hapter 33

Room into room, Jame Gumb's basement ram¬bles like the maze that thwarts us in dreams. When he was still shy, lives and lives ago, Mr. Gumb took his pleasure in the rooms most hidden, far from the stairs. There are rooms in the farthest corners, rooms from other lives, that Gumb hasn't opened in years. Some of them are still occupied, so to speak, though the sounds from behind the doors peaked and trailed off to silence long ago.

The levels of the floors vary from room to room by as much as a foot. There are thresholds to step over, lintels to duck. Loads are impossible to roll and difficult to drag. To march something ahead of you--- it stum¬bling and crying, begging, banging its dazed head--- is difficult, dangerous even.

As he grew in wisdom and in confidence, Mr. Gumb no longer felt he had to meet his needs in the hidden parts of the basement. He nowuses a suite of basement rooms around the stairs, large rooms with running water and electricity.

The basement is in total darkness now.

Beneath the sand-floored room, in the oubliette, Catherine Martin is quiet.

Mr. Gumb is here in the basement, but he is not in this chamber.

The room beyond the stairs is black to human vision, but it is full of small sounds. Water trickles here and small pumps hum. In little echoes the room sounds large. The air is moist and cool. Smell the greenery. A flutter of wings against the cheek, a few clicks across the air. A low nasal sound of pleasure, a human sound.

The room has none of the wavelengths of light the human eye can use, but Mr. Gumb is here and he can see very well, though he sees everything in shades and intensities of green. He's wearing an excellent pair of infrared goggles (Israeli military surplus, less than four hundred dollars) and he directs the beam of an infrared flashlight on the wire cage in front of him. He is sitting on the edge of a straight chair, rapt, watching an insect climb a plant in the screen cage. The young imago has just emerged from a split chrysalis in the moist earth of the cage floor. She climbs carefully on a stalk of night¬shade, seeking space to unfurl the damp new wings still wadded on her back. She selects a horizontal twig.

Mr. Gumb must tilt his head to see. Little by little the wings are pumped full of blood and air. They are still stuck together over the insect's back.

Two hours pass. Mr. Gumb has hardly moved. He turns the infrared flashlight on and off to surprise him¬self with the progress the insect has made. To pass the time he plays the light over the rest of the room--- over his big aquariums full of vegetable tanning solution. On forms and stretchers in the tanks, his recent acqui¬sitions stand like broken classic statuary green beneath the sea. His light moves over the big galvanized work table with its metal pillow block and backsplash and drains, touches the hoist above it. Against the wall, his long industrial sinks. All in the green images of filtered infrared. Flutters, streaks of phosphorescence cross his vision, little comet trails of moths free in the room.

He switches back to the cage just in time. The big insect's wings are held above her back, hiding and dis¬torting her markings. Now she brings down her wings¬ to cloak her body and the famous design is clear. A human skull, wonderfully executed in the furlike scales, stares from the back of the moth. Under the shaded dome of the skull are the black eye holes and prominent cheekbones. Beneath them darkness lies like a gag across the face above the jaw. The skull rests on a marking flared like the top of a pelvis.

A skull stacked upon a pelvis, all drawn on the back of a moth by an accident of nature.

Mr. Gumb feels so good and light inside. He leans forward, puffs soft air across the moth. She raises her sharp proboscis and squeaks angrily.

He walks quietly with his light into the oubliette room. He opens his mouth to quiet his breathing. He doesn't want to spoil his mood with a lot of noise from the pit. The lenses of his goggles on their small protrud¬ing barrels look like crab eyes on stalks. Mr. Gumb knows the goggles aren't the least bit attractive, but he has had some great times with them in the black base¬ment, playing basement games.

He leans over and shines his invisible light down the shaft.

The material is lying on her side, curled like a shrimp. She seems to be asleep. Her waste bucket stands beside her. She has not foolishly broken the string again, try¬ing to pull herself up the sheer walls. In her sleep, she clutches the corner of the futon against her face and sucks her thumb.

Watching Catherine, playing the infrared flashlight up and down her, Mr. Gumb prepares himself for the very real problems ahead.

The human skin is fiendishly difficult to deal with if your standards are as high as Mr. Gumb's. There are fundamental structural decisions to make, and the first one is where to put the zipper.

