The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [72]
"Raspail's appetites ran to the louche--- he was cov?ered with scars.
“Billy Rubin told me he had a criminal record, but no details. I took a brief medical history. It was unexcep?tional, except for one thing: Rubin told me he once suffered from elephant ivory anthrax. That's all I re?member, Senator Martin, and I expect you're anxious to go. If anything else occurs to me, I'll send you word.”
“Did Billy Rubin kill the person whose head was in the car?”
“I believe so.”
“Do you know who that is?”
“No. Raspail called him Klaus.”
“Were the other things you told the FBI true?”
“At least as true as what the FBI told me, Senator Martin.”
“I've made some temporary arrangements for you here in Memphis. We'll talk about your situation and you'll go on to Brushy Mountain when this is... when we've got it settled.”
“Thank you. I'd like a telephone, if I think of some?thing...”
“You'll have it.”
“And music. Glenn Gould, the Goldberg Variations? Would that be too much?”
“Fine.”
“Senator Martin, don't entrust any lead solely to the FBI. Jack Crawford never plays fair with the other agencies. It's such a game with those people. He's de?termined to have the arrest himself. A 'collar,' they call it.”
“'Thank you, Dr. Lecter.”
“Love your suit,” he said as she went out the door.
The Silence of the Lambsr
CHAPTER 33
Room into room, Jame Gumb's basement ram?bles like the maze that thwarts us in dreams. When he was still shy, lives and lives ago, Mr. Gumb took his pleasure in the rooms most hidden, far from the stairs. There are rooms in the farthest corners, rooms from other lives, that Gumb hasn't opened in years. Some of them are still occupied, so to speak, though the sounds from behind the doors peaked and trailed off to silence long ago.
The levels of the floors vary from room to room by as much as a foot. There are thresholds to step over, lintels to duck. Loads are impossible to roll and difficult to drag. To march something ahead of you--- it stum?bling and crying, begging, banging its dazed head--- is difficult, dangerous even.
As he grew in wisdom and in confidence, Mr. Gumb no longer felt he had to meet his needs in the hidden parts of the basement. He nowuses a suite of basement rooms around the stairs, large rooms with running water and electricity.
The basement is in total darkness now.
Beneath the sandfloored room, in the oubliette, Catherine Martin is quiet.
Mr. Gumb is here in the basement, but he is not in this chamber.
The room beyond the stairs is black to human vision, but it is full of small sounds. Water trickles here and small pumps hum. In little echoes the room sounds large. The air is moist and cool. Smell the greenery. A flutter of wings against the cheek, a few clicks across the air. A low nasal sound of pleasure, a human sound.
The room has none of the wavelengths of light the human eye can use, but Mr. Gumb is here and he can see very well, though he sees everything in shades and intensities of green. He's wearing an excellent pair of infrared goggles (Israeli military surplus, less than four hundred dollars) and he directs the beam of an infrared flashlight on the wire cage in front of him. He is sitting on the edge of a straight chair, rapt, watching an insect climb a plant in the screen cage. The young imago has just emerged from a split chrysalis in the moist earth of the cage floor. She climbs carefully on a stalk of night?shade, seeking space to unfurl the damp new wings still wadded on her back. She selects a horizontal twig.
Mr. Gumb must tilt his head to see. Little by little the wings are pumped full of blood and air. They are still stuck together over the insect's back.
Two hours pass. Mr. Gumb has hardly moved. He turns the infrared flashlight on and off to surprise him?self with the progress the insect has made. To pass the time he plays the light over the rest of the room--- over his big aquariums full of vegetable tanning solution. On forms and stretchers in the tanks, his recent acqui?sitions stand like broken classic statuary green beneath the sea. His light