فصل 2

Chapter 2

A CUL-DE-SAC in a working-class neighborhood Arlington, Virginia, a little after midnight. It is warm fall night after a rain. The air moves uneasily ahead of a cold front. In the smell of wet earth a leaves, a cricket is playing a tune. He falls silent a big vibration reaches him, the muffled boom of a 5.0-liter Mustang with steel tube headers turning into the cul-de-sac, followed by a federal marshal car. The two cars pull into the driveway of a neat duplex and stop.

The Mustang shudders a little at idle. When the engine goes silent, the cricket waits a moment and resumes his tune, his last before the frost, his last ever.

A federal marshal in uniform gets out of the drivers seat of the Mustang. He comes around the car and opens the passenger door for Clarice Starling. She gets out. A white headband holds a bandage over her ear.

Red-orange Betadine stains her neck above the green surgical blouse she wears instead of a shirt.

She carries her personal effects in a plastic zip-lock bag - some mints and keys, her identification as a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a speed-loader containing five rounds of ammunition, a small can of Mace. With the bag she carries a belt and empty holster.

The marshal hands her the car keys.

“Thank you, Bobby.”

“You want me and Pharon to come in and sit with you awhile? Would you rather I get Sandra? She waits up for me. I’ll bring her over a little while, you need some company .”

“No, I’ll just go in now. Ardelia will be home after a while. Thank you, Bobby.”

The marshal gets in the waiting car with his partner and when he sees Starling safely inside the house, the federal car leaves.

The laundry room in Starling’s house is warm and smells of fabric softener. The washing machine and clothes dryer hoses are clamped in place with plastic handcuff strips. Starling puts down her personal effects on top of the washing machine. The car keys make a loud clank on the metal top. She takes a load of wash out of the washing machine and stuffs it into the dryer. She takes off her fatigue pants and throws them in the washer and the surgical greens and her bloodstained bra and turns on the machine. She is wearing socks and underpants and a .38 Special with a shrouded hammer in an ankle holster. There are livid bruises on her back and ribs and an abrasion on her elbow. Her right eye and cheek are puffed.

The washing machine is warming and starting to slosh. Starling wraps herself in a big beach towel and pads into the living room. She comes back with two inches of Jack Daniel’s neat in a tumbler. She sits down on the rubber mat before the washing machine and leans back against it in the dark as the warm machine throbs and sloshes. She sits on the floor with her face turned up and sobs a few dry sobs before the tears come. Scalding tears on her cheeks, down her face.

Ardelia Mapp’s date brought her home about 12:45, A.M. after a long drive down from Cape May, and she told him good night at the door. Mapp was in her bathroom when she heard the water running the thud in the pipes as the washing machine advanced its cycle. She went to the back of the house and turned on the lights in the kitchen she shared with Starling. She could see into the laundry room. She could see Starling sitting on the floor, the bandage around her head.

“Starling! Oh, baby.” Kneeling beside her quickly, “What is it?”

“I got shot through the ear, Ardelia. They fixed it at Walter Reed. Don’t turn the light on, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll make you something. I haven’t heard - we were playing tapes in the car - tell me.”

“John’s dead, Ardelia.”

“Not Johnny Brigham!”

Mapp and Starling had both had crushes on Brigham when he was gunnery instructor at the FBI Academy. They had tried to read his tattoo through his shirtsleeve.

Starling nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand like a child. “Evelda Drumgo and some Crips. Evelda shot him. They got Burke too, Marquez Burke from BATF. We all went in together. Evelda was tipped ahead and the TV news got there the same time we did. Evelda was mine. She wouldn’t give it up, Ardelia. She wouldn’t give it up and she was holding the baby. We shot each other. She’s dead.”

Mapp had never seen Starling cry before.

“Ardelia, I killed five people today.”

Mapp sat on the floor beside Starling and put her arm around her. Together they leaned back against the turning washing machine.

“What about Evelda’s baby?”

“I got the blood off him, he didn’t have any breaks in his skin I could see. The hospital said physically he’s all right. They’re going to release him to Evelda’s mother in a couple of days. You know the last thing Evelda said to me, Ardelia? She said, “Let’s swap body fluids, bitch.”

“Let me fix you something,” Mapp said.

“What?” Starling said.