Author's note: more unpleasantries ahead. As before, weak stomachs may want to avoid this. The Spanish phrases are courtesy of three places: the University of Chicago Spanish-English dictionary, babelfish.altavista.com, and my own memories of high-school Spanish.
The Hotel Inter-Continental loomed on the edge of Moreno Street. It sat in the old town gaslight district, next to the financial district. It had undergone renovations several years ago and was thriving. It was indeed a fine hotel. And it was the current residence of Special Agent Belle Fontaine of the FBI, while she consulted on the Skinner killings.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter entered the hotel, wearing a long suit and overcoat. He spoke with the front desk and checked into his room under an assumed name. He had asked for and gotten one on the same floor as Agent Fontaine. The front desk clerk took the assumed name and was most grateful to accept payment in cash. A bellboy offered to bring up Dr. Lecter's bags. Dr. Lecter gave him an American dollar and thanked him very much.
The room was quite spacious, he thought. He had a nice view of the city, a glassed-in shower, and a hotel bathrobe. A pity he did not intend to stay terribly long. The bellboy had politely stacked Dr. Lecter's bags on a chair. Dr. Lecter took the smaller bag and opened it.
Inside was a garment bag with the name of a Buenos Aires dry cleaner on it. Dr. Lecter had stolen it from a truck parked outside this very hotel the day before. He unzipped it now and removed its contents.
Inside was a pair of black pants and a very gaudy jacket. It was white and had tails and gold trim and buttons. Dr. Lecter thought it horribly tacky. But still, he had to do what he had to do.
He put on the pants and the jacket. His own white shirt would suffice. He changed his hand-painted silk tie for an inexpensive bow tie. He reached in the left pocket of the jacket and removed a small gold nametag. It read JESÙS and bore the symbol and name of the Hotel Inter-Continental. He swapped out his shoes for a pair of patent leather shoes that matched the outfit. A pair of thick glasses distorted his face but not his vision and made him look like a generic old man. A pair of white gloves finished the ensemble.
Under his fedora, Dr. Lecter's hair was dyed black. He had carefully dyed his eyebrows to match. The use of a tanning agent had successfully turned him a bronze color completely unlike his normal skin tone. Dr. Lecter removed the final item from the suitcase and slipped it into his pocket. It was a heavy leather sap, not unlike the one the Skinner had used on Dr. Lecter's only daughter.
He exited the room, palming his key, and headed downstairs to a hallway marked Staff Only. Hotel guests barely noticed him. Hotel staff nodded at him, ready to help him if he looked confused. He did not, however. The blueprints for the building at City Hall told him exactly where he needed to go.
The room-service kitchens were a warren of activity. Room-service waiters dressed similarly to Dr. Lecter milled around a wall with a long slot cut in it. There were several carts parked nearby in a hideous mash that made Dr. Lecter think of his daughter's first attempts at parallel parking. A harried-looking thin man looked up as he came in.
"Hey!" he barked. "What are you standing around for?"
"I'm new here," Dr. Lecter said. "They told me to come down here and deliver some orders."
The harried man's face seemed to calm. "Oh. All right. Here, take this, then. You know where you're going?"
"Yes, indeed," Dr. Lecter said truthfully.
The thin man grabbed a metal cart and rolled it towards Dr. Lecter. On it were some covered plates and a small pad of paper.
"Room 1233. Let's move it," the thin man said crisply.
"Of course," Dr. Lecter said. He took the cart and rolled it obediently towards the service elevator.
As he left, he felt his heart beginning to pound. Dr. Lecter was older and frailer than he had been in the past, and for a moment he was concerned. No one questioned him as he rolled away with the cart. In the elevator, he found that his heart rate slowed. He grinned. Despite it all, this was fun. It was good to know that an old fox still had a few tricks left in him.
