“Always check. Always check.”
“I always check, Jack.”
“Did Chester bring you this?”
“Yes.”
“Did he show you the stamp before he handed it to you?”
“He checked it and showed me.”
Graham cut the string. “It’s copies of all the probate business in the Jacobi estate. I asked Metcalf to send it to me—we can compare with the Leeds stuff when it comes in.”
“We have a lawyer doing that.”
“I need it. I don’t know the Jacobis, Jack. They were new in town. I got to Birmingham a month late, and their stuff was scattered to shit and gone. I’ve got a feel for the Leedses. I don’t for the Jacobis. I need to know them. I want to talk to people they knew in Detroit, and I want a couple of days more in Birmingham.”
“I need you here.”
“Listen, Lounds was a straight snuff. We made him mad at Lounds. The only connection to Lounds is one we made. There’s a little hard evidence with Lounds, and the police are handling it. Lounds was just an annoyance to him, but the Leedses and the Jacobis are what he needs. We’ve got to have the connection between them. If we ever get him, that’s how we’ll do it.”
“So you have the Jacobi paper to use here,” Crawford said. “What are you looking for? What kind of thing?”
“Any damn thing, Jack. Right now, a medical deduction.” Graham pulled the IRS estate-tax form from the package. “Lounds was in a wheelchair. Medical. Valerie Leeds had surgery about six weeks before she died—remember in her diary? A small cyst in her breast. Medical again. I was wondering if Mrs. Jacobi had surgery too.”
“I don’t remember anything about surgery in the autopsy report.”
“No, but it might have been something that didn’t show. Her medical history was split between Detroit and Birmingham. Something might have gotten lost there. If she had anything done, there’ll be a deduction claimed and maybe an insurance claim.”
“Some itinerant orderly, you’re thinking? Worked both places—Detroit or Birmingham and Atlanta?”
“If you spend time in a mental hospital you pick up the drill. You could pass as an orderly, get a job doing it when you got out,” Graham said.
“Want some dinner?”
“I’ll wait till later. I get dumb after I eat.”
Leaving, Crawford looked back at Graham from the gloom of the doorway. He didn’t care for what he saw. The hanging lights deepened the hollows in Graham’s face as he studied with the victims staring at him from the photographs. The room smelled of desperation.
Would it be better for the case to put Graham back on the street? Crawford couldn’t afford to let him burn himself out in here for nothing. But for something?
Crawford’s excellent administrative instincts were not tempered by mercy. They told him to leave Graham alone.
33
By ten P.M. Dolarhyde had worked out to near-exhaustion with the weights, had watched his films and tried to satisfy himself. Still he was restless.
Excitement bumped his chest like a cold medallion when he thought of Reba McClane. He should not think of Reba McClane.
Stretched out in his recliner, his torso pumped up and reddened by the workout, he watched the television news to see how the police were coming along with Freddy Lounds.
There was Will Graham standing near the casket with the choir howling away. Graham was slender. It would be easy to break his back. Better than killing him. Break his back and twist it just to be sure. They could roll him to the next investigation.
There was no hurry. Let Graham dread it.
Dolarhyde felt a quiet sense of power all the time now.
The Chicago police department made some noise at a news conference. Behind the racket about how hard they were working, the essence was: no progress on Freddy. Jack Crawford was in the group behind the microphones. Dolarhyde recognized him from a Tattler picture.
A spokesman from the Tattler, flanked by two body-guards, said, “This savage and senseless act will only make the Tattler’s voice ring louder.”
Dolarhyde snorted. Maybe so. It had certainly shut Freddy up.
The news readers were calling him “the Dragon” now. His acts were “what the police had termed the ‘Tooth Fairy murders.’”
Definite progress.
Nothing but local news left. Some prognathous lout was reporting from the zoo. Clearly they’d send him anywhere to keep him out of the office.
