فصل 22

CHAPTER 22

Descending through the asylum with Alonzo toward the final keep, Starling managed to shut out much of the slammings and the screaming, though she felt them shiver the air against her skin. Pressure built on her as though she sank through water, down and down.

The proximity of madmen—the thought of Catherine Martin bound and alone, with one of them snuffling her, patting his pockets for his tools—braced Starling for her job. But she needed more than resolution. She needed to be calm, to be still, to be the keenest instrument. She had to use patience in the face of the awful need to hurry. If Dr. Lecter knew the answer, she’d have to find it down among the tendrils of his thought.

Starling found she thought of Catherine Baker Martin as the child she’d seen in the film on the news, the little girl in the sailboat.

Alonzo pushed the buzzer at the last heavy door.

“Teach us to care and not to care, teach us to be still.” “Pardon me?” Alonzo said, and Starling realized she had spoken aloud.

He left her with the big orderly who opened the door. As Alonzo turned away, she saw him cross himself.

“Welcome back,” the orderly said, and shot the bolts home behind her.

“Hello, Barney.”

A paperback book was wrapped around Barney’s massive index finger as he held his place. It was Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility; Starling was set to notice everything.

“How do you want the lights?” he said.

The corridor between the cells was dim. Near the far end she could see bright light from the last cell shining on the corridor floor.

“Dr. Lecter’s awake.”

“At night, always—even when his lights are off.” “Let’s leave them like they are.”

“Stay in the middle going down, don’t touch the bars, right?” “I want to shut that TV off.” The television had been moved. It was at the far end, facing up the center of the corridor. Some inmates could see it by leaning their heads against the bars.

“Sure, turn the sound off, but leave the picture if you don’t mind. Some of ‘em like to look at it. The chair’s right there if you want it.” Starling went down the dim corridor alone. She did not look into the cells on either side. Her footfalls seemed loud to her. The only other sounds were wet snoring from one cell, maybe two, and a low chuckle from another.

The late Miggs’ cell had a new occupant. She could see long legs outstretched on the floor, the top of a head resting against the bars. She looked as she passed. A man sat on the cell floor in a litter of shredded construction paper. His face was vacant. The television was reflected in his eyes and a shiny thread of spit connected the corner of his mouth and his shoulder.

She didn’t want to look into Dr. Lecter’s cell until she was sure he had seen her. She passed it, feeling itchy between the shoulders, went to the television and turned off the sound.

Dr. Lecter wore the white asylum pajamas in his white cell. The only colors in the cell were his hair and eyes and his red mouth, in a face so long out of the sun it leached into the surrounding whiteness; his features seemed suspended above the collar of his shirt. He sat at his table behind the nylon net that kept him back from the bars. He was sketching on butcher paper, using his hand for a model. As she watched, he turned his hand over and, flexing his fingers to great tension, drew the inside of the forearm. He used his little finger as a shading stump to modify a charcoal line.

She came a little closer to the bars, and he looked up. For Starling every shadow in the cell flew into his eyes and widow’s peak.

“Good evening, Dr. Lecter.”

The tip of his tongue appeared, with his lips equally red. It touched his upper lip in the exact center and went back in again.

“Clarice.”

She heard the slight metallic rasp beneath his voice and wondered how long it had been since last he spoke. Beats of silence … “You’re up late for a school night,” he said.

“This is night school,” she said, wishing her voice were stronger. “Yesterday I was in West Virginia—” “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No, I—”

“You have on a fresh Band-Aid, Clarice.” Then she remembered. “I got a scrape on the side of the pool, swimming today.” The Band-Aid was out of sight, on her calf beneath her trousers. He must smell it. “I was in West Virginia yesterday. They found a body over there, Buffalo Bill’s latest.” “Not quite his latest, Clarice.”

“His next-to-latest.”

“Yes.”

“She was scalped. Just as you said she would be.” “Do you mind if I go on sketching while we talk?” “No, please.”

“You viewed the remains?”

“Yes.”

“Had you seen his earlier efforts?”

“No. Only pictures.”

“How did you feel?”

“Apprehensive. Then I was busy.”

“And after?”

“Shaken.”

“Could you function all right?” Dr. Lecter rubbed his charcoal on the edge of his butcher paper to refine the point.

“Very well. I functioned very well.”

“For Jack Crawford? Or does he still make house calls?” “He was there.”

“Indulge me a moment, Clarice. Would you let your head hang forward, just let it hang forward as though you were asleep. A second more. Thank you, I’ve got it now. Have a seat, if you like. You had told Jack Crawford what I said before they found her?” “Yes. He pretty much pooh-poohed it.”

“And after he saw the body in West Virginia?