He moves the beam down Catherine's back. Nor¬mally he would put the closure in the back, but then how could he don it alone? It won't be the sort of thing he can ask someone to help him with, exciting as that prospect might be. He knows of places, circles, where his efforts would be much admired--- there are certain yachts where he could preen--- but that will have to wait. He must have things he can use alone. To split the center front would be sacrilege--- he puts that right out of his mind.

Mr. Gumb can tell nothing of Catherine's color by infrared, but she looks thinner. He believes she may have been dieting when he took her.

Experience has taught him to wait from four days to a week before harvesting the hide. Sudden weight loss makes the hide looser and easier to remove. In addition, starvation takes much of his subjects' strength and makes them more manageable. More docile. A stupor¬ous resignation comes over some of them. At the same time, it's necessary to provide a few rations to prevent despair and destructive tantrums that might damage the skin.

It definitely has lost weight. This one is so special, so central to what he is doing, he can't stand to wait long, and he doesn't have to. Tomorrow afternoon, he can do it, or tomorrow night. The next day at the latest. Soon.

Chapter 34

Clarice Starling recognized the Stonehinge Villas sign from television news. The East Memphis housing complex, a mix of flats and town houses, formed a large U around a parking field.

Starling parked her rented Chevrolet Celebrity in the middle of the big lot. Well-paid blue-collar workers and bottom-echelon executives lived here--- the Trans¬Ams and IROC-Z Camaros told her that. Motor homes for the weekends and ski boats bright with glitter paint were parked in their own section of the lot.

Stonehinge Villas--- the spelling grated on Starling every time she looked at it. Probably the apartments were full of white wicker and peach shag. Snapshots under the glass of the coffee table. The Dinner for Two Cookbook and Fondue on the Menu. Starling, whose only residence was a dormitory room at the FBI Academy, was a severe critic of these things.

She needed to know Catherine Baker Martin, and this seemed an odd place for a senator's daughter to live. Starling had read the brief biographical material the FBI had gathered, and it showed Catherine Martin to be a bright underachiever. She'd failed at Farmington and had two unhappy years at Middlebury. Now she was a student at Southwestern and a practice teacher.

Starling could easily have pictured her as a self-ab¬sorbed, blunted, boarding-school kid, one of those peo¬ple who never listen. Starling knew she had to be careful here because she had her own prejudices and resentments. Starling had done her time in boarding schools, living on scholarships, her grades much better than her clothes. She had seen a lot of kids from rich, troubled families, with too much boarding-school time. She didn't give a damn about some of them, but she had grown to learn that inattention can be a stratagem to avoid pain, and that it is often misread as shallow¬ness and indifference.

Better to think of Catherine as a child sailing with her father, as she was in the film they showed with Senator Martin's plea on television. She wondered if Catherine tried to please her father when she was little. She wondered what Catherine was doing when they came and told her that her father was dead, of a heart attack at forty-two. Starling was positive Catherine missed him. Missing your father, the common wound, made Starling feel close to this young woman.

Starling found it essential to like Catherine Martin because it helped her to bear down.

Starling could see where Catherine's apartment was located--- two Tennessee Highway Patrol cruisers were parked in front of it. There were spots of white powder on the parking lot in the area closest to the apartment. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation must have been lifting oil stains with pumice or some other inert pow¬der. Crawford said the TBI was pretty good.

Starling walked over to the recreational vehicles and boats parked in the special section of the lot in front of the apartment. This is where Buffalo Bill got her. Close enough to her door so that she left it unlocked when she came out. Something tempted her out. It must have beep a harmless-looking setup.

Starling knew the Memphis police had done exhaus¬tive door-to-door interviews and nobody had seen anything, so maybe it happened among the tall motor homes. He must have watched from here. Sitting in some kind of vehicle, had to be. But Buffalo Bill knew Catherine was here. He must have spotted her some¬where and stalked her, waiting for his chance. Girls the size of Catherine aren't common. He didn't just sit around at random locations until a woman of the right size came by. He could sit for days and not see one.

All the victims were big. All of them were big. Some were fat, but all were big. "So he can get something that will fit." Remembering Dr. Lecter's words, Starling shuddered. Dr. Lecter, the new Memphian.

Starling took a deep breath, puffed up her cheeks and let the air out slowly. Let's see what we can tell about Cather¬ine.

