The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [52]
She heard the slight metallic rasp beneath his voice and wondered how long it had been since last he spoke. Beats of silence...
“You're up late for a school night,” he said.
“This is night school,” she said, wishing her voice were stronger. “Yesterday I was in West Virginia---”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, I---”
“You have on a fresh BandAid, Clarice.”
Then she remembered. “I got a scrape on the side of the pool, swimming today.” The BandAid was out of sight, on her calf beneath her trousers. He must smell it. “I was in West Virginia yesterday. They found a body over there, Buffalo Bill's latest.”
“Not quite his latest, Clarice.”
“His nexttolatest.”
“Yes.”
“She was scalped. Just as you said she would be.”
“Do you mind, if I go on sketching while we talk?”
“No, please.”
“You viewed the remains?”
“Yes.”
“Had you seen his earlier efforts?”
“No. Only pictures.”
“How did you feel?”
“Apprehensive. Then I was busy.”
“And after?”
“Shaken.”
“Could you function all right?” Dr. Lecter rubbed his charcoal on the edge of his butcher paper to refine the point.
“Very well. I functioned very well.”
“For Jack Crawford? Or does he still make house calls?”
“He was there.”
“Indulge me a moment, Clarice. Would you let your head hang forward, just let it hang forward as though you were asleep. A second more. Thank you, I've got it now. Have a seat, if you like. You had told Jack Crawford what I said before they found her?”
“Yes. He pretty much poohpoohed it.”
"And after he saw the body in West Virginia?
“He talked to his main authority, from the Univer?sity of---”
“Alan Bloom.”
“That's right. Dr.. Bloom said Buffalo Bill was fulfilling a persona the newspapers created, the Buffalo Bill scalptaking business the tabloids were playing with. Dr. Bloom said anybody could see that was coming.”
“Dr. Bloom saw that coming?”
“He said he did.”
“He saw it coming, but he kept it to himself. I see. What do you think, Clarice?”
“I'm not sure.”
“You have some psychology, some forensics. Where the two flow together you fish, don't you? Catching anything, Clarice?”
“It's pretty slow so far.”
“What do your two disciplines tell you about Buffalo Bill?”
“By the book, he's a sadist.”
“Life's too slippery for books, Clarice; anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives.” Dr. Lecter finished sketching his left hand with his right, switched the charcoal and began to sketch his right with his left, and just as well. “Do you mean Dr. Bloom's book?”
“Yes.”
“You looked me up in it, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“How did he describe me?”
“A pure sociopath.”
“Would you say Dr. Bloom is always right?”
“I'm still waiting for the shallowness of affect.”
Dr. Lecter's smile revealed his small white teeth. “We have experts at every hand, Clarice. Dr. Chilton says Sammie, behind you there, is a hebephrenic schiz?oid and irretrievably lost. He put Sammie in Miggs' old cell, because he thinks Sammie's said byebye. Do you know how hebephrenics usually go? Don't worry, he won't hear you.”
“They're the hardest to treat,” she said. “Usually they go into terminal withdrawal and personality disintegration.”
Dr. Lecter took something from between his sheets of butcher paper and put it in the sliding food carrier. Starling pulled it through.
“Only yesterday Sammie sent that across with my supper,” he said.
It was a scrap of construction paper with writing in crayon.
Starling read:
I WAN TOO GO TO JESA
I WAN TOO GO WIV CRIEZ
I CAN GO WIV JESA
EF I AC RELL NIZE
SAMMIE
Starling looked back over her right shoulder. Sammie sat vacantfaced against the wall of his cell, his head leaning against the bars.
“Would you read it aloud? He won't hear you.”
Starling began. “ 'I want to go to Jesus, I want to go with Christ, I can go with Jesus if I act real nice.' ”
“No, no. Get a more assertive 'Pease porridge hot' quality into it. The meter varies but the intensity is the same.” Lecter clapped time softly, “Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old. Intensely, you see. Fervently. 'I wan to go to Jesa, I wan to go wiv Criez.' ”
“I see,” Starling said,