The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [121]
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 Spe?cial lead wadcutters. 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 grip?ping 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 stalkeyes 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 pull?ing 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 percep?tion 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: Cather? ine 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, clang?ing 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 atten?tion 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