The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [128]
“He best bring his lunch.”
In the clutter on Crawford's desk was the origami chicken Dr. Lecter had folded. Crawford worked the tail up and down. The chicken pecked.
“Lecter's gone platinum--- he's at the top of every?body's Most Wanted list,” he said. “Still, he could be out for a while. Off the post, you need some good habits.”
She nodded.
“He's busy now,” Crawford said, “but when he's not busy, he'll entertain himself. We need to be clear on this: You know he'd do it to you, just like he'd do anybody else.”
“I don't think he'd ever bushwhack me--- it's rude, and he wouldn't get to ask any questions that way. Sure he'd do it as soon as I bored him.”
“Maintain good habits is all I'm saying. When you go off the post, flag your threecard--- no phone queries on your whereabouts without positive ID. I want to put a tracealert on your telephone, if you don't mind. It'll be private unless you push the button.”
“I don't look for him to come after me, Mr. Craw?ford.”
“But you heard what I said.”
“I did. I did hear.”
“Take these depositions and look 'em over. Add if you want to. We'll witness your' signatures here when you're ready. Starling, I'm proud of you. So is Brigham, so is the Director.” It sounded stiff, not like he wanted it to sound.
He went to his office door. She was going away from him, down the deserted hall. He managed to hail her from his berg of grief: “Starling, your father sees you.”
The Silence of the Lambsr
CHAPTER 59
Jame Gumb was news for weeks after he was lowered into his final hole.
Reporters pieced together his history, beginning with the records of Sacramento County:
His mother had been carrying him a month when she failed to place in the Miss Sacramento Contest in 1948. The “Jame” on his birth certificate apparently was a clerical error that no one bothered to correct.
When her acting career failed to materialize, his mother went into an alcoholic decline; Gumb was two when Los Angeles County placed him in a foster home.
At least two scholarly journals explained that this unhappy childhood was the reason he killed women in his basement for their skins. The words crazy and evil do not appear in either article.
The film of the beauty contest that Jame Gumb watched as an adult was real footage of his mother, but the woman in the swimming pool film was not his mother, comparative measurements revealed.
Gumb's grandparents retrieved him from an unsatis?factory foster home when he was ten, and he killed them two years later.
Tulare Vocational Rehabilitation taught Gumb to be a tailor during his years at the psychiatric hospital. He demonstrated definite aptitude for the work.
Gumb's employment record is broken and incom?plete. Reporters found at least two restaurants where he worked off the books, and he worked sporadically in the clothing business. It has not been proven that he killed during this period, but Benjamin Raspail said he did.
He was working at the curio store where the butter?fly ornaments were made when he met Raspail, and he lived off the musician for some time. It was then that Gumb became obsessed with moths and butterflies and the changes they go through.
After Raspail left him, Gumb killed Raspail's next lover, Klaus, beheaded and partially flayed him.
Later he dropped in on Raspail in the East. Raspail, ever thrilled by bad boys, introduced him to Dr. Lecter.
This was proven in the week after Gumb's death when the FBI seized from Raspail's next of kin the tapes of Raspail's therapy sessions with Dr. Lecter.
Years ago, when Dr. Lecter was declared insane, the therapysession tapes had been turned over to the fam?ilies of the victims to be destroyed. But Raspail's wran?gling relatives kept the tapes, hoping to use them to attack Raspail's will. They had lost interest listening to the early tapes, which are only Raspail's boring remi?niscences of school life. After the news coverage of Jame Gumb, the Raspail family listened to the rest. When the relatives called the lawyer Everett Yow and threatened