Susana had taken a few days to play tourist for her own reasons. Part of it was simply to enjoy herself. And part of it was to decide what to do about Margot Verger. The first three accounts Susana had settled were pure and simple, black and white. Margot was a bit more gray.

Margot Verger had killed her brother and blamed Hannibal Lecter for the crime. A warrant for his arrest still existed, as there was no statute of limitations for murder. That was simply wrong. The actual murderess had gone unpunished and unsuspected. While her father had spent eight years in a filthy cage for his doings, Margot Verger had enjoyed the lifestyle of a well-to-do heiress for twenty-five years. She had enjoyed a relationship with her lover Judy that had never known trying to touch between prison bars. She had a son, a nephew actually, the result of sperm donated from her brother and implanted into her lover. That son was a few years older than Susana. He, too, had never known the truth.

All that implied that Margot ought to be simply killed, and that was what Susana wanted to do. But she also knew from her father that he had urged her to kill her brother, first as her psychiatrist and years later as a captive at Muskrat Farm. He had volunteered to claim responsibility for the murder and knowingly left a message on the Verger answering machine claiming to have killed Mason. One more murder charge meant nothing to Hannibal Lecter.

So Susana was left with a dilemma her mother might have been able to help her with. On the one hand, Margot Verger enjoyed something that was not hers to have and had left her papa to take the blame for her crime. On the other hand, he had clearly wanted her to, and actively helped her. Susana's desire to set the record straight strained neatly against the clear desires and wishes of her father.

In any other case, Susana would have done what she wished to, the desires of others be damned.. But Susana's feelings towards her father mirrored those of Clarice Starling's feelings toward hers. In that, she was not so terribly different from many other women. Her papa was the sine qua non of authority. She looked upon him with love and respect. Papa could not be argued with or questioned. The word of Dr. Alonso Alvarez, aka Dr. Hannibal Lecter, had always been the final word in the casa Alvarez. The fact that he had died had only strengthened that power.

It was something her mother had told her about that finally broke the impasse. Clarice Starling remembered a great deal of her psychotherapy with Lecter in his home on the shore, including her tumultuous meeting with the remains of her father. Starling had tried to share this with her rare daughter shortly after Lecter's death. It was not until now that Susana recalled it.

"And then he put his hands on my head, and said, 'What you need of your father is here, in your head, and subject to your judgment, not his.'"

"Subject to my judgment, not his," Susana repeated in her hotel room. The phrase spoke to her and she made it her own. From her suitcase she took a framed photograph of her father – with his Alonso Alvarez face, the one that had stared into her crib at night -- and addressed her father directly for the first time since she had watched him lowered into the ground at Buenos Aires's best graveyard.

"I'm sorry, papa, but I'm doing this one my way, not yours," she said to the picture. "Margot Verger will pay."

She had already done her research on Margot, some via the Internet and some via a private investigator in the U.S. who took cash and kept his mouth firmly closed. She knew that after more than a quarter-century together, Judy and Margot had recently broken up. They still lived at Muskrat Farm, but in separate rooms. And their son, of course, owned the entire thing, lock, stock and barrel.

Her file on Margot told her where she could be found on Saturday nights. Susana opened her suitcase and scowled at the outfit she had chosen to use as camouflage. A pair of combat boots. Levi's 501 jeans, still unchanged after more than a century. A flannel shirt. A motorcycle jacket. According to the investigator Susana had used, this was common at the bars Margot frequented, but Susana still hated the outfit. He had sworn that Margot was attracted to young women dressed this way. She put it on and eyed herself in the mirror. She wasn't pleased.

Susana was the only daughter of two parents who were older and wealthier than most first parents. Like many other women in that situation, her girlhood had been one of fancy dresses, patent-leather shoes, and learning ladylike behavior. Dr. Lecter had found it amusing to dress his young daughter in the finest clothing available. Ever since Susana had remembered, wearing dresses had been a way to win his coveted approval. Clarice Starling, for her part, indulged her husband, for she, too, liked seeing her daughter in dresses and frills. It was a way for her to shield her daughter from another world: a world of arrests and gang members and gunfights.

So Susana had been hopelessly addicted to girly stuff at an early age. Other than a brief adolescent rebellion period, she had gotten her hair and nails done at the best salons in Buenos Aires. Her father's tastes had rubbed off heavily on her. She preferred wearing skirts to pants and did so whenever she could. She did not leave the house without proper makeup and accessories.

But this…ick. She thought of Pedro, the gardener back at her estate. In an outfit like this, she thought she should grab a trowel and start digging along with him. Or perhaps show up for a factory job.

If this attracted Margot Verger, she thought, then she deserved to die for lack of taste alone. At the minimum, she could have chosen young women with Manolo Blahniks on their feet and Versace on their bodies. That, at least, was attractive.

At least she would find it easy to move around, which was good. Although age had taken away Margot Verger's top form, she was still a bodybuilder and a very strong woman. Physically, she might match or supplant Susana herself. But Susana had other advantages over her: speed, flexibility, killer instinct, and the Harpy clipped to her pocket.

