web site, Clarice, that I've
been hoisted from the Bureau's Archives
of the Common Criminal up to the more
prestigious 10 Most Wanted list.
The mail cart comes to and past a door on which, instead of
a nameplate, is Scotch-taped a piece of legal pad paper with
one hand-scrawled word: "Starling."
LECTER'S VOICE
Coincidence? Or are you "back on the
case?"
INT. STARLING'S LECTEREUM - CONTINUOUS
The mail room boy navigates the short maze of black right-
angled darkroom walls that lead to the room itself.
LECTER'S VOICE
I imagine you sitting in a dark base-
ment room, bent over papers and computer
screens at clerk's distances that mocks
the prairie distance in your eyes. A
zoo hawk, one wing hanging down.
The mail room boy sets three or four things down on
Starling's desk.
LECTER'S VOICE
Is that fairly accurate? Tell me
truly, Special Agent Starling. Regards,
Hannibal Lecter, M.D.
The music ends. To the mail room boy -
STARLING
Thanks.
He doesn't immediately leave. He watches her tack to a
bulletin board the last of several newspaper clippings and
Internet downloads of grisly unsolved murders world-wide.
GEOFFREY
How's it going? Any leads?
STARLING
They're all leads. They just don't lead
to him.
She sits at her desk to take a look at the mail. Geoffrey
wanders over to take a look at the clippings. He grimaces at
one of them.
GEOFFREY
I don't know how you live with this
stuff.
STARLING
Oh, God.
He turns. She's looking at one of her pieces of mail.
STARLING
It's from the Guinness Book of World
Records congratulating me on being "The
Female FBI Agent Who Has Shot The Most
People."
She throws it in the wastebasket, picks up the envelope
with the wax seal and fine copperplate writing, and somehow
immediately knows who it's from.
STARLING
Geoffrey - ? Would you excuse me.
He sees she isn't looking at him. Leaves with his cart.
Annoyed at herself for getting her paw prints all over the
letter, she reaches for her key chain, slits the envelope
with the Swiss Army knife on it, and extracts and unfolds the
letter with the blade. As she reads it, there is a faint
echoing refrain of Bach's Goldberg Variations, and -
LECTER'S VOICE
P.S. Clearly this new assignment is
not your choice. Rather, it is part of
"the bargain." But you accepted it,
Clarice. Your job is to craft my doom.
As such, I'm not sure how well to wish
you. Ta-ta. H.
INT. FBI LAB - DAY
Digitized images of the letter alongside "Early Lecter"
handwriting samples on a computer monitor.
TECHNICIAN
The letter was written by Lecter, but
you could probably tell that just from
reading it.
Starling nods. Other images replace the writing analyses:
sets of fingerprints.
TECHNICIAN
Naturally, there were several prints on
the envelope, including yours -
STARLING
- sorry -
TECHNICIAN
On the letter itself there's only one
"partial" - here - not enough to hold up
in court, but -
STARLING
We know it's him. Where he was when
he wrote it is what I need.
The image changes again - a greatly magnified patch of the
letter that reads, "screaming lambs."
TECHNICIAN
The paper isn't going to help. Yes, it's
linen fiber. Yes, it's on the expensive
side. No, it's not so rare that you
couldn't find it in a thousand stationery
stores the world over.
Same with the ink. Same with the wax.
(an image of the envelope
appears on the monitor)
The post mark. Las Vegas. You could
check it out, but odds are it came from a
a re-mailing service. Afraid you're out of
luck.
STARLING
What about the crease?
TECHNICIAN
The what?
INT. PERFUMERY - NEW JERSEY - DAY
Stainless stell tweezers pluck the letter from the evidence
bag and hold it, crease up, under an enormous nose. The nose
sniffs only once, but long, taking in a faint, pleasant aroma
of residue and a lot of air.
The hand clutching the tweezers clutching the letter are
passed to another - feminine - hand, which holds it up to
another enormous nose with wide nostrils. This nose sniffs
once and hands the tweezers to another - masculine - hand.
This one lifts the letter to the biggest nose of all.
BIGGEST NOSE
Hand soap ... Raw ambergris base ...
Tennessee lavender ... mountain sage ...
trace of something else ...
LESS BIGGEST NOSE
Fleece.
LEAST BIGGEST NOSE
Fleece.