“He talked to his main authority, from the University of—” “Alan Bloom.”

“That’s right. Dr. Bloom said Buffalo Bill was fulfilling a persona the newspapers created, the Buffalo Bill scalp-taking business the tabloids were playing with. Dr. Bloom said anybody could see that was coming.” “Dr. Bloom saw that coming?”

“He said he did.”

“He saw it coming, but he kept it to himself. I see. What do you think, Clarice?” “I’m not sure.”

“You have some psychology, some forensics. Where the two flow together you fish, don’t you? Catching anything, Clarice?” “It’s pretty slow so far.”

“What do your two disciplines tell you about Buffalo Bill?” “By the book, he’s a sadist.”

“Life’s too slippery for books, Clarice; anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives.” Dr. Lecter finished sketching his left hand with his right, switched the charcoal and began to sketch his right with his left, and just as well. “Do you mean Dr. Bloom’s book?” “Yes.”

“You looked me up in it, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How did he describe me?”

“A pure sociopath.”

“Would you say Dr. Bloom is always right?” “I’m still waiting for the shallowness of affect.” Dr. Lecter’s smile revealed his small white teeth. “We have experts at every hand, Clarice. Dr. Chilton says Sammie, behind you there, is a hebephrenic schizoid and irretrievably lost. He put Sammie in Miggs’ old cell, because he thinks Sammie’s said bye-bye. Do you know how hebephrenics usually go? Don’t worry, he won’t hear you.” “They’re the hardest to treat,” she said. “Usually they go into terminal withdrawal and personality disintegration.” Dr. Lecter took something from between his sheets of butcher paper and put it in the sliding food carrier. Starling pulled it through.

“Only yesterday Sammie sent that across with my supper,” he said.

It was a scrap of construction paper with writing in crayon.

Starling read:

I WAN TOO GO TO JESA

I WAN TOO GO WIV CRIEZ

I CAN GO WIV JESA

EF I AC RELL NIZE

SAMMIE

Starling looked back over her right shoulder. Sammie sat vacant-faced against the wall of his cell, his head leaning against the bars.

“Would you read it aloud? He won’t hear you.” Starling began. “’I want to go to Jesus, I want to go with Christ, I can go with Jesus if I act real nice.’” “No, no. Get a more assertive ‘Pease porridge hot’ quality into it. The meter varies but the intensity is the same.” Lecter clapped time softly, “Pease porridge in the pot nine days old. Intensely, you see. Fervently. ‘I wan to go to Jesa, I wan to go wiv Criez.’” “I see,” Starling said, putting the paper back in the carrier.

“No, you don’t see anything at all.” Dr. Lecter bounded to his feet, his lithe body suddenly grotesque, bent in a gnomish squat and he was bouncing, clapping time, his voice ringing like sonar, “I wan to go to Jesa—” Sammie’s voice boomed behind her sudden as a leopard’s cough, louder than a howler monkey, Sammy up and mashing his face into the bars, livid and straining, the cords standing out in his neck: “I WAN TOO GO TO JESA

I WAN TOO GO WIV CRIEZ

I CAN GO WIV JESA EF I AC RELL NIIIZE.” Silence. Starling found that she was standing and her folding chair was over backwards. Her papers had spilled from her lap.

“Please,” Dr. Lecter said, erect and graceful as a dancer once again, inviting her to sit. He dropped easily into his seat and rested his chin on his hand. “You don’t see at all,” he said again. “Sammie is intensely religious. He’s simply disappointed because Jesus is so late. May I tell Clarice why you’re here, Sammie?” Sammie grabbed the lower part of his face and halted its movement.

“Please?” Dr. Lecter said.

“Eaaah,” Sammie said between his fingers.

“Sammie put his mother’s head in the collection plate at the Highway Baptist Church in Trune. They were singing ‘Give of Your Best to the Master’ and it was the nicest thing he had.” Lecter spoke over her shoulder. “Thank you, Sammie. It’s perfectly all right. Watch television.” The tall man subsided to the floor with his head against the bars, just as before, the images from the television worming on his pupils, three streaks of silver on his face now, spit and tears.

“Now. See if you can apply yourself to his problem and perhaps I’ll apply myself to yours. Quid pro quo. He’s not listening.” Starling had to bear down hard. “The verse changes from ‘go to Jesus’ to ‘go with Christ,’” she said. “That’s a reasoned sequence: going to, arriving at, going with.” “Yes. It’s a linear progression. I’m particularly pleased that he knows ‘Jesa’ and ‘Criez’ are the same. That’s progress. The idea of a single Godhead also being a Trinity is hard to reconcile, particularly for Sammie, who’s not positive how many people he is himself. Eldridge Cleaver gives us the parable of the 3-in-One Oil, and we find that useful.” “He sees a causal relationship between his behavior and his aims, that’s structured thinking,” Starling said. “So is the management of a rhyme. He’s not blunted—he’s crying. You believe he’s a catatonic schizoid?” “Yes. Can you smell his sweat? That peculiar goatish odor is trans-3-methyl-2 hexenoic acid. Remember it, it’s the smell of schizophrenia.” “And you believe he’s treatable?”

