The Silence of the Lambs - Страница 10

Dr. Lecter's voice moved lower. Maybe he was lying on the floor, Starling thought.

"Klaus was off a Swedish boat in San Diego. Raspail was out there teaching for a summer at the conservatory. He went berserk over the young man. The Swede saw a good thing and jumped his boat. They bought some kind of awful camper and sylphed through the woods naked. Raspail said the young man was unfaithful and he strangled him."

"Raspail told you this?"

"Oh yes, under the confidential seal of therapy sessions. I think it was a lie. Raspail always embellished the facts. He wanted to seem dangerous and romantic. The Swede probably died in some banal erotic asphyxia transaction. Raspail was too flabby and weak to have strangled him. Notice how closely Klaus was trimmed under the jaw? Probably to remove a high ligature mark from hanging."

"I see."

"Raspail's dream of happiness was ruined. He put Klaus' head in a bowling bag and came back East."

"What did he do with the rest?"

"Buried it in the hills."

"He showed you the head in the car?"

"Oh yes, in the course of therapy he came to feel he could tell me anything. He went out to sit with Klaus quite often and showed him the Valentines."

"And then Raspail himself… died. Why?"

"Frankly, I got sick and tired of his whining. Best thing for him, really. Therapy wasn't going anywhere. I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me. I've never discussed this before, and now I'm getting bored with it."

"And your dinner for the orchestra officials."

"Haven't you ever had people coming over and no time to shop? You have to make do with what's in the fridge, Clarice. May I call you Clarice?"

"Yes. I think I'll just call you-"

"Dr. Lecter-- that seems most appropriate to your age and station," he said.

"Yes."

"How did you feel when you went into the garage?"

"Apprehensive."

"Why?"

"Mice and insects."

"Do you have something you use when you want to get up your nerve?" Dr. Lecter asked.

"Nothing I know of that works, except wanting what I'm after."

"Do memories or tableaux occur to you then, whether you try for them or not?"

"Maybe. I haven't thought about it."

"Things from your early life."

"I'll have to watch and see."

"How did you feel when you heard about my late neighbor, Miggs? You haven't asked me about it."

"I was getting to it."

"Weren't you glad when you heard?"

"No."

"Were you sad?"

"No. Did you talk him into it?"

Dr. Lecter laughed quietly. "Are you asking me, Officer Starling, if I suborned Mr. Miggs' felony suicide? Don't be silly. It has a certain pleasant symmetry, though, his swallowing that offensive tongue, don't you agree?"

"No."

"Officer Starling, that was a lie. The first one you've told me. A triste occasion, Truman would say."

"President Truman?"

"Never mind. Why do you think I helped you?"

"I don't know."

"Jack Crawford likes you, doesn't he?"

"I don't know."

"That's probably untrue. Would you like for him to like you? Tell me, do you feel an urge to please him and does it worry you? Are you wary of your urge to please him.

"Everyone wants to be liked, Dr. Lecter."

"Not everyone. Do you think Jack Crawford wants you sexually? I'm sure he's very frustrated now. Do you think he visualizes… scenarios, transactions… fucking with you?"

"That's not a matter of curiosity to me, Dr. Lecter, and it's the sort of thing Miggs would ask."

"Not anymore."

"Did you suggest to him that he swallow his tongue?"

"Your interrogative case often has that proper subjunctive in it. With your accent, it stinks of the lamp. Crawford clearly likes you and believes you competent. Surely the odd confluence of events hasn't escaped you, Clarice-- you've had Crawford's help and you've had mine. You say you don't know why Crawford helps you-- do you know why I did?"

"No, tell me."

"Do you think it's because I like to look at you and think about eating you up-- about how you would taste?"

"Is that it?"

"No. I want something Crawford can give me and I want to trade him for it. But he won't come to see me. He won't ask for my help with Buffalo Bill, even though he knows it means more young women will die.

"I can't believe that, Dr. Lecter."

"I only want something very simple, and he could get it." Lecter turned up the rheostat slowly in his cell. His books and drawings were gone. His toilet sat was gone. Chilton had stripped the cell to punish for Miggs.

