Chapter Five
The following morning, Clarice, as usual, awakened first.
In the course of their small scale celebration the previous evening, they'd left the bedroom shades undrawn, and the windows slightly ajar. There was a mild breeze flicking the curtains. Early morning desert sun had invaded the room, and cast beams of light in harsh bars across the bed.
She looked at her companion, just for a moment. She wanted to visit the hotel gym, and afterwards, take a few laps in the pool, maybe catch some rays. She knew she'd never get out of the room without awakening him, no matter how quiet she was. He slept so lightly, even a moment or two of close scrutiny was enough to rouse him from slumber.
But she looked anyway. A beam of light from the window had fallen across the top of his dark head, drawing reflective sparks from his hair, illuminating one side of his face, casting the rest into deep shadow. Asleep, with that measureless, labyrinthine consciousness elsewhere and the acute, penetrating eyes safely shuttered, he looked almost fragile. Delicate bones, fair skin, black eyelashes against pale cheeks, one slender hand open on the pillow, palm up. She could almost see the small, vulnerable boy he had been, once, buried somewhere in the adult predator's sleeping visage.
She had heard that child's voice, on more than one occasion, suddenly screaming in the night. It had taken him months to allow her to touch him on these occasions, when he'd awaken with the image of the lost Mischa etched behind his eyes and burning like acid in his heart. He was not used to comfort. He was unaccustomed to kindness. He'd had to work to accept such unhoped-for gifts.
Eventually, though, he had accepted, gratefully. He had determined that the warmth of her touch and sound of her voice could provide an irrefutable disjunction between the anguish of the past and the frail happiness of the present. Phantoms haunted him, indeed, haunted them both. But she was real. He could prove it to himself, through touch, through scent, through sight, as often and as fully as he needed to.
But nothing had come easy. Not one single thing. They'd both had to struggle to learn how not to be alone.
And we've done an amazingly good job so far, all things considered, she decided mentally, with a small smile. Stone the crows. Who'd have thought?
"Are you staring at me, Clarice?" he asked, eyes wide open, clearly fixed on her, fully awake. "Why?"
There was no sleepy transitional state for him, she'd learned. He was either completely absent, or completely present. Nothing in between. And if you looked at him too long, he'd wake up. It was damned disconcerting.
"I was trying to decide if you're real. Sorry if I was staring too loud."
He smiled, and stretched like a cat does, from head to toe. "What conclusion have you arrived at?"
"Not quite sure, yet," she said. "I think you might just be a figment of someone's imagination. Like a myth, or some dark fable. I'll have to investigate further."
She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then both eyes, and finally his mouth. She was nothing if not a thorough investigator. All warm, solid flesh. Responsive, and anchored firmly in the moment.
"What's the verdict now?" he asked, when she'd finished. "You really must tell me, you know. I sometimes have doubts myself."
"I can understand that. Now I'm not sure if I'M real."
He laughed and raised himself on one elbow, the better to look directly into her face.
"Perhaps you're not. Perhaps all this, all these years, everything that's happened, is all some complicated hallucination. Maybe Chilton's got me in the electroshock therapy room right now and has finally succeeded in frying my brain. God knows he threatened to do it often enough."
"Ugh. Don't even say that! You're giving me the creeps."
"If that IS it, there would be one good thing, though . . . " he went on, as though she hadn't spoken.
"What?" she asked reluctantly, powerless not to.
"I wouldn't really be in Las Vegas."
She barked a slightly horrified laugh and got out of bed.
"That's it. I'm hitting the gym," she said, rummaging through her suitcase to find a bathing suit and some sweats. "God, what a colossal pain in the ass you are. Why do I put up with you?"
"Because . . . I make you laugh?" he suggested, and watched with a disapproving eye as she covered the sleek black maillot he'd given her as a gift before the trip with her usual drab and functional sweats. AND left the amber necklace and silk pareo he'd added to the gift behind.
"Because you plan to steal all my recipes and write a best-selling cook book?" he suggested further. "Because I once gave you a severed head in a classic car as a Valentine's present? Because I won't permit your enemies to live? Because I'm the 'fuck of the century'?"
She gave the matter some mock thought, scratching her head in elaborate puzzlement.
"Naw, none of those things . . . "
"Because you desperately need a fashion consultant?"
"I'm outta here," she declared, and stepped briskly to the door of the bedroom.
"I'll be back around nine. Then, after breakfast, we can go sight-seeing," she added maliciously.
He retreated back into the blankets and pillows at once.
"What a delightful prospect," he said, burrowing deeper into the bedclothes. "I shall count the minutes."
Several hours later, after breakfast, they did go out. Clarice was well aware that for all of Dr. Lecter's sardonic complaints, he really was very curious about this strange city, just as he was very curious about everything else in the universe. She was determined to show him as much as she could, and, incidentally, to provide him with a ready excuse to indulge his native inquisitiveness without forfeiting his native snobbery.
