Hannibal - Thomas Harris [39]
The classic European wild boar, S. scrofa scrofa, thirtysix chromosomes in its purest form, no facial warts, all bristles and great ripping tusks, a big fast and fierce animal that will kill a viper with its sharp hooves and eat the snake like it was a Slim Jim. When aroused or rutting, or protecting its piglets, it will charge anything that threatens. Sows have twelve teats and are good mothers. In S. scrofa scrofa, Mason found his theme and the facial appearance appropriate to provide Dr Lecter a last, hellish vision of himself consumed. (See Harris on the Pig, 1881.) He bought the Ossabaw Island pig for its aggressiveness, and the Jiaxing Black for high estradiol levels.
A false note when he introduced a Babirusa, Babyrousa babyrussa, from Eastern Indonesia, known as the hogdeer for the exaggerated length of its tusks. It was a slow breeder with only two teats, and at one hundred kilograms it cost him too much in size. No time was lost, as there were other, parallel litters that did not include the Babirusa.
In dentition, Mason had little variety to choose from. Almost every species had teeth adequate to the task, three pairs of sharp incisors, one pair of elongated canines, four pairs of premolars, and three crushing pairs of molars, upper and lower, for a total of fortyfour teeth.
Any pig will eat a dead man, but to get him to eat a live one some education is required. Mason's Sardinians were up to the task.
Now, after an effort of seven years and many litters, the results were . . . remarkable.
Hannibal
Chapter 16
WITH ALL the actors except Dr Letter in place in the Gennargentu Mountains of Sardinia, Mason turned his attention toward recording the doctor's death for posterity and his own viewing pleasure. His arrangements had long been made, but now the alert must be given.
He conducted this sensitive business on the telephone through his legitimate sports book switchboard near the Castaways in Las Vegas. His calls were tiny lost threads in the great volume of weekend action there.
Mason's radio quality voice, minus plosives and fricatives, bounced from the National Forest near the Chesapeake shore to the desert and back across the Atlantic, first to Rome: In an apartment on the seventh floor of a building on the Via Archimede, behind the hotel of the same name, the telephone is ringing, the hoarse double rumpf of a telephone ringing in Italian. In the.darkness, sleepy voices.
“Cosa? Cosa c'e?”
“Accendi la lute, idiota.”
The bedside lamp comes on. Three people are in the bed. The young man nearest the phone picks up the receiver and hands it to a portly older man in the middle. On the other side is a blond girl in her twenties. She raises a sleepy face to the light, then subsides again.
“Pronto, chi? Chi parla?”
“Oreste, my friend. It's Mason.”
The heavy man gets himself together, signals to the younger man for a glass of mineral water.
“Ah, Mason my friend, excuse me, I was asleep, what time is it there?”
“It's late everywhere, Oreste. Do you remember what I said I would do for you and what you must do for me?”
“Well, of course.”
“The time has come, my friend. You know what I want. I want a twocamera setup, I want better quality sound than your sex films have, and you have to make your own electricity, so I want the generator a long way from the set. I want some nice nature footage too for when we edit, and birdcalls. I want you to check out the location tomorrow and set it up. You can leave the stuff there, I'll provide security and you can come back to Rome until the shoot. But he ready to roll on two hours notice. Do you understand that, Oreste? A draft is waiting for you in Citibank at the EUR, got it?”
“Mason, in this moment, I am making-”
“Do you want to do this, Oreste? You said you were tired of making hump movies and snuff movies and historical crap for the RAI. Do you seriously want to make a feature, Oreste?”
“Yes, Mason.”
“Then go today. The cash is at Citibank. I want you to go.