BIGGEST NOSE
It's fleece, isn't it. Lovely.
The other two "perfume engineers" nod. All three, and
Starling, are sitting in a sterile laboratory environment.
STARLING
What's ambergris?
BIGGEST NOSE
Ambergris is a whale product. Alas,
much as we'd like to, we can't import it.
Endangered Species Act.
The other two shake their heads as if to say, What a load of
crap that Endangered Species Act is.
STARLING
Where isn't it illegal?
BIGGEST NOSE
Japan, of course. Couple of places in
Europe. You'd almost certainly find it
somewhere in Paris. Rome. Amsterdam.
LESS BIGGEST NOSE
Maybe London.
LEAST BIGGEST NOSE
But not at Harrod's. Small, exclusive
shops. This bouquet was hand-engineered
to someone's specifications.
STARLING
Is there any way of knowing which shops?
BIGGEST NOSE
Of course. We'll give you a list.
It'll be short.
The Biggest Nose can't resist taking one last savoring sniff
before returning the letter to the plastic bag.
EXT. FLORENCE - DAY
Vespas, Fiats and Innocenti speed around a traffic circle.
Pedestrians move along the boulevard. We follow one man who
seems vaguely familiar - we glimpsed him briefly several days
ago walking past Fell's residence just before we went in, and
once before that, if we recall, polishing the floor in the
Palazzo Vecchio.
Right now, though, we're more interested in Pazzi who joins
the frame coming toward us, and we follow him instead, to and
up the steps of the Questura building.
INT. QUESTURA - DAY
A black and white step-framed image of Dr. Fell entering a
small perfume shop. It plays on a monitor sitting atop two
VCR decks, one on Play, the other Record, the operator, a
young agent, smoking as he writes out a label.
Pazzi hangs his coat on a rack, crosses through the large
room, and sits at his desk which happens to be right next to
the VCR, which he pays no attention to. At the next desk,
Ricci sits working on a crossword puzzle.
PAZZI
I need opera tickets.
RICCI
(without looking up)
Don't think I have any on me.
PAZZI
It's sold out, whatever it's called.
A couple of Pazzi's colleagues, ones who are now working on
the Il Mostro case instead of him, surrounded by
photographs and clippings on the crimes, exchange a look.
DETECTIVE
It's the pretty young wife with the
ever-open beak who needs opera tickets.
Pazzi glances over at them, not sure he heard right. One
sneaks a glance at the other. It's all they can do to keep
from laughing. The tape of the customers coming and going
at the perfume store contines, but Pazzi doesn't notice.
PAZZI
Botticelli.
DETECTIVE
What?
PAZZI
He arranges his victims like that
Botticelli painting. You hadn't noticed?
As Pazzi glances away from them, he catches a glimpse of the
monitor, of Fell coming into the perfume shop again. He gets
up and the Il Mostro detectives, thinking he's coming for
them, decide to go out for coffee.
PAZZI
Back that up.
YOUNG AGENT
What? I can't back it up. I'm making a
copy. I'm recording.
The black and white images of customers, most of them women,
continue, until Pazzi hits the stop button and spins the jog.
The young agent groans, but not too loud; Pazzi far outranks
him. The image reverses. Pazzi freezes it on one of the
step frames that shows Dr. Fell.
PAZZI
What is this?
YOUNG AGENT
Security camera from a perfume shop on
Villa Della Scula. FBI through Interpol
requested a copy.
PAZZI
Why?
YOUNG AGENT
They didn't say.
PAZZI
They didn't say?
YOUNG AGENT
It was actually kind of weird. Like
they were making a point of not saying.
Pazzi unpauses it. Watches Fell approach the counter and
then wait, it seems, for a long time as the perfumer mixes up
some kind of concoction. Money exchanges hands and Fell,
with his purchase, leaves.
INT. PAZZI'S APARTMENT - STUDY - NIGHT
As a search engine works, Pazzi glances down at copies of
Fell's state work permit and Permesso di Soggiorno resting
next to the computer. The video cassette is there, too.
And the over-night mailer.
The FBI's consumer home page appears on the screen. Pazzi
selects the 10 Most Wanted button, and in a moment, the list
- with pictures - is displayed.
The World Trade Center bombing mastermind is #1. Beneath
him, nine other, lesser bombers and murderers, none of whom
look anything like Fell.
