Thomas Harris - The Silence of the Lambs

"I need the ID to fly with the gun. The gun belongs at Quantico."

"Gun. Jesus . Turn in the ID as soon as you get back."

Senator Martin, Gossage, a technician, and several policemen were gathered around a video display terminal with a modem connected to the telephone. The National Crime Information Center 's hotline kept a running account of progress as Dr. Lecter's information was processed in Washington. Here was news from the National Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta: Elephant ivory anthrax is contracted by breathing dust from grinding African ivory, usually for decorative handles. In the United States it is a disease of knifemakers.

At the word "knifemakers," Senator Martin closed her eyes. They were hot and dry. She squeezed the Kleenex in her hand.

The young trooper who had let Starling into the apartment was bringing the Senator a cup of coffee. He still had on his hat.

Starling was damned if she'd slink out. She stopped before the woman and said, "Good luck, Senator. I hope Catherine's all right."

Senator Martin nodded without looking at her. Krendler urged Starling out.

"I didn't know she wasn't s'posed to be in here," the young trooper said as she left the room.

Krendler stepped outside with her. "I have nothing but respect for Jack Crawford," he said. "Please tell him how sorry we all are about… Bella's problem, all that. Now let's get back to school and get busy, all right?"

"Good-bye, Mr. Krendler."

Then she was alone on the parking lot, with the unsteady feeling that she understood nothing at all in this world.

She watched a pigeon walk around beneath the motor homes and boats. It picked up a peanut hull and put it back down. The damp wind rued its feathers.

Starling wished she could talk to Crawford. Waste and stupidity get you the worst, that's what he said. Use this time and it'll temper you. Now's the hardest test-- not letting rage and frustration keep you from thinking. It's the core of whether you can command or not.

She didn't give a damn about commanding. She found she didn't give a damn, or a shit for that matter, about being Special Agent Starling. Not if you play this way.

She thought about the poor, fat, sad, dead girl she saw on the table in the funeral home at Potter, West Virginia. Painted her nails with glitter just like these God damned redneck ski boats.

What was her name? Kimberly.

Damn if these assholes are gonna see me cry.

Jesus, everybody was. named Kimberly, four in her class. Three guys named Sean. Kimberly with her soap opera name tried to fix herself, punched all those holes in her ears trying to look pretty, trying to decorate herself. And Buffalo Bill looked at her sad flat tits and stuck the muzzle of a gun between them and blew a starfish in her chest.

Kimberly, her sad, fat sister who waxed her legs. No wonder-- judging from her face and her arms and legs, her skin was her best feature. Kimberly, are you angry somewhere? No senators looking out for her. No jets to carry crazy men around. Crazy was a word she wasn't supposed to use. Lot of stuff she wasn't supposed to do. Crazy men.

Starling looked at her watch. She had an hour and a half before the plane, and there was one small thing she could do. She wanted to look in Dr. Lecter's face when he said "Billy Rubin." If she could stand to meet those strange maroon eyes for long enough, if she looked deeply where the dark sucks in the sparks, she might see something useful. She thought she might see glee.

Thank God I've still got the ID.

She laid twelve feet of rubber pulling out of the parking lot.

Clarice Starling driving in a hurry through the perilous Memphis traffic, two tears of anger dried stiff on her cheeks. She felt oddly floaty and free now. An unnatural clarity in her vision warned her that she was inclined to fight, so she was careful of herself.

She had passed the old courthouse earlier on her way from the airport, and she found it again without trouble.

The Tennessee authorities were taking no chances with Hannibal Lecter. They were determined to hold him securely without exposing him to the dangers of the city jail.

Their answer was the former courthouse and jail, a massive Gothic-style structure built of granite back when labor was free. It was a city office building now, somewhat over-restored in this prosperous, history-conscious town.

Today it looked like a medieval stronghold surrounded by police.

A mix of law-enforcement cruisers-- highway patrol, Shelby County Sheriff's Department, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and Department of Corrections-- crowded the parking lot. There was a police post to pass before Starling even could get in to park her rented car.

Dr. Lecter presented an additional security problem from outside. Threatening calls had been coming in ever since the midmorning newscasts reported his whereabouts; his victims had many friends and relatives who would love to see hirn dead.

Starling hoped the resident FBI agent, Copley, wasn't here. She didn't want to get him in trouble.

She save the back of Chilton's head in a knot of reporters on the grass beside the main steps. There were two television minicams in the crowd. Starling wished her head were covered. She turned her face away as she approached the entrance to the tower.

A state trooper stationed in front of the door examined her ID card before she could go into the foyer. The foyer of the tower looked like a guardroom now. A city policeman was stationed at the single tower elevator, and another at the stairs. State troopers, the relief for the patrol units stationed around the building, read the Commercial Appeal on the couches where the public could not see them.

A sergeant manned the desk opposite the elevator. His name tag said TATE, C.L.

"No press," Sergeant Tate said when he saw Starling.

"No," she said.

"You with the Attorney General's people?" he said when he looked at her card.

"Deputy Assistant Attorney General Krendler," she said. "I just left him."

He nodded. "We've had every kind of cop in West Tennessee in here wanting to look at Dr. Lecter. Don't see something like that very often, thank God. You'll need to talk to Dr. Chilton before you go up."

"I saw him outside;" Starling said. "We were working on this in Baltimore earlier today. Is this where I log in, Sergeant Tate?"

The sergeant briefly checked a molar with his tongue. "Right there," he said. "Detention rules, miss. Visitors check weapons, cops or not."

Starling nodded. She dumped the cartridges from her revolver, the sergeant glad to watch her hands move on the gun. She gave it to him butt first, and he locked it in his drawer.

" Vernon, take her up." He dialed three digits and spoke her name into the phone.

The elevator, an addition from the 1920s, creaked up to the top floor. It opened onto a stair landing and a short corridor.

"Right straight across, ma'am," the trooper said.

Painted on the frosted glass of the door was SHELBY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

Almost all the top floor of the tower was one octagonal room painted white, with a floor and moldings of polished oak. It smelled of wax and library paste. With its few furnishings, the room had a spare, Congregational feeling. It looked better now than it ever had as a bailiff's office.

Two men in the uniform of the Tennessee Department of Corrections were on duty. The small one stood up at his desk when Starling came in. The bigger one sat in a folding chair at the far end of the room, facing the door of a cell. He was the suicide watch.

"You're authorized to talk with the prisoner, ma'am?" the officer at the desk said. His nameplate read PEMBRY, T.W. and his desk set included a telephone, two riot batons, and Chemical Mace. A long pinion stood in the corner behind him.