Dr. Lecter rode up to his own floor. He dropped by his room and opened his second bag. He removed the contents of the dishes – a plate of chicken marsala and another plate of what looked like fish. Those, he put into plastic bags and threw away in the wastebasket of his bathroom. He unpacked the contents of the second bag and loaded them into the cart.
Agent Fontaine's room was perhaps five hundred feet down the hall. Far enough that any noise he made in his room would not be heard after he did what he needed to do, and close enough that he could cover the distance quickly. Just as well, he thought with a grin. He was a bit old for wind sprints.
Dr. Lecter knocked on Agent Fontaine's door. He could hear her on the phone. She spoke English.
"Who is it?" she called out.
"Room service," Dr. Lecter called back in a heavily accented voice.
"One minute," she told whoever was on the phone. As she approached the door, he could hear her mumbling. "I didn't order any room service."
She opened the door. It was on the chain. Dr. Lecter smiled modestly and indicated that he could not force the cart through the three inches the chain allowed.
"I didn't order room service. Are you sure you have the right room?" she asked. Her tone was polite but businesslike.
Dr. Lecter was prepared for this. He raised the pad of paper to his eyes, squinting at it as if he had trouble reading. When he spoke, his voice was halting, as if English was a language he had learned the day before yesterday.
"Eet says…'Thank you for all your help weeth the Skeener case," he said slowly. "Theese flowairs and wine are not as preety as you but are some…sig en…,"
Agent Fontaine's eyes lit up and she blushed. A small grin touched the corner of her lips. "Sign," she said automatically.
"Sign, of our grah tee tude. Sincerely, Detective Garcia, BAPD." Dr. Lecter indicated the bouquet of roses and the bottle of wine on top of his cart. "I come in, please? You firme, please?"
A snap and a metallic sound heralded Agent Fontaine opening the door for him. That same guilty smile and flush at her cheeks hinted at her pleasure at receiving unforeseen flowers. Dr. Lecter smiled foolishly as if both proud and embarrassed to be a part of this. Internally, he had to sigh and roll his eyes. Yes, the flowers were both attractive and tasteful – much better than anything that street cop would have ever picked out himself – but it was almost too easy.
She let him roll the cart in and picked up the phone again. Dr. Lecter caught her side of the conversation as he brought in the cart. He took an inexpensive vase from under his cart and filled it with water from the room's sink.
"Hi, Patty. Is Agent DeGraff there? All right, how about Quincy? Good, let me have him. Hi, Don. Yeah, I'm trying to send the BAPD reports through. There's a lousy connection here and they don't computerize much of their data. It's all scans. It's huge." She smiled at Dr. Lecter as he put the vase down with a flourish on her desk, next to her laptop. He lifted the wine and cradled it in his arms, raising his eyebrows at her as if to ask where she wanted it. She continued her conversation as if he wasn't there.
"No, I told you. Five girls dead and a sixth missing." Dr. Lecter put the wine down where she indicated and perked his ears to listen.
"You should already have postmortems on the five dead ones. I sent them up yesterday. No…I did. I got a receipt. DeGraff has them, then. The sixth? That's a Susana Alvarez, A-L-V-A-R-E-Z. Missing a few days ago. They found her car in back of a beauty salon, purse was slashed up. BAPD said the mom had tracked her down, kinda weird. Some reports of the mom being armed." She paused. "No, I haven't investigated the mother. I met them. They seemed like regular grieving parents to me. I don't think they had anything to do with it. Yes. Yes, I think she's Skinner's sixth. " She paused again. "We've got only a couple of days, then. He usually keeps them for a week or so. Yes…seven or eight days. Well, I'm trying. OK. Thanks, I'll send that out as soon as I can. G'bye, Don."
She hung up and smiled emptily at Dr. Lecter. "Work," she said, as if it was more than mortal man could bear.
Dr. Lecter smiled robotically. "Of course," he said. He handed her an envelope containing a very pretty card. He had bought it himself and signed Detective Garcia's name to it. He also handed her the pad. "Sign here, please," he asked.
