The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [54]
“I don't believe that, Clarice.”
“You should.”
“Oh, I believe you. But there are more things you don't know about human behavior than how a proper flaying is conducted. Would you say that for a United States Senator, you're an odd choice of messenger?”
“I was your choice, Dr. Lecter. You chose to speak to me. Would you prefer someone else now? Or maybe you don't think you could help.”
“That is both impudent and untrue, Clarice. I don't believe Jack Crawford would allow any compensation ever to reach me... Possibly I'll tell you one thing you can tell the Senator, but I operate strictly COD. Maybe I'll trade for a piece of information about you. Yes or no?”
“Let's hear the question.”
“Yes or no? Catherine's waiting, isn't she? Listening to the whetstone? What do you think she'd ask you to do?”
“Let's hear the question.”
“What's your worst memory of childhood?”
Starling took a deep breath.
“Quicker than that,” Dr. Lecter said. “I'm not inter?ested in your worst invention.”
“The death of my father,” Starling said.
“Tell me.”
“He was a town marshal. One night he surprised two burglars, addicts, coming out of the back of the drugstore. As he was getting out of his pickup he short?-shucked a pump shotgun and they shot him.”
“Shortshucked?”
“He didn't work the slide fully. It was an old pump gun, a Remington 870, and the shell hung up in the shell carrier. When it happens the gun won't shoot and you have to take it down to clear it. I think he must have hit the slide on the door getting out.”
“Was he killed outright?”
“No. He was strong. He lasted a month.”
“Did you see him in the hospital?”
“Dr. Lecter--- yes.”
“Tell me a detail you remember from the hospital.”
Starling closed her eyes. “A neighbor came, an older woman, a single lady, and she recited the end of ”Thanatopsis“ to him. I guess that was all she knew to say. That's it. We've traded.”
“Yes we have. You've been very frank, Clarice. I always know. I think it would be quite something to know you in private life.”
“Quid pro quo.”
“In life, wasthe girl in West Virginia very attractive physically, do you think?”
“She was wellgroomed.”
“Don't waste my time with loyalty.”
“She was heavy.”
“Large?”
“Yes.”
“Shot in the chest.”
“Yes.”
“Flatchested, I expect.”
“For her size, yes.”
“But big through the hips. Roomy.”
“She was, yes.”
“What else?”
“She had an insect deliberately inserted in her throat--- that hasn't been made public.”
“Was it a butterfly?”
Her breath stopped for a moment. She hoped he didn't hear it. “It was a moth,” she said. “Please tell me how you anticipated that.”
“Clarice, I'm going to tell you what Buffalo Bill wants Catherine Baker Martin for, and then good night. This is my last word under the current terms. You can tell the Senator what he wants with Catherine and she can come up with a more interesting offer for me... or she can wait until Catherine bobs to the surface and see that I was right.”
“What does he want her for, Dr. Lecter?”
“He wants a vest with tits on it,” Dr. Lecter said.
The Silence of the Lambsr
CHAPTER 23
Catherine Baker Martin lay seventeen feet below the cellar floor. The darkness was loud with her breath?ing, loud with her heart. Sometimes the fear stood on her chest the way a trapper kills a fox. Sometimes she could think: she knew she was kidnapped, but she didn't know by whom. She knew she wasn't dreaming; in the absolute dark she could hear the tiny clicks her eyes made when she blinked.
She was better now than when she first regained consciousness. Much of the awful vertigo was gone, and she knew there was enough air. She could tell down from up and she had some sense of her body's position.
Her shoulder, hip, and knee hurt from being pressed against the cement floor where she lay. That side was down. Up was the rough futon she had crawled beneath during the last interval of blazing, blinding light. The throbbing in her head had subsided now. and her only real pain was in the fingers of her