Hannibal’s grip twists. The kitchen knife twinkle-winks at Frederick like the translucent shimmer of a house cat’s nictitating membrane. Were it not so neatly gelled into place, his nape hair—those two fuzzy tarantula-fanged points at the back of his neck—would be raised.
Humiliating order. All the more for his ready compliance.
Slowly, Frederick stands. Hand protectively clutching his concealed ostomy bag like a white elderly grandmother’s purse when passing a marginalized stranger. Right palm to ipsilateral thigh—his slightly better side—he pushes off for needed lift.
In his chilled wine cellar, Frederick stockpiles illicit pharmaceuticals: anti-psychotics, general anesthetics, and depressants. Chosen for their ability to disinhibit and subdue. The staircase to the basement is closer than the previously fantasized escape through the backyard glass door. Frederick glances there. This is a short distance heat he could win. If he allots himself an unofficial, undetectable lead. He recalls their last sprint (in this very room): electively, and then (neurons hot-wired, their protective myelin stripped worry-thin like his graying hair) electrically (his heart rate—high—ticks up): FBI agents clotting on his porch, their dim, fuzzy outlines cast through the front door’s frosted glass, his lurching, the unpleasant pang that follows when Hannibal grapples him and his large intestine twists like a schoolboy forearm rug-burn at the stitched hole in his abdominal skin, chloroform and its crisp nasal-sting smell akin to a resort pool bar, Hannibal’s hand pinching Frederick’s nostrils and his chin a firm kickstand to his temple keeping his asphyxiating head from tipping, Hannibal’s voice lowering like sediment as Frederick’s mind sink-shrinks into itself.
Frederick swallows. His esophagus clicks spitty-wet. He pushes the porous memory from his mental view and it seeps out as beady forehead perspiration—hydrophobic-like. (Every week, Frederick rips open a small, square alcohol prep pad when administering Rifat’s intravenous medication. Sensorially activated by the sneezy nose-wring of ethanol, the moment congests his mind each time; he recently restocked his hospital with herbal-scented wipes to fumigate his head: malignant malodor, just as pervasive as the memory—in essence, the essence is ineffective).
He must look busy. Cooperative.
With his middle and index finger splinted together—the leftover two spring-loaded into a circle at the Dantean spiral of his thumb (gesture reminiscent of a priestly benediction)—Frederick gingerly sweeps the roped man’s neck to assess his vitals. His own panicked pulse putters like a red thread jammed in an electric sewing machine, tangled beyond recognition amongst the man’s heartbeat at the seamstress end of his touch.
He retries: out of practice, his hand clumsily clip-clops for the carotid. Seamed between a rope-crossed intersection, the skin there tinted white-pallid-pressure, Frederick’s fingers slip under the nylon. Just below the man’s jaw, hand position poorly placed like a misused quotation mark, Frederick reads his pulse—fat, legible pumps, he notes, that could just as easily be a willful misattribution of his own.
He shakes out his hand (fingers fringe-flicking) to resettle his soldering nerves.
Another method: Frederick’s thumb shucks open the man’s upper eyelid, palm leveled to his temporal plate, knuckled backside helmeting his hair. Dilated pupil. Irregularly responsive. Not oriented. But no signs of permanent or active deterioration.
Frederick exhales, relieved. Posture momentarily softening. At the sculpted point of his shoulders, wool-stiff, his sport coat remains impassively sturdy.
This confirmation of life propels him.
Belated, almost amused: “He did no such thing.”
Frederick strolls two cautious, coordinated steps near the man’s tucked legs—nearer Hannibal and nearer, by true design, the shallow basement stairwell. As if the reason for his meager migration, Frederick tickles the sole of the man’s foot—his toes curl: the plantar reflex; his body can feel, he can feel his body.
His attention politely ignores the scrotum, the penis—large—the posterior—larger—the groin scrawled full with ink-black pubic hair, many layered cursive coils like fine, monoline penmanship. Conscious, visible avoidance—starting now.
Firm eye contact, as though lodged. Imploring: “Thus far… There is nothing here that cannot be undone… You can go free, Hannibal. I will not stop you. Let him go.”
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