Her report from the investigator said that Margot preferred women with short hair, but Susana was not willing to go there. She tied her hair back and decided that would have to do. Hopefully, she would be able to wangle an invitation to Muskrat Farm tonight, but if the hair cost her that, she'd simply kill Margot in the bar and be done with it.

Susana gave her reflection a final glare in the mirror and caught a cab to the bar that she had been told Margot frequented on weekends. The cabbie gave her a look but said nothing. She arrived at Dupont Circle, where several gay bars were located. Susana was surprised at how small it seemed. The club district in Buenos Aires was much bigger. Though, she allowed, she had never been to the gay district.

Even the bouncer was a woman. She towered over Susana and demanded her ID. Susana dutifully gave the bouncer her passport. The bouncer looked at it and her brow wrinkled in confusion.

"What's this?"

"My pasaporte," Susana answered. She did not normally speak English with an accent. Her normal English sounded much like her father's had. She could also mimic her mother's West Virginia accent with startling fidelity, and she could also sound like a typical Argentinian when it suited her. It suited her to do so now. People would remember the accent and forget the person who spoke with it.

"You're not from here, huh?"

"No. First time in America."

"It's a ten-dollar cover charge. Have a good time." The bouncer returned her passport and stamped her hand. Susana paid and entered the bar. It was crowded with women. Music heavy with electric guitar pierced the air. The bar was smoky and dark. Several women crowded around a pool table.

Most of them were dressed similarly to her. A few sported ties and jackets. There was one tall woman dressed very femininely who had a crowd of others around her, all laughing. It wasn't until Susana drew closer and heard the tall woman speaking that she realized the tall woman was a man. She almost had to laugh. The only person dressed like a woman in the whole place was a man.

She saw Margot Verger standing by the bar. The years had been relatively kind to her: she still sported a massively muscled frame. Her once-blond hair had gone completely gray. But her arms and chest were still thick with muscle. She had some walnuts in her hands and was cracking them for the benefit of the women around her.

Susana nestled in next to her, facing the bar, as if intending to get a drink. She doubted this place had much of a wine list. Most of the women around her were drinking beer, she noted with distaste. Owing to her father's upper-class tastes, Susana loathed and despised beer. It was a weak and poor-tasting brew for the masses.

Margot's eyes fell upon her.

"Hey," she said. "Haven't seen you around before."

You won't again, Susana thought. Outwardly, she glanced at Margot, looked her up and down, and gave her a quick smile.

"I'm not from here," she said with an accent.

Margot nodded. "Where are you from, then?"

"Argentina," Susana answered truthfully, pronouncing it Ar-hen-teen-a. "B.A."

Margot looked blank.

"Buenos Aires," Susana supplied.

"Oh, wow." Margot stuck out her hand. "I'm Margot."

"Susana," she said, volunteering her own name.

"First time in America?"

Susana nodded.

"That's great. It's really nice here. You want a beer?"

Although Susana ranked beer as only slightly more preferable to drink than urine, she agreed. To her credit, Margot chose an imported beer which was better than most.

"Can I ask you a question?" Margot asked, looking directly into Susana's eyes.

The eyes, Susana remembered. Uh-oh. Margot had been a patient of her father, and had remembered the eyes. "Sure," she said, sliding one hand surruptitiously towards the Harpy. She didn't want it to be this way. She wanted Margot to have the chance to understand what she was being punished for. But if she had to do a quick slash-and-run, she would.

She was pleasantly surprised. "Well, I was just wondering how come you don't look Hispanic if you're from Argentina."

Aha. Susana gave her a slightly cold glance, as if offended. "You mean why don't I look indio? There are all kinds in Argentina, just like here. We have blancos and indios and negros just like you." Her tone was frosty.

Margot raised her hands. "Sorry. I didn't mean anything. Really."

Margot continued to flirt with her. Susana answered back with some coyness, just enough to keep Margot interested. When you got right down to it, it wasn't terribly different from dealing with the hot-blooded Argentinian boys. She was glad she had chosen to use the accent. It was bait which Margot had helplessly swallowed.

Susana was not troubled by the fact that Margot was a lesbian. She wasn't interested in it herself, but that aspect of her prey's personality meant little to her. A fox intending to kill a chicken does not care what color its tailfeathers are. She did think it slightly declassè that Margot favored women younger than her own son. Now now, her father spoke up in her head, Margot has recently broken up with her partner, with whom she has been since before you were born. Is that really any different than a divorced middle-aged father who goes out and gets a sports car and an earring?

The image of her father rose up in her mind, wearing an earring and tooling around Buenos Aires in a sports car with an eighteen-year-old in a miniskirt rose up in her mind and she couldn't help but giggle. She glanced at her beer and tried to remember how many she'd had. Margot tilted her head and looked at her.

"You OK?"

"Yeah," Susana said. "I think I'd better quit here, though. I'm starting to feel giddy."

"Is that a bad thing?" Margot grinned.

