Chapter 78

STARLING HAD the numbers that she needed in her mind. Drive ten blocks home to her own phone? No, back to the pay phone, taking the sticky receiver from a young woman, apologizing, putting in quarters, the woman summoning a grocery store guard.

Starling called the reactive squad at Washington Field Office, Buzzard's Point.

They knew all about Starling on the squad where she had served so long, and transferred her to Clint Pearsall's office, she digging for more quarters and dealing with the grocery store security guard at the same time, the guard asking again and again for ID.

At last Pearsall's familiar voice on the phone.

"Mr. Pearsall, I saw three men, maybe four, kidnap Hannibal Lector in the Safeway parking lot about five minutes ago. They cut my tire, I couldn't pursue."

"Is this the bus business, the police APB?"

"I don't know about any bus. This was a gray van, handicap plate."

Starling gave the number.

"How do you know it was Lector?"

"He… left a gift for me, it was under my car."

"I see…"

Pearsall paused and Starling jumped into the silence.

"Mr. Pearsall, you know Mason Verger's behind it. It has to be. Nobody else would do it. He's a sadist, he'll torture Dr Lector to death and he'll want to watch. We need to put out a BOLO on all Verger's vehicles and get the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore started on a warrant to search his place."."Starling… Jesus, Starling. Look, I'll ask you one time. Are you sure about what you saw? Think about it a second. Think about every good thing you ever did here. Think about what you swore. There's no going back from here. What did you see?"

What should I say – I'm not a hysteric? That's the first thing hysterics say. She saw in the instant how far she had fallen in Pearsall's trust, and of what cheap material his trust was made.

"I saw three men, maybe four, kidnap a man on the parking lot at Safeway. At the scene I found a gift from Dr Hannibal Lector, a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem wine from my birth year with a note in his handwriting. I have described the vehicle. I am reporting it to you, Clint Pearsall, SAC Buzzard's Point."

"I'm going forward with it as kidnapping, Starling."

"I'm coming over there. I could be deputized and go with the reactive squad."

"Don't come, I couldn't let you in."

Too bad Starling didn't get away before the Arlington police arrived in the parking lot. It took fifteen minutes to correct the all-points bulletin on the vehicle. A thick woman officer in heavy patent-leather shoes took Starling's statement. The woman's ticket book and radio, Mace and gun and handcuffs, stood out at angles from her big behind and the vents of her jacket gaped. The officer could not decide whether to enter Starling's place of employment as the FBI, or to put "None."

When Starling angered her by anticipating her questions, the officer slowed down. When Starling pointed out the tracks of mud and snow tires where the van bumped over the divider, nobody responding had a camera. She showed the officers how to use hers.

Over and over in her head as she repeated her answers, Starling told herself, I should have pursued, I should have pursued. I should have snatched his ass out of that Lincoln and pursued.

Chapter 79

KRENDLER caught the first squeal on the kidnapping. He called around to his sources and then he got Mason on a secure phone.

"Starling saw the snatch, we hadn't counted on that. She's making a flap at the Washington Field Office. Recommending a warrant to search your place."

"Krendler…"

Mason waited for breath, or perhaps he was exasperated, Krendler couldn't tell. "I've already registered complaints with the local authorities, the sheriff and the U.S. Attorney's office that Starling was harassing me, calling late at night with incoherent threats."

"Has she?"

"Of course not, but she can't prove she didn't and it muddies the water. Now, I can head off a warrant in this county and in this state. But I want you to call the U.S. Attorney over here and remind him this hysterical bitch is after me. I can take care of the locals myself, believe me.".

Chapter 80

FREE AT last from the police, Starling changed her tire and drove home to her own phones and computer. She sorely missed her FBI cell phone and had not yet replaced it.

There was a message from Mapp on the answering machine: "Starling, season the pot roast and put it in the slow cooker. Do not put the vegetables in yet. Remember what happened last time. I'll be in a damn exclusion hearing until about five."

Starling fired up her laptop and tried to call up the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program file on Lecter, but was denied admission not only to VICAP, but the entire FBI computer net. She did not have as much access as the most rural constable in America.

The telephone rang.

It was Clint Pearsall. "Starling, have you harassed Mason Verger on the phone?"

"Never, I swear."

"He claims you have. He's invited the sheriff up there to tour his property, actually requested him to come do it, and they're on the way to look around now. So there's no warrant and no warrant forthcoming. We haven't been able to find any other witnesses to the kidnapping. Only you."

"There was a white Lincoln with an old couple in it. Mr. Pearsall, how about checking the credit card purchases at Safeway just before it happened. Those sales have a time stamp."

"We'll get to that, but it'll…"

"… it'll take time," Starling finished.

"Starling?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Between us, I'll keep you posted on the big stuff. But you stay out of it. You're not a law officer while you're on suspension, and you're not supposed to have information. You're Joe Blow."

"Yes, sir, I know."

What do you look at while you're making up your mind? Ours is not a reflective culture, we do not raise our eyes up to the hills. Most of the time we decide the critical things while looking at the linoleum floor of an institutional corridor, or whispering hurriedly in a waiting room with a television blatting nonsense.

Starling, seeking something, anything, walked through the kitchen into the quiet and order of Mapp's side of the duplex. She looked at the photograph of Mapp's fierce little grandmother, brewer of the tea. She looked at Grandmother Mapp's insurance policy framed on the wall. Mapp's side looked like Mapp lived there.

Starling went back to her side. It looked to her like nobody lived there. What did she have framed? Her diploma from the FBI Academy. No photograph of her.parents survived. She had been without them for a long time and she had them only in her mind. Sometimes, in the flavors of breakfast or in a scent, a scrap of conversation, a homely expression overheard, she felt their hands on her: She felt it strongest in her sense of right and wrong.

Who the hell was she? Who had ever recognized her? You are a warrior, Clarice. You can be as strong as you wish to be.

Starling could understand Mason wanting to kill Hannibal Lecter. If he had done it himself or had hired it done, she could have stood it; Mason had a grievance.

But she could not abide the thought of Dr Lecter tortured to death; she shied from it as she had from the slaughter of the lambs and the horses so long ago.

You are a warrior, Clarice.

Almost as ugly as the act itself was the fact that Mason would do this with the tacit agreement of men sworn to uphold the law. It is the way of the world.

With this thought, she made a simple decision: The world will not be this way within the reach of my arm.

She found herself in her closet, on a stool, reaching high.

She brought down the box John Brigham's attorney had delivered to her in the fall. It seemed forever ago.