26Chapter 1
Skin Hunger
"Mason Verger is dead."
"Dead?"
Clarice Starling felt the molding of her kitchen's doorframe keen against her spine, straight and rigid as she leaned, cradling the phone to her cheek. From her fingers fell the thick sheaf of coupons Ardelia had left for her. Clint Pearsall's voice was low and scratchy in the receiver as if he had just woken up or simply never slept. His words were in time with the heavy beating of her head from her long unpleasant visit with ole J. Daniels last night, but she heard every word clear as a bell over the faint ringing of many phones in his background, like crickets at dusk.
"Yes, his sister called the police this morning, having found him in his room. His nurse-or his servant-was dead in the other room-"
"The playroom?" Quickly Clarice closed her eyes and envisioned the outgrowth of the Verger mansion, walking through it in her memory.
She heard Pearsall begin to swear under his breath. He may not have been effective, wise or even well seasoned, but he at least had some soft spots in which the vices of rich men could poke. "Yes. Two dead-"
"How?"
A beat of silence and Clarice could feel the reproach in the gap. She was too eager, too quick, no solemnity for the dead. But her blood was up, and she felt it racing, might have even felt the thick warmth of Migg's on her cheek.
"Decapitation."
In her mind, Clarice is under the hot light in Mason's room. Her determination to stare at him and not be shaken had stolen her chance to get her bearings. Mason talking-about camp, about Africa-there in the corner. The portable guillotine. Her eyes had been drawn to it, like a child gazing on an illustration in a picture book to emphasize the point. Pearsall, talking again.
"There's evidence of trauma, anal molestation while he was alive."
"What was in his mouth?"
Another pause, longer this time, and suddenly her nose was filled with the scent of cement and trans-3-methyl-2 hexenoic acid. But she was on the other side of the bars. She rubbed her palm on her jeans, wiping away the nonexistent crumbs that clung to her skin from Dr. Lecter's bolted desk.
"I can tell you what wasn't: his tongue."
"That's all?"
"And a candy bar."
Clarice pressed the phone against her chest-then against her shoulder, not wanting her boss to hear her racing heart. It's him. It's not him. It's him and not him at the same time. All the symbolism of a child-rudimentary. The poacher had been Lecter through and through. Had the man been the animal he was treated like, it would have been a clean kill, and a fine extraction or organs with clean precise cuts, careful with the ingredients he picked.
A clumsy reenactment? But too complex to simply try and pass off blame to the monster because his name was currently in the paper. Someone trying to frame Lecter, but having the patience, opportunity, and calm to try to do it well. To make it look like Lecter. Not Lecter himself, she knew that for sure. But his scent lingered somewhere in the playroom.
Pearsall was calling to her, calling her name into her shirt. She pulled the phone up again. "Sorry, sir. Go on."
"Files were stolen too. Mason's hard drive, papers. Information, that kind of thing." It's not him. "No money." It is him.
"What information?"
"Federal information. Mason had a senator in his pocket, had a direct line of communication." It was passed the time for parlor room manners and feigning ignorance about the weight of honor in the federal system.
It's him. Clarice sunk to the floor, kneeling on the linoleum of the shared kitchen. It'shimit'shimit'shim. She wiped at her cheek. "Mr. Pearsall-"
"I've given you all I can, and even that's too much Starling. Stay quiet, keep your head down. You're smart enough to know how this looks."
"I tol-"
"I know what you said, Starling. Now listen to what I'm saying. I've had my phone ringing off the goddamn hook all day-and no one is in their office. Do you understand?"
Clarice understood two things at once-the tiredness in Pearsall's voice did not come from the rush in the night that called the protectors from their beds when a predator was sighted. No, there was a rat loose in the palace and secrets ready to be spilled about those cowering behind doors with frosted windows.
The second was Pearsall's faith in Krendler's corruption, whatever he believed about Clarice. Even for the faithful, belief in the devil was what drove them, rather than hope in the Son. There was simply more evidence for the existence of the former, to the rational mind. Because they, the suits, would always take the low road and wear a fine mask to the public; they doubted anyone with a real, truthful face.
