See Disclaimers on Chapter 1.
Thank you to all who reviewed! It is very much appreciated. I'm sorry for the delay but I have been very busy what with college and all. Anyway, here's chapter 2, I hope it doesn't disappoint. Dr. Lecter's computer is a winking nod to Mischa. Chapter 2The antiques shop at the corner of Toulouse and Dauphine Street was slightly later in opening that morning.
Across the street from the Hôtel St. Marie, Robert Delacroix slid the key into the modernised lock made to look like a baroque piece and twisted it slightly to the side before giving it a little shake. There was a trick to opening it, he had discovered earlier, but despite that, the lock simply fit the building's façade so well that he could not have been bothered to change it even if he were so inclined.
Inside, Hannibal Lecter slid off the outer trappings and subtle mannerisms that characterised him as Robert Delacroix, dealer in fine arts and antiquities. He moves with the same characteristic feline grace, a dark panther amongst the shadows and silhouettes of sculptures and Ming urns. The mid morning sunlight streams in through the slats of wooden window shades, throwing the room into dim chiaroscuro.
It is interesting to note how little one has to change in order to establish a completely new identity. A bit of an adjustment here, slight embellishment there, and voila! A new persona. Robert Delacroix was not a man many would consider to be uncommonly good-looking. If anything, he was unremarkable in appearance, almost studiously so. If one would look carefully, they might be able to see beyond the slightly long-ish black hair (grown intentionally to hide his ears, a remarkably reliable physical feature almost as useful as fingerprinting when it comes to the identification of a felon) and perpetual five o clock shadow the basic facial shape of the psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter.
He has had the collagen injections taken out from his cheeks and nose. The result is a near complete return to his old face, not much of a hazard, as the FBI is no longer on the lookout for that. They really should be more observant. Constant vigilance is a virtue long forgotten by those who believe themselves to be beyond such elementary instruction.
Dr. Lecter wears black contact lenses these days. He finds that lenses of any other colour are too noticeable and are easily seen even by the untrained eye. Black lenses on the other hand, hide his natural eye colour perfectly, the pupil blending in seamlessly with the lens in order to create an illusion accepted and unquestioned by most of his acquaintance and clientele.
The Devil is always in the details.
We shall, dear reader for the benefit of Doctor Hannibal Lecter, refer to him as Mr. Delacroix for the duration of our visit to his address. It would not bode well for either one of us to make a slip and call him by his true identity, lest someone of consequence hear.
Delacroix sat himself before a massive mahogany desk, booting up an HP Omnibook in order to read through his e-mail for the day.
There was one letter in his inbox. It was brief and to the point.
From: "Doctor Faustus" cmarlowe@aol.com
To: dalighieri@yahoo.it
Subject: [no subject]
Date: Sun, 14:59:48 +0100
As requested, attached are the records of Officers Starling and St. John. I hope they may serve whatever purpose you may have for requesting them.
Be sure this is what you want.
G.
He smiled and clicked download attachment, spinning his chair around, as the files were stored into the laptop's hard drive. Modern technology had never failed to fascinate him. Nowadays, entire libraries could be compressed into a compact disk, whole books kept in a three and a half inch square of plastic, easily accessed by the touch of a button. Yes, man had certainly come a long way from the cave-dwelling savage he was said to have been.
Delacroix drummed his fingers against the gold-tooled leather of the desk before beginning to compose a letter.
To: cmarlowe@aol.com
From: dalighieri@yahoo.it
Subject: re: [no subject]
Date: Mon, 10:42:18 +0900
Thank you for your speedy compliance in accordance with my request. Please make further inquiries on my behalf.
H.
**
New Orleans Police Department, corner of Conti and Royal Street. 11:30 a.m., Day 4.
"I have a favour to ask of you," said St. John, strolling into Starling's cubicle late Tuesday morning. Blearily, she blinked her tired eyes, gesturing for him to take the only other chair in the cube before slumping over exhaustedly onto her forearms, which were crossed upon the desk.
"Done," she muttered into the faux wood top of the wide table.