What were friends for? She could play the indefatigable tourist and drag him everywhere. Besides, his somewhat skewed perceptions were always interesting, always surprising. She looked forward to discovering what he'd make of the Liberace Museum, for instance. It would be fun. And it would help to take her mind off the growing sense of nervousness she'd been battling ever since they'd arrived in this vacation Mecca.
So, they ventured forth at about eleven o'clock, having mutually agreed in advance that the Aspire, and Larry and Norma as well, could probably be left behind for this day without undue risk. Clarice simply covered her hair with a silk scarf, covered her eyes with some sunglasses, and covered the spot on her cheek with some concealer. Dr. Lecter obscured his own altered face with sunglasses and a hat. Only a very intent examination would have identified either of them, and they did not expect to attract such close attention while hidden among the huge mob of weekend visitors to Vegas.
The omnipresent taxis of the strip whisked them to and fro, and neither of them missed their little blue rental a bit.
They saw a man-made beach complete with surf and sunburned bathers at Mandalay Bay, adjacent to their own hotel, and enough Balinese decor to furnish a dozen small islands.
They visited the artificially aged replicas of tomb paintings at the Luxor, and examined shelves upon shelves of Egyptiana, everything from tacky Warner Brothers pastiches of famous Egyptian sculptures (Sylvester as Ramses I, Bugs as Nefertiti) to genuine New Kingdom and Alexandrian artifacts. They bought a small New Kingdom bronze rattle for young Michael Hannibal. They already had a nineteenth century set of monogrammed sterling baby dishes for him, but the ancient plaything seemed irresistible.
They observed nickel slots players bullying the long suffering cocktail waitresses at Excalibur, sucking up free drinks well before lunch time as they poured their laundry money down the ever-waiting electronic throats of the machines. They saw more fake stonework and plastic armor and bright orange contrasted with medium blue there than Dr. Lecter could stand, and they left in a hurry.
They visited the swollen emerald green MGM, entering through the stretched maw of a golden lion's jaws, and encountering perfect facsimiles of Dorothy and her friends from Oz at the doors. Clarice noticed that Dr. Lecter was staring particularly intently at the Scarecrow, an oddly abstracted expression in his eyes, but he declined to explain his interest. After they'd dropped by the walk-through lion habitat, and snickered at a restaurant that seemed to be a perfectly square chunk of authentic rain forest, complete with rain, they left.
At New York, New York, they stopped for cappuccino in an indoor, climate controlled replica of Greenwich Village, and sat on a park bench in Central Park on a mild summer evening, even though it was high noon and early fall and thousands of miles from the Big Apple outside. They did not have to face muggers in this scrubbed-up version of the famous park, although their sense of reality took quite a beating.
They saw a collection of notable cars at the Imperial Palace, and Clarice lectured knowledgeably on the autos, and spoke of how she'd dearly love to see James Dean's wrecked Spyder, mysteriously vanished, all these years.
They visited Steve Wynn's vaunted collection of paintings at the Bellagio, found the collection unimpressive, and committed a daring and clever robbery of a single scarlet rosebud from the enclosed formal conservatory, in retaliation. And also so that Dr. Lecter would have something to wear in his lapel.
They skipped Bally's entirely, since they both found the great oval frosted Lucite columns outside the entrance hideous beyond all reason and mutually agreed not to encourage the designers by entering the building.
At the Barbary Coast, a small, maroon-painted dwarf of a resort at the corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard, they did the only gambling they would bother with for the rest of their trip. They found a five dollar three deck blackjack table and Lecter sat down, took his dark glasses off to stare at the dealer, and then proceeded to count cards with such deadly accuracy that the man's practiced hands soon began to shake. They were up by fifteen hundred when a pit boss started to hover near their table, and the dealer looked about ready to faint, whether from the staring or the counting, none could tell. They left a handsome tip, and then left the casino, crossing the street on foot towards Caesar's Palace.
Dr. Lecter appeared much cheered by this small exercise in torment, and entered the hallucinatory excess of Caesar's with renewed vigor.
At Caesar's, they laughed at Cleopatra's Barge, marveled at the enormous sports book, currently giving odds on an upcoming Tyson/Holyfield bout, ran across Marc Anthony and Cleo herself in the casino, and Clarice surprised her companion by dragging him to visit the full scale reproduction of the David without prior warning as a joke.
Lecter sneered and sneered at the huge plaster copy of an original he had once seen almost daily in Florence. But then he broke down and explained to her how the famous marble was really all about the suspension of time, the present contrasted against the future, the potential for action on the verge of exploding. He pointed out the tension in the young warrior's body, the fire in his marble eyes as he gazed, fatal sling lightly grasped on shoulder, at his massive opponent. He noted for her the genius of Michaelangelo, in the telling detail of the slender youth's disproportionately large hands and feet, a visual portent of the mighty man and king he would one day become. Clarice reflected that even a visit to Las Vegas could be culturally instructive, as long as one was in the company of an amateur art historian.