A Tennessee state trooper wearing his Smokey the Bear hat answered the door of Catherine Martin's apartment. When Starling showed him her credentials, he motioned her inside.

"Officer, I need to look over the premises here." Prem¬ises seemed a good word to use to a man who had his hat on in the house.

He nodded: "If the phone rings, leave it alone. I'll answer it."

On the counter in the open kitchen Starling could see a tape recorder attached to the telephone. Beside it were two new telephones. One had no dial--- a direct line to Southern Bell security, the mid-South tracing facility.

"Can I help you any way?" the young officer asked.

"Are the police through in here'"

"The apartment's been released to the family. I'm just here for the telephone. You can touch stuff, if that's what you want to know."

"Good, I'll look around then."

"Okay." The young policeman retrieved the news¬paper he had stuffed beneath the couch and resumed his seat.

Starling wanted to concentrate. She wished she were alone in the apartment, but she knew she was lucky the place wasn't full of cops.

She started in the kitchen. It was not equipped by a serious cook. Catherine had come for popcorn, the boy¬friend had told police. Starling opened the freezer. There were two boxes of microwave popcorn. You couldn't see the parking lot from the kitchen.

"Where you from?"

Starling didn't register the question the first time.

"Where you from?"

The trooper on the couch was watching her over his newspaper.

"Washington," she said.

Under the sink--- yep, scratches on the pipe joint, they'd taken the trap out and examined it. Good for the TBI. The knives were not sharp. The dishwasher had been run, but not emptied. The refrigerator was de¬voted to cottage cheese and deli fruit salad. Catherine Martin shopped for fast-food groceries, probably had a regular place, a drive-in she used close by. Maybe somebody cruised the store. That's worth checking.

"You with the Attorney General?"

"No, the FBI."

"The Attorney General's coming. That's what I heard at turnout. How long you been in the FBI?"

There was a rubber cabbage in the vegetable drawer. Starling rolled it over and checked the jewelry com¬partment inside. Empty.

"How long you been in the FBI?"

Starling looked at the young policeman.

"Officer, tell you what. I'll probably need to ask you a couple of things after I've finished looking around here. Maybe you could help me out then."

"Sure. If I can---"

"Good, okay. Let's wait and talk then. I have to think about this right now."

"No problem, there."

The bedroom was bright, with a sunny, drowsy qual¬ity Starling liked. It was done with better fabrics and better furnishings than most young women could af¬ford. There was a Coromandel screen, two pieces of cloisonn¨¦ on the shelves, and a good secretary in burled walnut. Twin beds. Starling lifted the edge of the cov¬erlets. Rollers were locked on the left bed, but not on the right-hand one. Catherine must push them together when it suits her. May have a lover the boyfriend doesn't know about. Or maybe they stay over here sometimes. There's no remote beeper on her answering machine. She may need to be here when her mom calls.

The answering machine was like her own, the basic Phone-Mate. She opened the top panel. Both incoming and outgoing tapes were gone. In their place was a note, TAPES TBI PROPERTY #6.

The room was reasonably neat but it had the ruffled appearance left by searchers with big hands, men who try to put things back exactly, but miss just a little bit. Starling would have known the place had been searched even without the traces of fingerprint power on all the smooth surfaces.

Starling didn't believe that any part of the crime had happened in the bedroom. Crawford probably was right, Catherine had been grabbed in the parking lot. But Starling wanted to know her, and this is where she lived. Lives, Starling corrected herself. She lives here.

In the cabinet of the nightstand were a telephone book, Kleenex, a box of grooming items and, behind the box, a Polaroid SX-70 camera with a cable release and a short tripod folded beside it. Ummmm. Intent as a lizard, Starling looked at the camera. She blinked as a lizard blinks and didn't touch it.

The closet interested Starling most. Catherine Baker Martin, laundry mark C-B-M, had a lot of clothes and some of them were very good. Starling recognized many of the labels, including Garfinkel's and Britches in Washington. Presents from Mommy, Starling said to herself. Catherine had fine, classic clothes in two sizes, made to fit her at about 145 and 165 pounds, Starling guessed, and there were a few pairs of crisis fat pants and pullovers from the Statuesque Shop. In a hanging rack were twenty-three pairs of shoes. Seven pairs were Ferragamos in 10C, and there were some Reeboks and run-over loafers. A light backpack and a tennis racket were on the top shelf.

