“People on the Hill want to know what we’re doing about Lecter.”
“This is what we’re doing.”
“Brief me, Starling. Bring me up to speed.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer Mr. Crawford—”
“Where is Crawford?”
“Mr. Crawford’s in court.”
“I think he’s losing it, do you ever feel that way?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“What are you doing here? We got a beef from the college when you seized all this stuff out of their library. It could have been handled better.”
“We’ve gathered everything we can find regarding Dr. Lecter here in this place, both objects and records. His weapons are in Firearms and Toolmarks, but we have duplicates. We have what’s left of his personal papers.”
“What’s the point? You catching a crook, or writing a book?” Krendler paused to store this catchy rhyme in his verbal magazine. “If, say, a ranking Republican on Judiciary Oversight should ask me what you, Special Agent Starling, are doing to catch Hannibal Lecter, what could I tell him?”
Starling turned on all the lights. She could see that Krendler was still buying expensive suits while saving money on his shirts and ties. The knobs of his hairy wrists poked out of his cuffs.
Starling looked for a moment through the wall, past the wall, out to forever and composed herself. She made herself see Krendler as a police academy class.
“We know Dr. Lecter has very good ID,” she began. “He must have at least one extra solid identity, maybe more. He’s careful that way. He won’t make a dumb mistake.”
“Get to it.”
“He’s a man of very cultivated tastes, some of them exotic tastes, in food, in wine, music. If he comes here, he’ll want those things. He’ll have to get them. He won’t deny himself.
“Mr. Crawford and I went over the receipts and papers left from Dr. Lecter’s life in Baltimore before he was first arrested, and what receipts the Italian police were able to furnish, lawsuits from creditors after his arrest. We made a list of some things he likes. You can see here: In the month that Dr. Lecter served the flautist Benjamin Raspail’s sweetbreads to other members of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra board, he bought two cases of Château Pétrus bordeaux at thirty-six hundred dollars a case. He bought five cases of Bâtard-Montrachet at eleven hundred dollars a case, and a variety of lesser wines.
“He ordered the same wine from room service in St. Louis after he escaped, and he ordered it from Vera dal 1926 in Florence. This stuff is pretty rarefied. We’re checking importers and dealers for case sales.
“From the Iron Gate in New York, he ordered Grade A foie gras at two hundred dollars a kilo, and through the Grand Central Oyster Bar he got green oysters from the Gironde. The meal for the Philharmonic board began with these oysters, followed by sweetbreads, a sorbet, and then, you can read here in Town & Country what they had”—she read aloud quickly—“a notable dark and glossy ragout, the constituents never determined, on saffron rice. Its taste was darkly thrilling with great bass tones that only the vast and careful reduction of the fond can give. No victim’s ever been identified as being in the ragout. Da da, it goes on—here it describes his distinctive tableware and stuff in detail. We’re cross-checking credit card purchases at the china and crystal suppliers.”
Krendler snorted through his nose.
“See, here in this civil suit, he still owes for a Steuben chandelier, and Galeazzo Motor Company of Baltimore sued to get back his Bentley We’re tracking sales of Bentleys, new and used. There aren’t that many. And the sales of supercharged Jaguars. We’ve faxed the restaurant game suppliers asking about purchases of wild boar and we’ll do a bulletin the week before the red-legged partridges come in from Scotland.” She pecked at her keyboard and consulted a list, then stepped away from the machine when she felt Krendler’s breath too close behind her.
“I’ve put in for funds to buy cooperation from some of the premier scalpers of cultural tickets, the culture vultures, in New York and San Francisco—there are a couple of orchestras and string quartets he particularly likes, he favors the six or seventh row and always sits on the aisle. I’ve distributed the best likenesses we have to Lincoln Center and Kennedy Center, and most of the philharmonic halls. Maybe you could help us with that out of the DOJ budget, Mr. Krendler.” When he didn’t reply, she went on. “We’re cross-checking new subscriptions to some cultural journals he’s subscribed to in the past—anthropology, linguistics, Physical Review, mathematics, music.”
“Does he hire S and M whores, that kind of thing? Male prostitutes?”
Starling could feel Krendler’s relish in the question. “Not to our knowledge, Mr. Krendler. He was seen at concerts in Baltimore years ago with several attractive women, a couple of them were prominent in Baltimore charity work and stuff. We have their birthdays flagged for gift purchases. None of them was ever harmed to our knowledge, and none has ever agreed to speak about him. We don’t know anything about his sexual preferences.”
“I’ve always figured he was a homosexual.”
“Why would you say that, Mr. Krendler?”
“All this artsy-fartsy stuff. Chamber music and tea-party food. I don’t mean anything personal, if you’ve got a lot of sympathy for those people, or friends like that. The main thing, what I’m impressing on you, Starling: I better see cooperation here. There are no little fiefdoms. I want to be copied on every 302, I want every time card, I want every lead. Do you understand me, Starling?”
“Yes, sir.”
At the door he said, “Be sure you do. You might have a chance to improve your situation here. Your so-called career could use all the help it can get.”
The future darkroom was already equipped with vent fans. Looking him in the face, Starling flipped them on, sucking out the smell of his aftershave and his shoe polish. Krendler pushed through the blackout curtains without saying good-bye.