Hannibal (Hannibal Lecter 3)

91

STARLING WOKE in the fresh-smelling semidark, knowing in some primal way that she was near the sea. She moved slightly on the bed. She felt a deep soreness all over, and then she fell away from consciousness again. When next she woke, a voice was talking quietly to her, offering a warm cup. She drank from it, and the taste was similar to the herbal tea Mapp’s grandmother sent her.

Day and evening again, the smell of fresh flowers in the house, and once the faint sting of a needle. Like the thud and crackle of distant fireworks, the remnants of fear and pain popped on the horizon, but not close, never close. She was in the garden of the hurricane’s eye.

“Waking. Waking, calm. Waking in a pleasant room,” a voice said. She heard faint chamber music.

She felt very clean and her skin was scented with mint, some ointment that gave a deep comforting warmth.

Starling opened her eyes wide.

Dr. Lecter stood at a distance from her, very still, as he had stood in his cell when she first saw him. We are accustomed to seeing him unfettered now. It is not shocking to see him in open space with another mortal creature.

“Good evening, Clarice.”

“Good evening, Dr. Lecter,” she said, responding in kind with no real idea of the time.

“If you feel uncomfortable, it’s just bruises you suffered in a fall. You’ll be all right. I’d just like to be positive about something though, could you please look into this light?” He approached her with a small flashlight. Dr. Lecter smelled like fresh broadcloth.

She forced herself to keep her eyes open as he examined her pupils, then he stepped away again.

“Thank you. There’s a very comfortable bathroom, just in there. Want to try your feet? Slippers are beside your bed, I’m afraid I had to borrow your boots.”

She was awake and not awake. The bathroom was indeed comfortable and furnished with every amenity. In the following days she enjoyed long baths there, but she did not bother with her reflection in the mirror, so far was she from herself.

CHAPTER

92

DAYS OF talk, sometimes hearing herself and wondering who was speaking with such intimate knowledge of her thoughts. Days of sleep and strong broth and omelettes.

And one day Dr. Lecter said, “Clarice, you must be tired of your robes and pajamas. There are some things in the closet you might like—only if you want to wear them.” And in the same tone, “I put your personal things, your purse and your gun and your wallet, in the top drawer of the chest, if you want any of that.”

“Thank you, Dr. Lecter.”

In the closet were a variety of clothes, dresses, pants suits, a shimmery long gown with a beaded top. There were cashmere pants and pullovers that appealed to her. She chose tan cashmere, and moccasins.

In the drawer was her belt and Yaqui slide, empty of the lost .45, but her ankle holster was there beside her purse, and in it was the cut-down .45 automatic. The clip was full of fat cartridges, nothing in the chamber, the way she wore it on her leg. And her boot knife was there, in its scabbard. Her car keys were in her purse.

Starling was herself and not herself. When she wondered about events it was as though she saw them from the side, saw herself from a distance.

She was happy to see her car in the garage when Dr. Lecter took her out to it. She looked at the wipers and decided to replace them.

“Clarice, how do y

ou think Mason’s men followed us to the grocery store?”

She looked up at the garage ceiling for a moment, thinking.

It took her less than two minutes to find the antenna running crosswise between the backseat and the package shelf, and she followed the antenna wire to the hidden beacon.

She turned it off and carried it into the house by the antenna as she might carry a rat by the tail.

“Very nice,” she said. “Very new. Decent installation too. I’m sure it’s got Mr. Krendler’s prints on it. May I have a plastic bag?”

“Could they search for it with aircraft?”

“It’s off now. They couldn’t search with aircraft unless Krendler admitted he used it. You know he didn’t do that. Mason could sweep with his helicopter.”