The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [94]
“We keep it behind glass to protect people's fin?gers--- it can fight. It likes the damp too, and glass keeps the humidity in.” Pilcher lifted the cage carefully by its handles and moved it to the front of the niche. He lifted off the cover and turned on a small light above the cage.
“This is the Death'shead Moth,” he said. “That's nightshade she's sitting on--- we're hoping she'll lay.”
The moth was wonderful and terrible to see, its large brownblack wings tented like a cloak, and on its wide furry back, the signature device that has struck fear in men for as long as men have come upon it suddenly in their happy gardens. The domed skull, a skull that is both skull and face, watching from its dark eyes, the cheekbones, the zygomatic arch traced exquisitely be?side the eyes.
“Acherontia styx,” Pitcher said. “It's named for two rivers in Hell. Your man, he drops the bodies in a river every time--- did I read that?”
“Yes,” Starling said. “Is it rare?”
“In this part of the world it is. There aren't any at all in nature.” - .
“Where's it from?” Starling leaned her face close to the mesh roof of the case. Her breath stirred the fur on the moth's back. She jerked back when it squeaked and fiercely flapped its wings. She could feel the tiny breeze it made.
“Malaysia. There's a European type too, called atropos, but this one and the one in Klaus' mouth are Malay?sian.”
“So somebody raised it.”
Pilcher nodded. “Yes,” he said when she didn't look at him. “It had to be shipped from Malaysia as an egg or more likely as a pupa. Nobody's ever been able to get them to lay eggs in captivity. They mate, but no eggs. The hard part is finding the caterpillar in the jungle. After that, they're not hard to raise.”
“You said they can fight.”
“The proboscis is sharp and stout, and they'll jam it in your finger if you fool with them. It's an unusual weapon and alcohol doesn't affect it in preserved speci?mens. That helped us narrow the field so we could identify it so fast.” Pilcher seemed suddenly embar?rassed, as though he had boasted. “They're tough too,” he hurried on to say. “They go in beehives and Bogart honey. One time we were collecting in Sabah, Borneo, and they'd come to the light behind the youth hostel. It was weird to hear them, we'd be---”
“Where did this one come from?”
“A swap with the Malaysian government. I don't know what we traded. It was funny, there we were in the dark, waiting with this cyanide bucket, when---”
“What kind of customs declaration came with this one? Do you have records of that? Do they have to be cleared out of Malaysia? Who would have that?”
“You're in a hurry. Look, I've written down all the stuff we have and the places to put ads if you want to do that kind of thing. Come on, I'll take you out.”
They crossed the vast floor in silence. In the light of the elevator, Starling could see that Pilcher was as tired as she was.
“You stayed up with this,” she said. “That was a good thing to do. I didn't mean to be abrupt before, I just---”
“I hope they get him. I hope you're through with this soon,” he said. “I put down a couple of chemicals he might be buying if he's putting up soft specimens... Officer Starling, I'd like to get to know you.”
“Maybe I should call you when I can.”
“You definitely should, absolutely, I'd like that, ” Pilcher said.
The elevator closed and Pitcher and Starling were gone. The floor devoted to man was still and no human figure moved, not the tattooed, not the mummified, the bound feet didn't stir.
The fire lights glowed red in the Insect Zoo, reflected in ten thousand active eyes of the older phylum. The humidifier hummed and hissed. Beneath the cover, in the black cage, the Death'shead Moth climbed down the nightshade. She moved across the floor, her wings trailing like a cape, and found the bit of honeycomb in her dish. Grasping the honeycomb in her powerful front legs, she uncoiled her sharp proboscis and plunged it through the wax cap of a honey cell. Now she sat sucking quietly while all around her in the dark the chirps and whirs resumed, and with them the