Showing posts with label Dr. Chilton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Chilton. Show all posts

Friday 19 August 2022

Lektor


Will Graham :
Yeah, this is Will Graham of The FBI,
Dr. Chilton arranged for me to 
Talk to Dr. Lecktor. 
Hello? 

Lektor :
Hello, Will. I wanted 
to congratulate you 
for the job you did 
on Mr. Lounds. 

I admire that enormously
Oh, what a cunning boy you are, Will. 

Will Graham :
I'm sick of you crazy 
sons of bitches, Lecktor -- 

You got Something 
to Say, Say it. 

Lektor :
No, no, I Want 
to Help You...!
 
'Succession' star Brian Cox blasts 'deeply unjust' treatment of JK Rowling

Actor Brian Cox has hit out at 
the "deeply unjust" treatment 
of prominent author JK Rowling 
over her comments on 
Biological Sexuality and 
Transgender People.

"I couldn't understand 
that whole thing at all," 
Mr. Cox told Sky News 
host Piers Morgan.

"I thought there was something 
deeply unjust about it – 
I just felt that.

And it's happening time
and time again...."




Friday 12 August 2022

There is a Certain Amount of Courtesy Involved in These Things.












Foreword to a Fatal Interview

I WANT TO tell you the circumstances in which I first encountered Hannibal Lecter, M.D. 

In the fall of 1979, owing to an illness in my family, I returned home to the Mississippi Delta and remained there eighteen months. I was working on Red Dragon. 

My neighbor in the village of Rich kindly gave me the use of a shotgun house in the center of a vast cotton field, and there I worked, often at night. 

To write a novel, you begin with what you can see and then you add what came before and what came after. Here in the village of Rich, Mississippi, working under difficult circumstances, I could see the investigator Will Graham in the home of the victim family, in the house where they all died, watching the dead family’s home movies. 

I did not know at the time who was committing the crimes. 

I pushed to find out, to see what came before and what came after I went through the home, the crime scene, in the dark with Will and could see no more and no less than he could see. 

Sometimes at night I would leave the lights on in my little house and walk across the flat fields. When I looked back from a distance, the house looked like a boat at sea, and all around me the vast Delta night. 

I soon became acquainted with the semi-feral dogs who roamed free across the fields in what was more or less a pack. Some of them had casual arrangements with the families of farm workers, but much of the time they had to forage for themselves. 

In the hard winter months with the ground frozen and dry, I started giving them dog food and soon they were going through fifty pounds of dog food a week. 

They followed me around, and they were a lot of company – tall dogs, short ones, relatively friendly dogs and big rough dogs you could not touch. They walked with me in the fields at night and when I couldn’t see them, I could hear them all around me, breathing and snuffling along in the dark. 

When I was working in the cabin, they waited on the front porch, and when the moon was full they would sing. Standing baffled in the vast fields outside my cabin in the heart of the night, the sound of breathing all around me, my vision still clouded with the desk lamp, I tried to see what had happened at the crime scene. 

All that came to my dim sight were loomings, intimations, the occasional glow when a retina not human reflected the moon. 

There was no question that something had happened. 

You must understand that when you are writing a novel you are not making anything up. It’s all there and you just have to find it

Will Graham had to ask somebody, he needed some help and he knew it. He knew where he had to go, long before he let himself think about it. 

I knew Graham had been severely damaged in a previous case. I knew he was terribly reluctant to consult the best source he had. 

At the time, I myself was accruing painful memories every day, and in my evening’s work I felt for Graham. 

So it was with some trepidation that I accompanied him to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and there, maddeningly, before we could get down to business, we encountered the kind of fool you know from conducting your own daily business, Dr. Frederick Chilton, who delayed us for two or three interminable days. 

I found that I could leave Chilton in the cabin with the lights on and look back at him from the dark, surrounded by my friends the dogs. 

I was invisible then, out there in the dark, the way I am invisible to my characters when I’m in a room with them and they are deciding their fates with little or no help from me

Finished with the tedious Chilton at last, Graham and I went on to the Violent Ward and the steel door slammed shut behind us with a terrific noise. 

Will Graham and I, approaching Dr. Lecter’s cell. 

Graham was tense and I could smell fear on him. I thought Dr. Lecter was asleep and I jumped when he recognized Will Graham by scent without opening his eyes. I was enjoying my usual immunity while working, my invisibility to Chilton and Graham and the staff, but I was not comfortable in the presence of Dr. Lecter, not sure at all that the Doctor could not see me. 

Like Graham, I found, and find, the scrutiny of Dr. Lecter uncomfortable, intrusive, like the humming in your thoughts when they X-ray your head. 