Then Dr. Lecter surprised her by informing her that they had a luncheon reservation at Bertolini's, in the Forum Shops, and that they would be late if they didn't hustle.
They passed through the huge casino again and entered the Forum Shops, Caesar's outlandish version of a retail mall, a sprawling labyrinth of Imperial Roman streets; the roughly finished faux flag stones of the Appian Way under their feet, and an artificial, ancient sky over their heads. As they walked among the other tourists toward the restaurant, the fake sky overhead cycled through dawn, noon, dusk and starry night within the space of a few minutes.
They arrived at Bertolini's, a decent Italian style bistro, at the end of the synthetic cycle, and were seated at a good table on the patio, with an excellent view of the cheerfully hideous Festival Fountain, in the rosy light of an ersatz sunrise.
"How in the world did you know to choose this place?" Clarice asked her companion, as she examined a menu.
"According to the Las Vegas Sun, this is the best vantage point in the city for people watching," he answered, gazing at the highly ornate fountain with a mild grimace of distaste. "An activity, I confess, I am eager to partake in. My! Look at that dreadful fountain!"
"If you think it's bad now, just wait a few minutes. I'm surprised you'd bother with the Sun, by the way. Not a paper famous for its quality."
"Ah, well . . . when in Rome . . . " he smiled and waved a hand at their surroundings.
They ordered grilled ahi, Pellegrino water, and, of course, Caesar salads, because neither of them were ones to abandon a good joke once it had taken root. And as they watched, all the statuary of the fountain; Venus, Mars, Diana, and Neptune, suddenly came to life and engaged in a rancorous animatronic debate with Bacchus.
Dr. Lecter could not stop laughing at the display of robotic Roman divinity.
"You know, in the grip of religious ecstasy," he commented, once the twelve- shows-a-day argument between the gods had ended. "The Bacchantes, the priestesses of old Bacchus there, would fall on the youth chosen to be the god's surrogate and rend him to pieces with their bare hands. A human sacrifice. And then they'd devour the flesh raw,"
He stopped to glance at the fountain with a wicked smile. "Now THAT would have been a show!"
"Perhaps a bit much for this venue," Clarice objected fairly calmly. She had grown somewhat inured to his bizarre gallows humor over the past year.
"Oh? Do you think so? I'm not at all sure, myself. This entire city seems to be predicated on the principle of bread and circuses. I think these tourists might very much enjoy an electronic bloodbath once an hour."
"Don't you mean US tourists, dear?" she asked sweetly. The profound cynicism and arrogant elitism were a bit harder to get used to.
"Ah. Of course, an excellent point. And yet, when it comes to blood, we are not exactly tourists, are we, my love? Not with our combined body count."
Their meals arrived in time to stop the hot rejoinder in Clarice's throat before it could be uttered. She was surprised at just how angry that last mordant jest had made her. She stabbed her salad cruelly with a fork until she could think of the most strategic reply.
"You're just bugging me because you hate it here. It's exactly how I expected you to act."
He glared at her redly for a moment. Bullseye! He despised being anticipated, she knew, hated it like poison. Especially accurately.
Then he smiled, rather a rueful smile.
"Have I become predictable, Clarice?" he asked softly. "Am I boring YOU?"
"No. Never. But could you just pick on some more dealers or something when you get to feeling mean? I think I need a break."
"You're right, of course," he confessed. Although he did not look even remotely apologetic. "Sometimes I do go out of my way to irritate you. It's just that being so roundly chastised for it is such a rare and exotic pleasure for me. I like it when you do that."
She grinned. "I know. You always have."
They shared a small smile of perfect understanding for a moment, at this reference to past talks, past skirmishes, going all the way back to the insane asylum where their lives had first become intertwined.
The fucking nut hatch, Clarice thought, wryly. The ideal place, really, for us to have met. A week before Valentine's day, to be perfectly accurate. What romance! Call Harlequin!
"Clarice?"
"Yes?'
"What else is . . . 'bugging you', as you've put it? Besides me? Will you tell me that? Something is troubling you, I'm certain of it. Has been since we got here. Are you worried about this party tomorrow night? Or is it something else?"
She sighed. There was no such thing as privacy in this relationship. Not for her, anyway. He could sense the minutest variations in emotion as unerringly as an oyster senses the tide.
"It's being back here," she admitted. "In the States. In Las Vegas. Places where I've been before. A familiar place, a place all Americans know. I thought I missed all this, a little, I thought . . . but now that I'm here, I find I can't . . . quite . . . connect. Understand? I feel removed, like I'm not really part of it anymore. Like I'm playing a role, being a tourist."
"You've had to come a long distance, Clarice, to come with me. Perhaps this trip has given you too clear a perspective on how much you've changed."
