The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [43]
Senator Martin's eyes cut away from the camera as the picture switched to a home movie of a toddler help?ing herself walk by hanging on to the mane of a large collie.
The Senator's voice went on: “The film you're seeing now is Catherine as a little child. Release Catherine. Release her unharmed anywhere in this country and you'll have my help and my friendship.”
Now a series of still photographs--- Catherine Martin at eight, holding the tiller of a sailboat. The boat was up on blocks and her father was painting the hull. Two recent photographs of the young woman, a full shot and a closeup of her face.,
Now back to the Senator in closeup: “I promise you in front of this entire country, you'll have my unstint?ing aid whenever you need it. I'm well equipped to help you. I am a United States Senator. I serve on the Armed Services Committee. I am deeply involved in the Stra?tegic Defense Initiative, the space weapons systems which everyone calls 'Star Wars.' If you have enemies, I will fight them. If anyone interferes with you, I can stop them. You can call me at any time, day or night. Catherine is my daughter's name. Please, show us your strength,” Senator Martin said in closing, “release Catherine unharmed.”
“Boy, is that smart,” Starling said. She was trembling like a terrier. “Jesus, that's smart.”
“What, the Star Wars?” Mapp said. “If the aliens are trying to control Buffalo Bill's thoughts from another planet, Senator Martin can protect him--- is that the pitch?”
Starling nodded. “A lot of paranoid schizophrenics have that specific hallucination--- alien control. If that's the way Bill's wired, maybe this approach could bring him out. It's a damn good shot, though, and she stood up there and fired it, didn't she? At the least it might buy Catherine a few more days. They may have time to work on Bill a little. Or they may not; Crawford thinks his period may be getting shorter. They can try this, they can try other things.”
“Nothing I wouldn't try if he had one of mine. Why did she keep saying 'Catherine,' why the name all the time?”
“She's trying to make Buffalo Bill see Catherine as a person. They're thinking he'll have to depersonalize her, he'll have to see her as an object before he can tear her up. Serial murderers talk about that in prison inter?views, some of them. They say it's like working on a doll.”
“Do you see Crawford behind Senator Martin's statement?”
“Maybe, or maybe Dr. Bloom--- there he is,” Starling said. On the screen was an interview taped several weeks earlier with Dr. Alan Bloom of the University of Chicago on the subject of serial murder.
Dr. Bloom refused to compare Buffalo Bill with Fran?cis Dolarhyde or Garrett Hobbs, or any of the others in his experience. He refused to use the term “Buffalo Bill.” In fact he didn't say much at all, but he was known to be an expert, probably the expert on the subject, and the network wanted to show his face.
They used his final statement for the snapper at the end of the report: “There's nothing we can threaten him with that's more terrible than what he faces every day. What we can do is ask him to come to us. We can promise him kind treatment and relief, and we can mean it absolutely and sincerely.”
“Couldn't we all use some relief,” Mapp said. “Damn if I couldn't use some relief myself. Slick obfuscation and facile bullshit, I love it. He didn't tell them any?thing, but then he probably didn't stir Bill up much either.”
“I can stop thinking about that kid in West Virginia for a while,” Starling said, “it goes away for, say, a half an hour at a time, and then it pokes me in the throat. Glitter polish on her nails--- let me not get into it.”
Mapp, rummaging among her many enthusiasms, lightened Starling's gloom at dinner and fascinated eavesdroppers by comparing slantrhymes in the works of Stevie Wonder and Emily Dickinson.
On the way back to the room, Starling snatched a message out of her