IF THERE are depots on the way to Hell, they must resemble the ambulance
entrance to Maryland-Misericordia General Hospital. Over the sirens' dying
wail, wails of the dying, clatter of the dripping gurneys, cries and screams,
the columns of manhole steam, dyed red by a great neon EMERGENCY sign, rise
like Moses' own pillar of fire in the darkness and change to cloud in the day.
Barney came out of the steam, shrugging his powerful shoulders into his
jacket, his cropped round head bent forward as he covered the broken pavement
in long strides east toward the morning.
He was twenty-five minutes late getting off work - the police had brought in a
stoned pimp with a gunshot wound who liked to fight women, and the head nurse
had asked him to stay. They always asked Barney to stay when they took in a
violent patient.
Clarice Starling peered out at Barney from the deep hood of her jacket and let
him get a half-block lead on the other side of the street before she hitched
her tote bag on her shoulder and followed. When he passed both the parking lot
and the bus stop, she was relieved. Barney would be easier to follow on foot.
She wasn't sure where he lived and she needed to know before he saw her.
The neighborhood behind the hospital was quiet, blue-collar and mixed
racially. A neighborhood where you put a Chapman lock on your car but you
don't have to take the battery in with you at night, and the kids can play
outside.
After three blocks, Barney waited for a van to clear the crosswalk and turned
north onto a street of narrow houses, some with marble steps and neat front
gardens. The few empty storefronts were intact with the windows soaped. Stores
were beginning to open and a few people were out. Trucks parked overnight on
both sides of the street blocked Starling's view for half a minute and she
walked up on Barney before she realized that he had stopped. She was directly
across the street when she saw him. Maybe he saw her too, she wasn't sure.
He was standing with his hands in his jacket pockets, head forward, looking
from under his brows at something moving in the center of the street. A dead
dove lay in the road, one wing flapped by the breeze of passing cars. The dead
bird's mate paced around and around the body, cocking an eye at it, small head
jerking with each step of its pink feet. Round and round, muttering the soft
dove mutter. Several cars and a van passed, the surviving bird barely dodging
the traffic with short last-minute flights.
Maybe Barney glanced up at her, Starling couldn't be positive. She had to keep
going or be spotted. When she looked over her shoulder, Barney was squatting
in the middle of the road, arm raised to the traffic.
She turned the corner out of sight, pulled off her hooded jacket, took a
sweater, a baseball cap and a gym bag out of her tote bag, and changed
quickly, stuffing her jacket and the tote into the gym bag, and her hair into
the cap. She fell in with some homeward bound cleaning women and turned the
corner back onto Barney's street.
He had the dead dove in his cupped hands. Its mate flew with whistling wings
up to the overhead wires and watched him. Barney laid the dead bird in the
grass of a lawn and smoothed down its feathers. He turned his broad face up to
the bird on the wire and said something. When he continued on his way, the
survivor of the pair dropped down to the grass and continued circling the
body, pacing through the grass. Barney didn't look back. When he climbed the
steps of an apartment house a hundred yards farther on and reached for keys,
Starling sprinted a half-block to catch up before he opened the door.
"Barney. Hi."
He turned on the stairs in no great haste and looked down at her. Starling had
forgotten that Barney's eyes were unnaturally far apart. She saw the
intelligence in them and felt the little electronic pop of connection.
She took her cap off and let her hair fall. "I'm Clarice Starling. Remember
me? I'm-"
"The G," Barney said, expressionless.
Starling put her palms together and nodded. "Well, yes, I am the G. Barney, I
need to talk with you. It's just informal, I need to ask you some stuff."
Barney came down the steps.
When he was standing on the sidewalk in front of Starling, she still had to
look up at his face. She was not threatened by his size, as a man would be.
"Would you agree for the record, Officer Starling, that I have not been read
my rights?"
His voice was high and rough like the voice of Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan.
"Absolutely. I have not Mirandized you. I acknowledge that."
"How about saying it into your bag?"
Starling opened her bag and spoke down into it in a loud voice as though it
contained a troll. "I have not Mirandized Barney, he is unaware of his
rights."
"There's some pretty good coffee down the street," Barney said. "How many hats
have you got in that bag?" he asked as they walked.
"Three," she said.
When the van with handicap plates passed by, Starling was aware that the
occupants were looking at her, but the afflicted are often horny, as they have
every right to be. The young male occupants of a car at the next crossing
looked at her too, but said nothing because of Barney. Anything extended from
the windows would have caught Starling's instant attention - she was wary of
Crip revenge but silent ogling is to be endured.
When she and Barney entered the coffee shop, the van backed into an alley to
turn around and went back the way it came.
They had to wait for a booth in the crowded ham and egg place while the waiter
yelled in Hindi to the cook, who handled meat with long tongs and a guilty
expression.
"Let's eat," Starling said when they were seated. "It's on Uncle Sam. How's it
going, Barney?"
"The job's okay."
"What is it?"