"No. That's not it. I think I'm getting a perspective on how LITTLE I've changed. I guess that's what's bothering me. I always felt cut off. I just never had to admit it to myself before we came here."
"Every human being has many potentials. One cannot realize them all in a single lifetime. This path you've chosen, it's only one among many you might have taken, might still take. Do you now regret this choice?"
He was watching her carefully.
"No. I'm RELIEVED. You see? I'm sitting here thanking my damned lucky stars I don't have to live the way I used to. I'll never have to beat my head against a glass ceiling or put up with a boss from hell again. I'll never have to drink myself to sleep or do my crying to the washing machine again. I'll never suffer a casual sexual insult from some moron or worry about muggers in the park again, and no one will EVER fuck with me again, because you won't permit my enemies to live."
She stopped and took a sip of her Pellegrino, a harsh, humorless smile on her face.
"Go on," he said, giving her his full attention, completely serious.
"I look at you and think about this party we're going to . . . our first time as ourselves, at least to Margot, maybe a few others," she went on. "And I'm PROUD of myself. Proud to be with you, where people can see. You're HIM, the one, the guy people never stop whispering about. You're a star, in your way, the best in the field. And I . . . I just love it. A part of me does. Do you follow? It's immoral, sure, but worse, it's smug and stupid and dangerous. I should have said 'no way' when this trip first came up. But I think I just wanted to come back and spit in their eyes."
"And you feel guilty about this? Clarice, why NOT spit in their eyes? Aren't you allowed? You'll remember I asked you about your rage long ago. Frankly, I'm delighted to hear you say these things."
"Yeah . . . yeah, I DO feel guilty, but that's not all of it. It's self indulgence, and it's reckless, and I can't help feeling we may have to pay for it. Saying 'fuck you' whenever you feel like it is a luxury. Prices on that little item are high. As you yourself know from experience. Nine years worth."
"Cheap at twice the cost, Clarice. What's a few years? We were not made to submit. Neither of us."
"But now every year counts. We have things to lose now."
His eyes widened slightly, as though he was startled by her comment. A strange frisson touched them both, lightly, like a cool finger of wind tapping faintly at their backs.
Then the moment broke and Lecter shrugged. "One cannot control fate. Most control, actually, is illusion. Would you rather we leave Las Vegas now?"
"No . . . no. I don't want that. No fear, right?"
"In most cases, yes. I will admit, however, that this ahi is a bit frightening."
Clarice laughed, some small portion of her good humor restored. "The salad's not bad "
"Now that you've slain it so thoroughly with your trusty fork? Have I told you today how lovely you look? The sun you took earlier is showing in your face. And I quite like your scarf."
"Of course you do. You gave it to me for . . . was it Groundhog Day? April Fool's? Or Saint Swithin's?"
"For the seventh day of Advent, I believe. And now I have another gift for you."
He reached across the table and handed her a small, creamy envelope.
She smiled. "I don't mind all the presents, either, since we're talking about your good points. Thank you. What's the occasion this time?"
"Oh, say it's an early Halloween gift."
She opened the envelope and found a tasteful buff colored card, a pass to an afternoon at the Canyon Ranch Spa Club and Salon. This afternoon, in fact.
"I didn't think you really wanted to bring Norma to this party. So, perhaps you'd care to go and revisit Clarice. You don't spend enough time gazing into your glass, you know. Perhaps it's time you did."
"For half a day?" she questioned, torn between Lutheran pragmatism and hedonistic vanity.
"At the least. Calm your fears. Ease your mind. Wallow in sensory gratification. Have something outlandish done to your hair. Go play."
She stared at him.
"How did you know I'd need something like this? How could you know that?"
He smiled, smugly. "I have my ways. Some things will never be told, Clarice."
"I suppose not . . ." she murmured, and then squeezed his hand. "It's perfect. Thank you. But are you sure you want to trust me about the hair?"
"Oh, that reminds me. Shake the envelope."
She did as he suggested, and two small emerald studs in platinum settings fell out onto the table and flashed like pirate treasure.
"To wear to the salon. As a kind of style guide," he explained, an ironic smile on his lips.
"I see. Make sure I do justice to the earrings?"
"On the contrary. They hardly do justice to you."
He rose smoothly from his seat and came around to her side of the table.
He took the pair of the earrings up. "May I?" he asked, and then bent to put one of the studs into her ear, and then the other. Then he finished the small ritual with a kiss to both ears, in turn.
"A reminder, only. Like . . . oh . . . like a pair of post-it notes. Of what a splendid creature you are. You tend to forget it. And now you'd better run, little Starling, or you'll miss your first appointment."
She rose from the table as he pulled her chair out.
"What will you do?" she asked, gathering up her handbag and jacket. "Are you going to be all right, on your own?"