They couldn't fathom it.
For all that she had seen, all the delusions that had been stolen like mist by the rising sun, Clarice kept with her the wisdom of listening to someone who she did not like but knew more than she. Pearsall may have been the type of Agent to have to think before recognizing the scent of gun powder, but he knew how to keep himself in his office. It was a finesse Clarice lacked and disdained even more so now as the arrow of politics was firmly lodged in her heel. "I understand."
"Say nothing to no one, and wait for me. Go to the beach, visit your family, do something and nothing." The order was all the more clear when the dial tone followed it.
Starling did not know how to feel about Pearsall helping her, and knew she should feel only slightly about it. He was covering his back and assuaging his guilt at tying the blindfold over her eyes right before she groped for the block.
She knew better how to feel about Mason-nothing. She didn't rejoice in his death-she found such practices distasteful. Mourning didn't come either. He died as he lived: in the shadows, playing with dangerous people.
But Dr. Lecter. Sitting on the floor, hearing the silence from Miggs' cell and unable to see the doctor, knowing he was there. Sitting on the floor, the phone silent in her hand and unable to fathom where Dr. Lecter was, but knowing he was close. Exhilaration then, exhilaration now. Since seeing the poacher, Starling knew he was in America, knew that he'd come back.
This was different.
What information could Lecter need? What could he want? How Mason found him, where he had slipped up, what needed to be fixed. That settled nicely in her brain, expunging her of the need to further contemplate how the doctor felt about her, keeping her safely low on his lists of likes.
Her lips twisted humourlessly. The only time she accepted second place without a critical glance at the champion. Scooping up the coupons, she hung up the phone and moved to her car by rote. Do something and nothing.
It would look how Miggs looked, and maybe in part, it was. Though Miggs had only used her for a second of crude humor. Mason and Krendler kept her close as a favored whipping boy, their eyes bright as they roamed over her like a duck strung up in a butcher window. One wanted her for the dogs, the other wanted a taste before the wolves sunk their teeth in. Both wanted to bait out the alpha and watch him sniff the carcass.
She shopped in a haze, having to double-check the items against Ardelia's list more times than she cared to admit. She stepped away from the cart once or twice to nip down an aisle for an item, found herself walking through Verger's house trying to set up the scene from the scant information she had, only to stop short and double back to the passed item shelf. One of these journeys made sacrifice of her list and coupons.
Trapped between the scents of Tommy Girl and hairspray at dinner, however, frequent trips through the playroom, bathroom, and lingering by the eel tank made her a better co-hostess than she otherwise would have been. Her distant stares, lapses in conversation, and barely registering smiles were all the markers of a disgraced woman, deserving of their eager pity, and the perfect board to pin their own career frustrations on for the group to discuss and soundly curse. It was the most accepted Starling had felt in a while.
None of them knew about Mason. Clarice was sure even if they were told the information flat out would register the same as a foreign language spoken loudly: signaling the desired emotional response, but not understanding why. For the first time, she was a guardian of advanced information and found it a rather pathetic charge.
It did not lessen the twist of her stomach when the papers began to splash Mason's photo across their covers, handsome and smiling with a lot of perfectly white teeth. The only photos they had of him post-incident were quick hospital snapshots given a place of gruesome display on the second page of the story. But the destruction of his life did not grip her insides-it was the greasy, warm palmed hand of the tabloids that cut through the implication and the polite poison of the general news. It spit the theory that good people only admitted to after many caveats of their skepticism and doubt benefits. Lecter had killed Mason Verger for love, for protection of the woman he had marked with his kindness as clearly as he had marked Graham with his disgust.
As absurd as it sounded, Clarice recognized the mechanism. Dr. Lecter and his brand of sanity wasn't named in the psychiatric journals, they did not have a heavy Latin word for what he was, and 'monster' was only a twenty-year place holder. When faced with the unexplainable, with the incomprehensible and totally alien, we look for the familiar. Shapes in ink splatters, animals in the stars, love in the creature.
