"Yes. I did convince Mason that it would be best for him to do such a thing. But I wouldn't have done that if he hadn't convinced underprivileged minors to put his cock in their mouths. If he hadn't told them that he would tell their mommies and daddies and orphanages that they were being bad if they didn't let him fuck them up the ass, he wouldn't be a sorry shadow of a human being who can't even wipe his own ass." His eyes bore holes into Simon. "You'll excuse my language, but I can't seem to get it through to you that he wasn't just some flautist who ruined the symphony. Besides the fact that I haven't even done that yet, I stand strongly behind the idea that he very much deserved it."
Hannibal felt himself starting to lose patience with the good doctor.
"Ask River yourself if she thinks that what I did for her was bad. When she tells you her answer, then you can judge me, but not until then."
He sighed heavily. "Security cameras, Simon, have tapes. The tapes will contain images of me not leaving this office but to go to the bathroom and get horrible greasy food from the cafeteria downstairs. Food, I might add, that shouldn't even be fed to swine. If the monkey could talk, you could ask him how long I've been here experimenting on him."
His smile changed a lot. "I would remove myself from River's life, yes. But I would never, ever kill myself. I enjoy living far too much for suicide. I enjoy myself far too much for it. But River would never need to worry about me again, and neither would you."
Lestat, on the other hand, would have a new lifelong buddy.
"I haven't done these recent murders. They are plebeian. Beneath me. Juvenile. Brash. Unrefined. Messy in more way than one. And most importantly, Simon, they are boring. Now, will you kindly retrieve a saline solution and a serotonergic to counteract the effects of the drug that you've given me? I'd like to get back to sticking diseases into the monkey."