Graham’s interview with Dr. Lecter went quickly, in real time at the speed of swordplay, me following it, my frantic notes spilling into the margin and over whatever surface was uppermost on my table. I was worn out when it was over – the incidental clashes and howls of an asylum rang on in my head, and on the front porch of my cabin in Rich thirteen dogs were singing, seated with the eyes closed, faces upturned to the full moon. Most of them crooned their single vowel between O and U, a few just hummed along. 

I had to revisit Graham’s interview with Dr. Lecter a hundred times to understand it and to get rid of the superfluous static, the jail noises, the screaming of the damned that had made some of the words hard to hear. 

I still didn’t know who was committting the crimes, but I knew for the first time that we would find out, and that we would arrive at him. I also knew the knowledge would be terribly, perhaps tragically, expensive to others in the book. And so it turned out. 

Years later when I started The Silence of the Lambs, I did not know that Dr. Lecter would return

I had always liked the character of Dahlia Lyad in Black Sunday and wanted to do a novel with a strong woman as the central character. 

So I began with Clarice Starling and, not two pages into the novel, I found she had to go visit the Doctor. 

I admired Clarice Starling enormously and I think I suffered some feelings of jealousy at the ease with which Dr. Lecter saw into her, when it was so difficult for me. 

By the time I undertook to record the events in Hannibal, the Doctor, to my surprise, had taken on a life of his own. 

You seemed to find him as oddly engaging as I did. 

I dreaded doing Hannibal, dreaded the personal wear and tear, dreaded the choices I would have to watch, feared for Starling. 

In the end I let them go, as you must let characters go, let Dr. Lecter and Clarice Starling decide events according to Their Natures. There is a certain amount of Courtesy involved. 

As A Sultan once said : I do not ‘keep’ Falcons – They Live with Me. 

When in the winter of 1979 I entered the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and the great metal door crashed closed behind me, little did I know what waited at the end of the corridor; how seldom we recognize the sounds when the bolt of our fate slides home. 

T.H. Miami, 
January 2000

Sunday 31 July 2022

Inducement


There are Things You Don't Have —

 

Will Graham :
I need Your Advice, Dr. Lecter.

Lecter :
Birmingham and Atlanta — 
You want to know 
How he's choosing them, don't you?

Will Graham :
I thought you'd 
have ideas.
I'm asking you to tell me 
what there are.

Lecter :
Why should l?

Will Graham :
There are things you don't have — 
Research materials.
Maybe even computer access.
I'd speak to the 
Chief of Staff.

Lecter :
Yes, Dr. Chilton - Gruesome, isn't he? 
He fumbles at Your head like a Freshman 
pulling at a panty girdle.


Tuesday 31 May 2022

Cerebus







Foreword to a Fatal Interview 

I WANT TO tell you the circumstances in which I first encountered Hannibal Lecter, M.D. 

In the fall of 1979, owing to an illness in my family, I returned home to the Mississippi Delta and remained there eighteen months. I was working on Red Dragon

My neighbor in the village of Rich kindly gave me the use of a shotgun house in the center of a vast cotton field, and there I worked, often at night. 

To write a novel, you begin with what you can see and then you add what came before and what came after. Here in the village of Rich, Mississippi, working under difficult circumstances, I could see the investigator Will Graham in the home of the victim family, in the house where they all died, watching the dead family’s home movies. 

I did not know at the time who was committing the crimes. 

I pushed to find out, to see what came before and what came after I went through the home, the crime scene, in the dark with Will and could see no more and no less than he could see. 

Sometimes at night I would leave the lights on in my little house and walk across the flat fields. When I looked back from a distance, the house looked like a boat at sea, and all around me the vast Delta night. 

I soon became acquainted with the semi-feral dogs who roamed free across the fields in what was more or less a pack. Some of them had casual arrangements with the families of farm workers, but much of the time they had to forage for themselves. In the hard winter months with the ground frozen and dry, I started giving them dog food and soon they were going through fifty pounds of dog food a week. 

They followed me around, and they were a lot of company – tall dogs, short ones, relatively friendly dogs and big rough dogs you could not touch. They walked with me in the fields at night and when I couldn’t see them, I could hear them all around me, breathing and snuffling along in the dark. 

When I was working in the cabin, they waited on the front porch, and when the moon was full they would sing

Standing baffled in the vast fields outside my cabin in the heart of the night, the sound of breathing all around me, my vision still clouded with the desk lamp, I tried to see what had happened at the crime scene. 

All that came to my dim sight were loomings, intimations, the occasional glow when a retina not human reflected the moon. There was no question that something had happened. 