St. John looked surprised. "That's it? Done. Just like that? You won't even stop to think about it?"
"If I said no, would it make a difference?" Starling retorted caustically.
He grinned unrepentantly. "Well, no," he admitted. "I'd simply nag and whine and beg until you gave in."
"Your three greatest talents."
"Of course. Why else would you have me listed as 'Bitch and Moan' in your mobile? Denial is futile, I've browsed the phonebook."
"I rest my case," she said mordantly, looking up at him. "So, what is it?"
"We-ell, my family is having some sort of party in a couple of days. It's black tie, completely formal, with loads and loads of relatives and cousins up to God-knows-what degree of relation. As can be expected, there will be conversation. Lots of it, mostly with prying relatives wanting to know the status of my perennially unstable love life. I didn't bring a date for the last reunion and they're expecting me to bring one this time. That is, if I want to avoid being run through the gauntlet by my great aunt Margaret and her annoying matchmaking hobbies. And since Catharine sort of nixed me, I'm a little screwed."
"What does this have to do with me?" said Starling uninterestedly.
He gave her a look that spoke volumes. "Please don't make me say this."
For the first time that day, Starling laughed, thoroughly enjoying herself, "And why shouldn't I? It seems to me, you're going to have to do some begging if you're so desperate for a date to impress mater and pater St. John."
"I wouldn't call myself desperate, exactly. It's more like I need a date whom I like and can talk to and whom my parents can't exactly cow."
"Who would have thought? You, the infamous Malcolm St. John, a mama's boy."
"Not so loud, wench!" He smirked warningly. "You don't have to tell everybody."
"Bribe me."
"I'd much rather kiss you," said St. John, who suddenly leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers.
Starling was, for the lack of words, stunned. In her inability to speak, she instead found herself responding towards the languorously experienced movements of his lips against hers. Slow and spine tingling, she gave herself over to the sensation. Sexual repression is not an advisable state of body. Tends to mess with the mind. Otherwise, would she have allowed this to go on, in a confined cubicle with only flimsy partitions to separate her from the staring eyes of her colleagues during broad daylight? Conscience, scruples, ethics or whatever name you may choose to give it began nagging at her like a bad impression of Pinocchio's all-too garrulous guide. Well fuck it, Jiminy Cricket's just sprouted horns.
Oh, this man knows how to kiss.
He tasted like coffee with some faint traces of cigarette. Not her accustomed fave flave, so to speak, yet not quite unpleasant on the whole. His mouth was soft, yet firm, moving insistently and when she opened her mouth to allow him to slip his tongue inside, he lightly explored her, mapping the ridges of the roof of her mouth before suddenly pulling back, as if slapped.
"Shit. Shit, I'm sorry, Starling. I don't know what came over me."
Me, if you had kept that up. She decided to keep that nasty little thought to herself. He brought his hand, which had been previously entangled in her hair to the back of his neck, rubbing nervously.
St. John was charmingly cute when embarrassed. What the hell, live a little, Starling.
"Sorry for what," Clarice asked innocently.
He blinked once, twice and then smiled as understanding began to dawn on him. "So you aren't pissed, furious, enraged, indignantly protesting the impropriety of my conduct?"
"Come off it, St. John. The only reason I would have to be pissed at you is if you kissed like a goddamn Labrador Retriever." He looked offended.
"Glad to know you have a favourable opinion of my snogging abilities."
"Pardon?"
"Sorry, kissing. It's the Irishman in me, I swear."
"I see." She stared at him unblinkingly until he started to fidget.
"Pick you up at seven?"
"Hmm," she nodded noncommittally, slipping on a pair of glasses and beginning to peruse the report she had been working on before her impromptu siesta and unexpected intermission.
With one last roguish grin, St. John about-faced and swaggered out her workspace looking for all the world like the cat who has finally managed to coax the elusive family Parakeet into its welcoming jaws.
**
Ruiz's office at the basement of the station was by far one of the most avoided places in the building's history, to date. Walking through the drab and unattractively sallow hallway that led to a pair of heavy metal swinging doors, Starling was hit by a blast of icy air conditioning, slightly musty and bringing with it the odours from the rooms below as she descended the narrow staircase into the silent labyrinthine corridors of the sub-basement, where the mortuary was.
