A careful head shot, and he'd just sacrifice the hair. Precious was worth more to him than the hair. The hair was a sacrifice, an offering for her safety.

Quietly down the stairs now, to the kitchen. Out of his slippers and down the dark basement stairs, staying close to the wall to keep the stairs from creaking.

He didn't turn on the light. At the bottom of the stairs, he took a right into the workroom, moving by touch in the familiar dark, feeling the floor change under his feet.

His sleeve brushed the cage and he heard the soft angry chirp of a brood moth. Here was the cabinet. He found his infrared light and slipped the goggles on his head. Now the world glowed green. He stood for a moment in the comforting burble of the tanks, in the warm hiss of the steam pipes. Master of the dark, queen of the dark.

Moths free in the air left green trails of fluorescence across his vision, faint breaths across his face as their downy wings brushed the darkness.

He checked the Python. It was loaded with.38 Special lead wad-cutters. They would slam into the skull and expand for an instant kill. If it was standing when he shot, if he shot down into the top of the head, the bullet was less likely than a Magnum load to exit the lower jaw and tear the bosom.

Quiet, quiet he crept, knees bent, painted toes gripping the old boards. Silent on the sand floor of the oubliette room. Quiet but not too slow. He didn't want his scent to have time to reach the little dog in the bottom of the well.

The top of the oubliette glowed green, the stones and mortar distinct, the grain of the wooden cover sharp in his vision. Hold the light and lean over. There they were. It was on its side like a giant shrimp. Perhaps asleep. Precious was curled up close against its body, surely sleeping, oh please not dead.

The head was exposed. A neck shot was tempting-- save the hair. Too risky.

Mr. Gumb leaned over the hole, the stalk-eyes of his goggles peering down. The Python has a good, muzzle-heavy feel, wonderfully pointable it is. Have to hold it in the beam of infrared. He lined up the sights on the side of'its head, just where the hair was damp against the temple.

Noise or smell, he never knew-- but Precious up and yipping, jumping straight up in the dark, Catherine Baker Martin doubling around the little dog and pulling the futon over them. Just lumps moving under the futon, he couldn't tell what was dog and what was Catherine. Looking down in infrared, his depth perception was impaired. He couldn't tell which lumps were Catherine.

But he had seen Precious jump. He knew her leg was all right, and at once he knew something more: Cather ine Baker Martin wouldn't hurt the dog, any more than he would. Oh, sweet relief: Because of their shared feeling, he could shoot her in the God damned legs and when she clutched her legs, blow her fucking head off. No caution necessary.

He turned on the lights, all the damned lights in the basement, and got the floodlight from the storeroom. He had control of himself, he was reasoning well-- on his way through the workroom he remembered to run a little water in the sinks so nothing would clot in the traps.

As he hurried past the stairs, ready to go, carrying the floodlight, the doorbell rang.

The doorbell grating, rasping, he had to stop and think about what it was. He hadn't heard it in years, hadn't even known whether it worked. Mounted in the stairway so it could be heard upstairs and down, clanging now, a black metal tit covered with dust. As he looked at it, it rang again, kept ringing, dust flying off it. Someone was at the front, pushing the old button marked SUPERINTENDENT.

They would go away.

He rigged the floodlight.

They didn't go away.

Down in the well, it said something he paid no attention to. The bell was clanging, grating, they were just leaning on the button.

Better go upstairs and peek out the front. The long-barreled Python wouldn't go in the pocket of his robe. He put it on the workroom counter.

He was halfway up the stairs when the bell stopped ringing. He waited a few moments halfway up. Silence. He decided to look anyway. As he went through the kitchen a heavy knock on the back door made him jump. In the pantry near the back door was a pump shotgun. He knew it was loaded.

With the door closed to the basement stairs, nobody could hear it yelling down there, even at the top of its voice, he was sure of that.

Banging again. He opened the door a crack on the chain.

"I tried the front but nobody came," Clarice Starling said. "I'm looking for Mrs. Lippman's family, could you help me?"

"They don't live here," Mr. Gumb said, and closed the door. He had started for the stairs, again when the banging resumed, louder this time.

He opened the door on the chain.

The young woman held an ID close to the crack. It said Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Excuse me, but I need to talk to you. I want to find the family of Mrs. Lippman. I know she lived here. I want you to help me, please."

"Mrs. Lippman's been dead for ages. She didn't have any relatives that I know of."

"What about a lawyer, or an accountant? Somebody who'd have her business records? Did you know Mrs. Lippman?"

"Just briefly. What's the problem?"

"I'm investigating the death of Fredrica Bimmel. Who are you, please?"

"Jack Gordon."

"Did you know Fredrica Bimmel when she worked for Mrs. Lippman?"

"No. Was she a great, fat person? I may have seen her, I'm not sure. I didn't mean to be rude-- I was sleeping… Mrs. Lippman had a lawyer, I may have his card somewhere, I'll see if I can find it. Do you mind stepping in? I'm freezing and my cat will streak through here in a second. She'll be outside like a shot before I can catch her."

He went to a rolltop desk in the far corner of the kitchen, raised the top and looked in a couple of pigeonholes. Starling stepped inside the door and took her notebook out of her purse.

"That horrible business," he said, rummaging the desk. "I shiver every time I think about it. Are they close to catching somebody, do you think?"

"Not yet, but we're working. Mr. Gordon, did you take over this place after Mrs. Lippman died?"

"Yes." Gumb bent over the desk, his back to Starling. He opened a drawer and poked around in it.

"Were there any records left here? Business records?"

"No, nothing at all. Does the FBI have any ideas? The police here don't seem to know the first thing. Do they have a description, or fingerprints?"

Out of the folds in the back of Mr. Gumb's robe crawled a Death's-head Moth. It stopped in the center of his back, about where his heart would be, and adjusted its wings.

Starling dropped her notebook into the bag.

Mister Gumb. Thank God my coat's open. Talk out of here, go to a phone. No. He knows I'm FBI, I let him out of my sight he'll kill her. Do her kidneys. They find him, they fall on him. His phone. Don 't see it. Not in here, ask for his phone. Get the connection, then throw down on him. Make him lie facedown, wait for the cops. That's it, do it. He's turning around.

"Here's the number," he said. He had a business card.

Take it? No.

"Good, thank you. Mr. Gordon, do you have a telephone I could use?"

As he put the card on the table, the moth flew. It came from behind him, past his head and lit between them, on a cabinet above the sink.

He looked at it. When she didn't look at it, when her eyes never left his face, he knew.

Their eyes met and they knew each other.

Mr. Gumb tilted his head a little to the side. He smiled. "I have a cordless phone in the pantry, I'll get it for you."

No! Do it. She went for the gun, one smooth move she'd done four thousand times and it was right where it was supposed to be; good two-hand hold, her world the front sight and the center of his chest. "Freeze."