Starling felt eyes moving over her body, and no amount of wood and glass and walls could keep their gazes out. People will say… She felt sick most of the time and clung to the only thing constant in the world: the advice of one who knew better. She did nothing with every activity that wiled away her days. Cleaning Johnny's gun, running, grocery shopping, and sitting in her living room. Like a devout sister, she kept her head down and prayed her rosary of advice. Do something and nothing.
She had no beach to walk on and no family to visit. She stopped by Johnny's grave once more, but lingered only a moment, uncomfortable with the kinship she found in corpses rather than people.
Jack Crawford was released from intensive care a week later. She trudged through the barely cleared muddy snow up his drive armed with store-bought biscotti and Johnny's gun. Just in case.
For all their long acquaintance, Clarice had only been to the house once, also driven by Dr. Lecter. Jack opened the door and gave her a quick flashing smile before he let her in. Without Bella, the colors seemed more muted in their 70's cottage chic. Starling saw the photo frames on the mantel had a thin layer of dust, perfect shades marred by finger brushes over some of the faces.
No Christmas cards, nothing new. It was a house where time stopped, the only break in the quantum freeze the kitchen where Jack led her. "Black and sugar?"
Clarice tried to feel touched he remembered. "Yes, thank you, sir. Sit, please." She remained standing, leaning against the doorway.
"Whatever they wanted to do to you, it's got to be delayed. They wanted to save face and show they can clean house better than Washington with the impeachment, without the squabbling. Now Mason's proven they all drop their pants for someone. Interest will wane in you. There isn't enough time."
"Maybe," Starling allowed, blowing the top of her coffee, watching her reflection ripple in the black mirror. The notion that she'd be forgotten warmed her more than the coffee-morbidly content that she was saved, burned that she would be wasted. At least she had her face intact.
It was more to be said than most.
"You've seen it before Starling. It comes in fads."
Clarice nodded. It was the reason her class was almost half female. It was the reason the few classes she'd subbed for after her were almost all male. She ought to have the same faith as her superiors: the steel comfort of the drudgery. They had tried to get her to take the fall-but a born again pedophile was juicier meat. They'd leave her alone.
"Did they tell you much about it, sir?"
"Most of it. The information stolen was mostly names, phone numbers, and contacts. Someone's covering their ass." It's not him, but it is him. "They were probably involved with whatever Verger was planning."
"He had a hit on Lecter," she assumed.
"Oh, they had a hit on him. His barn was rigged up with cameras, and the medicine they had-whatever they were planning on filming, they wanted Lecter awake for it. Apparently, he was keeping feral pigs in the back, to boot." Crawford shook his head and sighed before drinking deeply as if he were lamenting the loss of a football game. "It's sick but almost too bad. They could have taken each other out and saved us all a lot of trouble."
Clarice pressed the warm china of her mug to her lips until the nausea went away. Pearls before swine.
Had it been a simple hit, had Mason wanted to kill Lecter before he got three hots and cot on the federal dime again before the needle, she could understand. He paid for his sins with his body and face-he didn't need to pay for his tormenter with his taxes.
The torture was different. She shied from it, as it cut through her warrior's iron and sliced like the first cut of the bleating slaughter. "Who told you?"
"Lisa." Eliza was Crawford's barely utilized secretary. "She came by a day or so ago. Thought it would cheer me up that Lecter was almost got."
Starling tasted disappointment like a penny under her tongue when she looked at Crawford. She wanted John again to share her indignation with no cool delight in vengeance. She felt it keenly, like the painful tingle of a missing limb. The visit ended shortly after that, and Starling felt all the lonelier for it.
She knew Crawford hated Lecter. She knew that his name was akin to a babushka's curse in the office. Lecter was uncatchable, and it was frustrating. It chafed against Behavioral Science's purpose. But they were here to uphold the law, sworn to reason without passion. And in Starling's experience, that integral instinct of right and wrong was completely missing.
And a man being tortured for the viewing pleasure of another was more than wrong.