"I've been in this room eight years, Clarice. I know that they will never, ever let me out while I'm alive. What I want is a view. I want a window where I can see a tree, or even water."

"Has your attorney petitioned--"

"Chilton put that television in the hall, set to a religious channel. As soon as you leave the orderly will turn the sound back up, and my attorney can't stop it, the way the court is inclined toward me now. I want to be in a federal institution and I want my books back and a view. I'll give good value for it. Crawford could do that. Ask him."

"I can tell him what you've said."

"He'll ignore it. And Buffalo Bill will go on and on. Wait until he scalps one and see how you like it. Ummmm… I'll tell you one thing about Buffalo Bill without ever seeing the case, and years from now when they catch him, if they ever do, you'll see that I was right and I could have helped. I could have saved lives. Clarice?"

"Yes?"

"Buffalo Bill has a two-story house," Dr. Lecter said, and turned out his light.

He would not speak again.

CHAPTER 10

Clarice Starling leaned against a dice table in the FBI's casino and tried to pay attention to a lecture on money-laundering in gambling. It had been thirty-six hours since the Baltimore County police took her deposition (via a chain-smoking two-finger typist: "See if you can get that window open if the smoke bothers you.") and dismissed her from its jurisdiction with a reminder that murder is not a federal crime.

The network news on Sunday night showed Starling's scrap with the television cameramen and she felt sure she was deep in the glue. Through it all, no word from Crawford or from the Baltimore field office. It was as though she had dropped her report down a hole.

The casino where she now stood was small-- it had operated in a moving trailer truck until the FBI seized it and installed it in the school as a teaching aid. The narrow room was crowded with police from many jurisdictions; Starling had declined with thanks the chairs of two Texas Rangers and a Scotland Yard detective.

The rest of her class were down the hall in the Academy building, searching for hairs in the genuine motel carpet of the "Sex-Crime Bedroom" and dusting the "Anytown Bank" for fingerprints. Starling had spent so many hours on searches and fingerprints as a Forensic Fellow that she was sent instead to this lecture, part of a series for visiting lawmen.

She wondered if there was another reason she had been separated from the class: maybe they isolate you before you get the ax.

Starling rested her elbows on the pass line of the dice table and tried to concentrate on money-laundering in gambling. What she thought about instead was how much the FBI hates to see its agents on television, outside of official news conferences.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter was catnip to the media, and the Baltimore police had happily supplied Starling's name to reporters. Over and over she saw herself on the Sunday-night network news. There was "Starling of the FBI" in Baltimore, banging the jack handle against the garage door as the cameraman tried to slither under it. And here was "Federal Agent Starling" turning on the assistant with the jack handle in her hand.

On the rival network, station WPIK, lacking film of its own, had announced a personal-injury lawsuit against "Starling of the FBI" and the Bureau itself because the cameraman got dirt and rust particles in his eyes when Starling banged the door.

Jonetta Johnson of WPIK was on coast-to-coast with the revelation that Starling had found the remains in the garage through an "eerie bonding with a man authorities have branded… a monster!" Clearly, WPIK had a source at the hospital.

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN!! screamed the National Tattler from its supermarket racks.

There was no public comment from the FBI, but there was plenty inside the Bureau, Starling was sure.

At breakfast, one of her classmates, a young man who wore a lot of Canoe after-shave, had referred to Starling as "Melvin Pelvis," a stupid play on the name of Melvin Purvis, Hoover 's number-one G-man in the thirties. What Ardelia Mapp said to the young man made his face turn white, and he left his breakfast uneaten on the table.

Now Starling found herself in a curious state in which she could not be surprised. For a day and a night she'd felt suspended in a diver's ringing silence. She intended to defend herself, if she got the chance.

The lecturer spun the roulette wheel as he talked, but he never let the ball drop. Looking at him, Starling was convinced that he had never let the ball drop in his life. He was saying something now: "Clarice Starling." Why was he saying "Clarice, Starling?" That's me.

"Yes," she said.

The lecturer pointed with his chin at the door behind her. Here it came. Her fate shied under her as she turned to see. But it was Brigham, the gunnery instructor, leaning into the room to point to her across the crowd. When she saw him, he beckoned.