That morning Hannibal had leafed through his leather appointment book and realised he had given himself a totally free day. No appointments had been arranged, by unconscious design or by luck, and he found a smile creeping across his face. It started small, just the corners of his mouth twitching slowly, testing the rigid grounds around them, and finding no barriers broke free and spread outward, trampling the hard unforgiving land into a deep, dark canyon where a powerful serpent lay waiting beneath.
As he stood at his desk his toes started to curl downward, griping his shoes. He could feel his soleus muscle tighten and grow, and the feeling spread up leg, gripping his semitendinosus, semimembranosus and biceps femoris, until he dropped the gold leafed book onto his desk and headed for the door.
He took the stairs from his third floor office down into the underground garage, where his Crysler looked out of place and time. His one small portion of the American Dream.
He unlocked the doors and slid in behind the wheel, allowing the feeling that had moved his lips and legs spread through his body, down into his fingertips that turned the key and maneuvered the car out of the garage into fresh morning light.
The city for Hannibal made an excellent hunting ground, and he allowed the instincts of the hunter within him to guide his movements through the streets, but found himself on the road out of the city. It appeared he desired some country fed meat.
With both eyes on the road the primal beast snarled and scratched to be set free. The inside of the beautifully restored car would be destoyed, torn and smashed, crushed under the inhuman strength and devoured by the beast if he did not control himself. But his primal self would not be abated for long, and he pushed his foot a little harder on the accelerator, guiding the black machine down twisting roads and onward to feeding time.
The outside of Brandon Maxwell's store looked the same today as it had when his father opened it thirty-five years ago. His father had kept it looking good over the years with new coats of white paint and repairing the green and white awning when it tore, but Brandon hadn't felt the need to change the style. He still had the flower boxes outside the windows and the original sign still hung over the door, proudly stating Maxwell & Sons - Specialist Florists.
Brandon didn't have a son himself, but for over a year he and his wife Erika had been trying, and he was confident that he would have an heir to pass the family business along to.
Pete Maxwell, Brandon's father, had started his son in the store working in deliveries, then behind the counter once he was old enough to see over it. Brandon had been drawn into the business just like his father had and saw no other future for himself, leaving the store after high school to volunteer at the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory. It was here he had met Erika, and it was here they had gotten married in the Tropical Greenhouse, before a honeymoon in Hawaii to see the real thing.
It was eight years later that Brandon had answered the red desk telephone he had bought at a yard sale for $3 and been told his father had died. It was six months after the funeral when he had reopened his fathers store, and for the last three years he had ran it as his father had, with hardwork, honesty and intergrity.
It was the labours of his hardwork that made the outside of Maxwell & Sons stand out from the other shops in the street. The delicately fashioned bouquets looked like a firework display in the autumn sun, and drew the eyes of Hannibal Lector away from the windscreen of his 1963 Crysler Imperial.
1 tbsp rock salt
2 tbsp cracked black peppercorns
3 garlic cloves, crushed
Small bunch of rosemary, finely chopped
Small bunch of parsley, chopped
4 tbsp olive oil
3kg rib of beef on the bone
For the gravy
2 onions, sliced
250ml red wine
400ml fresh beef stock
