فصل 56

CHAPTER 56

Mr. Gumb went ahead with it in the late afternoon.

With dangerous steady tears standing in his eyes, he’d watched his video again and again and again. On the small screen, Mom climbed the water-slide and whee down into the pool, whee down into the pool. Tears blurred Jame Gumb’s vision as though he were in the pool himself.

On his middle a hot-water bottle gurgled, as the little dog’s stomach had gurgled when she lay on him.

He couldn’t stand it any longer—what he had in the basement holding Precious prisoner, threatening her. Precious was in pain, he knew she was. He wasn’t sure he could kill it before it fatally injured Precious, but he had to try. Right now.

He took off his clothes and put on the robe—he always finished a harvest naked and bloody as a newborn.

From his vast medicine cabinet he took the salve he had used on Precious when the cat scratched her. He got out some little Band-Aids and Q-tips and the plastic “Elizabethan collar” the vet gave him to keep her from worrying a sore place with her teeth. He had tongue depressors in the basement to use for splints on her little broken leg, and a tube of Sting-Eez to take the hurt away if the stupid thing scratched her thrashing around before it died.

A careful head shot, and he’d just sacrifice the hair. Precious was worth more to him than the hair. The hair was a sacrifice, an offering for her safety.

Quietly down the stairs now, to the kitchen. Out of his slippers and down the dark basement stairs, staying close to the wall to keep the stairs from creaking.

He didn’t turn on the light. At the bottom of the stairs, he took a right into the workroom, moving by touch in the familiar dark, feeling the floor change under his feet.

His sleeve brushed the cage and he heard the soft angry chirp of a brood moth. Here was the cabinet. He found his infrared light and slipped the goggles on his head. Now the world glowed green. He stood for a moment in the comforting burble of the tanks, in the warm hiss of the steam pipes. Master of the dark, queen of the dark.

Moths free in the air left green trails of fluorescence across his vision, faint breaths across his face as their downy wings brushed the darkness.

He checked the Python. It was loaded with .38 Special lead wad-cutters. They would slam into the skull and expand for an instant kill. If it was standing when he shot, if he shot down into the top of the head, the bullet was less likely than a Magnum load to exit the lower jaw and tear the bosom.

Quiet, quiet he crept, knees bent, painted toes gripping the old boards. Silent on the sand floor of the oubliette room. Quiet but not too slow. He didn’t want his scent to have time to reach the little dog in the bottom of the well.

The top of the oubliette glowed green, the stones and mortar distinct, the grain of the wooden cover sharp in his vision. Hold the light and lean over. There they were. It was on its side like a giant shrimp. Perhaps asleep. Precious was curled up close against its body, surely sleeping, oh please not dead.

The head was exposed. A neck shot was tempting—save the hair. Too risky.

Mr. Gumb leaned over the hole, the stalk-eyes of his goggles peering down. The Python has a good, muzzle-heavy feel, wonderfully pointable it is. Have to hold it in the beam of infrared. He lined up the sights on the side of its head, just where the hair was damp against the temple.

Noise or smell, he never knew—but Precious up and yipping, jumping straight up in the dark, Catherine Baker Martin doubling around the little dog and pulling the futon over them. Just lumps moving under the futon, he couldn’t tell what was dog and what was Catherine. Looking down in infrared, his depth perception was impaired. He couldn’t tell which lumps were Catherine.

But he had seen Precious jump. He knew her leg was all right, and at once he knew something more: Catherine Baker Martin wouldn’t hurt the dog, any more than he would. Oh, sweet relief. Because of their shared feeling, he could shoot her in the God damned legs and when she clutched her legs, blow her fucking head off. No caution necessary.

He turned on the lights, all the damned lights in the basement, and got the floodlight from the storeroom. He had control of himself, he was reasoning well—on his way through the workroom he remembered to run a little water in the sinks so nothing would clot in the traps.

As he hurried past the stairs, ready to go, carrying the floodlight, the doorbell rang.

The doorbell grating, rasping, he had to stop and think about what it was. He hadn’t heard it in years, hadn’t even known whether it worked. Mounted in the stairway so it could be heard upstairs and down, clanging now, a black metal tit covered with dust. As he looked at it, it rang again, kept ringing, dust flying off it. Someone was at the front, pushing the old button marked SUPERINTENDENT.

They would go away.

He rigged the floodlight.

They didn’t go away.

Down in the well, it said something he paid no attention to. The bell was clanging, grating, they were just leaning on the button.

Better go upstairs and peek out the front. The long-barreled Python wouldn’t go in the pocket of his robe. He put it on the workroom counter.

He was halfway up the stairs when the bell stopped ringing. He waited a few moments halfway up. Silence. He decided to look anyway. As he went through the kitchen a heavy knock on the back door made him jump. In the pantry near the back door was a pump shotgun. He knew it was loaded.