She signed it and handed it back to him with two American singles. He saw the slight smile come back to her face as she turned her back on him. Her thumbs slid under the envelope's flap, tearing it open.
"Thank you, ma'am," Dr. Lecter said, and pulled the sap from his jacket pocket. He stepped forward and struck. His technique with the sap was all in the wrist, and it thocked against the back of Agent Fontaine's skull. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she sagged. Dr. Lecter caught her as she fell and guided her gently to the floor. He was not as strong as he used to be, and his shoulder objected mightily, but he still had enough strength to guide her to the floor.
He was pleased with himself. This had gone well. Not bad for an old man.
Quickly, Dr. Lecter reached under his cart and pulled out a laptop computer. This belonged to his daughter, and she knew best how to use it. Dr. Lecter was not computer illiterate himself, however, and he had cajoled his wife into teaching him how to do what he needed to do. Susana's computer was the top of the line, three months old, and he knew what he needed to do.
Agent Fontaine's laptop resided on her desk. Dr. Lecter pushed the button on its DVD-ROM drive and it obediently expelled a silver disc. Written on it in marker was the phrase "ARGSKIN – consult to BAPD". Dr. Lecter lifted the disk. Susana's computer was equipped with dual DVD drives, one a DVD-ROM, one a DVD-RW. He pushed the button to open the DVD-ROM. A blank DVD was already in the writer's drive. It took just a moment to close the drive and start the duplication process. Susana's computer was quite quick, and the disk was copied in a matter of two minutes.
He kept a close eye on Agent Fontaine nonetheless. He didn't want to kill her, if he could avoid it. She was, after all, trying to find his daughter's kidnapper. He was still a bit nervous until his daughter's computer informed him that the DVD had been successfully duplicated and asked him if he would like to make another. He put her laptop back on his cart and replaced the DVD in Agent Fontaine's computer.
He stood over the unconscious FBI agent.
"If you should ever try to get to know a serial killer yourself," he advised her, "don't let them get into your head. We're awfully bad that way." Gently, he lifted Agent Fontaine and put her on her couch.
Then, he left swiftly, rolling his cart as fast as he could back to his room. There was no one else in the hall as he opened his door and went back inside. He changed back into his suit. The hotel clothing and laptop went into the smaller bag, which in turn went into the bigger bag. The bigger bag had wheels and Dr. Lecter was able to bring it along with him easily.
At the front desk, no one paid attention to him as he left. In the suit and without the old-man glasses, he seemed just another businessman. A doorman offered to call him a taxi. Dr. Lecter gratefully accepted. The doorman helped him load his bag in the trunk and wished him a good day.
Dr. Lecter told the taxi driver to take him to Ezeiza Airport, the international airport. At the terminal, he neither checked in to a flight nor even came close to the gates. Instead, he walked directly down from Departing Flights to the parking lot. His Jaguar awaited him there. He paid the parking attendant and drove home.
At home, he settled in with his daughter's computer and opened the files on the DVD. An opening screen informed him that the data on the DVD was property of the FBI and the Department of Justice and threatened him with stern penalties for unauthorized use. Dr. Lecter clicked it away and got into the meat of the file.
Clarice peeked in on him in his study. Her face lit up. "Did you get it?"
Dr. Lecter's eyebrow crooked up. "Turns out the old dog still knows a few tricks."
…
The Skinner was intrigued by the possibilities.
He had begun to wonder about Susana when he had first seen her. It hadn't been until she suggested eating the body that he had gotten the first real suspicions. The test had made him wonder further, especially the question she had not noticed. Now, it was time to do a bit of research and see for sure.
The Skinner's bookcases were packed. Thick hardcover books jostled for space with inexpensive paperbacks. The Skinner chose such a cheap paperback now. The cover was black. In large, red letters was written El silencio de los corderos: la historia verdadera de los crìmenes, el ensayo y el escape de Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The Skinner owned a great many of these type of books, each detailing the life and times of another killer. It was important for the Skinner to know the history of those who came before him. Of course, they would all bow down to His greatness.
