H A N N I B A L
Screenplay
by
Steven Zaillian
Based on the Novel
by
Thomas Harris
Revision
February 9, 2000
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, if you've got a
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.
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