Lower still was the office of Guillermo Ruiz, a large, cluttered affair down the end of a long, light green passage where the sound of a dot-matrix printer cranking out a page per minute cut through the stillness like a blade.
His door was wide open as always and the man was sitting with his back to her, playing chess with himself. The tiny black and white television set at the corner tuned to a documentary about bees on National Geographic, small red letters at the lower right hand corner blinking: SILENCIO. Her glaze flickered absently at the formaldehyde-soaked beetle in a jar on top of the set.
Ruiz tapped distractedly at the wooden board with the base of a black pawn, his brow furrowed in thought. He heaved an unenthusiastic sigh.
"Go on, ask me about Christian Venci. You've been standing there for about," he checked his watch. "Two minutes and thirty-two seconds." Ruiz's black pawn toppled the opposing white knight and he laid the captured piece aside before re-setting the timer.
Starling raised an eyebrow for her own benefit, as clearly Ruiz could not see the expressions playing across her face. She tried to stifle the smirk that was trying its damndest to make itself known to her mouth.
"Actually, I was just thinking about how to best declare my long-suppressed love for you and desire to bear your children, " Starling countered, sauntering easily into his office and perching a hip on the side of the massive grey desk laden with a veritable mountain of paperwork. "What do you say, Ruiz, run away with me?"
"Nice try, Cuffs. But no dice. Here's the autopsy report on Venci. Relatives claimed the body before any more tests could be done – damn the gods of money. Have a look at it, see what you think. Cabbot wanted it on his desk an hour ago."
She took the folder from him and settled into the big easy chair behind his desk. The springs protested under her weight as she leaned against the padded backrest.
"How did your evening with St. John go?" inquired Ruiz by way of starting a conversation. Starling hummed vaguely to herself, the sound of pages crackling together over the noise of the Epson. Should have known the man would hear about it. Is there anything he doesn't know? And I thought the FBI had the mother of all grapevines.
"It wasn't as productive as it could have been," she replied ambiguously, scanning down the page. Nothing new here. Direct bullet wound to the heart . . .
Ruiz snorted, sliding the white Bishop a few squares northwest to capture one of the three remaining black pawns. "That isn't so bad, Cuffs. Just as long as it didn't turn into a reproductive evening you've got nothing to worry about," he finished blandly, giving her and the chessboard a critical glance before taking off his glasses to polish them against the yellow fabric of his shirt. Starling felt a strange, prickling heat begin to bubble up and dance across the surface of her cheeks. "You're blushing," said Ruiz, squinting to adjust his vision, checking his lenses for smudged fingerprints by holding them up to the light. "Thought you might want to know."
She looked up and via the reflection from the three by six fish tank that indeed she was blushing. "Thank you for pointing out the obvious. Now if you would kindly get your mind of the gutter I'd - "
"Gutter? Hardly my favourite approach. Just not my style, kid. I'll leave such juvenile behaviour to you and St. John. I would, however, advise you to keep your affairs discreet."
Affairs?"Nothing happened," she told him quietly. Ruiz's shoulders tensed, then relaxed.
"Good. See to it that nothing does. St. John is –," he hesitated. "St. John is not a good man. What he is good for is fun and games. Games that leave one half of the temporary couple in tears. And trust me, it has never been Malcolm. You deserve so much better, Clarice. Outside of a working relationship, you are to avoid forming intimate attachments with him. Do I make myself clear?" He fixed her with a grey gaze, gauging the reactions she knew must be evident on her face. She swallowed.
"I will do just that," she turned her attention back to the report, thoughts far away.