The belongings of a privileged kid, a student and practice teacher who lived better than most.

Lots of letters in the secretary. Loopy backhand notes from former classmates in the East. Stamps, mailing labels. Gift wrapping paper in the bottom drawer, a sheaf in various colors and patterns. Starling's fingers walked through it. She was thinking about questioning the clerks at the local drive-in market when her fingers found a sheet in the stack of gift wrap that was too thick and stiff. Her fingers went past it, walked back to it. She was trained to register anomalies and she had it half pulled out when she looked at it. The sheet was blue, of a material similar to a lightweight blotter, and the pattern printed on it was a crude imitation of the cartoon dog Pluto. The little rows of dogs all looked like Pluto, they were the proper yellow, but they weren't exactly right in their proportions.

"Catherine, Catherine," Starling said. She took some tweezers from her bag and used them to slide the sheet of colored paper into a plastic envelope. She placed it on the bed for the time being.

The jewelry box on the dresser was a stamped-leather affair, the kind you see in every girl's dormitory room. The two drawers in front and the tiered lid con¬tained costume jewelry, no valuable pieces. Starling wondered if the best things had been in the rubber cabbage in the refrigerator, and if so, who took them.

She hooked her finger under the side of the lid and released the secret drawer in the back of the jewelry box. The secret drawer was empty. She wondered whom these drawers were a secret from--- certainly not burglars. She was reaching behind the jewelry box, pushing the drawer back in, when her fingers touched the envelope taped to the underside of the secret draw.

Starling pulled on a pair of cotton gloves and turned the jewelry box around. She took out the empty drawer and inverted it. A brown envelope was taped to the bottom of the drawer with masking tape: The flap was just tucked in, not sealed. She held the paper close to her nose. The envelope had not been fumed for fin¬gerprints. Starling used the tweezers to open it and extract the contents. There were five Polaroid pictures in the envelope and she took them out one by one. The pictures were of a man and a woman coupling. No heads or faces appeared. Two of the pictures were taken by the woman, two by the man, and one ap-peared to have been shot from the tripod set up on the nightstand.

It was hard to judge scale in a photograph, but with that spectacular 145 pounds on a long frame, the woman had to be Catherine Martin. The man wore what appeared to be a carved ivory ring on his penis. The resolution of the photograph was not sharp enough to reveal the details of it. The man had had his appendix out. Starling bagged the photographs, each in a sandwich bag, and put them in her own brown enve¬lope. She returned the drawer to the jewelry box.

"I have the good stuff in my pocketbook," said a voice behind her. "I don't think anything was taken." Starling looked in. the mirror. Senator Ruth Martin stood in the bedroom door. She looked drained.

Starling turned around. "Hello, Senator Martin. Would you like to lie down? I'm almost finished."

Even exhausted, Senator Martin had a lot of pres¬ence. Under her careful finish, Starling saw a scrapper.

"Who are you, please? I thought the police were through in here."

"I'm Clarice Starling, FBI. Did you talk to Dr. Lecter, Senator?"

"He gave me a name." Senator Martin lit a cigarette and looked Starling up and down. "We'll see what it's worth. And what did you find in the jewelry box, Of¬ficer Starling? What's it worth?"

"Some documentation we can check out in just a few minutes," was the best Starling could do.

"In my daughter's jewelry box? Let's see it."

Starling heard voices in the next room and hoped for an interruption. "Is Mr. Copley with you, the Memphis special agent in---"

"No, he's not, and that's not an answer. No offense, Officer, but I'll see what you got out of my daughter's jewelry box." She turned her head and called over her shoulder. "Paul. Paul, would you come in here? Officer Starling, you may know Mr. Krendler from the Depart¬ment of Justice. Paul, this is the girl Jack Crawford sent in to Lecter."

Krendler's bald spot was tanned and he looked fit at forty.

"Mr. Krendler, I know who you are. Hello," Starling said. DeeJay Criminal Division congressional liaison, trouble¬shooter, at least an Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Jesus God, save my bod.

"Officer Starling found something in my daughte'r's jewelry box and she put it in her brown envelope. I think we'd better see what it is, don't you?"

"Officer," Krendler said.

"May I speak to you, Mr. Krendler?"

