The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter 2)

“He talked to his main authority, from the University of—”

“Alan Bloom.”

“That’s right. Dr. Bloom said Buffalo Bill was fulfilling a persona the newspapers created, the Buffalo Bill scalp-taking business the tabloids were playing with. Dr. Bloom said anybody could see that was coming.”

“Dr. Bloom saw that coming?”

“He said he did.”

“He saw it coming, but he kept it to himself. I see. What do you think, Clarice?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You have some psychology, some forensics. Where the two flow together you fish, don’t you? Catching anything, Clarice?”

“It’s pretty slow so far.”

“What do your two disciplines tell you about Buffalo Bill?”

“By the book, he’s a sadist.”

“Life’s too slippery for books, Clarice; anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives.” Dr. Lecter finished sketching his left hand with his right, switched the charcoal and began to sketch his right with his left, and just as well. “Do you mean Dr. Bloom’s book?”

“Yes.”

“You looked me up in it, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How did he describe me?”

“A pure sociopath.”

“Would you say Dr. Bloom is always right?”

“I’m still waiting for the shallowness of affect.”

Dr. Lecter’s smile revealed his small white teeth. “We have experts at every hand, Clarice. Dr. Chilton says Sammie, behind you there, is a hebephrenic schizoid and irretrievably lost. He put Sammie in Miggs’ old cell, because he thinks Sammie’s said bye-bye. Do you know how hebephrenics usually go? Don’t worry, he won’t hear you.”

“They’re the hardest to treat,” she said. “Usually they go into terminal withdrawal and personality disintegration.”

Dr. Lecter took something from between his sheets of butcher paper and put it in the sliding food carrier. Starling pulled it through.

“Only yesterday Sammie sent that across with my supper,” he said.

It was a scrap of construction paper with writing in crayon.

Starling read:

I WAN TOO GO TO JESA

I WAN TOO GO WIV CRIEZ

I CAN GO WIV JESA

EF I AC RELL NIZE

SAMMIE