Guillermo Jose Maria Ruiz was sixteen years her senior and, at fifty-one had established an adequate amount of tenure to guarantee him comfortable existence by sheer virtue of that awesome intellect. Most of the time, however, that brilliant mind was belied by the fact that he more resembled an overworked and underpaid desk jockey with a slight paunch respectable enough for a man of his years. Conversely, the opposite was quite true. Ruiz loved his occupation. Of that, she was certain. The older man and Clarice Starling had founded an unusual sort of rapport from the beginning, not unlike that of a mentor and pupil. Or of father and daughter. Starling discovered that in many ways, the older crime scene investigator had been a better friend to her than Jack Crawford. Not that there had been much room for comparison, anyway. If at one time Starling would have cheerfully killed for Crawford, she would willingly die for Ruiz. Lay herself on hot coals and keep very, very still until it was all over.
Her and his wife Lorelai lived in a sprawling, bungalow type estate on the outskirts of the city. Driving there, one day, six months after the "Chesapeake Incident" (as those in the bureau had come to refer to it) and her subsequent early retirement from the FBI she found her nostrils tickled by the aromas of cooking catfish, her ears (sensitive after her years in service) picking up bits and pieces of gossip being shouted by neighbours at each other across the streets. For the first time – in a very long time – she felt at peace. In those days, Starling took normalcy wherever she could find it. Soaking up sensations of contentment like a sponge.
On that Sunday morning, Lorelai had been quiet, efficient and unobtrusive. The paragon of a perfect housewife. Over time, Starling learned that the petite woman actually had a formidable side to her. She and Ruiz had no children and at times, Starling felt that Lorelai Ruiz's unemployed maternal instincts spilled over onto her.
"Have you gotten to the part about the bullet, yet?" Ruiz's voice sliced through her reminiscing.
"Not yet," guiltily she turned her thoughts back to the report. Some bruising on the spinal and thoracic area . . .
"I think you'll find it rather interesting."
Hmmm. Semen on his the seams of his trousers and penis. Looks like he got off before he got off. Starling snorted. Now for the bullet. Wait a minute. What the – "Where's the bullet?"
Ruiz exhaled heavily. "That's what we can't figure out. There is no bullet. Chest cavity's completely smashed in. Christian Venci was shot at close range. Probably with some very heavy artillery that could inflict the kind of damage it did."
"Could it have been a shotgun?" Starling asked.
"No. The lab didn't find any pellets or debris to suggest that."
"Maybe it was a .45 and somebody fished the slug out before they dumped the body. The body was dumped, wasn't it?"
"Venci was killed elsewhere, of that we are at least certain of. Morris and the boys didn't find any shell casings that could give us a clue on the piece that did him in. And yes, that was a plausible angle. It's the second thing we thought of."
"And?"
He let out a frustrated sigh. "It didn't pan out. Body showed no signs of interference and even if it had been tampered, there would have been some metal residue left. I take it they didn't teach you that in Washington," he added at her befuddled expression. "Metal, to be more specific, stainless steel – which most surgical instruments are made of – leaves little particles that just about qualify as trace evidence. Much like firearms. And unlike gunpowder, trace metal evidence lasts longer."
"The Palmer case."
"Exactly." Eight months ago, a businessman named Jonathon Palmer had been accused of killing his wife. They had found her body in the living room of the Palmers' three-floor mansion, shot in the back of the head. She had been dead over a week and thus, having brought her husband Jonathon in for questioning, he had tested negative for gunpowder burns. The traces of metal they found on his hands however, were a perfect match to the suspected weapon.
"Could they have used something else? Wood, Teflon, plastic, carbon steel?"
"No, no, no and no. The carbon steel one was inspired, though. The others would have been too crude and cumbersome to use without leaving some internal lacerations that have nothing to do with the entry wound. Makes it easier to identify. As it stands, there's nothing. "
"Fuck."
"My sentiments exactly."
Starling's phone rang, emitting a shrill noise in the near deafening silence a few moments ago. The printer had long stopped churning out the piles of paper.
She checked the LCD. "Starling. Yeah, no I'm at Ruiz's office. No. Where are you? Alright, I'll be there in ten minutes." Starling gave Ruiz an apologetic look while she closed the folder and tossed it on his desk. "I have to go. Tripp is down at the Riverfront. Good luck with Cabott."
