When a Man tells you, in every second that you spend in his company
By His Every Word,
Every Gesture,
Every Deed
By His very Energy -
"I Shot a Man in Reno Just to Watch Him Die."
You are NOT Required to Be Polite to Such a Man.
To Do So would be
Contemptible.
And a
DIS-GRACE.
So, When You Meet Me,
Have Some Courtesy.
Have Some Sympathy.
And Some Taste.
STARLING
Barney, back when you turned Dr. Lecter over to the Tennessee Police -
BARNEY
They weren't civil to him.
And they're all dead now.
STARLING
Yeah. They only managed to survive his company three days.
You survived him six years at the asylum.
How'd you do that?
It wasn't just being civil.
BARNEY
Yes, it was.
INT. APARTMENT BUILDING - UPSTAIRS HALL - DAY
Starling knocks. Waits. The door opens and the orderly
peers out with the dead dove in his hands.
STARLING
Hi, Barney. I need to talk with -
BARNEY
Would you agree, for the record, Officer
Starling, I've not been read my rights?
STARLING
This is just informal. I just need to
ask you about some stuff.
BARNEY
How about saying it into your handbag?
Starling opens her purse and speaks down into it as though
there were a troll inside -
STARLING
I have not Mirandized Barney. He is
unaware of his rights.
Barney widens the door so she can come in.
INT. BARNEY'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS
Barney sets the dove on a desk and drags a computer mouse
to the "file close" x. Just before the screen reverts to the
AOL Welcome page, Starling glimpses the site he was on when
she interrupted him with her knock - stock quotes.
STARLING
How you been?
He doesn't answer. Sits his huge frame down on his desk
chair. She moves some newspapers aside on a couch, one of
which shows a photo of her from the Drumgo raid. They
consider each other for a moment. Eventually -
STARLING
Barney, back when you turned Dr. Lecter
over to the Tennessee Police -
BARNEY
They weren't civil to him. And they're
all dead now.
STARLING
Yeah. They only managed to survive his
company three days. You survived him six
years at the asylum. How'd you do that?
It wasn't just being civil.
BARNEY
Yes, it was.
They both hear something - a flutter - and glance out to the
fire escape. The dead dove's mate has landed on the railing.
STARLING
Did you ever think, once he escaped,
he might come after you?
BARNEY
No. He told me once that, whenever
feasible, he preferred to eat the rude.
"Free-range rude," he called them.
He smiles. Glances out the window again to the cooing dove.
Picks up the dead one, carries it out and sets it down on the
wet grating.
STARLING
Any idea what happened to all his stuff?
His books and papers and drawings and -
BARNEY
Everything got thrown out when the place
closed.
He comes back in. She starts to say something, hesitates.
Once she starts on this subject, she knows one of them will
wind up very unhappy.
STARLING
Barney, I just found out that Dr.
Lecter's signed copy of The Joy of
Cooking went to a private collector for
sixteen thousand dollars.
BARNEY
It was probably a fake.
STARLING
The seller's affidavit of ownership
was signed, Karen Phlox. You know Karen
Phlox? You should. "She" filled out
your employment application, only at the
bottom she signed it, Barney. Same thing
on your tax returns.
Long silence. Then Barney sighs.
BARNEY
You want the book? Maybe I could get
it back.
STARLING
I want the x-ray. From when you broke
his arm after he attacked that nurse.
Barney gets up again, but doesn't run off to get it. He
slowly paces around.
BARNEY
We talked about a lot of things, late at
night, after all the screaming died down.
We talked about you sometimes. Want to
know what he said?
STARLING
No, just the x-ray.
BARNEY
Is there a reward?
STARLING
Yeah. The reward is I don't have my
friend the Postal Inspector nail you on
Use of the Mails to Defraud, you don't
get ten years, and you don't come out
with a janitor's job and a room at the Y,
sitting on the side of your bunk at night
listening to yourself cough.
He stares at her, gets up finally, disappears into the
bedroom. Starling looks out to the fire escape again. The
surviving dove has dropped down and is now walking in circles
around its lifeless mate.
Barney returns with a file box and a large envelope. Hands
it all to her. She unfurls the string-clasp. Pulls out an x-
ray of an arm. A radiologist's and Lecter's names are on it.
BARNEY
I'm not a bad guy.
STARLING
I didn't say you were.
BARNEY
Dr. Chilton is a bad guy. After your
first visit, he began taping your conver-
sations with Dr. Lecter.
He produces from his jacket pocket several cassette tapes.
As he hands them to her -
BARNEY
I was good to you. Tried to make it
easy for you the first time you came down
to the violent ward to interview Dr.
Lecter. Remember?
STARLING
Yes.
BARNEY
You remember saying thank you?
She doesn't because she didn't, and now regrets it.
STARLING
I'm sorry. Thank you.
BARNEY
You mean it?
STARLING
Yes.
BARNEY
I'm going to show you something then.
I don't have to show it to you, remember
that. But I believe your gratitude is
sincere.
He goes to a fuse box on the wall. Takes something out of
it. Turns around to face Starling, wearing the famous mask
from Silence of the Lambs, and her hand flashes toward her
sidearm, a movement quickly stopped.
BARNEY
This is my retirement fund.
(removes the mask)
If you'll let me keep it. I can a lot
of money for this and get out of here for
good. I want to travel, and see every
Vermeer in the world before I die.
She thinks about it, doesn't immediately answer him. He
walks out onto the fire escape again and addresses the bird -
BARNEY
Go on. You've grieved long enough.
He shoos the dove away, picks up the dead one, comes back
in and drops it in the wastebasket by his desk.
STARLING
What did he say? About me? Late at
night.
BARNEY
We were talking about inherited, hard-
wired behavior. He was using genetics in
roller pigeons as an example.
They go way up in the air and roll 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. He
said, "Officer Starling is a deep roller,
Barney. Let's hope one of her parents
was not."
As Starling gets up and gathers everything except the mask,
she hears the surviving dove call out once from somewhere in
the trees.
INT. FBI LAB - DAY
The two x-rays, one overlaid on the other, clipped to a
light box. A technician adjusts them so the bone structures
correspond in position as closely as possible and points out
to Starling -
TECHNICIAN
They're the same arm. The discrepancy is
the dates. This one -
He slides the x-rays apart, touches a thin gray line on one
of them -
TECHNICIAN
- shows the hairline fracture he
sustained in the fight with the orderly.
This one -
(the other x-ray)
- the more recent one, supposedly,
doesn't. This is the newer of the two -
(the other one)
- the one from the asylum.
INT. BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE - LATER
Starling puts the earliest-dated cassette into a player,
presses "play," walks up to the blackboard and under Verger's
heading - below "Meat-packing heir" and some other notes -
writes, "He lies." From the tape player -
LECTER'S VOICE
Surely the odd confluence of events
hasn't escaped you, Clarice. Jack Craw-
ford dangles you in front of me, then I
give you a bit of help. Do you think
it's because I like to look at you and
imagine how good you would taste?
There's a pause. Starling, remembering the moment clearly
even now, mouths along with her recorded voice -
STARLING'S VOICE
I don't know. Is it?
INT. CELL - BALTIMORE STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE CRIMINALLY
INSANE - DAY - (FLASHBACK - 1994)
It's Lecter's cell. And it's almost pitch black. Then,
as he turns a rheostat, the lights slowly rise, revealing the
cell to be almost empty, stripped of its books. He's lying
on his cot.
LECTER
I've been in this room for eight years,
Clarice. I know they will never - ever -
let me out while I'm alive. What I want
... is a view.
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