“Particularly now, when he’s coming out of a stuporous phase. How his cheeks shine!” “Dr. Lecter, why do you say Buffalo Bill’s not a sadist?” “Because the newspapers have reported the bodies had ligature marks on the wrists, but not the ankles. Did you see any on the person’s ankles in West Virginia?” “No.”

“Clarice, recreational flayings are always conducted with the victim inverted, so that blood pressure is maintained longer in the head and chest and the subject remains conscious. Didn’t you know that?” “No.”

“When you’re back in Washington, go to the National Gallery and look at Titian’s Flaying of Marsyas before they send it back to Czechoslovakia. Wonderful for details, Titian—look at helpful Pan, bringing the bucket of water.” “Dr. Lecter, we have some extraordinary circumstances here and some unusual opportunities.” “For whom?”

“For you, if we save this one. Did you see Senator Martin on television?” “Yes, I saw the news.”

“What did you think of the statement?” “Misguided but harmless. She’s badly advised.” “She’s very powerful, Senator Martin. And determined.” “Let’s have it.”

“I think you have extraordinary insight. Senator Martin has indicated that if you help us get Catherine Baker Martin back alive and unharmed, she’ll help you get transferred to a federal institution, and if there’s a view available, you’ll get it. You may also be asked to review written psychiatric evaluations of incoming patients—a job, in other words. No relaxing of security restrictions.” “I don’t believe that, Clarice.”

“You should.”

“Oh, I believe you. But there are more things you don’t know about human behavior than how a proper flaying is conducted. Would you say that for a United States Senator, you’re an odd choice of messenger?” “I was your choice, Dr. Lecter. You chose to speak to me. Would you prefer someone else now? Or maybe you don’t think you could help.” “That is both impudent and untrue, Clarice. I don’t believe Jack Crawford would allow any compensation ever to reach me.… Possibly I’ll tell you one thing you can tell the Senator, but I operate strictly COD. Maybe I’ll trade for a piece of information about you. Yes or no?” “Let’s hear the question.”

“Yes or no? Catherine’s waiting, isn’t she? Listening to the whetstone? What do you think she’d ask you to do?” “Let’s hear the question.”

“What’s your worst memory of childhood?” Starling took a deep breath.

“Quicker than that,” Dr. Lecter said. “I’m not interested in your worst invention.” “The death of my father,” Starling said.

“Tell me.”

“He was a town marshal. One night he surprised two burglars, addicts, coming out of the back of the drugstore. As he was getting out of his pickup he short-shucked a pump shotgun and they shot him.” “Short-shucked?”

“He didn’t work the slide fully. It was an old pump gun, a Remington 870, and the shell hung up in the shell carrier. When it happens the gun won’t shoot and you have to take it down to clear it. I think he must have hit the slide on the door getting out.” “Was he killed outright?”

“No. He was strong. He lasted a month.” “Did you see him in the hospital?”

“Dr. Lecter—yes.”

“Tell me a detail you remember from the hospital.” Starling closed her eyes. “A neighbor came, an older woman, a single lady, and she recited the end of “Thanatopsis” to him. I guess that was all she knew to say. That’s it. We’ve traded.” “Yes we have. You’ve been very frank, Clarice. I always know. I think it would be quite something to know you in private life.” “Quid pro quo.”

“In life, was the girl in West Virginia very attractive physically, do you think?” “She was well-groomed.”

“Don’t waste my time with loyalty.”

“She was heavy.”

“Large?”

“Yes.”

“Shot in the chest.”

“Yes.”

“Flat-chested, I expect.”

“For her size, yes.”

“But big through the hips. Roomy.”

“She was, yes.”

“What else?”

“She had an insect deliberately inserted in her throat—that hasn’t been made public.” “Was it a butterfly?”

Her breath stopped for a moment. She hoped he didn’t hear it. “It was a moth,” she said. “Please tell me how you anticipated that.” “Clarice, I’m going to tell you what Buffalo Bill wants Catherine Baker Martin for, and then good night. This is my last word under the current terms. You can tell the Senator what he wants with Catherine and she can come up with a more interesting offer for me … or she can wait until Catherine bobs to the surface and see that I was right.” “What does he want her for, Dr. Lecter?” “He wants a vest with tits on it,” Dr. Lecter said.