Thomas Harris - The Silence of the Lambs

"Yes. Wait-- the mayor came to the hospital and asked my mother for the clock and the badge." She hadn't known she knew that. The mayor in his leisure suit and Navy surplus shoes. The cocksucker. "Quid pro quo, Dr. Lecter."

"Did you think for a second you'd made that up? No, if you'd made it up, it wouldn't sting. We were talking about transsexuals. You said violence and destructive aberrant behavior are not statistical correlatives of transsexualism. True. Do you remember what we said about anger expressed as lust, and lupus presenting as hives? Billy's not a transsexual, Clarice, but he thinks he is, he tries to be. He's tried to be a lot of things, I expect."

"You said that was close to the way we'd catch him."

"There are three major centers for transsexual surgery: Johns Hopkins, the University of Minnesota, and Columbus Medical Center. I wouldn't be surprised if he's applied for sex reassignment at one or all of them and been denied."

"On what basis would they reject him, what would show up?"

"You're very quick, Clarice. The first reason would be criminal record. That disqualifies an applicant, unless the crime is relatively harmless and related to the gender-identity problem. Cross-dressing in public, something like that. If he lied successfully about a serious criminal record, then the personality inventories would get him."

"How?"

"You have to know how in order to sieve them, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you ask Dr. Bloom?"

"I'd rather ask you."

"What will you get out of this, Clarice, a promotion and a raise? What are you, a G-9? What do little G-9's get nowadays?"

"A key to the front door, for one thing. How would he show up on the diagnostics?"

"How did you like Montana, Clarice?"

" Montana 's fine."

"How did you like your mother's cousin's husband?"

"We were different."

"How were they?"

"Worn out from work."

"Were there other children?'."

"No."

"Where did you live?"

"On a ranch."

"A sheep ranch?"

"Sheep and horses."

"How long were you there?"

"Seven months."

"How old were you?"

"Ten."

"Where did you go from there?"

"The Lutheran Home in Bozeman."

"Tell me the truth."

"I am telling you the truth."

"You're hopping around the truth. If you're tired, we could talk toward the end of the week. I'm rather bored myself. Or had you rather talk now?"

"Now, Dr. Lecter."

"All right. A child is sent away from her mother to a ranch in Montana. A sheep and horse ranch. Missing the mother, excited by the animals…" Dr. Lecter invited Starling with his open hands.

"It was great. I had my own room with an Indian rug on the floor. They let me ride a horse-- they led me around on this horse-- she couldn't see very well. There was something wrong with all the horses. Lame or sick. Some of them had been raised with children and they would, you know, nicker at me in the mornings when I went out to the school bus."

"But then?"

"I found something strange in the barn. They had a little tack room out there. I thought this thing was some kind of old helmet. When I got it down, it was stamped "W. W. Greener's Humane Horse Killer." It was sort of a bell-shaped metal cap and it had a place in the top to chamber a cartridge. Looked like about a.32."

"Did they feed out slaughter horses on this ranch, Clarice?"

"Yes, they did."

"Did they kill them at the ranch?"

"The glue and fertilizer ones they did. You can stack six in a truck if they're dead. The ones for dog food they hauled away alive."

"The one you rode around the yard?"

"We ran away together."

"How far did you get?"

"I got about as far as I'm going until you break down the diagnostics for me."

"Do you know the procedure for testing male applicants for transsexual surgery?"

"No."

"It may help if you bring me a copy of the regimen from any of the centers, but to begin: the battery of tests usually includes Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, House-Tree-Person, Rorschach, Drawing of Self-Concept, Thematic Apperception, MMPI of course, and a couple of others-- the Jenkins, I think, that NYU developed. You need something you can see quickly, don't you? Don't you, Clarice?"

"That would be the best, something quick."

"Let's see… our hypothesis is we're looking for a male who will test differently from the way a true transsexual would test. All right-- on House-Tree-Person, look for someone who didn't draw the female figure first. Male transsexuals almost always draw the female first and, typically, they pay a lot of attention to adornments on the females they draw. Their male figures are simple stereotypes-- there are some notable exceptions where they draw Mr. America-- but not much in between.

"Look for a house drawing without the rosy-future embellishments-- no baby carriage outside, no curtains, no flowers in the yard.

"You get two kinds of trees with real transsexuals-- flowing, copious willows and castration themes. The trees that are cut off by the edge of the drawing or the edge of the paper, the castration images, are full of life in the drawings of true transsexuals. Flowering and fruitful stumps. That's an important distinction. They're very unlike the frightened, dead, mutilated trees you see in drawings by people with mental disturbances. That's a good one-- Billy's tree will be frightful. Am I going too fast?"

"No, Dr. Lecter."

"On his drawing of himself; a transsexual will almost never draw himself naked. Don't be misled by a certain amount of paranoid ideation in the TAT cards-- that's fairly common among transsexual subjects who cross-dress a lot; oftentimes they've had bad experiences with the authorities. Shall I summarize?"

"Yes, I'd like a summary."

"You should try to obtain a list of people rejected from all three gender-reassignment centers. Check first the ones rejected for criminal record-- and among those look hard at the burglars. Among those who tried to conceal criminal records, look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Possibly internment in childhood. Then go to the tests. You're looking for a white male, probably under thirty-five and sizable. He's not a transsexual, Clarice. He just thinks he is, and he's puzzled and angry because they won't help him. That's all I want to say, I think, until I've read the case. You will leave it with me."

"Yes."

"And the pictures."

"They're included."

"Then you'd better run with what you have, Clarice, and we'll see how you do."

"I need to know how you--"

"No. Don't be grabby or we'll discuss it next week. Come back when you've made some progress. Or not. And Clarice?"

"Yes."

"Next time you'll tell me two things. What happened with the horse is one. The other thing I wonder is… how do you manage your rage?"

Alonzo came for her. She held her notes against her chest, walking head bent, trying to hold it all in her mind. Eager for the outside air, she didn't even glance toward Chilton's office as she hurried out of the hospital.

Dr. Chilton's light was on. You could see it under the door.

Far beneath the rusty Baltimore dawn, stirrings in the maximum security ward. Down where it is never dark the tormented sense beginning day as oysters in a barrel open to their lost tide. God's creatures who cried themselves to sleep stirred to cry again and the ravers cleared their throats.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter stood stiffly upright at the end of the corridor, his face a foot from the wall. Heavy canvas webbing bound him tightly to a movers tall hand truck as though he were a grandfather clock. Beneath the webbing he wore a straitjacket and leg restraints. A hockey mask over his face precluded biting; it was as effective as a mouthpiece, and not so wet for the orderlies to handle.