You must understand that when you are writing a novel you are not making anything up. It’s all there and you just have to find it. 

Will Graham had to ask somebody, he needed some help and he knew it. He knew where he had to go, long before he let himself think about it. 

I knew Graham had been severely damaged in a previous case. I knew he was terribly reluctant to consult the best source he had. 

At the time, I myself was accruing painful memories every day, and in my evening’s work I felt for Graham. 

So it was with some trepidation that I accompanied him to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and there, maddeningly, before we could get down to business, we encountered the kind of fool you know from conducting your own daily business, Dr. Frederick Chilton, who delayed us for two or three interminable days. 

I found that I could leave Chilton in the cabin with the lights on and look back at him from the dark, surrounded by my friends the dogs. 

I was invisible then, out there in the dark, the way I am invisible to my characters when I’m in a room with them and they are deciding their fates with little or no help from me. 

Finished with the tedious Chilton at last, Graham and I went on to the Violent Ward and the steel door slammed shut behind us with a terrific noise. 

Will Graham and I, approaching Dr. Lecter’s cell. Graham was tense and I could smell fear on him. I thought Dr. Lecter was asleep and I jumped when he recognized Will Graham by scent without opening his eyes. 

I was enjoying my usual immunity while working, my invisibility to Chilton and Graham and the staff, but I was not comfortable in the presence of Dr. Lecter, not sure at all that the doctor could not see me. 

Like Graham, I found, and find, the scrutiny of Dr. Lecter uncomfortable, intrusive, like the humming in your thoughts when they X-ray your head. 

Graham’s interview with Dr. Lecter went quickly, in real time at the speed of swordplay, me following it, my frantic notes spilling into the margin and over whatever surface was uppermost on my table. 

I was worn out when it was over – the incidental clashes and howls of an asylum rang on in my head, and on the front porch of my cabin in Rich thirteen dogs were singing, seated with the eyes closed, faces upturned to the full moon. Most of them crooned their single vowel between O and U, a few just hummed along. 

I had to revisit Graham’s interview with Dr. Lecter a hundred times to understand it and to get rid of the superfluous static, the jail noises, the screaming of the damned that had made some of the words hard to hear. 

I still didn’t know who was committting the crimes, but I knew for the first time that we would find out, and that we would arrive at him. 

I also knew the knowledge would be terribly, perhaps tragically, expensive to others in the book. 

And so it turned out. 

Years later when I started The Silence of the Lambs, I did not know that Dr. Lecter would return. 

I had always liked the character of Dahlia Lyad in Black Sunday and wanted to do a novel with a strong woman as the central character. So I began with Clarice Starling and, not two pages into the novel, I found she had to go visit The Doctor. 

I admired Clarice Starling enormously and I think I suffered some feelings of jealousy at the ease with which Dr. Lecter saw into her, when it was so difficult for me

By the time I undertook to record the events in Hannibal, The Doctor, to my surprise, had taken on a life of his own. You seemed to find him as oddly engaging as I did. 

I dreaded doing Hannibal, dreaded the personal wear and tear, dreaded the choices I would have to watch, feared for Starling. 

In the end I let them go, as you must let characters go, let Dr. Lecter and Clarice Starling decide events according to their natures

There is a certain amount of courtesy involved. 

As a sultan once said: I do not keep falcons – they live with me. 

When in the winter of 1979 I entered the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and the great metal door crashed closed behind me, little did I know what waited at the end of the corridor; how seldom we recognize the sounds when the bolt of our fate slides home. 

T.H. Miami, 
January 2000





Hannibal

There's someone here 

to see you.


Wants to ask a few questions.

I said you'd probably refuse….


A Young Woman

Says she's from The FBI.

Though she's far too pretty

if you ask me….

I'll tell her you said, “No.”


Lecter :

…..What is Her Name?


******





Starling!

Starling.

Crawford wants to 

see you in his office.




Thank you, sir.


-Clarice.

-Hey.


Hey, I got right to the end.


So there shouldn't be any problem

if you could ?


-You looking for Crawford?

-Yes, sir.


He should be back 

in a couple minutes.

Why don't you wait 

in his office.


Okay.


Then I think they were over into Flushing.


Starling. Clarice M.


-Good morning.

-Good morning, Mr. Crawford.


Sorry to pull you off the course

on such short notice.


Your instructors tell me you're doing well.

Top quarter of your class.




I hope so.

They haven't posted any grades yet.


A job's come up, and I thought about you.


Not a job really.

More of an interesting errand.


-Sit down.

-Yes, sir.


-I remember you from my seminar at UVA.

-Yeah.


You grilled me pretty hard, as I recall,


on the Bureau's civil rights record

in the Hoover years.


