فصل 10

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.

For a second she thought they were throwing her out, but that wouldn’t be Brigham’s job.

“Saddle up, Starling. Where’s your field gear?” he said in the hall.

“My room—C Wing.”

She had to walk fast then to keep up with him.

He was carrying the big fingerprint kit from the property room—the good one, not the play-school kit—and a small canvas bag.

“You go with Jack Crawford today. Take stuff for overnight. You may be back, but take it.” “Where?”

“Some duck hunters in West Virginia found a body in the Elk River around daylight. In a Buffalo Bill-type situation. Deputies are bringing it out. It’s real boonies, and Jack’s not inclined to wait on those guys for details.” Brigham stopped at the door to C Wing. “He needs somebody to help him that can print a floater, among other things. You were a grunt in the lab—you can do that, right?” “Yeee, let me check the stuff.”

Brigham held the fingerprint kit open while Starling lifted out the trays. The fine hypodermics and the vials were there, but the camera wasn’t.

“I need the one-to-one Polaroid, the CU-5, Mr. Brigham, and film packs and batteries for it.” “From property? You got it.”

He handed her the small canvas bag, and when she felt its weight, she realized why it was Brigham who had come for her.

“You don’t have a duty piece yet, right?”

“No.”

“You gotta have full kit. This is the rig you’ve been wearing on the range. The gun is my own. It’s the same K-frame Smith you’re trained with, but the action’s cleaned up. Dry-fire it in your room tonight when you get the chance. I’ll be in a car behind C Wing in ten minutes flat with the camera. Listen, there’s no head in the Blue Canoe. Go to the bathroom while you’ve got the chance is my advice. Chop-chop, Starling.” She tried to ask him a question, but he was leaving her.

Has to be Buffalo Bill, if Crawford’s going himself. What the hell is the Blue Canoe? But you have to think about packing when you pack. Starling packed fast and well.

“Is it—”

“That’s okay,” Brigham interrupted as she got in the car. “The butt prints against your jacket a little if somebody’s looking for it, but it’s okay for now.” She was wearing the snub-nosed revolver under her blazer in a pancake holster snug against her ribs, with a speedloader straddling her belt on the other side.

Brigham drove at precisely the base speed limit toward the Quantico airstrip.

He cleared his throat. “One good thing about the range, Starling, is there’s no politics out there.” “No?”

“You were right to secure that garage up at Baltimore there. You worried about the TV?” “Should I be?”

“We’re talking just us, right?”

“Right.”

Brigham returned the greeting of a Marine directing traffic.

“Taking you along today, Jack’s showing confidence in you where nobody can miss it,” he said. “In case, say, somebody in the Office of Professional Responsibility has your jacket in front of him and his bowels in an uproar, understand what I’m telling you?” “Ummm.”

“Crawford’s a stand-up guy. He made it clear where it matters that you had to secure the scene. He let you go in there bare—that is, bare of all your visible symbols of authority, and he said that too. And the response time of the Baltimore cops was pretty slow. Also, Crawford needs the help today, and he’d have to wait an hour for Jimmy Price to get somebody here from the lab. So you got it cut out for you, Starling. A floater’s no day at the beach, either. It’s not punishment for you, but if somebody outside needed to see it that way, they could. See, Crawford is a very subtle guy, but he’s not inclined to explain things, that’s why I’m telling you.… If you’re working with Crawford, you should know what the deal is with him—do you know?” “I really don’t.”

“He’s got a lot on his mind besides Buffalo Bill. His wife Bella’s real sick. She’s … in a terminal situation. He’s keeping her at home. If it wasn’t for Buffalo Bill, he’d have taken compassionate leave.” “I didn’t know that.”

“It’s not discussed. Don’t tell him you’re sorry or anything, it doesn’t help him … they had a good time.” “I’m glad you told me.”

Brigham brightened as they reached the airstrip. “I’ve got a couple of important speeches I give at the end of the firearms course, Starling, try not to miss them.” He took a shortcut between some hangars.

“I will.”

“Listen, what I teach is something you probably won’t ever have to do. I hope you won’t. But you’ve got some aptitude, Starling. If you have to shoot, you can shoot. Do your exercises.” “Right.”

“Don’t ever put it in your purse.”

“Right.”

“Pull it a few times in your room at night. Stay so you can find it.” “I will.”

A venerable twin-engined Beechcraft stood on the taxiway at the Quantico airstrip with its beacons turning and the door open. One propeller was spinning, riffling the grass beside the tarmac.

“That wouldn’t be the Blue Canoe,” Starling said.

“Yep.”

“It’s little and it’s old.”

“It is old,” Brigham said cheerfully. “Drug Enforcement seized it in Florida a long time ago, when it flopped in the ‘Glades. Mechanically sound now, though. I hope Gramm and Rudman don’t find out we’re using it—we’re supposed to ride the bus.” He pulled up beside the airplane and got Starling’s baggage out of the backseat. In some confusion of hands he managed to give her the stuff and shake her hand.

And then, without meaning to, Brigham said, “Bless you, Starling.” The words felt odd in his Marine mouth. He didn’t know where they came from and his face felt hot.

“Thanks … thank you, Mr. Brigham.”

Crawford was in the copilot’s seat, in shirtsleeves and sunglasses. He turned to Starling when he heard the pilot slam the door.

She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses, and she felt she didn’t know him. Crawford looked pale and tough, like a root a bulldozer pushes up.

“Take a pew and read,” is all he said.

A thick case file lay on the seat behind him. The cover said BUFFALO BILL. Starling hugged it tight as the Blue Canoe blatted and shuddered and began to roll.