Mr. Gumb can tell nothing of Catherine's color by infrared, but she looks thinner. He believes she may have been dieting when he took her.

Experience has taught him to wait from four days to a week before harvesting the hide. Sudden weight loss makes the hide looser and easier to remove. In addition, starvation takes much of his subjects' strength and makes them more manageable. More docile. A stuporous resignation comes over some of them. At the same time, it's necessary to provide a few rations to prevent despair and destructive tantrums that might damage the skin.

It definitely has lost weight. This one is so special, so central to what he is doing, he can't stand to wait long, and he doesn't have to. Tomorrow afternoon, he can do it, or tomorrow night. The next day at the latest. Soon.

CHAPTER 34

Clarice Starling recognized the Stonehinge Villas sign from television news. The East Memphis housing complex, a mix of flats and town houses, formed a large U around a parking field.

Starling parked her rented Chevrolet Celebrity in the middle of the big lot. Well-paid blue-collar workers and bottom-echelon executives lived here-- the TransAms and IROC-Z Camaros told her that. Motor homes for the weekends and ski boats bright with glitter paint were parked in their own section of the lot.

Stonehinge Villas-- the spelling grated on Starling every time she looked at it. Probably the apartments were full of white wicker and peach shag. Snapshots under the glass of the coffee table. The Dinner for Two Cookbook and Fondue on the Menu. Starling, whose only residence was a dormitory room at the FBI Academy, was a severe critic of these things.

She needed to know Catherine Baker Martin, and this seemed an odd place for a senator's daughter to live. Starling had read the brief biographical material the FBI had gathered, and it showed Catherine Martin to be a bright underachiever. She'd failed at Farmington and had two unhappy years at Middlebury. Now she was a student at Southwestern and a practice teacher.

Starling could easily have pictured her as a self-absorbed, blunted, boarding-school kid, one of those people who never listen. Starling knew she had to be careful here because she had her own prejudices and resentments. Starling had done her time in boarding schools, living on scholarships, her grades much better than her clothes. She had seen a lot of kids from rich, troubled families, with too much boarding-school time. She didn't give a damn about some of them, but she had grown to learn that inattention can be a stratagem to avoid pain, and that it is often misread as shallowness and indifference.

Better to think of Catherine as a child sailing with her father, as she was in the film they showed with Senator Martin's plea on television. She wondered if Catherine tried to please her father when she was little. She wondered what Catherine was doing when they came and told her that her father was dead, of a heart attack at forty-two. Starling was positive Catherine missed him. Missing your father, the common wound, made Starling feel close to this young woman.

Starling found it essential to like Catherine Martin because it helped her to bear down.

Starling could see where Catherine's apartment was located-- two Tennessee Highway Patrol cruisers were parked in front of it. There were spots of white powder on the parking lot in the area closest to the apartment. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation must have been lifting oil stains with pumice or some other inert powder. Crawford said the TBI was pretty good.

Starling walked over to the recreational vehicles and boats parked in the special section of the lot in front of the apartment. This is where Buffalo Bill got her. Close enough to her door so that she left it unlocked when she came out. Something tempted her out. It must have beep a harmless-looking setup.

Starling knew the Memphis police had done exhaustive door-to-door interviews and nobody had seen anything, so maybe it happened among the tall motor homes. He must have watched from here. Sitting in some kind of vehicle, had to be. But Buffalo Bill knew Catherine was here. He must have spotted her somewhere and stalked her, waiting for his chance. Girls the size of Catherine aren't common. He didn't just sit around at random locations until a woman of the right size came by. He could sit for days and not see one.

All the victims were big. All of them were big. Some were fat, but all were big. "So he can get something that will fit." Remembering Dr. Lecter's words, Starling shuddered. Dr. Lecter, the new Memphian.

Starling took a deep breath, puffed up her cheeks and let the air out slowly. Let's see what we can tell about Catherine.

A Tennessee state trooper wearing his Smokey the Bear hat answered the door of Catherine Martin's apartment. When Starling showed him her credentials, he motioned her inside.

"Officer, I need to look over the premises here." Premises seemed a good word to use to a man who had his hat on in the house.

He nodded: "If the phone rings, leave it alone. I'll answer it."

On the counter in the open kitchen Starling could see a tape recorder attached to the telephone. Beside it were two new telephones. One had no dial-- a direct line to Southern Bell security, the mid-South tracing facility.

"Can I help you any way?" the young officer asked.

"Are the police through in here'"

"The apartment's been released to the family. I'm just here for the telephone. You can touch stuff, if that's what you want to know."

"Good, I'll look around then."

"Okay." The young policeman retrieved the newspaper he had stuffed beneath the couch and resumed his seat.

Starling wanted to concentrate. She wished she were alone in the apartment, but she knew she was lucky the place wasn't full of cops.

She started in the kitchen. It was not equipped by a serious cook. Catherine had come for popcorn, the boyfriend had told police. Starling opened the freezer. There were two boxes of microwave popcorn. You couldn't see the parking lot from the kitchen.

"Where you from?"

Starling didn't register the question the first time.

"Where you from?"

The trooper on the couch was watching her over his newspaper.

" Washington," she said.

Under the sink-- yep, scratches on the pipe joint, they'd taken the trap out and examined it. Good for the TBI. The knives were not sharp. The dishwasher had been run, but not emptied. The refrigerator was devoted to cottage cheese and deli fruit salad. Catherine Martin shopped for fast-food groceries, probably had a regular place, a drive-in she used close by. Maybe somebody cruised the store. That's worth checking.

"You with the Attorney General?"

"No, the FBI."

"The Attorney General's coming. That's what I heard at turnout. How long you been in the FBI?"

There was a rubber cabbage in the vegetable drawer. Starling rolled it over and checked the jewelry compartment inside. Empty.

"How long you been in the FBI?"

Starling looked at the young policeman.

"Officer, tell you what. I'll probably need to ask you a couple of things after I've finished looking around here. Maybe you could help me out then."

"Sure. If I can--"

"Good, okay. Let's wait and talk then. I have to think about this right now."

"No problem, there."

The bedroom was bright, with a sunny, drowsy quality Starling liked. It was done with better fabrics and better furnishings than most young women could afford. There was a Coromandel screen, two pieces of cloisonné on the shelves, and a good secretary in burled walnut. Twin beds. Starling lifted the edge of the coverlets. Rollers were locked on the left bed, but not on the right-hand one. Catherine must push them together when it suits her. May have a lover the boyfriend doesn't know about. Or maybe they stay over here sometimes. There's no remote beeper on her answering machine. She may need to be here when her mom calls.