Dr. Lecter is pleased.
Over the past few days, he has successfully managed to block Susana's concern over her mother. She hasn't mentioned it any more. In the end, it had proved to be quite simple: a sedative in the wine to help her relax, a bit of hypnosis, and the process had started. These first few steps were always the hardest. It was akin to sculpting, Dr. Lecter thought. The first few attempts with the chisel meant a great deal; if you made an error there, everything was for naught.
A sculptor can always get another rock, but he cannot; he has only one daughter. He has been exceedingly careful, holding back where he can. He does not want her damaged; he simply wants her to accept the fact that she cannot return to the United States. In order to do this, the largest obstacle is her mother.
It is Dr. Lecter's hope that the bond between Susana and her other parent need only be frayed; the rest will collapse on its own, after time and inattention. To actually sever the bond will require a great deal more work. This way is less intrusive.
Dinner has been already been served. Susana is on the balcony in her room, overlooking the river. She has the portable CD player that he gave her; Dr. Lecter can hear it even from his own bedroom. She has it on loud, but not too loud. He can hear exceptionally well. It is that accursed rock music. System of a Down, she told him.
Dr. Lecter draws up a syringe and examines the contents with a critical eye. The needle is quite fine; the wound will not bleed. In a way, it is funny. Dr. Lecter has shed blood with nary a shred of guilt before. When the blood in question is his daughter's, though, he finds himself exceedingly squeamish about shedding it, even in such small amounts as are caused by an injection.
He walks calmly to Susana's room and knocks on the door. Politely he waits for a moment or two for her to respond. When no answer comes, he tilts his head curiously. The sound of the music – if one can call it that – is counterpointed by the click of computer keys.
He isn't sure exactly what it is that prompts him to push the door open uninvited. Perhaps a subconscious hint, perhaps the ability of a wise old predator to sense danger on the wind. He pushes open the door and looks inside.
Susana is sitting at her computer, her face painted oddly by the glow of the monitor. Headphones lie around her neck. She has an IM program open and is typing in am IM window. Dr. Lecter steps forward and takes it in carefully. She is typing a message to Amikaaaah. Dr. Lecter does not need an engraved invitation to know what she is doing.
She turns when he enters, a look of displeasure crossing her face at his entry. Swiftly, Dr. Lecter crosses the room to her desk and turns the computer off. He can still move as swiftly as a man far younger when he chooses to.
"What was that all about?" she asks, a bit annoyed.
Dr. Lecter gives her a displeased look. "You cannot speak with your friends, Susana. Not from the computer in your own room. That is Ardelia Mapp's daughter; do you really think the FBI is not watching from the other end?"
She gives him an equally displeased look. "I just wanted to tell my best friend that I'm all right and not to worry," she says, her tone icier than she has ever spoken to him before.
He is surprised. She should know better. Besides, from her therapy, she should not be having such desires. Perhaps this will not be as easy as he thought.
"She should know that from the letter you sent her," Dr. Lecter informs his daughter.
Susana makes a dismissive gesture. The doctor finds himself reminded of himself, when Chilton used to enter his cell whilst he was strapped to the hand truck. The little weasel believed that he had all the power then, and Dr. Lecter was his helpless pawn. But it had never been so; despite the restraints, the dolly, the orderlies, the riot batons, all of Chilton's little symbols of power – he had held the psychological upper hand. It is a position he is accustomed to having.
He does not think he has it now. As he studies his daughter's expression, he realizes there is something absent in her face that he is used to seeing in those who know him for what he is. She is not afraid of him. How long has it been since someone who knew what he was did not fear him?
"That letter was one you dictated," she said. "And it wasn't to Amika. It was to Mom. And you knew it all along." Her tone is not accusatory; she seems to be just mentioning a fact.
"That is all your mother should get for now," he reminds her. "She is still...being punished."
Susana watches him, still easily calm. Dr. Lecter has understood intellectually the effect of his strange maroon eyes on others, but this is the first time equally disconcerting maroon eyes have ever studied him.
"I've been thinking about it, and I'm not sure she should be punished," Susana says.
Dr. Lecter's eyes narrow. Over the past few days, he has carefully begun constructing the edifice of her mother's punishment in her mind. He is a master sculptor when it comes to the human mind; he's done it before. Psychological manipulation and chemical control have been his tools for far longer than this girl has been alive. At this point, according to all his encyclopedic knowledge of the human mind, Susana should not have the ability to voice the sentence she just has.
When Dr. Lecter was in the asylum, the turnkey Dr. Chilton once attempted to drug him in order to find out where a Princeton student was buried. Dr. Lecter had taken great pleasure in giving him a recipe for dip. He had multiple rooms in his memory palace; it was simple to hide in one until the effects of the drugs wore off.
With Clarice Starling, once, he wondered if he had built better than he knew. Now he wonders if that thought did not refer to the daughter he begat on her. Can she, too, hide away in her mind, proof against his skills? Can she turn the foundation of his psychological structures into sand through the force of her will alone?
