The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [91]
He put his hand over the receiver. “Starling, this is baloney, but did you hand Lecter anything at all in Memphis?”
“No.”
“No object.”
“Nothing.”
“You took him the drawings and stuff from his cell.”
“I never gave it to him. The stuff's still in my bag. He gave me the file. That's all that passed between us.”
Crawford tucked the phone under his jowl. “Copley, that's unmitigated bullshit. I want you to step on that bastard and do it now. Straight to the chief, straight to the TBI. See the hotline's posted with the rest. Bur?roughs is on it. Yes.” He turned off the phone and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Want some coffee, Starling? Coke?”
“What was that about handing things to Dr. Lecter?”
“Chilton's saying you must have given Lecter some?thing he used to slip the ratchet on the cuffs. You didn't do it on purpose, he says--- it was just ignorance.” Sometimes Crawford had angry little turtleeyes. He watched how she took it. “Did Chilton try to snap your garters, Starling? Is that what's the matter with him?”
“Maybe. I'll take black with sugar, please.”
While he was in the kitchen, she took deep breaths and looked around the room. If you live in a dormitory or a barracks, it's comforting to be in a home. Even with the ground shaking under Starling, her sense of the Crawfords' lives in this house helped her.
Crawford was coming, careful down the steps in his bifocals, carrying the cups. He was half an inch shorter in his moccasins. When Starling stood to take her cof?fee, their eyes were almost level. He smelled like soap, and his hair looked fluffy and gray.
“Copley said they haven't found the ambulance yet. Police barracks are turning out all over the South.”
She shook her head. “I don't know any details. The radio just had the bulletin--- Dr. Lecter killed two po?licemen and got away.”
“Two corrections officers.” Crawford punched up the crawling text on his computer screen. “Names were Boyle and Pembry. You deal with them?”
She nodded. “They... put me out of the lockup. They were okay about it.” Pembry coming around Chilton, uncomfortable, determined, but countrycourteous. Come on with me, now, he said. He had liver spots on his hands and forehead. Dead now, pale beneath his spots.
Suddenly Starling had to put her coffee down. She filled her lungs deep and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “How'd he do it?”
“He got away in an ambulance, Copley said. We'll go into it. How did you make out with the blotter acid?”
Starling had spent the late afternoon and early eve?ning walking the sheet of Plutos through Scientific Analysis on Krendler's orders. “Nothing. They're try?ing the DEA files for a batchmatch, but the stuff's ten years old. Documents may do better with the printing than DEA can do with the dope.”
“But it was blotter acid.”
“Yes. Howd he do it, Mr. Crawford?”
“Want to know?”
She nodded.
“Then I'll tell you. They loaded Lecter into an ambu?lance by mistake. They thought he was Pembry, badly injured.”
“Did he have on Pembry's uniform? They were about the same size.”
“He put on Pembry's uniform and part of Pembry's face. And about a pound off Boyle, too. He wrapped Pembry's body in the waterproof mattress cover and the sheets from his cell to keep it from dripping and stuffed it on top of the elevator. He put on the uniform, got himself, fixed up, laid on the floor and fired shots into the ceiling to start the stampede. I don't know what he did with the gun, stuffed it down the back of his pants, maybe. The ambulance comes, cops every?where with their guns out. The ambulance crew came in fast and did what they're trained to do under fire?--- they stuffed in an airway, slapped a bandage over the worst of it, pressure to stop bleeding, and hauled out of there. They did their job. The ambulance never made it to the hospital. The police are still looking for it. I don't feel good