But despite all her years and experience, all her jaded cynicism Clarice still had the ability to learn. And in her next and very last conversation with Pearsall, she learned that her misery was novice, and mastery was far off: the information stole from Mason had both vindicated her and condemned her.
Paul Krendler was indeed in the pocket of Verger. It would be on the news in the morning, and the Bureau moles had been given the courtesy of a ten-hour heads up. Someone had dumped the Verger files. Incomplete, of course, with only a few names intact. It was like tossing seed to the pecking chickens.
He wasn't arrested yet. Pearsall has anticipated Krenlder's bluff like a senior at the blackjack table. He'd deny he knew about the bounty, claim he was only trying to keep a crucial witness and victim informed. He had the money and the backlog of favors to call on to make that excuse fly.
Paul was on paid leave, just like her and the injustice hit her in the stomach, prepping her for the next blow. With this reveal, it was almost a fact that Lecter responded to her downfall. Who else would feel safe enough to leak stolen information? Who would gain from making an entire wing of the government your enemy, unless you were already top of the list? It gave validity to the bogus ad in the paper, and to the sneering title given to the tokens Lecter had passed on: gifts of love. And worse, it would look as if she had directed him, steered him to that purpose for her own vanity.
Krendler's and Mason's sins were placed on her shoulders, and she could feel the weight tug her down, like the body pulling the wrists as she hung. The accusations she had flung at him had turned out to be the truth, and that was what had finished her; she was too right. From bait to wolf: either way poached.
"Hold on to your resignation letter," Pearsall had assumed into the silence. "If you leave now, they'll hang you in civil court and you'll be defenseless. Maybe they'll find out who put that ad in the paper."
Defenseless? Right. Fuck you. But even her rage, her familiar since she was small and cold in her orphanage bed, could do little to break through the numbness seeping into her flesh.
Hold on to her resignation-she would need it, but not now. Hold onto your resignation letter-the one she should have written up by now.
Don't you understand what's happening? There was never a chance. Ignorance burned her as it had when she first learned that it was the way she pronounced her vowels, stinking of the range, rather than any type of subpar performance that blocked her way.
Clarice did not realize she still had hope to loose until it was already slipping through her fingers. She felt the grit of her fathers' corpse cheek against her lips and recognized the cold stab of last goodbyes even as her face heated. She felt the licking flames of her burning church; her faith in the indifference of the machine had been in vain.
Hanging up the phone without much fanfare while Pearsall was still talking, gently laying the receiver into its wall-mounted cradle with a weak click.
All her life, Clarice had hungered. At first, it had been for food, and then for attention as she became a mother figure too early. Afterward, it was for achievement, for victory, advancement. In this past year, however, her soul had become bloated with the starvation for justice. She had grit her teeth and waited for the end of this baptism by fire, wanting to be all the purer on the other side. They would see, they would see her finally.
Now the realization that they were not blind-oh, no. They, friends and foes alike, saw her exactly for who she was and that was her original sin. Be good, follow the rules, get the grades, the scholarship, the diploma, the criminal and it would be alright in the end. It was a lie.
I can't change who I am, whoever the hell that is.
Now as she stood in her shared kitchen she hungered so desperately for something the cabinets could not hold. A childish, truthful hunger for comfort. For the warmth of a hand touching her softly, to touch her hand and ground her as her foundations gave way. Starling, who had tithed a husband and children to the FBI, who's last kind touch had been on Dead Johnny Brigham's hand when she said no, desperately wished for something to hold and to hold her.
To not be alone.
The images that had once brought her strength were faded and worn, tearing as she clutched for them like pictures too long out of the closet album. The touch of her parents when she sought right and wrong was too translucent for her current need.
Clarice was so filled with skin hunger, but all she felt under her fingers was the cool glass of a bottle and tumbler as she reached out. It wasn't until the liquid hit her tongue that she realized she had not poured her Jack Daniels.
And it was on until she had fallen heavily into a kitchen chair did she realize she had touched this bottle of Chateau d'Yquem planted in her kitchen's cabinet without gloves.
Art Referenced:
Paul Delaroche's The Execution of Lady Jane Grey