The next morning, Will Graham entered Hannibal's House at exactly 9:00 am. Clarice didn't even look up from her desk. She was listening to some classical music from a dusty CD player. There was a small card table that had been cleared off since yesterday and a tan folding chair sat in front of it.
"I guess this is my desk," Graham ventured cautiously, not wanting to arouse the anger she had displayed the day before. She declined to answer, and he put his briefcase down on the card table. The table immediately leaned to one side. I guess she wants it perfectly clear who is welcome here, he thought, and sat down on the chair that leaned in just the opposite direction. He coughed and moved the chair closer to the table uncomfortably. After a few moments, he turned around and watched her a second before saying, "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot, here, Miss Starling, Clarice."
"Agent Starling," she corrected sharply.
"Agent Starling," he repeated. "I was just thinking maybe we should spend a little time getting to know each other before we draw battle lines."
"And what would you like to know, Mr. Graham? I already have one more person than I really want inside my head, why should I be so eager to reveal that kind of information to you?" The scratching noises her pencil had made through her entire speech continued on into the silence after she had stopped speaking.
"Well," he said, breaking the still that had dropped over the room, "Is there anything you'd like to know about me?"
The pencil scratching stopped. "Yes," she said slowly, measuring her words carefully. "Can I see the scar?"
Graham looked at her for a moment and then moved into the light so she could see his face more clearly. She looked at him harshly. "No," she said. "The other one." Graham blinked. Of course she'd want to see the one Lecter inflicted. Should have expected that. Silently, Graham began to unbutton his shirt. Her eyes stayed on his the entire time. She must have taken lessons from Lecter. That would account for all those missing hours, too. He almost laughed at this thought, but her eyes were so penetrating that he could not. He finished with the buttons and pulled the shirttails out of his pants. Only then did Clarice allow herself to look at the scar. It ran across his entire stomach, ending at his ribcage. It should have been fatal.
"How did you know it was him?" she asked, looking mesmerized.
"I really don't know," Graham said, holding his shirt up as she looked. "I just saw the book and… knew and he knew I knew." He paused. "How did you know it was Buffalo Bill?"
"The same, sort of," she said, looking away from the scar and pulling back. "I saw the moth fly and I knew and he knew I knew and I tried to get to a phone for back up, but he was gone and everything just … happened."
"You've gone after other serial killers, too, haven't you?"
"No, only Bill and Dr. Lecter. Mr. Crawford didn't pull all the strings I thought he would to get me into his department. I've been doing mostly drug busts and other small time stuff for most of my career. Dangerous people sure, but interesting, hardly." Starling sat back in her chair and put her feet up on her desk. Graham re-buttoned his shirt and retreated to his shaky card table.
"So you find cases like Lecter's more exciting than all those gun shoot outs you've been in? I'd give anything just to have a calm life again before Lecter, before Francis Dollarhyde, before everything."
"I bet you would," Clarice said too softly for him to hear.