With the door closed to the basement stairs, nobody could hear it yelling down there, even at the top of its voice, he was sure of that.

Banging again. He opened the door a crack on the chain.

“I tried the front but nobody came,” Clarice Starling said. “I’m looking for Mrs. Lippman’s family, could you help me?” “They don’t live here,” Mr. Gumb said, and closed the door. He had started for the stairs again when the banging resumed, louder this time.

He opened the door on the chain.

The young woman held an ID close to the crack. It said Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Excuse me, but I need to talk to you. I want to find the family of Mrs. Lippman. I know she lived here. I want you to help me, please.” “Mrs. Lippman’s been dead for ages. She didn’t have any relatives that I know of.” “What about a lawyer, or an accountant? Somebody who’d have her business records? Did you know Mrs. Lippman?” “Just briefly. What’s the problem?”

“I’m investigating the death of Fredrica Bimmel. Who are you, please?”

“Jack Gordon.”

“Did you know Fredrica Bimmel when she worked for Mrs. Lippman?”

“No. Was she a great, fat person? I may have seen her, I’m not sure. I didn’t mean to be rude—I was sleeping.… Mrs. Lippman had a lawyer, I may have his card somewhere, I’ll see if I can find it. Do you mind stepping in? I’m freezing and my cat will streak through here in a second. She’ll be outside like a shot before I can catch her.” He went to a rolltop desk in the far corner of the kitchen, raised the top and looked in a couple of pigeonholes. Starling stepped inside the door and took her notebook out of her purse.

“That horrible business,” he said, rummaging the desk. “I shiver every time I think about it. Are they close to catching somebody, do you think?” “Not yet, but we’re working. Mr. Gordon, did you take over this place after Mrs. Lippman died?” “Yes.” Gumb bent over the desk, his back to Starling. He opened a drawer and poked around in it.

“Were there any records left here? Business records?”

“No, nothing at all. Does the FBI have any ideas? The police here don’t seem to know the first thing. Do they have a description, or fingerprints?” Out of the folds in the back of Mr. Gumb’s robe crawled a Death’s-head Moth. It stopped in the center of his back, about where his heart would be, and adjusted its wings.

Starling dropped her notebook into the bag.

Mister Gumb. Thank God my coat’s open. Talk out of here, go to a phone. No. He knows I’m FBI, I let him out of my sight he’ll kill her. Do her kidneys. They find him, they fall on him. His phone. Don’t see it. Not in here, ask for his phone. Get the connection, then throw down on him. Make him lie facedown, wait for the cops. That’s it, do it. He’s turning around.

“Here’s the number,” he said. He had a business card.

Take it? No.

“Good, thank you. Mr. Gordon, do you have a telephone I could use?”

As he put the card on the table, the moth flew. It came from behind him, past his head and lit between them, on a cabinet above the sink.

He looked at it. When she didn’t look at it, when her eyes never left his face, he knew.

Their eyes met and they knew each other.

Mr. Gumb tilted his head a little to the side. He smiled. “I have a cordless phone in the pantry, I’ll get it for you.” No! Do it. She went for the gun, one smooth move she’d done four thousand times and it was right where it was supposed to be, good two-hand hold, her world the front sight and the center of his chest. “Freeze.” He pursed his lips.

“Now. Slowly. Put up your hands.”

Move him outside, keep the table between us. Walk him to the front. Facedown in the middle of the street and hold up the badge.

“Mr. Gub— Mr. Gumb, you’re under arrest. I want you to walk slowly outside for me.” Instead, he walked out of the room. If he had reached for his pocket, reached behind him, if she’d seen a weapon, she could have fired. He just walked out of the room.

She heard him down the basement stairs fast, she around the table and to the door at the top of the stairwell. He was gone, the stairwell brightly lit and empty. Trap. Be a sitting duck on the stairs.

From the basement then a thin paper cut of a scream.

She didn’t like the stairs, didn’t like the stairs, Clarice Starling in the quick where you give it or you don’t.

Catherine Martin screamed again, he’s killing her and Starling went down them anyway, one hand on the bannister, gun arm out the gun just under her line of vision, floor below bounding over the gunsight, gun arm swinging with her head as she tried to cover the two facing doors open at the bottom of the staircase.

Lights blazing in the basement, she couldn’t go through one door without turning her back on the other, do it quick then, to the left toward the scream. Into the sand-floored oubliette room, clearing the doorframe fast, eyes wider than they had ever been. Only place to hide was behind the well, she sliding sideways around the wall, both hands on the gun, arms out straight, a little pressure on the trigger, on around the well and nobody behind it.