He helped her on with the jacket. "In the savage wilds of Las Vegas, and not a guide in sight? I think I'll be able to manage. I plan to visit that F.A.O. Schwartz down the way and buy some particularly noisy toys for young Michael, for one thing."
"Will you manage to stay out of trouble?"
He laughed. "I don't promise THAT."
"Where am I going, after I'm done? Back to the hotel?"
"No, meet me at Renoir, at eight. It's in one of these hyper-thyroidal pleasure domes around here, the one called "Mirage", I've read."
"In the "Sun", I suppose. Okay, eight tonight. I'll be wearing emeralds, so you know me."
"Agreed."
They came together for a quick embrace, giving due consideration to the public setting. And then Clarice was off.
Dr. Lecter sat back down at his table, watching her until she was out of sight. Then he returned his full attention to a young couple near the fountain whom he had noticed earlier.
They'd been arguing steadily for some twenty minutes or so, and the argument had been escalating in patterned increments. From the hangdog expression on the young man's face, the closed and slumped posture of his body, and the panicked, accusing attitude of his female companion, Dr. Lecter felt reasonably certain the argument was probably about lost money and excessive gambling. And it was on the verge of exploding into a scene.
He settled back into his chair comfortably and watched, awaiting further developments.
There were all kinds of shows in Las Vegas. If one knew how to look. And there were always compensations, even in the direst straits.
*************************************************************
The following morning, Clarice, as usual, awakened first.
In the course of their small scale celebration the previous evening, they'd left the bedroom shades undrawn, and the windows slightly ajar. There was a mild breeze flicking the curtains. Early morning desert sun had invaded the room, and cast beams of light in harsh bars across the bed.
She looked at her companion, just for a moment. She wanted to visit the hotel gym, and afterwards, take a few laps in the pool, maybe catch some rays. She knew she'd never get out of the room without awakening him, no matter how quiet she was. He slept so lightly, even a moment or two of close scrutiny was enough to rouse him from slumber.
But she looked anyway. A beam of light from the window had fallen across the top of his dark head, drawing reflective sparks from his hair, illuminating one side of his face, casting the rest into deep shadow. Asleep, with that measureless, labyrinthine consciousness elsewhere and the acute, penetrating eyes safely shuttered, he looked almost fragile. Delicate bones, fair skin, black eyelashes against pale cheeks, one slender hand open on the pillow, palm up. She could almost see the small, vulnerable boy he had been, once, buried somewhere in the adult predator's sleeping visage.
She had heard that child's voice, on more than one occasion, suddenly screaming in the night. It had taken him months to allow her to touch him on these occasions, when he'd awaken with the image of the lost Mischa etched behind his eyes and burning like acid in his heart. He was not used to comfort. He was unaccustomed to kindness. He'd had to work to accept such unhoped-for gifts.
Eventually, though, he had accepted, gratefully. He had determined that the warmth of her touch and sound of her voice could provide an irrefutable disjunction between the anguish of the past and the frail happiness of the present. Phantoms haunted him, indeed, haunted them both. But she was real. He could prove it to himself, through touch, through scent, through sight, as often and as fully as he needed to.
But nothing had come easy. Not one single thing. They'd both had to struggle to learn how not to be alone.
And we've done an amazingly good job so far, all things considered, she decided mentally, with a small smile. Stone the crows. Who'd have thought?
"Are you staring at me, Clarice?" he asked, eyes wide open, clearly fixed on her, fully awake. "Why?"
There was no sleepy transitional state for him, she'd learned. He was either completely absent, or completely present. Nothing in between. And if you looked at him too long, he'd wake up. It was damned disconcerting.
"I was trying to decide if you're real. Sorry if I was staring too loud."
He smiled, and stretched like a cat does, from head to toe. "What conclusion have you arrived at?"
"Not quite sure, yet," she said. "I think you might just be a figment of someone's imagination. Like a myth, or some dark fable. I'll have to investigate further."
She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then both eyes, and finally his mouth. She was nothing if not a thorough investigator. All warm, solid flesh. Responsive, and anchored firmly in the moment.
"What's the verdict now?" he asked, when she'd finished. "You really must tell me, you know. I sometimes have doubts myself."
"I can understand that. Now I'm not sure if I'M real."
He laughed and raised himself on one elbow, the better to look directly into her face.
"Perhaps you're not. Perhaps all this, all these years, everything that's happened, is all some complicated hallucination. Maybe Chilton's got me in the electroshock therapy room right now and has finally succeeded in frying my brain. God knows he threatened to do it often enough."
"Ugh. Don't even say that! You're giving me the creeps."
"If that IS it, there would be one good thing, though . . . " he went on, as though she hadn't spoken.
"What?" she asked reluctantly, powerless not to.
"I wouldn't really be in Las Vegas."
She barked a slightly horrified laugh and got out of bed.
