The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter 2)

“Dr. Lecter?” She heard her own breathing, and breathing down the hall, but from Miggs’ empty cell, no breathing. Miggs’ cell was vastly empty. She felt its silence like a draft.

Starling knew Lecter was watching her from the darkness. Two minutes passed. Her legs and back ached from her struggle with the garage door, and her clothes were damp. She sat on her coat on the floor, well back from the bars, her feet tucked under her, and lifted her wet, bedraggled hair over her collar to get it off her neck.

Behind her on the TV screen, an evangelist waved his arms.

“Dr. Lecter, we both know what this is. They think you’ll talk to me.”

Silence. Down the hall, someone whistled “Over the Sea to Skye.”

After five minutes, she said, “It was strange going in there. Sometime I’d like to talk to you about it.”

Starling jumped when the food carrier rolled out of Lecter’s cell. There was a clean, folded towel in the tray. She hadn’t heard him move.

She looked at it and, with a sense of falling, took it and toweled her hair. “Thanks,” she said.

“Why don’t you ask me about Buffalo Bill?” His voice was close, at her level. He must be sitting on the floor too.

“Do you know something about him?”

“I might if I saw the case.”

“I don’t have that case,” Starling said.

“You won’t have this one, either, when they’re through using you.”

“I know.”

“You could get the files on Buffalo Bill. The reports and the pictures. I’d like to see it.”

I’ll bet you would. “Dr. Lecter, you started this. Now please tell me about the person in the Packard.”

“You found an entire person? Odd. I only saw a head. Where do you suppose the rest came from?”

“All right. Whose head was it?”

“What can you tell?”

“They’ve only done the preliminary stuff. White male, about twenty-seve

n, both American and European dentistry. Who was he?”

“Raspail’s lover. Raspail, of the gluey flute.”

“What were the circumstances—how did he die?”

“Circumlocution, Officer Starling?”

“No, I’ll ask it later.”

“Let me save you some time. I didn’t do it; Raspail did. Raspail liked sailors. This was a Scandinavian one named Klaus something. Raspail never told me the last name.”

Dr. Lecter’s voice moved lower. Maybe he was lying on the floor, Starling thought.

“Klaus was off a Swedish boat in San Diego. Raspail was out there teaching for a summer at the conservatory. He went berserk over the young man. The Swede saw a good thing and jumped his boat. They bought some kind of awful camper and sylphed through the woods naked. Raspail said the young man was unfaithful and he strangled him.”

“Raspail told you this?”

“Oh yes, under the confidential seal of therapy sessions. I think it was a lie. Raspail always embellished the facts. He wanted to seem dangerous and romantic. The Swede probably died in some banal erotic asphyxia transaction. Raspail was too flabby and weak to have strangled him. Notice how closely Klaus was trimmed under the jaw? Probably to remove a high ligature mark from hanging.”