In Max’s world, the name “Hannibal Lecter” did not provoke the same reaction Hannibal himself had cultivated in his. Here, it was a pop culture touchstone at best, a crass punchline at worst. Hearing sniggers after his name and suffering misquoted lines bandied about like cheap slogans were forms of disrespect Dr. Lecter found surprisingly difficult to overlook, at first. Call it pride, because it was: his meticulously crafted reputation was not the stuff of nightmares in this life he’d stolen from Max Ward. It was the stuff of camp.
How better, then, to confirm what he already suspected of Mr. Peter Graves? An ordinary writer would have snorted at the mention of Hannibal Lecter, made a tasteless joke about the fictional cannibal to lighten the mood and show Max they were on the same side. An ordinary writer would have done nothing at all, really. But this one panicked.
It barely lasted a second, but Max had been waiting for this very moment for as long as he’d been Hannibal. All that time stretched the moment into something to savor. He committed every last detail to memory. The sickly sweet rush of Peter’s sudden panic flooding his olfactory senses. The whites of his eyes flashing behind the coffee cup. The frozen muscles of his throat and the brief but all too telling delay before he forced himself to swallow. An ordinary FBI agent would have dismissed Peter’s twitchy behavior as social incompetence, nothing more.
But this FBI agent was far from ordinary. And this writer? He wore ordinary like an ill-fitting suit. Max saw through the camouflage. This writer was so much more.
In truth, Max’s decision regarding the path before him had been made the minute Peter Graves requested his appointment. He’d suspected Peter was not an opportunity to be missed, and his instincts proved to be as infallible as ever. A dark, triumphant glee suffused him, thinking about it now. Once again Will Graham had found Hannibal before he even knew he was looking for him.
He briefly glanced at the tape recorder, then returned his gaze to Peter. The panic was gone, buried as if it had never been alive, replaced by that hunger again. Restrained but voracious. The special agent allowed the slightest curl of his lips.
Poor Peter. He had no idea the man sitting across from him was going to give him exactly what he wanted.
“For the sake of conversation,” Max repeated flatly after a long moment, drawn out purely for Peter’s sake. Feigning resignation, he shifted his weight in his seat and met Peter's eyes with a piercing directness he had never given another soul. “Very well. Tell me, Mr. Graves. What would you like to know?”