The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [56]
The bucket was pulled aloft.
“My mother will pay,” Catherine Martin said. “No questions asked. She'll pay enough for you all to be rich. If it's a cause, Iran or Palestine, or Black Liberation, she'll give the money for that. All you have to do---”
The lights went out. Sudden and total darkness.
She flinched and went “Uhhhhhh!” when her sanitation bucket settled beside her on its string. She sat on the futon, her mind racing. She believed now that her captor was alone, that he was a white American. She'd tried to give the impression she had no idea what he was, what color or how many, that her memory of the parking lot was wiped out by the blows on her head. She hoped that he believed he could safely let her go. Her mind was working, working, and at last it worked too well.
The fingernail, someone else was here. A woman, a girl was here. Where was she now? What did he do to her?
Except for shock and disorientation, it would not have been so long in coming to her. As it was, the skin emollient did it. Skin. She knew who had her then. The knowledge fell on her like every scalding awful thing on earth and she was screaming, screaming, under the futon, up and climbing, clawing at the wall, screaming until she. was coughing something warm and salty in her mouth, hands to her face, drying sticky on the backs of her hands and she lay rigid on the futon, arching off the floor from head to heels, her hands clenched in her hair.
The Silence of the Lambsr
CHAPTER 24
Clarice Starling's quarter bonged down through the telephone in the shabby orderlies' lounge. She dialed the van.
“Crawford.”
“I'm at a pay phone outside the maximum security ward,” Starling said. “Dr. Lecter asked me if the insect in West Virginia was a butterfly. He wouldn't elaborate. He said Buffalo Bill needs Catherine Martin because, I'm quoting, 'He wants a vest with tits on it.' Dr. Lecter wants to trade. He wants a 'more interesting' offer from the Senator.”
“Did he break it off?”
“Yes.”
“How soon do you think he'll talk again?”
“I think he'd like to do this over the next few days, but I'd rather hit him again now, if I can have some kind of urgent offer from the Senator.”
“Urgent is right. We got an ID on the girl in West Virginia, Starling. A missingperson fingerprint card from Detroit rang the cherries in ID section about a half hour ago. Kimberly Jane Emberg, twentytwo, missing from Detroit since February seventh. We're canvassing her neighborhood for witnesses. The Charlottesville medical examiner says she died not later than February eleventh, and possibly the day before, the tenth.”
“He only kept her alive three days,” Starling said.
“His period's getting shorter. I don't think anybody's surprised.” Crawford's voice was even. “He's had Catherine Martin about twentysix hours. I think if Lecter can deliver, he'd better do it in your next conver?sation. I'm set up in the Baltimore field office, the van patched you through. I have a room for you in the Hojo two blocks from the hospital if you need a catnap later on.”
“He's leery, Mr. Crawford, he's not sure you'd let him have anything good. What he said about Buffalo Bill, he traded for personal information about me. I don't think there's any textual correlation between his questions and the case... Do you want to know the questions?”
“No.”
“That's why you didn't make me wear a wire, isn't it? You thought it'd be easier for me, I'd be more likely to tell him stuff and please him if nobody else could hear.”
“Here's another possibility for you: What if I trusted your judgment, Starling? What if I thought you were my best shot, and I wanted to keep a lot of second?-guessers off your back? Would I have you wear a wire then?”
“No sir.” You're famous for handling agents, aren't you, Mr. Crawfish? “What can we offer Dr. Lecter?”
“A couple of things I'm sending over. It'll be there in five minutes, unless you want to rest a little first.”
“I'd rather do it now,” Starling said. “Tell them to ask for Alonzo. Tell Alonzo I'll meet him in the corridor outside Section 8.”
“Five