The text mattered not a whit to the Skinner. He had already read this book several times and knew the story well – of Dr. Lecter's murders, his trial, and his subsequent relationship with Clarice Starling and his escape. Many of these books featured 8 pages of photos in the middle. This one did too. He flipped to the mug shot of Dr. Lecter, taken so many years ago. He stared at it, comparing it mentally to the girl who currently occupied his basement cell. He turned the page to Clarice Starling's first FBI identification photo, and the resemblance to the girl below fairly jumped out at him. On the facing page was a photograph of Dr. Lecter's left hand. The publishers of the book had felt it necessary to provide photographic proof that Dr. Lecter did indeed have the rarest form of polydactyly. He stared at the hand, the middle finger perfectly duplicated. She didn't have an extra finger. But he would check.
Next, he removed a cheap videocassette that came from the same company. This claimed to be a documentary of Dr. Lecter. He put it into his VCR and watched. There was some grainy trial footage, not much good. Still, the Skinner leaned forward closely and hit the pause button whenever a good shot of Dr. Lecter came up. He recognized the maroon eyes immediately. After a few more minutes of watching Dr. Lecter's trial, something else came up. On the screen, the grainy figure of Dr. Lecter tilted his head pretty much all the time. As did the girl in his basement.
And then there was the question he had slipped to her during the test. He had pointed out to her that her mother had told her that being gut-shot was the most painful way to die. In Argentina, as in other places, women rarely used guns. There were always the women of the provinces, born from farmer stock, who knew their ways around rifles, but even so, most of them learned from their fathers, not their mothers.
Had he told any other Argentinian girl that her mother had told her that being gut-shot was the most painful way to die, he probably would have gotten a stare of disbelief. Susana had simply said yes and accepted it as a matter of course.
Simple logic. Susana's mother had taught her about guns, therefore she knew guns herself. Susana bore a strong resemblance to Clarice Starling. Therefore, Susana was Clarice Starling's daughter. And Clarice Starling had disappeared years ago with Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Tying it up neatly was the fact that both Susana and Dr. Lecter possessed maroon eyes.
The Skinner began to laugh nervously. Could this actually be? After twenty years, had he solved one of the great popular mysteries of the twenty-first century? Was Hannibal Lecter actually here, in Buenos Aires? Was the girl in the basement cell…his daughter?
It is appropriate that I be the one to solve the case, he thought. After all, others are but mortal men. I see what they do not. I am Greater and More than they.
Still, what did that mean? He had been right when he determined her to be deeper and and more intriguing than the others. Should he skin her anyway? Skin all of her and keep her as a trophy to his greatness? Her soul belonged to him regardless. It was a good omen. The only question was how to preserve her for his glory.
First off, he determined, he would see what she had to say. Perhaps she would admit it to him once confronted with the evidence. Then he would decide the best way to make a trophy of her. He headed downstairs and prepared the operating room for what he planned to do.
When he opened the door to Susana's cell, she seemed annoyed. He knew why: he was late and she was hungry. That was fine. He doubted she would be hungry for very long. He let her walk out of the cell, grabbed her arm, and walked her into the operating room.
She knew the place, and stiffened when he pushed her through the open door. She pulled back.
"It's all right, little one," he said reassuringly.
Susana Alvarez, who had only the day before told a girl she wouldn't hurt her just before she stabbed her to death, looked at him distrustfully.
"It is not your time," he said. "I have…questions for you."
He forced her into the chair she had occupied before. This time, her wrists were strapped to the wide arms of the chair. It was palpably similar to the electric chair. She eyed him nervously. The Skinner sat down in front of her and cleared his throat. He stretched languidly, as if to indicate his complete comfort with the situation.
"Who are you?" he asked. He grinned. The game of denial would begin.
Susana gave him a puzzled look. She did not seem to know how to answer him.
