hapter 9

The odors of the violent ward seemed more in¬tense in the semidarkness. A TV set playing without sound in the corridor threw Starling's shadow on the bars of Dr. Lecter's cage.

She could not see into the dark behind the bars, but she didn't ask the orderly to turn up the lights from his station. The whole ward would light at once and she knew the Baltimore County police had had the lights full on for hours while they shouted questions at Lecter. He had refused to speak, but responded by folding for them an origami chicken that pecked when the tail was manipulated up and down. The senior officer, furious, had crushed the chicken in the lobby ashtray as he gestured for Starling to go in.

"Dr. Lecter?" She heard her own breathing, and breathing down the hall, but from Miggs' empty cell, no breathing. Miggs' cell was vastly empty. She felt its silence like a draft.

Starling knew Lecter was watching her from the darkness. Two minutes passed. Her legs and back ached from her struggle with the garage door, and her clothes were damp. She sat on her coat on the floor, well back from the bars, her feet tucked under her, and lifted her wet, bedraggled hair over her collar to get it off her neck.

Behind her on the TV screen, an evangelist waved his arms.

"Dr. Lecter, we both know what this is. They think you'll talk to me."

Silence. Down the hall, someone whistled "Over the Sea to Skye."

After five minutes, she said, "It was strange going in there. Sometime I'd like to talk to you about it."

Starling jumped when the food carrier rolled out of Lecter's cell. There was a clean, folded towel in the tray. She hadn't heard him move.

She looked at it and, with a sense of falling, took it and toweled her hair. "Thanks," she said.

"Why don't you ask me about Buffalo Bill?" His voice was close, at her level. He must be sitting on the floor too.

"Do you know something about him?"

"I might if I saw the case."

"I don't have that case," Starling said.

"You won't have this one, either, when they're through using you."

"I know."

"You could get the files on Buffalo Bill. The reports and the pictures. I'd like to see it."

I'll bet you would. "Dr. Lecter, you started this. Now please tell me about the person in the Packard."

"You found an entire person? Odd. I only saw a head. Where do you suppose the rest came from?"

"All right. Whose head was it?"

"What can you tell?"

"They've only done the preliminary stuff. White male, about twenty-seven, both American and Euro¬pean dentistry. Who was he?"

"Raspail's lover. Raspail, of the gluey flute."

"What were the circumstances--- how did he die?"

"Circumlocution, Officer Starling?"

"No, I'll ask it later."

"Let me save you some time. I didn't do it; Raspail did. Raspail liked sailors. This was a Scandinavian one named Klaus something. Raspail never told me the last name."

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 conserva¬tory. 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 unfaith-ful and he strangled him."

"Raspail told you this?"

"Oh yes, under the confidential seal of therapy ses¬sions. 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, Of¬ficer 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 sub¬junctive 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.