Hannibal - Thomas Harris [133]
Dr Lecter came out of the scrub room and started down the corridor to Suite A. Door on the left. The sign said MRI. Keep going. The next door was Dispensary. They had split the space on the plan into a lab for magnetic resonance imaging and a separate drug storage area.
The heavy dispensary door was open, wedged with a doorstop. Dr Lecter ducked quickly into the room and pulled the door closed behind him.
A pudgy male pharmacist was squatting, putting something on a low shelf.
“Can I help you, Doctor?”
“Yes, please.”
The young man started to stand, but never made it. Thump of the sap, and the pharmacist broke wind as he folded on the floor.
Dr Lecter raised the tail of his surgical blouse and tucked it behind the gardener's apron he wore beneath.
Up and down the shelves fast, reading labels at lightning speed; Ambien, amobarbital, Amytal, chloral hydrate, Dalmane, flurazepam, Halcion, and raking dozens of vials into his pockets. Then he was in the refrigerator, reading and raking, midazolam, Noctec, scopolamine, Pentothal, quazepam, solzidem. In less than forty seconds, Dr Lecter was back in the hall, closing the dispensary door behind him.
He passed back through the scrub room and checked himself for lumps in the mirrors. Without haste, back through the swinging doors, his ID tag deliberately twisted upside down, mask on and the glasses down over his eyes, binocular lenses raised, pulse seventytwo, exchanging gruff greetings with other doctors. Down in the elevator, down and down, mask still on, looking at a clipboard he had picked up at random..Visitors coming in might have thought it odd that he wore his surgical mask until he was well down the steps and away from the security cameras. Idlers on the street might have wondered why a doctor would drive such a ratty old truck.
Back in the surgical suite an anesthesiologist, after pecking impatiently on the door of the dispensary, found the pharmacist still unconscious and it was another fifteen minutes before the drugs were missed.
When Dr Silverman came to, he had slumped to the floor beside the toilet with his pants down. He had no memory of coming into the room and had no idea where he was. He thought he might have had a cerebral event, possibly a strokelet occasioned by the strain of a bowel movement. He was very leery of moving for fear of dislodging a clot. He eased himself along the floor until he could put his hand out into the hall. Examination revealed a mild concussion.
Dr Lecter made two more stops before he went home. He paused at a mail drop in suburban Baltimore long enough to pick up a package he had ordered on the Internet from a funeral supply company. It was a tuxedo with the shirt and tie already installed, and the whole split up the back.
All he needed now was the wine, something truly, truly festive. For that he had to go to Annapolis. It would have been nice to have had the Jaguar for the drive.
Hannibal
Chapter 75
KRENDLER WAS dressed for jogging in the cold and had to unzip his running suit to keep from overheating when Eric Pickford called him at his Georgetown home.
“Eric, go to the cafeteria and call me on a pay phone.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Krendler?”
“Just do what I tell you.”
Krendler pulled off his headband and gloves and dropped them on the piano in his living room. With one finger he pecked out the theme from Dragnet until the conversation resumed: "Starling was a techie, Eric. We don't know how she might have rigged her phones.
We'll keep the government's business secure."
“Yes, sir.”
“Starling called me, Mr. Krendler. She wanted her plant and stuff - that stupid weather bird that drinks out of the glass. But she told me something that worked. She said to discount the last digit on the zip codes for the suspect magazine subscriptions if the difference is three or less. She said Dr Lecter might use 435 several mail drops that were conveniently close to each other.”
“And?”
“I got a hit that way. The journal of Neurophysiology's going