Dolarhyde had reached for his remote control when he saw on the screen someone he had talked with only hours ago on the telephone: Zoo Director Dr. Frank Warfield, who had been so pleased to have the film Dolarhyde offered.
Dr. Warfield and a dentist were working on a tiger with a broken tooth. Dolarhyde wanted to see the tiger, but the reporter was in the way. Finally the newsman moved.
Rocked back in his recliner, looking along his own powerful torso at the screen, Dolarhyde saw the great tiger stretched unconscious on a heavy work table.
Today they were preparing the tooth. In a few days they would cap it, the oaf reported.
Dolarhyde watched them calmly working between the jaws of the tiger’s terrible striped face.
“May I touch your face?” said Miss Reba McClane.
He wanted to tell Reba McClane something. He wished she had one inkling of what she had almost done. He wished she had one flash of his Glory. But she could not have that and live. She must live: He had been seen with her and she was too close to home.
He had tried to share with Lecter, and Lecter had betrayed him.
Still, he would like to share. He would like to share with her a little, in a way she could survive.
34
“I know it’s political, you know it’s political, but it’s pretty much what you’re doing anyway,” Crawford told Graham. They were walking down the State Street Mall toward the federal office building in the late afternoon. “Do what you’re doing, just write out the parallels and I’ll do the rest.”
The Chicago police department had asked the FBI’s Behavioral Science section for a detailed victim profile. Police officials said they would use it in planning disposition of extra patrols during the period of the full moon.
“Covering their ass is what they’re doing,” Crawford said, waving his bag of Tater Tots. “The victims have been affluent people, they need to stack the patrols in affluent neighborhoods. They know there’ll be a squawk about that—the ward bosses have been fighting over the extra manpower ever since Freddy lit off. If they patrol the upper-middle-class neighborhoods and he hits the South Side, God help the city fathers. But if it happens, they can point at the damned feds. I can hear it now—‘They told us to do it that way. That’s what they said to do.’”
“I don’t think he’s any more likely to hit Chicago than anywhere else,” Graham said. “There’s no reason to think so. It’s a jerkoff. Why can’t Bloom do the profile? He’s a consultant to Behavioral Science.”
“They don’t want it from Bloom, they want it from us. It wouldn’t do them any good to blame Bloom. Besides, he’s still in the hospital. I’m instructed to do this. Somebody on the Hill has been on the phone with Justice. Above says do it. Will you just do it?”
“I’ll do it. It’s what I’m doing anyway.”
“That’s what I know,” Crawford said. “Just keep doing it.”
“I’d rather go back to Birmingham.”
“No,” Crawford said. “Stay with me on this.”
The last of Friday burned down the west.
Ten days to go.
35
“Ready to tell me what kind of an ‘outing’ this is?” Reba McClane asked Dolarhyde on Saturday morning when they had ridden in silence for ten minutes. She hoped it was a picnic.
The van stopped. She heard Dolarhyde roll down his window.
“Dolarhyde,” he said. “Dr. Warfield left my name.”
“Yes, sir. Would you put this under your wiper when you leave the veh
icle?”
They moved forward slowly. Reba felt a gentle curve in the road. Strange and heavy odors on the wind. An elephant trumpeted.
“The zoo,” she said. “Terrific.” She would have preferred a picnic. What the hell, this was okay. “Who’s Dr. Warfield?”
“The zoo director.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“No. We did the zoo a favor with the film. They’re paying back.”
“How?”
“You get to touch the tiger.”
“Don’t surprise me too much!”
“Did you ever look at a tiger?”
She was glad he could ask the question. “No. I remember a puma when I was little. That’s all they had at the zoo in Red Deer. I think we better talk about this.”
“They’re working on the tiger’s tooth. They have to put him to . . . sleep. If you want to, you can touch him.”
“Will there be a crowd, people waiting?”
“No. No audience. Warfield, me, a couple of people. TV’s coming in after we leave. Want to do it?” An odd urgency in the question.