He shifts back to the main page. Selects Archives. The
50 Most Wanted list appears - bank robbers and killers and
arsonists, all with photos or police sketches, all but one
man. He scrolls down, stops. Dr. Fell - Hannibal Lecter -
"Hannibal the Cannibal" - is looking right at him.
ALLEGRA
Rinaldo.
He doesn't seem to hear her as he begins reading the text
under Lecter's digitally-enhanced picture.
ALLEGRA
Rinaldo.
He glances up finally. His young wife - who is indeed pretty
- stands in the doorway of the study.
PAZZI
I'm sorry.
ALLEGRA
Are we going to the Teatro Michahelles?
PAZZI
Yes.
ALLEGRA
You got tickets.
PAZZI
No. But I will. In fact, I was just
about to look here.
(on the Internet)
ALLEGRA
Please not the third balcony. I would
like to see it.
PAZZI
Not in the balcony. No matter what the
cost.
Unconvinced the promise will hold, she leaves the room.
Pazzi opens his filofax to the F tab, finds a number written
under no heading, a code, enters it into his computer and in
a moment is taken to the FBI's private VICAP site - Violent
Criminal Apprehensopn Program.
He types in Lecter and scans the internal 302 reports that
are displayed, many of them prepared by Special Agent Clarice
Starling.
He returns to the server screen. Begins a new search.
Hannibal Lecter. Many of the same sites Starling found are
listed, the ones posted by nuts.
He scrolls down to the Refine Search panel. Adds one word
to his Hannibal Lecter query. Reward. Hits Return.
Only one site includes the word in its page name. Pazzi goes
to it. No graphics other than the same picture the FBI site
showed. No indication of whose site it is.
Dry text describes Lecter, reminds the reader he should be
regarded as armed and dangerous, and encourages informants to
call the provided FBI number with any information.
There is also a private number listed - European dialing
code, not U.S. Oh, and one more small piece of information.
The reward. $3,000,000.
INT. STARLING'S LECTEREUM - DAY
The place is looking more and more like a museum, the
bulletin and blackboards covered now with notes and newsprint
photos, including some of Il Mostro's young victims.
Paul Krendler makes his way through the right-angled
passageway leading into the darkened room. The only light is
coming from a monitor showing Lecter's escape from Memphis,
as caught by high-angle security cameras.
He considers a display Starling has erected to Lecter's nine
known victims. One is Mason Verger. Another, a man attached
to a tool shop peg board with metal rods piercing his body as
in an illustration next to it of the medieval Wound Man.
He becomes intrigued by a sketch on a standing easel of
Starling, signed by Hannibal Lecter. A piece of cloth has
been tacked at the neck and drapes down like a sari. Is she
naked underneath it? Krendler has to find out. As he
carefully lifts the cloth -
LECTER'S VOICE
What is your worst memory of childhood?
He jumps, startled, sees Starling sitting in a corner, in the
shadows, next to the cassette deck.
STARLING
Can I help you, Mr. Krendler?
KRENDLER
Jesus. What are you doing sitting there
in the dark?
STARLING
Thinking.
She gets up. Lets the tape of Lecter's voice continue.
Krendler works at slowing the pace of his heart, at regaining
most of his unpleasant hauteur.
KRENDLER
Some people in Justice are thinking,
too. They're thinking, what exactly is
she doing about Lecter?
STARLING
Thinking. About cannibalism.
KRENDLER
What's the point of that, are you
catching a crook, or writing a book?
STARLING
Aren't you curious why he dines on his
victims?
KRENDLER
Not particularly, no.
STARLING
To show his contempt for those who
exasperate him, I think.
Which she wouldn't mind showing Krendler in similar fashion.
STARLING
Or, sometimes, to perform a public
service. In the case of the flautist,
Benjamin Raspail -
(shows him a picture)
- he did it to improve the sound of the
Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra, serving
the not-so-talented flute player's sweet-
breads to the board with a nice Chateau
d'Y quem at forty-six hundred dollars a
bottle. That meal began with green
oysters from the Gironde, followed by the
sweetbreads, a sorbet and then, you can
read here in Town & Country: A notable
dark and glossy ragout, the constituents
never determined, on saffron rice. Its
taste was darkly thrilling with great
bass tones that only the vast and careful
reduction of the fond can give.
