“I’ll tell you if you’ll look at this questionnaire.”
“I’ll look, that’s all. Now, why?”
“It started as a bad joke in Kansas City homicide.”
“Yes…?”
“They call him Buffalo Bill because he skins his humps.”
Starling discovered that she had traded feeling frightened for feeling cheap. Of the two, she preferred feeling frightened.
“Send through the questionnaire.”
Starling rolled the blue section through on the tray. She sat still while Lecter flipped through it.
He dropped it back in the carrier. “Oh, Officer Starling, do you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?”
“No. I think you can provide some insight and advance this study.”
“And what possible reason could I have to do that?”
“Curiosity.”
“About what?”
“About why you’re here. About what happened to you.”
“Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants—nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I’m evil? Am I evil, Officer Starling?”
“I think you’ve been destructive. For me it’s the same thing.”
“Evil’s just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it’s that simple. And we have fire, and then there’s hail. Underwriters lump it all under ‘Acts of God.’”
“Deliberate—”
“I collect church collapses, recreationally. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? Marvelous! The façade fell on sixty-five grandmothers at a special Mass. Was that evil? If so, who did it? If He’s up there, He just loves it, Officer Starling. Typhoid and swans—it all comes from the same place.”
“I can’t explain you, Doctor, but I know who can.”
He stopped her with his upraised hand. The hand was shapely, she noted, and the middle finger perfectly replicated. It is the rarest form of polydactyly.
When he spoke again, his tone was soft and pleasant. “You’d like to quantify me, Officer Starling. You’re so ambitious, aren’t you? Do you know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. You’re a well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Your eyes are like cheap birthstones—all surface shine when
you stalk some little answer. And you’re bright behind them, aren’t you? Desperate not to be like your mother. Good nutrition has given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation out of the mines, Officer Starling. Is it the West Virginia Starlings or the Okie Starlings, Officer? It was a toss-up between college and the opportunities in the Women’s Army Corps, wasn’t it? Let me tell you something specific about yourself, Student Starling. Back in your room, you have a string of gold add-a-beads and you feel an ugly little thump when you look at how tacky they are now, isn’t that so? All those tedious thank-yous, permitting all that sincere fumbling, getting all sticky once for every bead. Tedious. Tedious. Bo-o-o-o-r-i-ing. Being smart spoils a lot of things, doesn’t it? And taste isn’t kind. When you think about this conversation, you’ll remember the dumb animal hurt in his face when you got rid of him.
“If the add-a-beads got tacky, what else will as you go along? You wonder don’t you, at night?” Dr. Lecter asked in the kindest of tones.
Starling raised her head to face him. “You see a lot, Dr. Lecter. I won’t deny anything you’ve said. But here’s the question you’re answering for me right now, whether you mean to or not: Are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? It’s hard to face. I’ve found that out in the last few minutes. How about it? Look at yourself and write down the truth. What more fit or complex subject could you find? Or maybe you’re afraid of yourself.”
“You’re tough, aren’t you, Officer Starling?”
“Reasonably so, yes.”
“And you’d hate to think you were common. Wouldn’t that sting? My! Well you’re far from common, Officer Starling. All you have is fear of it. What are your add-a-beads, seven millimeter?”
“Seven.”
“Let me make a suggestion. Get some loose, drilled tiger’s eyes and string them alternately with the gold beads. You might want to do two-and-three or one-and-two, however looks best to you. The tiger’s eyes will pick up the color of your own eyes and the highlights in your hair. Has anyone ever sent you a Valentine?”