“Hell fuzzy yes, I do! Thank you . . . that’s a fine surprise.”
The van stopped.
“Uh, how do I know he’s sound asleep?”
“Tickle him. If he laughs, run for it.”
The floor of the treatment room felt like linoleum under Reba’s shoes. The room was cool with large echoes. Radiant heat was coming from the far side.
A rhythmic shuffling of burdened feet and Dolarhyde guided her to one side until she felt the forked pressure of a corner.
It was in here now, she could smell it.
A voice. “Up, now. Easy. Down. Can we leave the sling under him, Dr. Warfield?”
“Yeah, wrap that cushion in one of the green towels and put it under his head. I’ll send John for you when we’ve finished.”
Footsteps leaving.
She waited for Dolarhyde to tell her something. He didn’t.
“It’s in here,” she said.
“Ten men carried it in on a sling. It’s big. Ten feet. Dr. Warfield’s listening to its heart. Now he’s looking under one eyelid. Here he comes.”
A body damped the noise in front of her.
“Dr. Warfield, Reba McClane,” Dolarhyde said.
She held out her hand. A large, soft hand took it.
“Thanks for letting me come,” she said. “It’s a treat.”
“Glad you could come. Enlivens my day. We appreciate the film, by the way.”
Dr. Warfield’s voice was middle-aged, deep, cultured, black. Virginia, she guessed.
“We’re waiting to be sure his respiration and heartbeat are strong and steady before Dr. Hassler starts. Hassler’s over there adjusting his head mirror. Just between us, he only wears it to hold down his toupee. Come meet him. Mr. Dolarhyde?”
“You go ahead.”
She put out her hand to Dolarhyde. The pat was slow in coming, light when it came. His palm left sweat on her knuckles.
Dr. Warfield placed her hand on his arm and they walked forward slowly.
“He’s sound asleep. Do you have a general impression . . . ? I’ll describe as much as you like.” He stopped, uncertain how to put it.
“I remember pictures in books when I was a child, and I saw a puma once in the zoo near home.”
“This tiger is like a super puma,” he said. “Deeper chest, more massive head, and a heavier frame and musculature. He’s a four-year-old male Bengal. He’s about ten feet long, from his nose to the tip of his tail, and he weighs eight hundred and fifteen pounds. He’s lying on his right side under bright lights.”
“I can feel the lights.”
“He’s striking, orange and black stripes, the orange is so bright it seems almost to bleed into the air around him.” Suddenly Dr. Warfield feared that it was cruel to talk of colors. A glance at her face reassured him.
“He’s six feet away, can you smell him?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Dolarhyde may have told you, some dimwit poked at him through the barrier with one of our gardener’s spades. He snapped off the long fang on the upper left side on the blade. Okay, Dr. Hassler?”
“He’s fine. We’ll give it another minute or two.”
Warfield introduced the dentist to Reba.
“My dear, you’re the first pleasant surprise I’ve ever had from Frank Warfield,” Hassler said. “You might like to examine this. It’s a gold tooth, fang actually.” He put it in her hand. “Heavy, isn’t it? I cleaned up the broken tooth and took an impression several days ago, and today I’ll cap it with this one. I could have done it in white of course, but I thought this would be more fun. Dr. Warfield will tell you I never pass up an opportunity to show off. He’s too inconsiderate to let me put an advertisement on the cage.”
She felt the taper, curve, and point with her sensitive battered fingers. “What a nice piece of work!” She heard deep, slow breathing nearby.
“It’ll give the kids a start when he yawns,” Hassler said. “And I don’t think it’ll tempt any thieves. Now for the fun. You’re not apprehensive, are you? Your muscular gentleman over there is watching us like a ferret. He’s not making you do this?”
“No! No, I want to.”
“We’re facing his back,” Dr. Warfield said. “He’s just sleeping away about two and a half feet from you, waist-high on a work table. Tell you what: I’ll put your left hand—you’re right-handed, aren’t you?—I’ll put your left hand on the edge of the table and you can explore with your right. Take your time. I’ll be right here beside you.”