A small scream rising from the well like thin smoke. Yipping now, a dog. She approached the well, eyes on the door, got to the rim, looked over the edge. Saw the girl, looked up again, down again, said what she was trained to say, calm the hostage: “FBI, you’re safe.”

“Safe SHIT, he’s got a gun. Getmeout. GETMEOUT.”

“Catherine, you’ll be all right. Shut up. Do you know where he is?”

“GETMEOUT, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHERE HE IS, GETMEOUT.”

“I’ll get you out. Be quiet. Help me. Be quiet so I can hear. Try and shut that dog up.” Braced behind the well, covering the door, her heart pounded and her breath blew dust off the stone. She could not leave Catherine Martin to get help when she didn’t know where Gumb was. She moved up to the door and took cover behind the frame. She could see across the foot of the stairs and into part of the workroom beyond.

Either she found Gumb, or she made sure he’d fled, or she took Catherine out with her, those were the only choices.

A quick look over her shoulder, around the oubliette room.

“Catherine. Catherine. Is there a ladder?”

“I don’t know, I woke up down here. He let the bucket down on strings.”

Bolted to a wall beam was a small hand winch. There was no line on the drum of the winch.

“Catherine, I have to find something to get you out with. Can you walk?”

“Yes. Don’t leave me.”

“I have to leave the room for just a minute.”

“You fucking bitch don’t you leave me down here, my mother will tear your goddamn shit brains out—” “Catherine shut up. I want you to be quiet so I can hear. To save yourself be quiet, do you understand?” Then, louder, “The other officers will be here any minute, now shut up. We won’t leave you down there.” He had to have a rope. Where was it? Go see.

Starling moved across the stairwell in one rush, to the door of the workroom, door’s the worst place, in fast, back and forth along the near wall until she had seen all the room, familiar shapes swimming in the glass tanks, she too alert to be startled. Quickly through the room, past the tanks, the sinks, past the cage, a few big moths flying. She ignored them.

Approaching the corridor beyond, it blazing with light. The refrigerator turned on behind her and she spun in a crouch, hammer lifting off the frame of the Magnum, eased the pressure off. On to the corridor. She wasn’t taught to peek. Head and gun at once, but low. The corridor empty. The studio blazing with light at the end of it. Fast along it, gambling past the closed door, on to the studio door. The room all white and blond oak. Hell to clear from the doorway. Make sure every mannequin is a mannequin, every reflection is a mannequin. Only movement in the mirrors your movement.

The great armoire stood open and empty. The far door open onto darkness, the basement beyond. No rope, no ladder anywhere. No lights beyond the studio. She closed the door into the dark part of the basement, pushed a chair under the knob, and pushed a sewing machine against it. If she could be positive he wasn’t in this part of the basement, she’d risk going upstairs for a moment to find a phone.

Back down the corridor, one door she’d passed. Get on the side opposite the hinges. All the way open in one move. The door slammed back, nobody behind it. An old bathroom. In it, rope, hooks, a sling. Get Catherine or go for the phone? In the bottom of the well Catherine wouldn’t get shot by accident. But if Starling got killed, Catherine was dead too. Take Catherine with her to the phone.

Starling didn’t want to stay in the bathroom long. He could come to the door and hose her. She looked both ways and ducked inside for the rope. There was a big bathtub in the room. The tub was almost filled with hard red-purple plaster. A hand and wrist stuck up from the plaster, the hand turned dark and shriveled, the fingernails painted pink. On the wrist was a dainty watch. Starling was seeing everything at once, the rope, the tub, the hand, the watch.

The tiny insect-crawl of the second-hand was the last thing she saw before the lights went out.

Her heart knocked hard enough to shake her chest and arms. Dizzy dark, need to touch something, the edge of the tub. The bathroom. Get out of the bathroom. If he can find the door he can hose this room, nothing to get behind. Oh dear Jesus go out. Go out down low and out in the hall. Every light out? Every light. He must have done it at the fuse box, pulled the lever, where would it be? Where would the fuse box be? Near the stairs. Lot of times near the stairs. If it is, he’ll come from that way. But he’s between me and Catherine.

Catherine Martin was keening again.

Wait here? Wait forever? Maybe he’s gone. He can’t be sure no backup’s coming. Yes he can. But soon I’ll be missed. Tonight. The stairs are in the direction of the screams. Solve it now.

She moved, quietly, her shoulder barely brushing the wall, brushing it too lightly for sound, one hand extended ahead, the gun at waist level, close to her in the confined hallway. Out into the workroom now. Feel the space opening up. Open room. In the crouch in the open room, arms out, both hands on the gun. You know exactly where the gun is, it’s just below eye level. Stop, listen. Head and body and arms turning together like a turret. Stop, listen.

In absolute black the hiss of steam pipes, trickle of water.

Heavy in her nostrils the smell of the goat.

Catherine keening.

