The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [81]
“I thought you might want your drawings, the stuff from your cell, just until you get your view.”
“How thoughtful. Dr. Chilton's euphoric about you and Jack Crawford being put off the case. Or did they send you in for one last wheedle?”
The officer on suicide watch had strolled back to talk to Officer Pembry at the desk. Starling hoped they couldn't hear.
“They didn't send me. I just came.”
“People will say we're in love. Don't you want to ask about Billy Rubin, Clarice?,”
“Dr. Lecter, without in any way... impugning what you've told Senator Martin, would you advise me to go on with your idea about---”
“Impugning--- I love it. I wouldn't advise you at all. You tried to fool me, Clarice. Do you think I'm playing with these people?”
“I think you were telling me the truth.”
“Pity you tried to fool me, isn't it?” Dr. Letter's face sank behind his arms until only his eyes were visible. “Pity Catherine Martin won't ever see the sun again. The sun's a mattress fire her God died in, Clarice.”
“Pity you have to pander now and lick a few tears when you can,” Starling said. “It's a pity we didn't get to finish what we were talking about. Your idea of the imago, the structure of it, had a kind of... elegance that's hard to get away from. Now it's like a ruin, half an arch standing there.”
“Half an arch won't stand. Speaking of arches, will they still let you pound a beat, Clarice? Did they take your badge?”
“No.”
“What's that under your jacket, a watchman's clock just like Dad's?”
“No, that's a speedloader.”
“So you go around armed?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should let your jacket out. Do you sew at all?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make that costume?”
“No. Dr. Lecter, you find out everything. You couldn't have talked intimately with this 'Billy Rubin' and come out knowing so little about him.”
“You think not?”
“If you met him, you know everything. But today you happened to remember just one detail. He'd had ele?phant ivory anthrax. You should have seen them jump when Atlanta said it's a disease of knifemakers. They ate it up, just like you knew they would. You should have gotten a suite at the Peabody for that. Dr. Lecter, if you met him you know about him. I think maybe you didn't meet him and Raspail told you about him. Sec?ondhand stuff wouldn't sell as well to Senator Martin, would it?”
Starling took a quick look over her shoulder. One of the officers was showing the other something in Guns & Ammo magazine. “You had more to tell me in Balti?more, Dr. Lecter. I believe that stuff was valid. Tell me the rest.”
“I've read the cases, Clarice, have you? Everything you need to know to find him is right there, if you're paying attention. Even Inspector Emeritus Crawford should have figured it out. Incidentally, did you read Crawford's stupefying speech last year to the National Police Academy? Spouting Marcus Aurelius on duty and honor and fortitude--- we'll see what kind of a Stoic Crawford is when Bella bites the big one. He copies his philosophy out of Bartlett's Familiar, I think. If he under?stood Marcus Aurelius, he might solve his case.”
“Tell me how.”
“When you show the odd flash of contextual intelligence, I forget your generation can't read, Clarice. The Emperor counsels simplicity: First principles Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its causal nature?”
“That doesn't mean anything to me.”
“What does he do, the man you want?”
“He kills---”
“Ah---” he said sharply, averting his face for a moment from her wrongheadedness. “That's incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing?”
“Anger, social resentment, sexual frus---”
“No.”
“What, then?”
“He covets. In fact,