Red Dragon (Hannibal Lecter 1)

“Randy, I want you to do something for me. I want you to reach in your left back pocket. Just use two fingers. You’ll find a five-inch knife in there with a Flicket clamped to the blade. Put it on the table. . . . Thank you.”

Graham dropped the knife into his pocket. It felt greasy.

“Now, in your other pocket is your wallet. Get it out. You sold some blood today, didn’t you?”

“So what?”

“So hand me the slip they gave you, the one you show next time at the blood bank. Spread it out on the table.”

Randy had type-O blood. Scratch Randy.

“How long have you been out of jail?”

“Three weeks.”

“Who’s your parole officer?”

“I’m not on parole.”

“That’s probably a lie.” Graham wanted to roust Randy. He could get him for carrying a knife over the legal length. Being in a place with a liquor license was a parole violation. Graham knew he was angry at Randy because he had feared him.

“Randy.”

“Yeah.”

“Get out.”

“I don’t know what I can tell you, I didn’t know my father very well,” Niles Jacobi said as Graham drove him to the school. “He left Mother when I was three, and I didn’t see him after that—Mother wouldn’t have it.”

“He came to see you last spring.”

“Yes.”

“At Chino.”

“You know about that.”

“I’m just trying to get it straight. What happened?”

“Well, there he was in Visitors, uptight and trying not to look around—so many people treat it like the zoo. I’d heard a lot about him from Mother, but he didn’t look so bad. He was just a man standing there in a tacky sport coat.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, I expected him either to jump right in my shit or to be real guilty, that’s the way it goes mostly in Visitors. But he j

ust asked me if I thought I could go to school. He said he’d go custody if I’d go to school. And try. ‘You have to help yourself a little. Try and help yourself, and I’ll see you get in school,’ and like that.”

“How long before you got out?”

“Two weeks.”

“Niles, did you ever talk about your family while you were in Chino? To your cellmates or anybody?”

Niles Jacobi looked at Graham quickly. “Oh. Oh, I see. No. Not about my father. I hadn’t thought about him in years, why would I talk about him?”

“How about here? Did you ever take any of your friends over to your parents’ house?”

“Parent, not parents. She was not my mother.”