"Of course you can. Later." He held out his hand.

Starling's face was hot. She knew Senator Martin was not herself, but she would never forgive Krendler for the doubt in his face. Never.

"You got it," Starling said. She handed him the enve¬lope.

Krendler looked in at the first picture and had closed the flap again when Senator Martin took the envelope out of his hands.

It was painful to watch her examine the pictures. When she finished, she went to the window and stood with her face turned up to the overcast sky, her eyes closed. She looked old in the daylight and her hand trembled when she tried to smoke.

"Senator, I---" Krendler began.

"The police searched this room, " Senator Martin said. "I'm sure they found those pictures and had sense enough to put them back and keep their mouths shut."

"No they did not," Starling said. The woman was wounded but, hell. "Mrs. Martin, we need to know who this man is, you can see that. If it's the boyfriend, fine. I can find that out in five minutes. Nobody else needs to see the pictures and Catherine never needs to know."

"I'll tend to it." Senator Martin put the envelope in her purse, and Krendler let her do it.

"Senator, did you take the jewelry out of the rubber cabbage in the kitchen?" Starling asked.

Senator Martin's aide, Brian Gossage, stuck his head in the door. "Excuse me, Senator, they've got the termi¬nal set up. We can watch them search the William Robin name at the FBI."

"Go ahead, Senator Martin," Krendlei said. "I'll be out in a second."

Ruth Martin left the room without answering Star¬ling's question.

Starling had a chance to look Krendler over as he was closing the bedroom door. His suit was a triumph of single-needle tailoring and he was not armed. The shine was buffed off the bottom half-inch of his heels from walking on much deep carpet, and the edges of the heels were sharp.

He stood for a moment with his hand on the door¬knob, his head down.

"That was a good search," he said when he turned around.

Starling couldn't be had that cheap. She looked back at him.

"They turn out good rummagers at Quantico," Kren¬dler said.

"They don't turn out thieves."

"I know that," he said.

"Hard to tell."

"Drop it."

"We'll follow up on the pictures and the rubber cab¬bage, right?" she said.

"Yes."

"What's the 'William Rubin' name, Mr. Krendler?"

"Lecter says that's Buffalo Bill's name. Here's our transmission to ID section and NCIC. Look at this." He gave her a transcript of the Lecter interview with Sena¬tor Martin, blurry copy from a dot-matrix printer.

"Any thoughts?" he said when she finished reading.

"There's nothing here he'll ever have to eat," Starling said. "He says it's a white male named Billy Rubin who had elephant ivory anthrax. You couldn't catch him in a lie here, no matter what happens.' At the worst he'd just be mistaken. I hope this is true. But he could be having fun with her. Mr. Krendler, he's perfectly capa¬ble of that. Have you ever... met him?"

Krendler shook his head and snorted air from his nose.

"Dr. Lecter killed nine people we know of. He's not walking, no matter--- he could raise the dead and they wouldn't let him out. So all that's left for him is fun. That's why we were playing him---"

"I know how you were playing him. I heard Chilton's tape. I'm not saying it was wrong--- I'm saying it's over. Behavioral Science can follow up what you got--- the transsexual angle--- for what it's worth. And you'll be back in school at Quantico tomorrow."

Oh boy. "I found something else."

The sheet of colored paper had lain on the bed unno¬ticed. She gave it to him.

"What is it?"

"Looks like a sheet of Plutos." She made him ask the rest.

He beckoned for the information with his hand.

"I'm pretty sure it's blotter acid. LSD. From maybe the middle seventies or, before. It's a curiosity now. It's worth finding out where she got it. We should test it to be sure."

"You can take it back to Washington and give it to the lab. You'll be going in a few minutes."

"If you don't want to wait, we can do it now with a field kit. If the police've got a standard Narcotics Iden¬tification Kit, it's test J, take two seconds, we can---"

"Back to Washington, back to school," he said, opening the door.

"Mr. Crawford instructed me---"

"Your instructions are what I'm telling you. You're not under Jack Crawford's direction now. You're back under the same supervision as any other trainee forth¬with, and your business is at Quantico, do you under¬stand me? There's a plane at two-ten. Be on it."

