Thomas Harris - Red Dragon

Graham looked thoughtfully at the marred muscular forearms, the dot of adhesive in the crook of the elbow, the shaved patch where Randy had tested the edge of his knife. Knife fighter's mange.

I'm afraid of Randy. Fire or fall back.

"Did you hear me?" Randy said. "Butt out."

Graham unbuttoned his jacket and put his identification on the table.

"Sit still, Randy. If you try to get up, you're gonna have two navels."

"I'm sorry, sir." Instant inmate sincerity.

"Randy, I want you to do something for me. I want you to reach in your left back pocket. Just use two fingers. You'll find a five-inch knife in there with a Flicket clamped to the blade. Put it on the table… Thank you."

Graham dropped the knife into his pocket. It felt greasy. "Now, in your other pocket is your wallet. Get it out. You sold some blood today, didn't you?"

"So what?"

"So hand me the slip they gave you, the one you show next time at the blood bank. Spread it out on the table."

Randy had type-O blood. Scratch Randy.

"How long have you been out of jail?"

"Three weeks."

"Who's your parole officer?"

"I'm not on parole."

"That's probably a lie." Graham wanted to roust Randy. He could get him for carrying a knife over the legal length. Being in a place with a liquor license was a parole violation. Graham knew he was angry at Randy because he had feared him.

"Randy."

"Yeah."

"Get out."

"I don't know what I can tell you, I didn't know my father very well," Niles Jacobi said as Graham drove him to the school. "He left Mother when I was three, and I didn't see him after that – Mother wouldn't have it."

"He came to see you last spring."

"Yes."

"At Chino."

"You know about that."

"I'm just trying to get it straight. What happened?"

"Well, there he was in Visitors, uptight and trying not to look around – so many people treat it like the zoo. I'd heard a lot about him from Mother, but he didn't look so bad. He was just a man standing there in a tacky sport coat."

"What did he say?"

"Well, I expected him either to jump right in my shit or to be real guilty, that's the way it goes mostly in Visitors. But he just asked me if I thought I could go to school. He said he'd go custody if I'd go to school. And try. 'You have to help yourself a little. Try and help yourself, and I'll see you get in school,' and like that."

"How long before you got out?"

"Two weeks."

" Niles, did you ever talk about your family while you were in Chino? To your cellmates or anybody?"

Niles Jacobi looked at Graham quickly. "Oh. Oh, I see. No. Not about my father. I hadn't thought about him in years, why would I talk about him?"

"How about here? Did you ever take any of your friends over to your parents' house?"

"Parent, not parents. She was not my mother."

"Did you ever take anybody over there? School friends or…"

"Or rough trade, Officer Graham?"

"That's right."

"No."

"Never?"

"Not once."

"Did he ever mention any kind of threat, was he ever disturbed about anything in the last month or two before it happened?"

"He was disturbed the last time I talked to him, but it was just my grades. I had a lot of cuts. He bought me two alarm clocks. There wasn't anything else that I know of."

"Do you have any personal papers of his, correspondence, photographs, anything?"

"No."

"You have a picture of the family. It's on the dresser in your room. Near the bong."

"That's not my bong. I wouldn't put that filthy thing in my mouth."

"I need the picture. I'll have it copied and send it back to you. What else do you have?"

Jacobi shook a cigarette out of his pack and patted his pockets for matches. "That's all. I can't imagine why they gave that to me. My father smiling at Mrs. Jacobi and all the little Munchkins. You can have it. He never looked like that to me."

Graham needed to know the Jacobis. Their new acquaintances in Birmingham were little help.

Byron Metcalf gave him the run of the lockboxes. He read the thin stack of letters, mostly business, and poked through the jewelry and the silver.

For three hot days he worked in the warehouse where the Jacobis' household goods were stored. Metcalf helped him at night. Every crate on every pallet was opened and their examined. Police photographs helped Graham see where things had been in the house.

Most of the furnishings were new, bought with the insurance from the Detroit fire. The Jacobis hardly had time to leave their marks on their possessions.

One item, a bedside table with traces of fingerprint powder still on it, held Graham's attention. In the center of the tabletop was a blob of green wax.

For the second time he wondered if the killer liked candlelight.

The Birmingham forensics unit was good about sharing.

The blurred print of the end of a nose was the best Birmingham and Jimmy Price in Washington could do with the soft-drink can from the tree.

The FBI laboratory's Firearms and Toolmarks section reported on the severed branch. The blades that clipped it were thick, with a shallow pitch: it had been done with a bolt cutter.

Document section had referred the mark cut in the bark to the Asian Studies department at Langley.

Graham sat on a packing case at the warehouse and read the long report. Asian Studies advised that the mark was a Chinese character which meant "You hit it" or "You hit it on the head" – an expression sometimes used in gambling. It was considered a "positive" or "lucky" sign. The character also appeared on a Mah-Jongg piece, the Asian scholars said. It marked the Red Dragon.

Crawford at FBI headquarters in Washington was on the telephone with Graham at the Birmingham airport when his secretary leaned into the office and flagged his attention.

"Dr. Chilton at Chesapeake Hospital on 2706. He says it's urgent." Crawford nodded. "Hang on, Will." He punched the telephone.

"Crawford."

"Frederick Chilton, Mr. Crawford, at the-"

"Yes, Doctor."

"I have a note here, or two pieces of a note, that appears to be from the man who killed those people in Atlanta and-"

"Where did you get it?"

"From Hannibal Lecter's cell. It's written on toilet tissue, of all things, and it has teeth marks pressed in it."

"Can you read it to me without handling it any more?" Straining to sound calm, Chilton read it:

My dear Dr. Lecter,

I wanted to tell you I'm delighted that you have taken an interest in me. And when I learned of your vast correspondence I thought Dare I? Of course I do. I don't believe you'd tell them who I am, even if you knew. Besides, what parficular body I currently occupy is trivia.

The important thing is what I am Becoming. I know that you alone can understand this. I have some things I'd love to show you. Someday, perhaps, if circumstances permit. I hope we can correspond…

"Mr. Crawford, there's a hole torn and punched out. Then it says:

I have admired you for years and have a complete collection of your press notices. Actually, I think of them as unfair reviews. As unfair as mine. They like to sling demeaning nicknames, don't they? The Tooth Fairy. What could be more inappropriate? It would shame me for you to see that if I didn't know you had suffered the same distortions in the press.

Investigator Graham interests me. Odd-looking for a flatfoot, isn't he? Not very handsome, but purposeful-looking.

You should have taught him not to meddle.

Forgive the stationery. I chose it because it will dissolve very quickly if you should have to swallow it.