Thomas Harris - The Silence of the Lambs

"Senator Martin." Major Bachman was calling her. Chilton beckoned from the door.

There was a desk for Chilton in the room, and chairs for Senator Martin and her assistant and for Major Bachman. A video cameraman was ready to record the meeting. Chilton claimed it was one of Lecter's requirements.

Senator Martin went in looking good. Her navy suit breathed power. She had put some starch in Gossage too.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter sat alone in the middle of the room in a stout oak armchair bolted to the floor. A blanket covered his straitjacket and leg restraints and concealed the fact that he was chained to the chair. But he still wore the hockey mask that kept him from biting.

Why? the Senator wondered-- the idea had been to permit Dr. Lecter some dignity in an office setting. Senator Martin gave Chilton a look and turned to Gossage for papers.

Chilton went behind Dr. Lecter and, with a glance at the camera, undid the straps and removed the mask with a flourish.

"Senator Martin, meet Dr. Hannibal Lecter."

Seeing what Dr. Chilton had done for showmanship frightened Senator Martin as much as anything that had happened since her daughter disappeared. Any confidence she might have had in Chilton's judgment was replaced with the cold fear that he was a fool.

She'd have to wing it.

A lock of Dr. Lecter's hair fell between his maroon eyes. He was as pale as the mask. Senator Martin and Hannibal Lecter considered each other, one extremely bright and the other not measurable by any means known to man.

Dr. Chilton returned to his desk, looked around at everyone, and began:

"Dr. Lecter has indicated to me, Senator, that he wants to contribute to the investigation some special knowledge, in return for considerations regarding the conditions of his confinement."

Senator Martin held up a document. "Dr. Lecter, this is an affidavit which I'll now sign. It says I'll help you. Want to read it?"

She thought he wasn't going to reply and turned to the desk to sign, when he said:

"I won't waste your time and Catherine's time bargaining for petty privileges. Career climbers have wasted enough already. Let me help you now, and I'll trust you to help me when it's over."

"You can count on it. Brian?"

Gossage raised his pad.

"Buffalo Bill's name is William Rubin. He goes by Billy Rubin. He was referred to me in April or May 1975, by my patient Benjamin Raspail. He said he lived in Philadelphia, I can't remember an address, but he was staying with Raspail in Baltimore."

"Where are your records?" Major Bachman broke in.

"My records were destroyed by court order shortly after--"

"What did he look like?" Major Bachman said.

"Do you mind, Major? Senator Martin, the only--"

"Give me an age and a physical description, anything else you can remember," Major Bachman said.

Dr. Lecter simply went away. He thought about something else-- Géricault's anatomical studies for The Raft of the Medusa-- and if he heard the questions that followed, he didn't show it.

When Senator Martin regained his attention, they were alone in the room. She had Gossage's pad.

Dr. Lecter's eyes focused on her. "That flag smells like cigars," he said.-"Did you nurse Catherine?"

"Pardon me? Did I…"

"Did you breast-feed her?"

"Yes."

"Thirsty work, isn't it…?"

When her pupils darkened, Dr. Lecter took a single sip of her pain and found it exquisite. That was enough for today. He went on: "William Rubin is about six feet one, and would be thirty-five years old now. He's strongly built-- about one hundred ninety pounds when I knew him and he's gained since then, I expect. He has brown hair and pale blue eyes. Give them that much; and then we'll go on."

"Yes, I'll do that," Senator Martin said. She passed her notes out the door.

"I only saw him once. He made another appointment, but he never came again."

"Why do you think he's Buffalo Bill?"

"He was murdering people then, and doing some similar things with them, anatomically. He said he wanted some help to stop, but actually he just wanted to schmooze about it. To rap ."

"And you didn't-- he was sure you wouldn't turn him in?"

"He didn't think I would, and he likes to take chances. I had honored the confidences of his friend Raspail."

" Raspail knew he was doing this?"

"Raspail's appetites ran to the louche-- he was covered with scars.

"Billy Rubin told me he had a criminal record, but no details. I took a brief medical history. It was unexceptional, except for one thing: Rubin told me he once suffered from elephant ivory anthrax. That's all I remember, Senator Martin, and I expect you're anxious to go. If anything else occurs to me, I'll send you word."

"Did Billy Rubin kill the person whose head was in the car?"

"I believe so."

"Do you know who that is?"

"No. Raspail called him Klaus."

"Were the other things you told the FBI true?"

"At least as true as what the FBI told me , Senator Martin."

"I've made some temporary arrangements for you here in Memphis. We'll talk about your situation and you'll go on to Brushy Mountain when this is… when we've got it settled."

"Thank you. I'd like a telephone, if I think of something…"

"You'll have it."

"And music. Glenn Gould, the Goldberg Variations? Would that be too much?"

"Fine."

"Senator Martin, don't entrust any lead solely to the FBI. Jack Crawford never plays fair with the other agencies. It's such a game with those people. He's determined to have the arrest himself. A 'collar,' they call it."

"'Thank you, Dr. Lecter."

"Love your suit," he said as she went out the door.

Room into room, Jame Gumb's basement rambles like the maze that thwarts us in dreams. When he was still shy, lives and lives ago, Mr. Gumb took his pleasure in the rooms most hidden, far from the stairs. There are rooms in the farthest corners, rooms from other lives, that Gumb hasn't opened in years. Some of them are still occupied, so to speak, though the sounds from behind the doors peaked and trailed off to silence long ago.

The levels of the floors vary from room to room by as much as a foot. There are thresholds to step over, lintels to duck. Loads are impossible to roll and difficult to drag. To march something ahead of you-- it stumbling and crying, begging, banging its dazed head-- is difficult, dangerous even.

As he grew in wisdom and in confidence, Mr. Gumb no longer felt he had to meet his needs in the hidden parts of the basement. He nowuses a suite of basement rooms around the stairs, large rooms with running water and electricity.

The basement is in total darkness now.

Beneath the sand-floored room, in the oubliette, Catherine Martin is quiet.

Mr. Gumb is here in the basement, but he is not in this chamber.

The room beyond the stairs is black to human vision, but it is full of small sounds. Water trickles here and small pumps hum. In little echoes the room sounds large. The air is moist and cool. Smell the greenery. A flutter of wings against the cheek, a few clicks across the air. A low nasal sound of pleasure, a human sound.

The room has none of the wavelengths of light the human eye can use, but Mr. Gumb is here and he can see very well, though he sees everything in shades and intensities of green. He's wearing an excellent pair of infrared goggles (Israeli military surplus, less than four hundred dollars) and he directs the beam of an infrared flashlight on the wire cage in front of him. He is sitting on the edge of a straight chair, rapt, watching an insect climb a plant in the screen cage. The young imago has just emerged from a split chrysalis in the moist earth of the cage floor. She climbs carefully on a stalk of nightshade, seeking space to unfurl the damp new wings still wadded on her back. She selects a horizontal twig.