"Orderly, LPN."
"I figured you for an RN by now, or maybe medical school."
Barney shrugged and reached for the creamer. He looked up at Starling. "They
jam you up for shooting Evelda?"
"We'll have to see. Did you know her?"
"I saw her once, when they brought in her husband, Dijon. He was dead, he bled
out on them before they ever got him in the ambulance. He was leaking clear I
V when he got to us. She wouldn't let him go and tried to fight the nurses. I
had to . . . you know . . . Handsome woman, strong too. They didn't bring her
in after-"
"No, she was pronounced at the scene."
"I would think so."
"Barney, after you turned over Dr Lecter to the Tennessee people-" "They
weren't civil to him."
"After you-" "And they're all dead now."
"Yes. His keepers managed to stay alive for three days. You lasted eight years
keeping Dr Lecter."
"It was six years-he was there before I came."
"How'd you do it, Barney? If you don't mind my asking, how'd you manage to
last with him? It wasn't just being civil."
Barney looked at his refection in his spoon, first convex and then concave,
and thought a moment. "Dr Lecter had perfect manners, not stiff, but easy and
elegant. I was working on some correspondence courses and he shared his mind
with me. That didn't mean he wouldn't kill me any second if he got the chanceone quality in a person doesn't rule out any other quality. They can exist
side by side, good and terrible. Socrates said it a lot better. In maximum
lock-down you can't afford to forget that, ever. If you keep it in mind,
you're all right. Dr Lecter may have been sorry he showed me Socrates."
To Barney, lacking the disadvantage of formal schooling, Socrates was a fresh
experience, with the quality of an encounter.
"Security was separate from conversation, a whole other thing," he said.
"Security was never personal, even when I had to shut off his mail or put him
in restraints."
"Did you talk with Dr Lecter a lot?"
"Sometimes he went months without saying anything, and sometimes we'd talk,
late at night when the crying died down. In fact - I was taking these courses
by mail and I knew diddly - and he showed me a whole world, literally, of
stuff-Suetonius, Gibbon, all that."
Barney picked up his cup. He had a streak of orange Betadine on a fresh
scratch across the back of his hand.
"Did you ever think when he escaped that he might come after you?"
Barney shook his huge head. "He told me once that, whenever it was
`feasible,' he preferred to eat the rude. `Free-range rude,' he called them."
Barney laughed, a rare sight. He had little baby teeth and his amusement seems
a touch maniacal, like a baby's glee when he blows his pablum in a goo-goo
uncle's face.
Starling wondered if he had stayed underground with the loonies too long.
"What about you, did you ever feel . . . creepy after he got away? Did you
think he might come after you?"
Barney asked.
"No."
"Why?"
"He said he wouldn't."
This answer seemed oddly satisfactory to them both.
The eggs arrived. Barney and Starling were hungry and they ate steadily for a
few minutes. Then . . .
"Barney, when Dr Lecter was transferred to Memphis, I asked you for his
drawings out of his cell and you brought them to me. What happened to the rest
of the stuff-books, papers? The hospital doesn't even have his medical
records."
"There was this big upheaval."
Barney paused, tapping the salt shaker against his palm. "There was a big
upheaval, you know at the hospital. I got laid off, a lot of people got laid
off, and stuff just got scattered. There's no telling-"
"Excuse me?" Starling said, "I couldn't hear what you said for the racket in
here. I found out last night that Dr Lecter's annotated and signed copy of
Alexandre Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine came up at a private auction in New
York two years ago. It went to a private collector for sixteen thousand
dollars. The seller's affidavit of ownership was signed `Cart' Phlox.' You
know 'Cart' Phlox,' Barney? I hope you do because he did the handwriting on
your employment application at the hospital where you're working but he signed
it `Barney.' Made out your tax return too. Sorry I missed what you were saying
before. Want to start over? What did you get for the book, Barney?"
"Around ten," Barney said, looking straight at her.
Starling nodded. "The receipt says ten-five. What did you get for that
interview with the Tattler after Dr Lecter escaped?"
"Fifteen G's."
"Cool. Good for you. You made up all that bull you told those people."
"I knew Dr Lecter wouldn't mind. He'd be disappointed if I didn't jerk them
around."
"He attacked the nurse before you got to Baltimore State?"
"Yes."
"His shoulder was dislocated."
"That's what I understand."
"Was there an X ray taken?"
"Most likely."
"I want the X ray."
"Ummmm."
"I found out Lecter autographs are divided into two groups, the ones written
in ink, or pre-incarceration, and crayon or felt-tip writing from the asylum.
Crayon's worth more, but I expect you know that. Barney, I think you have all
that stuff and you figure on parceling it out over the years to the autograph
trade."
Barney shrugged and said nothing.
"I think you're waiting for him to be a hot topic again. What do you want,
Barney?"
"I want to see every Vermeer in the world before I die."
"Do I need to ask who got you started on Vermeer?"