"That's it. I'm hitting the gym," she said, rummaging through her suitcase to find a bathing suit and some sweats. "God, what a colossal pain in the ass you are. Why do I put up with you?"
"Because . . . I make you laugh?" he suggested, and watched with a disapproving eye as she covered the sleek black maillot he'd given her as a gift before the trip with her usual drab and functional sweats. AND left the amber necklace and silk pareo he'd added to the gift behind.
"Because you plan to steal all my recipes and write a best-selling cook book?" he suggested further. "Because I once gave you a severed head in a classic car as a Valentine's present? Because I won't permit your enemies to live? Because I'm the 'fuck of the century'?"
She gave the matter some mock thought, scratching her head in elaborate puzzlement.
"Naw, none of those things . . . "
"Because you desperately need a fashion consultant?"
"I'm outta here," she declared, and stepped briskly to the door of the bedroom.
"I'll be back around nine. Then, after breakfast, we can go sight-seeing," she added maliciously.
He retreated back into the blankets and pillows at once.
"What a delightful prospect," he said, burrowing deeper into the bedclothes. "I shall count the minutes."
Several hours later, after breakfast, they did go out. Clarice was well aware that for all of Dr. Lecter's sardonic complaints, he really was very curious about this strange city, just as he was very curious about everything else in the universe. She was determined to show him as much as she could, and, incidentally, to provide him with a ready excuse to indulge his native inquisitiveness without forfeiting his native snobbery.
What were friends for? She could play the indefatigable tourist and drag him everywhere. Besides, his somewhat skewed perceptions were always interesting, always surprising. She looked forward to discovering what he'd make of the Liberace Museum, for instance. It would be fun. And it would help to take her mind off the growing sense of nervousness she'd been battling ever since they'd arrived in this vacation Mecca.
So, they ventured forth at about eleven o'clock, having mutually agreed in advance that the Aspire, and Larry and Norma as well, could probably be left behind for this day without undue risk. Clarice simply covered her hair with a silk scarf, covered her eyes with some sunglasses, and covered the spot on her cheek with some concealer. Dr. Lecter obscured his own altered face with sunglasses and a hat. Only a very intent examination would have identified either of them, and they did not expect to attract such close attention while hidden among the huge mob of weekend visitors to Vegas.
The omnipresent taxis of the strip whisked them to and fro, and neither of them missed their little blue rental a bit.
They saw a man-made beach complete with surf and sunburned bathers at Mandalay Bay, adjacent to their own hotel, and enough Balinese decor to furnish a dozen small islands.
They visited the artificially aged replicas of tomb paintings at the Luxor, and examined shelves upon shelves of Egyptiana, everything from tacky Warner Brothers pastiches of famous Egyptian sculptures (Sylvester as Ramses I, Bugs as Nefertiti) to genuine New Kingdom and Alexandrian artifacts. They bought a small New Kingdom bronze rattle for young Michael Hannibal. They already had a nineteenth century set of monogrammed sterling baby dishes for him, but the ancient plaything seemed irresistible.
They observed nickel slots players bullying the long suffering cocktail waitresses at Excalibur, sucking up free drinks well before lunch time as they poured their laundry money down the ever-waiting electronic throats of the machines. They saw more fake stonework and plastic armor and bright orange contrasted with medium blue there than Dr. Lecter could stand, and they left in a hurry.
They visited the swollen emerald green MGM, entering through the stretched maw of a golden lion's jaws, and encountering perfect facsimiles of Dorothy and her friends from Oz at the doors. Clarice noticed that Dr. Lecter was staring particularly intently at the Scarecrow, an oddly abstracted expression in his eyes, but he declined to explain his interest. After they'd dropped by the walk-through lion habitat, and snickered at a restaurant that seemed to be a perfectly square chunk of authentic rain forest, complete with rain, they left.
At New York, New York, they stopped for cappuccino in an indoor, climate controlled replica of Greenwich Village, and sat on a park bench in Central Park on a mild summer evening, even though it was high noon and early fall and thousands of miles from the Big Apple outside. They did not have to face muggers in this scrubbed-up version of the famous park, although their sense of reality took quite a beating.
They saw a collection of notable cars at the Imperial Palace, and Clarice lectured knowledgeably on the autos, and spoke of how she'd dearly love to see James Dean's wrecked Spyder, mysteriously vanished, all these years.
They visited Steve Wynn's vaunted collection of paintings at the Bellagio, found the collection unimpressive, and committed a daring and clever robbery of a single scarlet rosebud from the enclosed formal conservatory, in retaliation. And also so that Dr. Lecter would have something to wear in his lapel.
They skipped Bally's entirely, since they both found the great oval frosted Lucite columns outside the entrance hideous beyond all reason and mutually agreed not to encourage the designers by entering the building.
