The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [124]
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 redpurple 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 insectcrawl of the secondhand 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 bath?room. 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 ex?tended 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, flashblind, ears ring?ing, 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 speedloader 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,