"Your name," he supplied.
"Susana," she answered, looking askance at him. This was the first time he had ever asked any of his victims her name.
"Last name."
"Alvarez," she said hesitantly.
The Skinner sighed. "Your real last name."
"Alvarez!" she said, alarmed.
The Skinner reached forward and grabbed her head, forcing it back against the chair. He placed his thumb just below her eye and his fingers on her eyebrow. She tried to move her head, but his grip was strong. He forced her eye open.
"With eyes like that? I don't think so."
"Alvarez, my last name is Alvarez, I'm not lying," she said. Notes of panic entered her voice.
With his other hand, the Skinner uncapped a hypodermic needle. He held it above her head, where her open eye could see it. He tilted the needle so that the tip glowed in the faint, guttering light of the lightbulb. She did not scream, but she started to breathe heavily.
"Please," she said in almost a whine. "My name is Alvarez, I don't know what that has to do with my eyes. Don't…don't put that in my eye. I'm telling you the truth."
She tensed against the straps. The Skinner nodded. He had built the chair himself. They would hold her. He did not consider himself an unreasonable man, and he knew it was possible that Susana did not know of her own origin. Besides, if she became completely terrorized he would not be able to get his questions answered.
So he lowered the needle and let her head go. She blinked her eyes a few times and stared at him in walleyed fear.
"You have very interesting eyes," the Skinner said conversationally.
She stared at him as a crippled mouse might stare at a cat and said nothing.
"Maroon eyes. Very, very rare. But that's not the only rare thing about you, is it?"
"I don't know what you mean," she whispered. Her breath came in great ragged sobs of fear.
The Skinner turned his attention to her left hand. A canvas strap pinned it down by the wrist. She tried to pull it back anyway and clamped her hand into a fist.
The Skinner sighed. "Open it or lose it," he said dangerously.
Slowly, unwillingly, she opened her fist and let him take it. He could see the fear in her face and enjoyed it quite a bit. He put his thumb and forefinger between her middle and ring fingers and pressed outwards, encouraging her to spread her hand.
"There's an interesting scar on your hand here," he said in that same pleasant tone. And there was. A red line started in the webbing between those two fingers and continued down half an inch to the knuckle. It was very faint and faded.
She shuddered. "I had a growth removed from there. When I was a baby."
The Skinner shook his head and laughed humorlessly.
"Not a growth, Susana. An extra finger."
He saw a flash of recogition in her eyes, for just a moment, and then he knew. She knew who she was. She was hiding it. That, he decided, was all right. It would make a good object lesson for her.
"I don't think so," she said carefully.
"All right, then. We'll do this your way."
The Skinner picked up the needle again and pinned her hand down flat. He held the needle close to her hand. Her face became a portrait of fear. He gave her an honest look.
"Last chance," he said.
"I don't know what you want from me!" she burst out with, and fear was palpable in her voice. "It was a growth, my parents told me it was a growth, I was a baby, I don't remember myself!"
"Admit who you are," he said simply.
"I told you that! I'm Susana Alvarez! Why won't you believe me?"
"Because it's not true," he said shortly. He pressed the needle into the sensitive webbing between Susana's middle and ring fingers. He kept up the pressure on her wrist with his other hand to make sure that she did not get her hand free.
Her face crumpled in pain, but she said nothing. This was willfulness, he thought. A refusal to show him he was hurting her. But he could tell. Well, fine. He pressed the needle in further. It disappeared into her skin and slipped between her knuckles. She bit her lip and set her jaw resolutely.
The Skinner turned the needle back and forth, grinding it against the sides of her knuckles. It had the desired effect. Susana threw back her head and screamed. Her eyes burning in hate, fear, and pain, she half-snarled, half-sobbed, "That hurts! Why are you doing this to me?"
"Admit who you are," he repeated.