Susana put down her beer and brought her palms together. She raised her eyes to the ceiling like a virtuous schoolgirl, even though she was completely without religion. "Someone might come and try and impede my virtue," she said.

"Are you virtuous?"

"Muy virtuosa." Susana said sarcastically.

"Tell you what," Margot said. "Come on with me back to my place. I'll help you guard against anyone who might try to impede your virtue."

The line was horribly hokey, but Susana accepted the offer. Margot walked her out to her car. Susana gave her credit for the car – it was a black Porsche 930, rare and fast. It smelled of leather and class. Margot drove fast and well. The Porsche rocketed up the highway like a black buzz bomb. Susana decided that she would take this car back from the farm after she killed Margot. She liked the car's handling.

Muskrat Farm was impressive, Susana decided. She oohed and aahed over the size of the house as if she was a peasant for Margot's sake. The house she had grown up in was larger, but Muskrat Farm had it beat for acreage. That was good. Less noise.

In the house, Margot offered her a drink. Susana asked for wine. Margot's tastes were not all bad, she decided. The wine was a French red, very good.

"You've got really big muscles," she complimented Margot. "Are you a bodybuilder?" She made sure to say beeg and bodybeelder. Margot grinned.

"Yeah," she said. "Haven't been into it as much as I used to be, but hey, I'm not your age anymore."

"Where do you lift?"

"Right here," Margot said proudly. "I have a whole gym in the other wing."

"Really?" Susana's eyes widened as if she'd never heard of the idea. "I thought you had horses here."

"We do," Margot said. "You like horses?"

"Yes," said Susana. Dr. Lecter had deemed equestrian sport a fitting pastime for his daughter, and she had spent a fair amount of her childhood in the saddle. "I rode when I was a kid."

"English or Western?"

"English," Susana said, looking offended. "Western is for gauchos."

"What kind of saddle did you have?" Margot challenged.

"A Prix des Nations."

Margot nodded. "Good saddle," she said calmly.

"So what's in your gym?"

"Oh, the usual…Nautilus machines, free weights…a full shower room…," Margot grinned.

"Can I see it?"

"Sure." She took Susana through the halls to her gym. The lights shone off the shiny steel of Margot's exercise rig. Susana nodded respectfully at it.

"You lift?"

Susana giggled, blushed, and toed the ground with her boot. "No," she said shyly.

Margot explained a few of the different machines. Susana feigned interest. She swallowed a bit when Margot indicated the shower room with four jets.

"Want to try that?" Margot challenged. How subtle, Susana thought.

"Um. You first," Susana said.

Margot chuckled. Without any inhibitions, she stripped off her clothing and entered the shower room. Susana heard the screech of two showers turning on.

"You gotta try this," Margot yelled over the sound of the shower. "Turn two on at once. A friend of mine showed me, it's great."

Now Susana had to think. She wasn't afraid of entering the shower room naked with Margot there. What she did have to think about was how to get the Harpy in with her. It is exceedingly difficult to conceal a weapon when you are naked. She tried to fasten the Harpy to her hair, which did not work. She had no tape with her and couldn't clip the Harpy to anything because she had nothing to clip it to.

"You dead out there or something?" Margot asked. A fair amount of steam billowed from the shower room.

"Momento," Susana yelled back. She spied a rowing machine and inspiration struck. The rowing machine had a footrest and a nylon strap so that the rower could strap their feet to the footrest. It took only a moment to detach the strap. She was able to hide it in her hair. Not good for the long term, but it would work. She also took a long steel pin from one of the weight machines and concealed it in her hand as best she could.

She stripped quickly and entered the shower, her left hand concealing the steel pin. Margot glanced at her appreciatively. Now Susana did feel uncomfortable.

"Woah," Margot's gaze dropped down.

Susana flushed red with real embarrassment for the first time as she realized what Margot was talking about. "Oh. I wax."

"Thought that was only in Brazil."

"No," she said shortly. "We do it in Argentina too."

Margot opened her arms. "Well come here, cutie-pie."

Susana shook her head and twirled her right index finger in a circular motion. "No. You turn around."

Margot laughed. "You shy?"

"Yeah, kinda," Susana acknowledged. When Margot complied, she slipped the strap from behind her hair and closed the plastic buckle. She slipped the strap over Margot's head, jammed the pin in between the strap and Margot's neck, and jumped on her back. She grabbed the pin and twisted it, forming a neat garrotte.

"What the hell—" Margot managed. She tried to throw Susana off, but could not. Susana knew very well that if Margot threw her off, she was finished, so she hung on with the tenacity of the devil. In a few minutes, Margot collapsed to her knees, feebly trying to get a finger between the strap and her neck. Then she went completely limp and collapsed to the tiled floor of the shower room.

Susana turned off the showers and checked Margot. She was still breathing. That was good. Margot Verger would know why she was being executed. She got her fingers under Margot's arms and hauled her out into the weight room.

"You have to watch out for us Latin women," she told Margot's unconscious form. "That temper will get you every time."

Then she began to prepare what she needed to do to settle Margot Verger's account.