It seems she has inherited more from him than her eyes.
"I feel she should," Dr. Lecter says. "She took you from me."
"And you have a right to be angry," Susana allows. "Still, do two wrongs make a right? She's already worried sick. You've made your point. Maybe there's some kind of reasonable compromise here."
"There is not," Dr. Lecter says. "There cannot be. She seeks to put me in prison. Do you want that to happen?"
Susana shakes her head. "Of course not," she says. "But I have to go back to Virginia sometime."
"I'm afraid not," Dr. Lecter says, and steps forward with the syringe.
Susana grabs his wrist before he is able to give her the shot. Her hand reminds him of her mother's: small, well fleshed, but strong. She eyes him carefully.
"You don't have to do that," she says firmly. "What do you have to tell me that you can't say without that?"
Dr. Lecter blinks, slowly. He is surprised and intrigued. This is the first time in years – decades, perhaps – that he has had an opponent who even came close to matching him. This will be a lot of fun.
"Susana," he says gently, "you must hear me out."
"I will," Susana says calmly. "I will hear you out, I promise that. And I don't want you to go to jail. But I will make my decision myself."
Yes, this will be interesting, he decides. Already he is attempting to alter his strategies. She may have a mind fashioned like his own, but he has the advantage of years of experience. There may be more complexity to her than he thought, but he will win. He must win.
But winning can sometimes involve strategic retreats. Dr. Lecter pockets the syringe and clears his throat. His little girl can think she won this round, just as he once deliberately lost games so that she would be happy.
All the same, even as he begins to speak, he is observing her and revising his observations. He will make his case, and then he will figure out his next move. Victory will be his.
...
Clarice Starling is pondering.
A team of kidnapping specialists were sent off to Buenos Aires a few hours ago. Lloyd Bowman came into her office to tell her. She has no doubt they will do the very best they can. She does have a doubt that they are in the right place.
Buenos Aires was where she lived with Hannibal Lecter for eleven years. They'd had a beach home in Mar del Plata and another house in Bariloche, in the mountains. Dr. Lecter had liked access to expansive nature: the majesty of the mountains and the ocean had been things he took pleasure in At one time, she took pleasure in it with him. At another time, she would've been perfectly happy to destroy all of South America, as it reminded her of her gilded captivity.
Even the innocent memories can be haunting. At the house in Bariloche she remembers Susana learning to ski. She'd been about six or seven then. Dr. Lecter had insisted on buying her an entire ski outfit, skis, poles, the whole nine yards. She'd looked adorable, Clarice has to admit that.
She had asked about snowboarding, but Dr. Hannibal Lecter had no intent of ever letting his progeny learn something so proletarian as snowboarding. Once Susana had caught the whiff of paternal disapproval she had let it go. Skiing satisfied her.
They had sent her off with the ski school in the morning and gotten her later. At the time, she had been worried. Skiing was something Clarice didn't know well herself; skiing had been a bit beyond her reach before. He knew how to ski, even if he was a bit too old to do it for very long.
Memories like that trouble her. Not because anything horrible happened, despite a mother's panicked imagination. Dr. Lecter is a monster, cold and cruel. She does not like the reminder than he can mimic a loving father and family man so perfectly. He's doing that now, isn't he?
The FBI is sending its experts to Buenos Aires. Either Dr. Lecter has crept back there or he has not. Why he would is obvious: there was culture, a high degree of education, all the things he would like. Why he would not was equally obvious: just after she returned to the US with Susana, there were FBI agents crawling all over Buenos Aires. The Argentine government knew he had been there and would be on the lookout for him.
She was offered the chance to go to Buenos Aires or the smaller team in Asunción. She is torn. As an FBI agent, she always wanted to go where the action was, not to some backwater. The real question for her is this: is Buenos Aires where the action is?
A strong part of her wants to say yes. Dr. Lecter would want to go back to the city; he dearly enjoyed his time there when she was with him. It would be a way for him to taunt his foes, openly living in the same city that they had once hunted him in. Plus, Susana would be able to pick up her old Argentine Spanish pretty easily.
Yet there is another part of her that reminds her that Dr. Lecter can be conservative, when he feels it is necessary. When it comes to his freedom, he can slink and slide like and shadow. Is he doing that now?
Bowman's shadow appears in her office, and she turns around to look at him wordlessly.
"Clarice," he says kindly, "I need to know. Do you want to go?"
Clarice sighs. "Of course I want to go," she says, trying not to make it a snap.
"All right," Bowman says. "Where?"
Clarice sighs again. She knows that both places will be investigated by people who know and care about what they are doing. She isn't egotistical by nature; she knows the value of the people who work with her every day. But she cannot help but shake the idea that it is she who will make the difference between Susana's recovery and her permanent loss.
A or B. She has to make her choice. For good or for ill, she has to make her choice. And the consequences of that choice...perhaps they are what she believes them to be.
She grits her teeth.
" Asunción," she says.