"Mr. Krendler, Dr. Letter talked to me after he refused to talk to the Baltimore police. He might do that again. Mr. Crawford thought---"

Krendler closed the door again, harder than he had to. "Officer Starling, I don't have to explain myself to you, but listen to me. Behavioral Science's brief is ad¬visory, always has been. It's going back to that. Jack Crawford should be on compassionate leave anyway. I'm surprised he's been able to perform as well as he has. He took a foolish chance with this, keeping it from Senator Martin, and he got his butt sawed off. With his record, this close to retirement, even she can't hurt him that much. So I wouldn't worry about his pension, if I were you."

Starling lost it a little. "You've got somebody else who's caught three serial murderers? You know any¬body else who's caught one? You shouldn't let her run this, Mr. Krendler."

"You must be a bright kid, or Crawford wouldn't bother with you, so I'll tell you one time: do something about that mouth or it'll put you in the typing pool. Don't you understand--- the only reason you were ever sent to Lecter in the first place was to get some news for your Director to use on Capitol Hill. Harmless stuff on major crimes, the 'inside scoop' on Dr. Lecter, he hands that stuff out like pocket candy while he's trying to get the budget through. Congressmen eat it up, they dine out on it. You're out of line, Officer Starling, and you're out of this case. I know you got supplementary ID. Let's have it."

"I need the ID to fly with the gun. The gun belongs at Quantico."

"Gun. Jesus. Turn in the ID as soon as you get back."

Senator Martin, Gossage, a technician, and several policemen were gathered around a video display termi¬nal with a modem connected to the telephone. The National Crime Information Center's hotline kept a running account of progress as Dr. Lecter's information was processed in Washington. Here was news from the National Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta: Ele¬phant ivory anthrax is contracted by breathing dust from grinding African ivory, usually for decorative handles. In the United States it is a disease of knife¬makers.

At the word "knifemakers," Senator Martin closed her eyes. They were hot and dry. She squeezed the Kleenex in her hand.

The young trooper who had let Starling into the apartment was bringing the Senator a cup of coffee. He still had on his hat.

Starling was damned if she'd slink out. She stopped before the woman and said, "Good luck, Senator. I hope Catherine's all right."

Senator Martin nodded without looking at her. Krendler urged Starling out.

"I didn't know she wasn't s'posed to be in here," the young trooper said as she left the room.

Krendler stepped outside with her. "I have nothing but respect for Jack Crawford," he said. "Please tell him how sorry we all are about... Bella's problem, all that. Now let's get back to school and get busy, all right?"

"Good-bye, Mr. Krendler."

Then she was alone on the parking lot, with the unsteady feeling that she understood nothing at all in this world.

She watched a pigeon walk around beneath the motor homes and boats. It picked up a peanut hull and put it back down. The damp wind rued its feathers.

Starling wished she could talk to Crawford. Waste and stupidity get you the worst, that's what he said. Use this time and it'll temper you. Now's the hardest test--- not letting rage and frustration keep you from thinking. It's the core of whether you can command or not.

She didn't give a damn about commanding. She found she didn't give a damn, or a shit for that matter, about being Special Agent Starling. Not if you play this way.

She thought about the poor, fat, sad, dead girl she saw on the table in the funeral home at Potter, West Virginia. Painted her nails with glitter just like these God damned redneck ski boats.

What was her name? Kimberly.

Damn if these assholes are gonna see me cry.

Jesus, everybody was. named Kimberly, four in her class. Three guys named Sean. Kimberly with her soap opera name tried to fix herself, punched all those holes in her ears trying to look pretty, trying to decorate herself. And Buffalo Bill looked at her sad flat tits and stuck the muzzle of a gun between them and blew a starfish in her chest.

Kimberly, her sad, fat sister who waxed her legs. No wonder--- judging from her face and her arms and legs, her skin was her best feature. Kimberly, are you angry somewhere? No senators looking out for her. No jets to carry crazy men around. Crazy was a word she wasn't supposed to use. Lot of stuff she wasn't supposed to do. Crazy men.

Starling looked at her watch. She had an hour and a half before the plane, and there was one small thing she could do. She wanted to look in Dr. Lecter's face when he said "Billy Rubin." If she could stand to meet those strange maroon eyes for long enough, if she looked deeply where the dark sucks in the sparks, she might see something useful. She thought she might see glee.

Thank God I've still got the ID.

She laid twelve feet of rubber pulling out of the parking lot.