“So will I,” Dr. Hassler said. They were enjoying this. Under the hot lights her hair smelled like fresh sawdust in the sun.
Reba could feel the heat on the top of her head. It made her scalp tingle. She could smell her warm hair, Warfield’s soap, alcohol and disinfectant, and the cat. She felt a touch of faintness, quickly over.
She gripped the edge of the table and reached out tentatively until her fingers touched tips of fur, warm from the lights, a cooler layer and then a deep steady warmth from below. She flattened her hand on the thick coat and moved it gently, feeling the fur slide across her palm, with and against the lay, felt the hide slide over the wide ribs as they rose and fell.
She gripped the pelt and fur sprang between her fingers. In the very presence of the tiger her face grew pink and she lapsed into blindisms, inappropriate facial movements she had schooled herself against.
Warfield and Hassler saw her forget herself and were glad. They saw her through a wavy window, a pane of new sensation she pressed her face against.
As he watched from the shadows, the great muscles in Dolarhyde’s back quivered. A drop of sweat bounced down his ribs.
“The other side’s all business,” Dr. Warfield said close to her ear.
He led her around the table, her hand trailing down the tail.
A sudden constriction in Dolarhyde’s chest as her fingers trailed over the furry testicles. She cupped them and moved on.
Warfield lifted a great paw and put it in her hand. She felt the roughness of the pads and smelled faintly the cage floor. He pressed a toe to make the claw slide out. The heavy, supple muscles of the shoulders filled her hands.
She felt the tiger’s ears, the width of its head and, carefully, the veterinarian guiding her, touched the roughness of its tongue. Hot breath stirred the hair on her forearms.
Last, Dr. Warfield put the stethoscope in her ears. Her hands on the rhythmic chest, her face upturned, she was filled with the tiger heart’s bright thunder.
Reba McClane was quiet, flushed, elated as they drove away. She turned to Dolarhyde once and said slowly, “Thank you . . . very much. If you don’t mind, I would dearly love a martini.”
“Wait here a minute,” Dolarhyde said as he parked in his yard.
She was glad they hadn’t gone back to her apartment. It was stale and safe. “Don’t tidy up. Take me in and tell me it’s neat.”
“Wait here.”
He carried in the sack from the liquor store and made a fast inspection tour. He stopped in the kitchen and stood for a moment with his hands over his face. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He felt danger, but not from the woman. He couldn’t look up the stairs. He had to do something and he didn’t know how. He should take her back home.
Before his Becoming, he would not have dared any of this.
Now he realized he could do anything. Anything. Anything.
He came outside, into the sunset, into the long blue shadow of the van. Reba McClane held on to his shoulders until her foot touched the ground.
She felt the loom of the house. She sensed its height in the echo of the van door closing.
“Four steps on the grass. Then there’s a ramp,” he said.
She took his arm. A tremor through him. Clean perspiration in cotton.
“You do have a ramp. What for?”
“Old people were here.”
“Not now, though.”
“No.”
“It feels cool and tall,” she said in the parlor. Museum air. And was that incense? A clock ticked far away. “It’s a big house, isn’t it? How many rooms?”
“Fourteen.”
“It’s old. The things in here are old.” She brushed against a fringed lampshade and touched it with her fingers.
Shy Mr. Dolarhyde. She was perfectly aware that it had excited him to see her with the tiger; he had shuddered like a horse when she took his arm leaving the treatment room.
An elegant gesture, his arranging that. Maybe eloquent as well, she wasn’t sure.
“Martini?”
“Let me go with you and do it,” she said, taking off her shoes.
She flicked vermouth from her finger into the glass. Two and a half ounces of gin on top, and two olives. She picked up points of reference quickly in the house—the ticking clock, the hum of a window air conditioner. There was a warm place on the floor near the kitchen door where the sunlight had fallen through the afternoon.