The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter 2)

Quite right, too, Dr. Lecter reflected. How wise of Jack—that obtuse Scotch-Irish mien is misleading. His face is all scars if you know how to look. Well, possibly there’s room for a few more.

“I know what you’re afraid of. It’s not pain, or solitude. It’s indignity you can’t stand, Hannibal, you’re like a cat that way. I’m on my honor to look after you, Hannibal, and I do it. No personal considerations have ever entered into our relationship, from my end. And I’m looking after you now.

“There never was a deal for you with Senator Martin, but there is now. Or there could be. I’ve been on the phone for hours on your behalf and for the sake of that girl. I’m going to tell you the first condition: you speak only through me. I alone publish a professional account of this, my successful interview with you. You publish nothing. I have exclusive access to any material from Catherine Martin, if she should be saved.

“That condition is nonnegotiable. You’ll answer me now. Do you accept that condition?

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nbsp; Dr. Lecter smiled to himself.

“You’d better answer me now or you can answer Baltimore Homicide. This is what you get: If you identify Buffalo Bill and the girl is found in time, Senator Martin—and she’ll confirm this by telephone—Senator Martin will have you installed in Brushy Mountain State Prison in Tennessee, out of the reach of the Maryland authorities. You’ll be in her bailiwick, away from Jack Crawford. You’ll be in a maximum-security cell with a view of the woods. You get books. Any outdoor exercise, the details will have to be worked out, but she’s amenable. Name him and you can go at once. The Tennessee State Police will take custody of you at the airport, the governor has agreed.”

At last Dr. Chilton has said something interesting, and he doesn’t even know what it is. Dr. Lecter pursed his red lips behind the mask. The custody of police. Police are not as wise as Barney. Police are accustomed to handling criminals. They’re inclined to use leg irons and handcuffs. Handcuffs and leg irons open with a handcuff key. Like mine.

“His first name is Billy,” Dr. Lecter said. “I’ll tell the rest to the Senator. In Tennessee.”

CHAPTER 28

Jack Crawford declined Dr. Danielson’s coffee, but took the cup to mix himself an Alka-Seltzer at the stainless-steel sink behind the nursing station. Everything was stainless steel, the cup dispenser, the counter, the waste bin, the rims of Dr. Danielson’s spectacles. The bright metal suggested the wink of instruments and gave Crawford a distinct twinge in the area of his inguinal ring.

He and the doctor were alone in the little galley.

“Not without a court order, you don’t,” Dr. Danielson said again. He was brusque this time, to counter the hospitality he’d shown with the coffee.

Danielson was head of the Gender Identity Clinic at Johns Hopkins and he had agreed to meet Crawford at first light, long before morning rounds. “You’ll have to show me a separate court order for each specific case and we’ll fight every one. What did Columbus and Minnesota tell you—same thing, am I right?”

“The Justice Department’s asking them right now. We have to do this fast, Doctor. If the girl’s not dead already, he’ll kill her soon—tonight or tomorrow. Then he’ll pick the next one,” Crawford said.

“To even mention Buffalo Bill in the same breath with the problems we treat here is ignorant and unfair and dangerous, Mr. Crawford. It makes my hair stand on end. It’s taken years—we’re not through yet—showing the public that transsexuals aren’t crazy, they aren’t perverts, they aren’t queers, whatever that is—”

“I agree with you—”

“Hold on. The incidence of violence among transsexuals is a lot lower than in the general population. These are decent people with a real problem—a famously intransigent problem. They deserve help and we can give it. I’m not having a witch hunt here. We’ve never violated a patient’s confidence, and we never will. Better start from there, Mr. Crawford.”

For months now in his private life, Crawford had been cultivating his wife’s doctors and nurses, trying to weasel every minute advantage for her. He was pretty sick of doctors. But this was not his private life. This was Baltimore and it was business. Be nice now.

“Then I haven’t made myself clear, Doctor. My fault—it’s early, I’m not a morning person. The whole idea is, the man we want is not your patient. It would be someone you refused because you recognized that he was not a transsexual. We’re not flying blind here—I’ll show you some specific ways he’d deviate from typical transsexual patterns in your personality inventories. Here’s a short list of things your staff could look for among your rejects.”

Dr. Danielson rubbed the side of his nose with his finger as he read. He handed the paper back. “That’s original, Mr. Crawford. In fact it’s extremely bizarre, and that’s a word I don’t use very often. May I ask who provided you with that piece of … conjecture?”

I don’t think you’d like to know that, Dr. Danielson. “The Behavioral Science staff,” Crawford said, “in consultation with Dr. Alan Bloom at the University of Chicago.”

“Alan Bloom endorsed that?”

“And we don’t just depend on the tests. There’s another way Buffalo Bill’s likely to stand out in your records—he probably tried to conceal a record of criminal violence, or falsified other background material. Show me the ones you turned away, Doctor.”

Danielson was shaking his head the whole time. “Examination and interview materials are confidential.”

“Dr. Danielson, how can fraud and misrepresentation be confidential? How does a criminal’s real name and real background fall under the doctor-patient relationship when he never told it to you, you had to find it out for yourself? I know how thorough Johns Hopkins is. You’ve got cases like that, I’m sure of it. Surgical addicts apply every place surgery’s performed. It’s no reflection on the institution or the legitimate patients. You think nuts don’t apply to the FBI? We get ’em all the time. A man in a Moe hairpiece applied in St. Louis last week. He had a bazooka, two rockets, and a bearskin shako in his golf bag.”

“Did you hire him?”

“Help me, Dr. Danielson. Time’s eating us up. While we’re standing here, Buffalo Bill may be turning Catherine Martin into one of these.” Crawford put a photograph on the gleaming counter.

“Don’t even do that,” Dr. Danielson said. “That’s a childish, bullying thing to do. I was a battle surgeon, Mr. Crawford. Put your picture back in your pocket.”

“Sure, a surgeon can stand to look at a mutilated body,” Crawford said, crumpling his cup and stepping on the pedal of the covered wastebasket. “But I don’t think a doctor can stand to see a life wasted.” He dropped in his cup and the lid of the wastebasket came down with a satisfactory clang. “Here’s my best offer: I won’t ask you for patient information, only application information selected by you, with reference to these guidelines. You and your psychiatric review board can handle your rejected applications a lot faster than I can. If we find Buffalo Bill through your information, I’ll suppress that fact. I’ll find another way we could have done it and we’ll walk through it that way, for the record.”