"We talked about a lot of things in the middle of the night."
"Did you talk about what he'd like to do if he was free?"
"No. Dr Lecter has no interest in hypothesis. He doesn't believe in syllogism,
or synthesis, or any absolute."
"What does he believe in?"
"Chaos. And you don't even have to believe in it. It's self-evident."
Starling wanted to indulge Barney for the moment. "You say that like you
believe it," she said, "but your whole job at Baltimore State was maintaining
order. You were the chief orderly. You and I are both in the order business.
Dr Lecter never got away from you."
"I explained that to you."
"Because you never let your guard down. Even though in a sense you
fraternized-" "I did not fraternize," Barney said. "He's nobody's brother. We
discussed matters of mutual interest. At least the stuff was interesting to me
when I found out about it."
"Did Dr Lecter ever make fun of you for not knowing something?"
"No. Did he make fun of you?"
"No," she said to save Barney's feelings, as she recognized for the first time
the compliment implied in the monster's ridicule. "He could have made fun of
me if he'd wanted to. Do you know where the stuff is, Barney?"
"Is there a reward for finding it?"
Starling folded her paper napkin and put it under the edge of her plate. "The
reward is my not charging you with obstruction of justice. I gave you a walk
before when you bugged my desk at the hospital."
"That bug belonged to the late Dr Chilton."
"Late? How do you know he's the late Dr Chilton?"
"Well, he's seven years late anyway," Barney said. "I'm not expecting him
anytime soon. Let me ask you, what would satisfy you, Special Agent Starling?"
"I want to see the X ray. I want the X-ray. If there are books of Dr Lecter's,
I want to see them."
"Say we came upon the stuff, what would happen to it afterward?"
"Well, the truth is I can't be sure. The U.S. Attorney might seize all the
material as evidence in the investigation of the escape. Then it'll molder in
his Bulky Evidence Room. If I examine the stuff and find nothing useful in the
books, and I say so, you could claim that Dr Lecter gave them to you. He's
been in absentia seven years, so you might exercise a civil claim. He has no
known relatives. I would recommend that any innocuous material be handed over
to you. You should know my recommendation is at the low end of the totem pole.
You wouldn't ever get the X ray back probably or the medical report, since
they weren't his to give."
"And if I explain to you that I don't have the stuff?"
"Lecter material will become really hard to sell because we'll put out a
bulletin on it and advise the market that we'll seize and prosecute for
receiving and possession. I'll exercise a search and seizure warrant on your
premises."
"Now that you know where my premises is. Or is it premises are?"
"I'm not sure. I can tell you, if you turn the material over, you won't get
any grief for having taken it, considering what would have happened to it if
you'd left it in place. As far as promising you'd get it back, I can't promise
for sure."
Starling rooted in her purse for punctuation. "You know, Barney, I have the
feeling you haven't gotten an advanced medical degree because maybe you can't
get bonded. Maybe you've got a prior somewhere. See? Now look at that - I
never pulled a rap sheet on you, I never checked."
"No, you just looked at my tax return and my job application is all. I'm
touched."
"If you've got a prior, maybe the USDA in that jurisdiction could drop a word,
get you expunged."
Barney mopped his plate with a piece of toast. "You about finished? Let's walk
a little."
"I saw Sammie, remember he took over Miggs's cell? He's still living in it,"
Starling said when they were outside.
"I thought the place was condemned."
"It is."
"Is Sammie in a program?"
"No, he just lives there in the dark."
"I think you ought to blow the whistle on him. He's a brittle diabetic, he'll
die. Do you know why Dr Lecter made Miggs swallow his tongue?"
"I think so."
"He killed him for offending you. That was just the specific thing. Don't feel
bad - he might have done it anyway.
They continued past Barney's apartment house to the lawn where the dove still
circled the body of its dead mate. Barney shooed it with his hands. "Go on,"
he said to the bird. "That's long enough to grieve. You'll walk around until
the cat gets you." The dove flew away whistling. They could not see where it
lit. Barney picked up the dead bird. The smooth-feathered body slid easily
into his pocket.
"You know, Dr Lecter talked about you a little, once. Maybe the last time I
talked to him, one of the last times. The bird reminds me. You want to know
what he said?"
"Sure," Starling said. Her breakfast crawled a little, and she was determined
not to flinch.
"We were talking about inherited, hardwired behavior. He was using genetics in
roller pigeons as an example. They go way up in the air and roll over and over
backwards in a display, falling toward the ground. There are shallow rollers
and deep rollers. You can't breed two deep rollers or the offspring will roll
all the way down, crash and die. What he said was `Officer Starling is a deep
roller, Barney. We'll hope one of her parents was not."
Starling had to chew on that. "What'll you do with the bird?" she asked.
"Pluck it and eat it," Barney said. "Come on to the house and I'll give you
the X ray and the books."
Carrying the long package back toward the hospital and her car, Starling heard
the surviving mourning dove call once from the trees.