At the Barbary Coast, a small, maroon-painted dwarf of a resort at the corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard, they did the only gambling they would bother with for the rest of their trip. They found a five dollar three deck blackjack table and Lecter sat down, took his dark glasses off to stare at the dealer, and then proceeded to count cards with such deadly accuracy that the man's practiced hands soon began to shake. They were up by fifteen hundred when a pit boss started to hover near their table, and the dealer looked about ready to faint, whether from the staring or the counting, none could tell. They left a handsome tip, and then left the casino, crossing the street on foot towards Caesar's Palace.
Dr. Lecter appeared much cheered by this small exercise in torment, and entered the hallucinatory excess of Caesar's with renewed vigor.
At Caesar's, they laughed at Cleopatra's Barge, marveled at the enormous sports book, currently giving odds on an upcoming Tyson/Holyfield bout, ran across Marc Anthony and Cleo herself in the casino, and Clarice surprised her companion by dragging him to visit the full scale reproduction of the David without prior warning as a joke.
Lecter sneered and sneered at the huge plaster copy of an original he had once seen almost daily in Florence. But then he broke down and explained to her how the famous marble was really all about the suspension of time, the present contrasted against the future, the potential for action on the verge of exploding. He pointed out the tension in the young warrior's body, the fire in his marble eyes as he gazed, fatal sling lightly grasped on shoulder, at his massive opponent. He noted for her the genius of Michaelangelo, in the telling detail of the slender youth's disproportionately large hands and feet, a visual portent of the mighty man and king he would one day become. Clarice reflected that even a visit to Las Vegas could be culturally instructive, as long as one was in the company of an amateur art historian.
Then Dr. Lecter surprised her by informing her that they had a luncheon reservation at Bertolini's, in the Forum Shops, and that they would be late if they didn't hustle.
They passed through the huge casino again and entered the Forum Shops, Caesar's outlandish version of a retail mall, a sprawling labyrinth of Imperial Roman streets; the roughly finished faux flag stones of the Appian Way under their feet, and an artificial, ancient sky over their heads. As they walked among the other tourists toward the restaurant, the fake sky overhead cycled through dawn, noon, dusk and starry night within the space of a few minutes.
They arrived at Bertolini's, a decent Italian style bistro, at the end of the synthetic cycle, and were seated at a good table on the patio, with an excellent view of the cheerfully hideous Festival Fountain, in the rosy light of an ersatz sunrise.
"How in the world did you know to choose this place?" Clarice asked her companion, as she examined a menu.
"According to the Las Vegas Sun, this is the best vantage point in the city for people watching," he answered, gazing at the highly ornate fountain with a mild grimace of distaste. "An activity, I confess, I am eager to partake in. My! Look at that dreadful fountain!"
"If you think it's bad now, just wait a few minutes. I'm surprised you'd bother with the Sun, by the way. Not a paper famous for its quality."
"Ah, well . . . when in Rome . . . " he smiled and waved a hand at their surroundings.
They ordered grilled ahi, Pellegrino water, and, of course, Caesar salads, because neither of them were ones to abandon a good joke once it had taken root. And as they watched, all the statuary of the fountain; Venus, Mars, Diana, and Neptune, suddenly came to life and engaged in a rancorous animatronic debate with Bacchus.
Dr. Lecter could not stop laughing at the display of robotic Roman divinity.
"You know, in the grip of religious ecstasy," he commented, once the twelve- shows-a-day argument between the gods had ended. "The Bacchantes, the priestesses of old Bacchus there, would fall on the youth chosen to be the god's surrogate and rend him to pieces with their bare hands. A human sacrifice. And then they'd devour the flesh raw,"
He stopped to glance at the fountain with a wicked smile. "Now THAT would have been a show!"
"Perhaps a bit much for this venue," Clarice objected fairly calmly. She had grown somewhat inured to his bizarre gallows humor over the past year.
"Oh? Do you think so? I'm not at all sure, myself. This entire city seems to be predicated on the principle of bread and circuses. I think these tourists might very much enjoy an electronic bloodbath once an hour."
"Don't you mean US tourists, dear?" she asked sweetly. The profound cynicism and arrogant elitism were a bit harder to get used to.
"Ah. Of course, an excellent point. And yet, when it comes to blood, we are not exactly tourists, are we, my love? Not with our combined body count."
Their meals arrived in time to stop the hot rejoinder in Clarice's throat before it could be uttered. She was surprised at just how angry that last mordant jest had made her. She stabbed her salad cruelly with a fork until she could think of the most strategic reply.
"You're just bugging me because you hate it here. It's exactly how I expected you to act."
He glared at her redly for a moment. Bullseye! He despised being anticipated, she knew, hated it like poison. Especially accurately.
Then he smiled, rather a rueful smile.
"Have I become predictable, Clarice?" he asked softly. "Am I boring YOU?"
"No. Never. But could you just pick on some more dealers or something when you get to feeling mean? I think I need a break."