"Good luck with Tripp," he called after her. "You'll need it," he muttered to himself. His white King captured the black Queen. The game had ended at a stalemate. Wearily, Ruiz reached across his desk and picked up the phone, dialling an all-too-familiar number.
Ring.
Ring. Ring.
"Hello, Robert?"
**
Pontalba Apartments, 4.45 p.m., Day 4.
Starling waited impatiently as St. John undid the series of locks that would let her into his apartment in the Pontalba buildings. She had been caught in the sudden rainshower just as she was a block away from Jackson Square and thus stood there dripping on the hardwood floor outside of St. John's flat. There had been no doorman; apparently there never was a doorman. Fooled again.
That goddamn liar. He'll get his.
Finally, the clicking stopped and there were the sliding sounds of a bar lock being slid aside before the door was yanked open.
"Hi there," said St. John idly, leaning against the doorjamb in a posture that screamed languid insolence, white oxford shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up to his elbows exposing the lean, tensile strength of his lightly tanned forearms. He wore no shoes; just a pair of denim jeans, green eyes raked her from head to toe, taking her in fully without leaving her feeling as if she'd been stripped naked.
She allowed him to take her overcoat off and drape it over one of the high-backed wooden chairs near the door.
His apartment was full of books. Books on shelves, books on the floor, books on the kitchen table, piles and mountains of books, some of the stacks reaching all the way up to the high ceilings. There were lamps and sculptures and dozens of bric-a-brac littering the tables and counters of the large, airy room. Clarice looked at the man who lived in this veritable library-cum-antique-store-cum-bookshop, who was currently rummaging through a chest-of-drawers by the far wall, nearly obscured by the thick volumes of what looked to her to be a set of nearly antique Harvard Classics.
"Listen, you're soaked to the bone. Why don't you take off your clothes and I'll let them dry for a while. I have a washing machine and dryer. Of course I know how to operate it," he added hastily after she gave him a sceptical look. "If it'll make you feel better, you can go into my room to change. It's over there, behind the divider," he gestured vaguely to what was supposed to be a wooden shelving partition, stuffed to overflowing with more books and ornaments. As Clarice walked past him, he handed her something. "To uh, cover you up. That way you can't accuse me of being anything other than a gentleman."
"You read a lot?" Starling called out from his bedroom.
"That has to be the understatement of the century. If you entered that in a competition, you'd walk away with the Volvo."
Starling emerged from behind the pile of books that was his 'divider' swathed from head to toe in his blue silk dressing gown clearly several sizes too big for her. The thin cloth hid little from his imagination, sash barely holding it closed at her waist, revealing an almost improper amount of pale skin at the collarbone down to the shadows of her cleavage. St. John's breath caught in his throat.
"Would you like something to drink? Something to uh, warm you up?" he stammered awkwardly.
"What have you got?" said Starling, walking over to one of the tables and picking up a figurine of a horse and rider. She looked at the marked stamped on the bottom.
"Gin. Whiskey, mostly. I have some Vodka, though."
"Is it cold?"
"Um, yes. I keep it in the freezer," he made his way through the jungle of books and jerked open the refrigerator door, the bottles on the side pockets clinking noisily together.
"I lied to Ruiz today," said Starling, flipping through one of the leather-bound works cluttering a post war Jacques Adnet escritoire. It was clear that either St. John or its previous owners had kept the Walnut and chrome piece in good condition as the frame showed no signs of oxidation despite the unavoidable scratches on the Hermès leather. Dante's Divine Comedia. A 1909 edition still with its original bindings. "I thought you said you didn't read a lot."
"What is a lot," he said mildly. "What did you lie to him about?"
"I told him I was going to see Tripp down by the Riverfront." He took out a half-full bottle of Grey Goose and closed the door deliberately. St. John straightened up slowly before turning around to scrutinise her.
"Why?" Starling shrugged. Her attention was focussed on the scant bit of hair on his chest. There was a thin line of it beginning from his bellybutton leading down to parts unknown.
"Why doesn't he like you?"
"How should I know? I don't like him either." St. John took down two glasses from the shelf, placing them on the wooden countertop and pouring a more than moderate amount of the cold, clear alcohol in each glass. He handed one to her. "Don't think, drink."