"I don't know what you want!" she screamed at him. He saw tears forming in her eyes and was pleased. The needle advanced into her hand. A thin spot of blood began to form at the entry point. Then, the needle stopped. It stopped because it had pierced all the way past the knuckle and lay against a bone that had no business being there anymore.
Susana Alvarez had indeed been born with an extra finger on her left hand. The middle finger had been perfectly duplicated. It was the rarest form of polydactyly, and she had inherited it from her father. Dr. Lecter had waited until he was much older before he had his extra finger removed. The difference was largely due to Clarice Starling.
Starling had put her foot down upon realizing that her daughter had more than the normal amount of fingers. Susana had been brought to the best surgeons in Argentina, and the extra finger had been removed when she was very young. She had no memory of ever having the finger and had only seen it in baby pictures.
But that long-ago surgeon, not wanting to scar her any more than necessary, had left off at removing the knuckle. And now, years later, the Skinner's needle lay against that remaining bone. It caused a deep, awful pain. It was tolerable, though. Susana gritted her teeth.
Her memory palace was slightly different now, once she realized what he had wanted. The doors to Quantico and her father's office were closed and barred. She would not let the Skinner in there.
"Please," she said. Behind the door, her father counseled: You must appear frightened, not defiant. You must hide your resolution. If he sees that, he'll torture you until you confess. You must seem innocent, terrified, and without the knowledge he seeks.
The terrified part was easy, at any rate.
Susana blinked back tears of pain. "Please," she repeated shakily. "My name is Alvarez. Susana Alvarez. That is who I am. Please don't torture me anymore. I don't know the answer you want me to give."
The Skinner watched her through slitted eyes. She seemed so believable. Perhaps she honestly did not know the true identity of her parents. He withdrew the needle and nodded. A red drop of blood formed at the point it had entered and slowly grew fat.
"Your father," he said. "Tell me about him."
"M-my father?" Susana shook her head, dazed, as if not expecting the question. "He's a medical school professor. And he works in the E.R. at the hospital."
"What is his name?"
"Alonso. Alonso Alvarez."
The Skinner let out a long sigh and shook his head slowly. "Try again."
Panic entered her eyes. "That's his name! I swear to God!"
"His name," the Skinner lectured primly, "is Dr. Hannibal Lecter."
Susana looked blank. The Skinner would never know how much acting ability she had summoned to produce that look.
"Who?" she asked dumbly.
"Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Surely you've heard of him."
"I've never heard that name before," Susana said slowly. "Is he a yanqui?"
The Skinner's hand moved fast, pinning down her hand flat. Although threatening her eye with the needle had gotten him a great deal of fear, he didn't want to damage her eyes. He wanted them unblemished for his trophy jar. He held her hand down easily. The needle rested below Susana's scratched and chipped nail.
"Last chance, Susana," he said. "Tell me who your father is."
"Alonso Alvarez. Please, I beg you. He's a medical school teacher. He's not any yanqui. We've never even been to the U.S."
The needle advanced forward, into the sensitive nailbed. Susana screamed shrilly.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" The Skinner's voice dripped with mock sympathy. "When I told you your mother had told you gut-shooting was painful, you didn't react. That's because your mother taught you about guns, didn't she?"
"Yes," Susana moaned. "She was a farmer…,"
Another eighth of an inch on the needle, another scream from Susana. "She was not a farmer. She was an FBI agent. Claricia Starling. And she disappeared with Hannibal Lecter, the known killer. And you are their daughter."
He had the name wrong, Susana noted with satisfaction internally. "No," she whimpered. "Please don't hurt me anymore. My mother is Maria and my father is Alonso. Not FBI, not killers, not yanquis." Tears streamed openly down her face; she made no effort to hide them now.
"Admit who you are or I'll cut the rest of your fingers off," he snarled. Another jab. From behind his door, Dr. Lecter spoke to his daughter quickly.
Susana did the only thing she could do to evade this torture. She took a deep breath, screamed as loud as she could, and fainted dead away.