The Silence of the Lambs Page 0,1

Starling's self-interest snuffled ahead like a keen beagle. She smelled a job offer coming-- probably the drudgery of feeding raw data into a new computer system. It was tempting to get into Behavioral Science in any capacity she could, but she knew what happens to a woman if she's ever pegged as a secretary-- it sticks until the end of time. A choice was coming, and she wanted to choose well.

Crawford was waiting for something-- he must have asked her a question. Starling had to scramble to recall it.

"What tests have you given? Minnesota Multiphasic, ever? Rorschach?"

"Yes, MMPI, never Rorschach," she said. "I've done Thematic Apperception and I've given children Bender-Gestalt."

"Do you spook easily, Starling?"

"Not yet."

"See, we've tried to interview and examine all the thirty-two known serial murderers we have in custody, to build up a database for psychological profiling is unsolved cases. Most of them went along with it-- I think they're driven to show off, a lot of them. Twenty-seven were willing to cooperate. Four on death row with appeals pending clammed up, understandably. But the one we want the most, we haven't been able to get. I want you to go after him tomorrow in the asylum."

Clarice Starling felt a glad knocking in her chest and some apprehension too.

"Who's the subject?"

"The psychiatrist-- Dr. Hannibal Lecter," Crawford said.

A brief silence follows the name, always, in any civilized gathering.

Starling looked at Crawford steadily, but she was too still. " Hannibal the Cannibal," she said.

"Yes."

"Yes, well-- Okay, right. I'm glad of the chance, but you have to know I'm wondering-- why me?"

"Mainly because you're available," Crawford said. "I don't expect him to cooperate. He's already refused, but it was through an intermediary-- the director of the hospital. I have to be able to say our qualified examiner went to him and asked him personally. There are reasons that don't concern you. I don't have anybody left in this section to do it."

"You're jammed-- Buffalo Bill-- and the things in Nevada," Starling said.

"You got it. It's the old story-- not enough warm bodies."

"You said tomorrow-- you're in a hurry. Any bearing on a current case?"

"No. I wish there were."

"If he balks on me, do you still want a psychological evaluation?"

"No. I'm waist-deep in inaccessible-patient evaluations of Dr. Lecter and they're all different."

Crawford shook two vitamin C tablets into his palm, and mixed an Alka-Seltzer at the water cooler to wash them down. "It's ridiculous, you know; Lecter's a psychiatrist and he writes for the psychiatric journals himself-- extraordinary stuff-- but it's never about his own little anomalies. He pretended to go along with the hospital director, Chilton, once in some tests-- sitting around with a blood-pressure cuff on his penis, looking at wreck pictures-- then Lecter published first what he'd learned about Chilton and made a fool out of him. He responds to serious correspondence from psychiatric students in fields unrelated to his case, and that's all he does. If he won't talk to you, I just want straight reporting. How does he look, how does his cell look, what's he doing. Local color, so to speak. Watch out for the press going in and coming out. Not the real press, the supermarket press. They love Lecter even better than Prince Andrew."

"Didn't a sleazo magazine offer him fifty thousand dollars for some recipes? I seem to remember that," Starling said.

Crawford nodded. "I'm pretty sure the National Tattler has bought somebody inside the hospital and they may know you're coming after I make the appointment."

Crawford leaned forward until he faced her at a distance of two feet. She watched his half-glasses blur the bags under his eyes. He had gargled recently with Listerine.

"Now. I want your full attention, Starling. Are you listening to me?"

"Yes sir."

"Be very careful with Hannibal Lecter. Dr. Chilton, the head of the mental hospital, will go over the physical procedure you use to deal with him. Don't deviate from it. Do not deviate from it one iota for any reason. If Lecter talks to you at all, he'll just be trying to find out about you. It's the kind of curiosity that makes a snake look in a bird's nest. We both know you have to back-and-forth a little in interviews, but you tell him no specifics about yourself. You don't want any of your personal facts in his head. You know what he did to Will Graham."

"I read about it when it happened."

"He gutted Will with a linoleum knife when Will caught up with him. It's a