Hannibal Page 0,81

part of it. She wants to be the birth mother. Mason, you said if I helped you - you promised me some sperm.

Mason's spidery fingers gestured. "Help yourself. If it's still there."

"Mason, there's every chance that you still have viable sperm, and we could arrange to harvest it painlessly-"

"Harvesting my viable sperm? Sounds like you've been talking to somebody."

"Just the fertility clinic, it's confidential."

Margot's face softened, even in the cold light of the aquarium.

"We could be really good to a child, Mason, we've been to parenting classes, Judy comes from a big, tolerant family and there's a support group of women parents."

"You used to be able to make me come when we were kids, Margot, Made me shoot like a belt-fed mortar. And pretty damn fast too."

"You hurt me when I was little, Mason. You hurt me and you dislocated my elbow making me do the other - I still can't curl more than eighty pounds with my left arm."

"Well, you wouldn't take the chocolate. I said we'll talk about it, Little.Sister, when this job is done."

"Let's just test you now," Margot said. "The doctor can take a painless sample-" "What painless, I can't feel anything down there anyway. You could suck it till you're blue in the face, and it wouldn't be like it was the first time. But I've made people do that already and nothing happens."

"The doctor can take a painless sample, just to see if you've got motile sperm. Judy's taking Clomid already. We're getting her cycle charted, there's a lot of stuff to do."

"I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Judy in all this time. Cordell says she's bowlegged. How long have you two been an item, Margot?"

"Five years."

"Why don't you bring her by? We might... work something out, so to speak."

The North African drums end with a final slap and leave a ringing silence in Margot's ear.

"Why don't you manage your little hookup with the Justice Department by yourself?" she said close to his war hole. "Why don't you try to get in a phone booth with your fucking laptop. Why don't you pay some more licking guineas to catch the guy that made dog food out 'your face? You said you'd help me, Mason."

"I will. I just have to think about the timing."

Margot crushed two walnuts together and let the reps fall on Mason's sheet. "Don't think too goddamned long, Smiley."

Her cycle pants whistled like building steam as she walked out of the room.

Part III TO THE NEW WORLD Chapter 46-47

Chapter 46

ARDELIA MAPP cooked when she felt like it, and when she cooked the result was extremely good. Her heritage was a combination of Jamaican and Gullah, and at the moment she was making jerk chicken, seeding a Scotch bonnet pepper she held carefully by the stem. She refused to pay the premium for cut-up chickens and had Starling busy with the cleaver and the cutting board.

"If you leave the pieces whole, Starling, they won't take the seasoning like they will if you cut them up," she explained, not for the first time. "Here," she said, taking the cleaver and splitting a back with such force bone splinters stuck to her apron. "Like that. What are you doing throwing those necks out? Put that handsome thing back in there."

And a minute later, "I was at the post office today. Mailing the shoes to my mom," Mapp said.

"I was in the post office too, I could have taken them."

"Did you hear anything at the post office?"

"Nope. " Mapp nodded, not surprised. "The drum says they're covering your mail."

"Who is?"."Confidential directive from the Postal Inspector. You didn't know that, did you?"

"No."

"So discover it some other way, we need to cover my post office buddy."

"Okay."

Starling put down her cleaver for a moment. "Jesus, Ardelia."

Starling had stood at the post office counter and bought her stamps, reading nothing in the closed faces of the busy postal clerks, most of them African- American, and several of whom she knew. Clearly someone wanted to help her, but it was a big chance to take with criminal penalties and your pension on the line. Clearly that someone trusted Ardelia more than Starling. Along with her anxiety, Starling felt a happy flash at having a favor from the African- American hot line: Maybe it expressed a tacit judgment of self-defense in the shooting of Evelda Drumgo.

"Now, take those green onions and mash them with the knife handle and give them here. Mash the green and all," Ardelia