Dr. Lecter’s movements are briefly as follows. He goes first to Sotheby’s, where he purchases an antique harpsichord and a theramin. Sotheby’s is located on York Avenue on the block of 70th Street. No mention is made as to whether he bought these items at an auction of musical instruments, or if he purchased them directly from the antique instruments department. How Dr. Lecter got them to his new abode is also unspecified, but having them shipped is the most likely solution.
His next stop was Hammacher Schlemmer, located at 57th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. There he buys a luxurious wicker picnic basket that comes complete with silverware, plates, a thermos, etc. Unfortunately this fine store no longer carries wicker baskets, the only picnic accoutrement available being a nylon backpack, again complete with all the necessary utensils. Needless to say, Dr. Lecter would not have looked twice at such an item.
His next stop was Tiffany’s, located at the southwest corner of 57th Street and 5th Avenue. There, in order to replace the silverware included in his picnic basket, he purchases some plates of Gien French china, with a chasse pattern of leaves and birds. The china department is on the 4th floor, and while we did not find precisely the same plates that Dr. Lecter did, we did see some nice ones with leaves, birds, and ladybugs (one plate cost $450). This new model is perhaps the direct descendant of Dr. Lecter’s. Apparently Dr. Lecter was not satisfied with Tiffany’s selection of silverware and crystal, for his next stop was Christofle.
Our quest had been quite simple up until now, as the location of both Hammacher Schlemmer and Tiffany’s were well known to us. However, as we do not frequent fine silverware stores as a rule, Christofle had to be looked up in the phone book. We found a white pages while browsing in the Mysterious Bookstore. (The salesman was quite amused at our quest.) The address we found was located on Park Avenue in the 300s. However, the phone book was three years old. Nonetheless, we proceeded down Park Avenue until 52nd Street, and no such store was in sight. Indeed, only office buildings and banks inhabit the area. We assumed that the store no longer existed, and were disappointed, wondering where Dr. Lecter would go had he done his shopping in 2005.
Walking back uptown, I became curious as to what Dr. Lecter had in his special meal that he brought on his flight from Italy. Having watched the movie “Hannibal” the previous night, we noted that this airplane scene was transposed to the end of the film, when Dr. Lecter has absurdly chopped off his own hand and somehow escaped with a piece of Ray Liotta’s brain. In the film the box he has is from Dean and Deluca, a fine food store with two New York locations, one on the Upper East Side and one downtown in the Village. We remembered that the details of his lunch were presented in the novel and were curious to see how closely the film followed the book in this respect.
Stopping in the middle of the street, we found the passage. Dr. Lecter had a box from Fauchot’s, a Paris caterer. It is described as a yellow box with brown trim, done up with colorful ribbons. In it, he had a block of “paté de fois gras” and fresh Anatolian figs. Then an amazing coincidence happened; we looked up and saw a big pink sign saying “Fauchot’s” at the corner of 56th Street. Yes, unwittingly we had stumbled right onto their new New York branch just as we were looking up the passage in the book! The spirit of Dr. Lecter was with us. (The New York branch is around five years old, so it would have not existed when Dr. Lecter was in town.) Entering the store, we saw a wide variety of foods, mainly sweets. Most boxes were not yellow, but pink, and none matched the description in the book. We found fois gras, but a “bloc de fois gras”, and not “paté” as Harris wrote. Here, Harris made a slight error. True fois gras, as found in fine food stores such as Fauchot, is pure goose liver. A paté is not pure liver, but liver mixed and diluted with fat and other ingredients, making it both less expensive and less of a delicacy – hardly something Dr. Lecter would buy. A tin of the plain fois gras costs $65, and with a small truffle $75. Alas, no fresh figs, just some candied ones that did not look very appetizing. We both signed up for Fauchot’s mailing list, took business cards, and left without buying anything.
Later that evening I looked in a more recent phone book and found a new address for Christofle, located at 62nd and Madison. Was this the store? The next day, we were determined to find out. Indeed it was, and had been located there for decades. This, then, was where Dr. Lecter went after his marginally successful stop at Tiffany’s.
Now, in the book it is stated that Dr. Lecter bought 19th century silver as well as some aperitif and cognac glasses. It seems that Christofle does not sell 19th century silver, however, only modern. Perhaps to a world-class customer such as Dr. Lecter, they would have found him some special reserve, or perhaps Harris didn’t do enough research here. Their silver was fine indeed, and they also had a wide variety of beautiful glassware. We felt that Dr. Lecter was closer than ever. Then a question occurred to us: what was Dr. Lecter’s route from Tiffany’s to Christofle? We put ourselves into his shoes, knowing him better after two days. I believe that Dr. Lecter would have crossed 57th street to the northwest corner. Our reasoning is as follows: a Niketown is on the south side (and has been for years), which would have been insupportable to Dr. Lecter’s tastes. Even the former Warner Bros. Store on the north side would have been more tolerable. Also, Dr. Lecter would have been able to look in the shop windows of other fine stores such as Chanel and Burberry’s. Reaching Madison Avenue, he probably would have gone straight to Christofle on the west side of Madison. From Christofle Dr. Lecter next goes to an unspecified medical supply company near New York Hospital, returning to the general vicinity of Sotheby’s. (Perhaps he had parked in that area.) There he bought some tools with which to operate on the Ray Liotta character.
So, what did our little tour tell us? For starters, we learned about two stores that were unknown to us, Fauchot and Christofle: two stores that we will probably never buy anything from, but the knowledge is valuable. Far more importantly we got a glimpse of what it was to be in Dr. Lecter’s shoes, and to see with his maroon eyes.
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