Krendler is looking at her, not at the magazine. Then -
KRENDLER
I always figured him for a queer.
STARLING
Now why would you say that, Paul?
KRENDLER
All this artsy-fartsy stuff. Chamber
music and tea-party food. Not that I
mean anything personal
lot of sympathy for those people.
There wasn't a lot of spin on his words, but they carried an
inkling of implication which she doesn't misinterpret. She
ignores it, though, and him, looks through her receipts.
KRENDLER
What I came here to impress upon you,
Starling, is I'd better see cooperation.
There are no little fiefdoms. I want to
be copied on every 302. Work with me and
your so-called career here might improve.
If you don't, all I have to do is draw a
line through your name rather than under
it, and it's over.
He turns to leave.
STARLING
Paul? What is it with you? I told you
to go home to your wife. That was wrong?
KRENDLER
Don't flatter yourself, Starling. Why
would I hold that against you? That was
a long time ago, and besides, this town
is full of cornpone country pussy.
He seems pleased he came up with the phrase so easily.
KRENDLER
That said, I wouldn't mind having a go
with you now if you want to reconsider.
STARLING
In the gym, anytime. No pads.
He smiles. Leaves. She sits down at her desk, listens
to his footsteps down the hall fade, glances at the tape of
Lecter's escape.
EXT. FLORENCE - DAY
A fistful of 1,000-lira coins makes a dull ching as Pazzi
shakes them in his hand like dice he's not sure he wants to
throw. He's staring at a pay phone ten paces away. No one's
using it. It's his if he wants it; clearly he isn't sure.
He finally walks over to it. Lifts the receiver. Presses
in the sequence of numbers scribbled in pen on the back of
the hand that holds the change.
A series of long distance tones beeps like a tinny death
knell. A tinny recorded voice tells him to deposit 9,000-
lira for the first three minutes.
He drops nine coins in the slot with a shaky hand. The
call connects and another recorded voice tells him the number
he has dialed is no longer in service.
He hangs up, relieved. Begins to walk away with his so-
called reputation intact. The phone rings. He looks back at
it. It rings again. He begins to walk toward it. It rings
again. He reaches for it, hesitates, picks it up, and hears
a voice - not recorded - American accent - a man.
VOICE
Yes?
(Pazzi doesn't answer)
Hel-lo?
PAZZI
I have information about Hannibal Lecter.
VOICE
Does it include where he is now?
PAZZI
Is the reward still in effect?
VOICE
Yes, it is. Have you shared your infor-
mation with the police, sir?
PAZZI
No.
VOICE
I'm required to encourage you to do so.
PAZZI
Uh-huh. Is the reward payable under ...
special circumstances?
VOICE
Do you mean a bounty? It's against
international convention and U.S. Law to
offer a bounty for someone's death, sir.
PAZZI
I mean in the case of, say, someone
who might not ordinarily be eligible to
accept a reward.
VOICE
May I suggest you contact an attorney,
sir, before taking any possible-illegal
action? There's one in Geneva who's
excellent in these matters.
May I recommend an attorney? May I give
you his toll-free number?
The voice enunciates the number clearly. Pazzi writes it on
the back of his hand next to the other one, the pen shaking.
VOICE
Thank you for calling.
The call disconnects. Pazzi takes a breath. Crosses the
street to another pay phone. Dials the toll-free number and
pockets the coins. The call connects. Another male voice.
This one with a dry, Swiss, lawyerly tone:
VOICE 2
Hello -
PAZZI
Yes. I was just speaking with someone
who suggested I -
VOICE 2
There is a one hundred thousand dollar
advance. To qualify for the advance, a
fingerprint must be provided - in situ -
on an object -
(the voice is a recording)
Once the print is positively identified,
the balance of the money will be placed
in escrow at Geneva Credit Suisse, and
may be viewed at any time subject to 24-
hour-prior-notification. To repeat this
message in French, press 2. In Spanish,
press 3. In German, press 4. In
Japanese -
INT. CAFE RESTROOM - LATER - DAY
Pazzi scrubs at his hands like Lady Macbeth, trying to get
the stain of the phone numbers off his skin, the black ink
clouding the water pooling in the sink before going down
the drain.
 |
| Itsukushima Shrine. |
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