“It’s in the transcript. What does it matter now?”
“It doesn’t matter to me, Will.”
“I want you to help me, Dr. Lecter.”
“Yes, I thought so.”
“It’s about Atlanta and Birmingham.”
“Yes.”
“You read about it, I’m sure.”
“I’ve read the papers. I can’t clip them. They won’t let me have scissors, of course. Sometimes they threaten me with loss of books, you know. I wouldn’t want them to think I was dwelling on anything morbid.” He laughed. Dr. Lecter has small white teeth. “You want to know how he’s choosing them, don’t you?”
“I thought you would have some ideas. I’m asking you to tell me what they are.”
“Why should I?”
Graham had anticipated the question. A reason to stop multiple murders would not occur readily to Dr. Lecter.
“There are things you don’t have,” Graham said. “Research materials, filmstrips even. I’d speak to the chief of staff.”
“Chilton. You must have seen him when you came in. Gruesome, isn’t it? Tell me the truth, he fumbles at your head like a freshman pulling at a panty girdle, doesn’t he? Watched you out of the corner of his eye. Picked that up, didn’t you? You may not believe this, but he actually tried to give me a Thematic Apperception Test. He was sitting there just like the Cheshire cat waiting for Mf 1
3 to come up. Ha. Forgive me, I forget that you’re not among the anointed. It’s a card with a woman in bed and a man in the foreground. I was supposed to avoid a sexual interpretation. I laughed. He puffed up and told everybody I avoided prison with a Ganser syndrome—never mind, it’s boring.”
“You’d have access to the AMA filmstrip library.”
“I don’t think you’d get me the things I want.”
“Try me.”
“I have quite enough to read as it is.”
“You’d get to see the file on this case. There’s another reason.”
“Pray.”
“I thought you might be curious to find out if you’re smarter than the person I’m looking for.”
“Then, by implication, you think you are smarter than I am, since you caught me.”
“No. I know I’m not smarter than you are.”
“Then how did you catch me, Will?”
“You had disadvantages.”
“What disadvantages?”
“Passion. And you’re insane.”
“You’re very tan, Will.”
Graham did not answer.
“Your hands are rough. They don’t look like a cop’s hands anymore. That shaving lotion is something a child would select. It has a ship on the bottle, doesn’t it?” Dr. Lecter seldom holds his head upright. He tilts it as he asks a question, as though he were screwing an auger of curiosity into your face. Another silence, and Lecter said, “Don’t think you can persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.”