Against the wall stood Mr. Gumb with his goggles on. There was no danger she’d bump into him—there was an equipment table between them. He played his infrared light up and down her. She was too slender to be of great utility to him. He remembered her hair though, from the kitchen, and it was glorious, and that would only take a minute. He could slip it right off. Put it on himself. He could lean over the well wearing it and tell that thing “Surprise!” It was fun to watch her trying to sneak along. She had her hip against the sinks now, creeping toward the screams with her gun stuck out. It would have been fun to hunt her for a long time—he’d never hunted one armed before. He would have thoroughly enjoyed it. No time for that. Pity.

A shot in the face would be fine and easy at eight feet. Now.

He cocked the Python as he brought it up snick snick and the figure blurred, bloomed bloomed green in his vision and his gun bucked in his hand and the floor hit him hard in the back and his light was on and he saw the ceiling. Starling on the floor, flash-blind, ears ringing, deafened by the blast of the guns. She worked in the dark while neither could hear, dump the empties, tip it, feel to see they’re all out, in with the speedloader, feel it, tip it down, twist, drop it, close the cylinder. She’d fired four. Two shots and two shots. He’d fired once. She found the two good cartridges she’d dumped. Put them where? In the speed-loader pouch. She lay still. Move before he can hear?

The sound of a revolver being cocked is like no other. She’d fired at the sound, seen nothing past the great muzzle flashes of the guns. She hoped he’d fire now in the wrong direction, give her the muzzle flash to shoot at. Her hearing was coming back, her ears still rang, but she could hear.

What was that sound? Whistling? Like a teakettle, but interrupted. What was it? Like breathing. Is it me? No. Her breath blew warm off the floor, back in her face. Careful, don’t get dust, don’t sneeze. It’s breathing. It’s a sucking chest wound. He’s hit in the chest. They’d taught her how to seal one, to put something over it, a rain slicker, a plastic bag, something airtight, strap it tight. Reinflate the lung. She’d hit him in the chest, then. What to do? Wait. Let him stiffen up and bleed. Wait.

Starling’s cheek stung. She didn’t touch it, if it was bleeding she didn’t want her hands slick.

The moaning from the well came again, Catherine talking, crying. Starling had to wait. She couldn’t answer Catherine. She couldn’t say anything or move.

Mr. Gumb’s invisible light played on the ceiling. He tried to move it and he couldn’t, any more than he could move his head. A great Malaysian Luna Moth passing close beneath the ceiling picked up the infrared and came down, circled, lit on the light. The pulsing shadows of its wings, enormous on the ceiling, were visible only to Mr. Gumb.

Over the sucking in the dark, Starling heard Mr. Gumb’s ghastly voice, choking: “How … does … it feel … to be … so beautiful?” And then another sound. A gurgle, a rattle and the whistling stopped.

Starling knew that sound too. She’d heard it once before, at the hospital when her father died.

She felt for the edge of the table and got to her feet. Feeling her way along, going toward the sounds of Catherine, she found the stairwell and climbed the stairs in the dark.

It seemed to take a long time. There was a candle in the kitchen drawer. With it she found the fuse box beside the stairs, jumped when the lights came on. To get to the fuse box and shut off the lights, he must have left the basement another way and come down again behind her.

Starling had to be positive he was dead. She waited until her eyes were well adjusted to the light before she went back in the workroom, and then she was careful. She could see his naked feet and legs sticking out from under the worktable. She kept her eyes on the hand beside the gun until she kicked the gun away. His eyes were open. He was dead, shot through the right side of the chest, thick blood under him. He had put on some of his things from the armoire and she couldn’t look at him long.

She went to the sink, put the Magnum on the drainboard and ran cold water on her wrists, wiped her face with her wet hand. No blood. Moths batted at the mesh around the lights. She had to step around the body to retrieve the Python.

At the well she said, “Catherine, he’s dead. He can’t hurt you. I’m going upstairs and call—” “No! GET ME OUT. GET ME OUT. GET ME OUT.”

“Look here. He’s dead. This is his gun. Remember it? I’m going to call the police and the fire department. I’m afraid to hoist you out myself, you might fall. Soon as I call them I’ll come back down and wait with you. Okay? Okay. Try to shut that dog up. Okay? Okay.” * * *

The local television crews arrived just after the fire department and before the Belvedere police. The fire captain, angered at the glare from the lights, drove the television crews back up the stairs and out of the basement while he rigged a pipe frame to hoist out Catherine Martin, not trusting Mr. Gumb’s hook in the ceiling joist. A fireman went down into the well and put her in the rescue chair. Catherine came out holding the dog, kept the dog in the ambulance.

They drew the line on dogs at the hospital and wouldn’t let the dog in. A fireman, instructed to drop it off at the animal shelter, took it home with him instead.