-I gave you an "A."

-A-minus, sir.


Let's see —

Double-Major ? Psych and Criminology.


Graduated magna.

Summer internships at the Reitzinger Clinic.


It says here, when you graduate,

you wanna come to work for me

in behavioral science.


Yes. Very much, sir. 

Very much.


We're interviewing

all the serial killers now in custody

for a psycho-behavioral profile.

Could be a real help 

in unsolved cases.

Most of them have been 

happy to talk to us - 

You spook easily, Starling?


Not yet, sir.


See, the one we want most

refuses to cooperate.


I want you to go after him 

again today in the asylum.


Who's The Subject?


The psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter.


"Hannibal the Cannibal."


I don't expect him to talk to you...

but I have to be able to say we tried.

So, if he won't cooperate, 

I want just straight reporting - 

how's he look, how's his cell look.

Is he sketching, drawing?

If he is, WHAT's he sketching?

Here's a, uh, dossier on Lecter... 

Copy of our questionnaire, 

and a special ID for you.

Have Your Memo on My Desk 

by 0800 Wednesday.


Okay.

Um, excuse me, sir, 

but Why The Urgency?

Lecter's been in Prison 

for so many years now.

Is there some connection between him and Buffalo Bill maybe?


I wish there were.

I want your full attention, Starling.


Yes, sir.


Be VERY careful with 

Hannibal Lecter.


Dr. Chilton at the asylum 

will go over all the 

PHYSICAL Procedures 

used with him —

Do not deviate from them 

for any reason whatsoever :


And you're to tell him 

nothing personal, Starling.


Believe Me

You Don't Want 

Hannibal Lecter 

inside Your Head.


Just Do Your Job, 

but never forget 

What He Is.


And What is That?


Oh, He’s A Monster.

Pure Psychopath.

So rare to capture one alive.

From a research point of view, 

Lecter is our most prized asset.



Well. You know, we get a lot of detectives here, 

but, I must say, I can't ever remember one as attractive.

Will you be in Baltimore overnight?

Because this can be quite a Fun Town. 

….if you have The Right Guide.


I'm sure this is a great town, 

Dr. Chilton, but, um, 

My Instructions are 

to Talk to Dr. Lecter 

and report back 

This Afternoon.


I see. Well, let's make 

this quick,  then —

We've tried to study him, of course, 

but he's much too sophisticated 

for the standard tests.

And, oh, My, Does He hate Us.

He thinks I'm His Nemesis.

….Crawford's Very Clever, 

isn't he, using you?


What do you mean, sir?


Pretty, Young Woman 

to Turn Him On.

I don't believe Lecter's even SEEN a Woman in eight years.

And, oh, are you ever to his taste - So to Speak.


I graduated from UVA, Doctor.

It is not a Charm School.


Good. Then you should be able 

to remember The Rules :


Do not touch The Glass,

Do not approach The Glass.


You pass him nothing 

but soft paper.


No pencils or pens.

No staples or paper clips 

in his paper.


Use the sliding food carrier,

No Exceptions.


If he attempts to pass you anything, DO NOT ACCEPT IT.


Do You Understand Me?


Yes, I Understand, sir.


I'm going to show you why we insist on such precautions.

On the afternoon of July 8, 1981, he complained of chest pains and was taken to The Dispensary.

His mouthpiece and restraints were removed for an EKG.

When The Nurse leaned over him, he did THIS to her.

The Doctors managed to reset her jaw, more or less, save ONE of her eyes.

His pulse never got above 85 - Even When He Ate Her Tongue.

I keep him in here.



Dr. Chilton.

Um, if Lecter feels that 

You're His Enemy

then, um, well, maybe 

we'll have more luck 

if I go in by myself.

What do you think?


You might have suggested this 

in My Office and saved me 

the time.


Yes, sir, but then I - 

I would have missed 

The Pleasure of Your Company, sir.


When she's Finished, 

Bring Her Out.


Hi. I'm Barney.

He told you don't get 

near The Glass?


Yes, he did. 

Clarice Starling.



Mm-hmm.

Nice to Meet You, Clarice.

You can hang your coat 

up here if you like.


Oh, Thank You. I will.


He's past The Others - 

The Last Cell.

You keep to The Right.

I put out a chair for you.



Oh, yes. That's Very Good. 

Thank You.


I'll Be Watching

You'll Do Fine.


Hi.


I can smell your cunt!


Good Morning.


Dr. Lecter, 

My Name is Clarice Starling.

May I Speak with You?


Barney








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 IV 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 reflection 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 has 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 ‘Cary Phlox.’ 

You know ‘Cary 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 preincarceration, 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.