"Malcolm. Look at me," she said to him. "I've always liked Ruiz from the beginning, respected him and valued his opinion. I do not like lying to him. Why I did it, I don't even know. But I would like some answers."
"Why are you here with me, then?"
"The Fingers Sisters lost their charm a long time ago. I want you; I figure you want me as well. If we keep this strictly physical and platonic, it might actually have a chance of working out for the both of us."
"You cannot have a strictly platonic physical relationship. It's a direct contradiction in terms"
"We cannot have what society considers a proper relationship. I have to make that clear to you."
"Why?"
"Because relationships, to put it indelicately, suck. Unless you have a sucking relationship. You suck hers, she sucks yours, everybody's fucking happy. Don't tell me you haven't done this before."
"I've never pretended to be a saint, despite what the name suggests," he cracked a wry grin, pouring out more Vodka into his glass and hers which she held out. "But I—you deserve much better than what you are proposing, Clarice."
She frowned. "Do you know that that is exactly the same thing Ruiz told me earlier?"
"Then Ruiz, in spite of being the asshole that he is, is a wise man."
"So you're telling me you don't want me?"
"Don't want you? I'd have to be even more of a stupid prat than I normally am to not want you," he strode over to her, grasping her by the arms. "Clarice, listen to me. I want you, make no mistake of that. But I am not willing to enter into some sort of clandestine affair with you unless--"
She silenced him with a kiss.
**
Pontalba Apartments, 12:45 a.m. Day 5.
Much, much later.
She lay with him in his brass bed that was set in the middle of the somewhat cramped (in comparison to the rest of the apartment) room, directly in front of the wide open terrace doors, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the set-up of Pauline de Rothschild's London boudoir. St. John's lean, heavy form was currently draped over her, one leg holding both of hers immobile, effectively pinning her to the white Egyptian linen. He was stroking her hair, one arm wrapped around her waist, breathing in so deeply were it not for the steady movement of his fingers Starling would have been inclined to think him asleep.
The white curtains billowed overhead, dancing in perfect time to the currents of wind blowing into the room. Everything about his apartment was either white, dark wood or metal with random touches of leather here and there. A man's apartment where all the contents had their proper places and purpose. Like her, St. John probably found order in the chaos that was his flat.
"You're going to end up breaking my heart," he whispered in her ear.
"I know."
One thing had to be said for Malcolm St. John. He moved fast. Or rather, she moved fast, Starling reminded herself. He wasn't the one that jumped your bones, girlfriend. How does one turn from colleagues to lovers in the mere space of four days?
You make decisions and you stand by them. No matter what.
She got out of the bed, draping one of the sheets around her statuesque body to ward off the chill air of the night. Wandering over to the terrace doors, Starling stepped out onto the balcony, leaning against railings that had the initials A & P wrought into the iron and stared out at Jackson Square. It was past midnight. She felt her eyes drawn inexorably to a figure clad entirely in black standing by the lamppost, yellow light obscuring what features he had that were not hidden by the dark fedora pulled down nearly over his forehead.
There was something familiar about him. The way he carried himself, the tilt of his head, the angle with which he leaned lazily against the post.
Impossible.
As she watched, the figure raised his head to look in her direction and brought one gloved hand up to the brim of his fedora, giving her a mocking salute. Dark eyes glinted from beneath the shadows of his face. Starling willed herself to believe that she had only imagined the reddish glint in them.
That better not be who I think it is.
Possible.
Time to round up the usual suspects.
**
A/N: The term "Fingers Sisters" was taken from chapter 25 of Anna's story, Jewel of the Nile.
"Impossible. Possible." paraphrased from Josephine Hart's novel Damage.
Never fear, she's going to end up with the GD, you'll see! Please leave a review, tell me what you think!
P.S. If anyone out there has been to New Orleans or better yet, lives in New Orleans, please, e-mail me at Potionsbastard@yahoo.co.uk. I desperately need a consultant, as I have never been there nor anywhere in America.