Hannibal - Thomas Harris [81]
On the other hand, Starling wondered, what information from the Pazzi crime could be useful here, in case the doctor returned to the United States? Jack Crawford was not in the office much to advise her. He was in court a lot, and as his retirement approached he was deposed in a lot of open cases.
He took more and more sick days, and when he was in the office he seemed increasingly distant.
The thought of not having his counsel gave Starling flashes of panic.
In her years at the FBI, Starling had seen a great deal. She knew that if Dr Lecter killed again in the United States, the trumpets of flatulence would sound in Congress, an enormous roar of secondguessing would go up from Justice, and the CatchMeFuckMe would begin in earnest. Customs and Border Patrol would catch it first for letting him in.
The local jurisdiction where the crime occurred would demand everything relating to Lecter and the FBI effort would center around the local line bureau. Then, when the doctor did it again someplace else, everything would move.
If he were caught, the authorities would fight for credit like bears around a bloody seal.
Starling's business was to prepare for the eventuality of his coming, whether he ever came or not, putting aside all the weary knowledge of what would happen around the investigation.
She asked herself a simple question that would have sounded corny to the career climbers inside the Beltway: How could she do exactly what she was sworn to do? How could she protect the citizens and catch him if he came? Dr Lecter obviously had good papers and money. He was brilliant at concealing himself. Take the elegant simplicity of his first hideout after his escape from Memphis - he checked into a fourstar hotel next door to a great plastic surgery facility in St Louis. Half the guests had their faces bandaged. He bandaged his own face and lived high on a dead man's money..Among her hundreds of scraps of paper, she had his room service receipts from St Louis. Astronomical. A bottle of BatardMontrachet one hundred twentyfive dollars. How good it must have tasted after all those years of jail food.
She had asked for copies of everything from Florence and the Italians obliged. From the quality of the print, she thought they must copy with some kind of soot blower.
There was no order anywhere. Here were Dr Lecter's personal papers from the Palazzo Capponi. A few notes on Dante in his familiar handwriting, a note to the cleaning lady, a receipt from the Florentine fine grocer Vera dal 1926 for two bottles of BatardMontrachet and some tartufi bianchi. Same wine again, and what was the other thing? Starling's Bantam New College Italian & English Dictionary told her tartufi bianchi were white truffles. She called the chef at a good Washington Italian restaurant and asked him about them. She had to beg off the phone after five minutes as he raved about their taste.
Taste. The wine, the truffles. Taste in all things was a constant between Dr Lecter's lives in America and Europe, between his life as a successful medical practitioner and fugitive monster. His face may have changed but his tastes did not, and he was not a man who denied himself.
Taste was a sensitive area to Starling, because it was in the area of taste that Dr Lecter first touched her in the quick, complimenting her on her pocketbook and making fun of her cheap shoes. What had he called her? A well- scrubbed hustling rube with a little taste.
It was taste that itched at her in the daily round of her institutional life with its purely functional equipment in utilitarian settings.
At the same time her faith in technique was dying and leaving room for something else.
Starling was weary of technique. Faith in technique is the religion of the dangerous trades. To go up against an armed felon in a gunfight or to fight him in the dirt you have to believe perfect technique, hard training, will guarantee that you are invincible.