"You're right, of course," he confessed. Although he did not look even remotely apologetic. "Sometimes I do go out of my way to irritate you. It's just that being so roundly chastised for it is such a rare and exotic pleasure for me. I like it when you do that."
She grinned. "I know. You always have."
They shared a small smile of perfect understanding for a moment, at this reference to past talks, past skirmishes, going all the way back to the insane asylum where their lives had first become intertwined.
The fucking nut hatch, Clarice thought, wryly. The ideal place, really, for us to have met. A week before Valentine's day, to be perfectly accurate. What romance! Call Harlequin!
"Clarice?"
"Yes?'
"What else is . . . 'bugging you', as you've put it? Besides me? Will you tell me that? Something is troubling you, I'm certain of it. Has been since we got here. Are you worried about this party tomorrow night? Or is it something else?"
She sighed. There was no such thing as privacy in this relationship. Not for her, anyway. He could sense the minutest variations in emotion as unerringly as an oyster senses the tide.
"It's being back here," she admitted. "In the States. In Las Vegas. Places where I've been before. A familiar place, a place all Americans know. I thought I missed all this, a little, I thought . . . but now that I'm here, I find I can't . . . quite . . . connect. Understand? I feel removed, like I'm not really part of it anymore. Like I'm playing a role, being a tourist."
"You've had to come a long distance, Clarice, to come with me. Perhaps this trip has given you too clear a perspective on how much you've changed."
"No. That's not it. I think I'm getting a perspective on how LITTLE I've changed. I guess that's what's bothering me. I always felt cut off. I just never had to admit it to myself before we came here."
"Every human being has many potentials. One cannot realize them all in a single lifetime. This path you've chosen, it's only one among many you might have taken, might still take. Do you now regret this choice?"
He was watching her carefully.
"No. I'm RELIEVED. You see? I'm sitting here thanking my damned lucky stars I don't have to live the way I used to. I'll never have to beat my head against a glass ceiling or put up with a boss from hell again. I'll never have to drink myself to sleep or do my crying to the washing machine again. I'll never suffer a casual sexual insult from some moron or worry about muggers in the park again, and no one will EVER fuck with me again, because you won't permit my enemies to live."
She stopped and took a sip of her Pellegrino, a harsh, humorless smile on her face.
"Go on," he said, giving her his full attention, completely serious.
"I look at you and think about this party we're going to . . . our first time as ourselves, at least to Margot, maybe a few others," she went on. "And I'm PROUD of myself. Proud to be with you, where people can see. You're HIM, the one, the guy people never stop whispering about. You're a star, in your way, the best in the field. And I . . . I just love it. A part of me does. Do you follow? It's immoral, sure, but worse, it's smug and stupid and dangerous. I should have said 'no way' when this trip first came up. But I think I just wanted to come back and spit in their eyes."
"And you feel guilty about this? Clarice, why NOT spit in their eyes? Aren't you allowed? You'll remember I asked you about your rage long ago. Frankly, I'm delighted to hear you say these things."
"Yeah . . . yeah, I DO feel guilty, but that's not all of it. It's self indulgence, and it's reckless, and I can't help feeling we may have to pay for it. Saying 'fuck you' whenever you feel like it is a luxury. Prices on that little item are high. As you yourself know from experience. Nine years worth."
"Cheap at twice the cost, Clarice. What's a few years? We were not made to submit. Neither of us."
"But now every year counts. We have things to lose now."
His eyes widened slightly, as though he was startled by her comment. A strange frisson touched them both, lightly, like a cool finger of wind tapping faintly at their backs.
Then the moment broke and Lecter shrugged. "One cannot control fate. Most control, actually, is illusion. Would you rather we leave Las Vegas now?"
"No . . . no. I don't want that. No fear, right?"
"In most cases, yes. I will admit, however, that this ahi is a bit frightening."
Clarice laughed, some small portion of her good humor restored. "The salad's not bad "
"Now that you've slain it so thoroughly with your trusty fork? Have I told you today how lovely you look? The sun you took earlier is showing in your face. And I quite like your scarf."
"Of course you do. You gave it to me for . . . was it Groundhog Day? April Fool's? Or Saint Swithin's?"
"For the seventh day of Advent, I believe. And now I have another gift for you."
He reached across the table and handed her a small, creamy envelope.
She smiled. "I don't mind all the presents, either, since we're talking about your good points. Thank you. What's the occasion this time?"
"Oh, say it's an early Halloween gift."
She opened the envelope and found a tasteful buff colored card, a pass to an afternoon at the Canyon Ranch Spa Club and Salon. This afternoon, in fact.
"I didn't think you really wanted to bring Norma to this party. So, perhaps you'd care to go and revisit Clarice. You don't spend enough time gazing into your glass, you know. Perhaps it's time you did."
"For half a day?" she questioned, torn between Lutheran pragmatism and hedonistic vanity.
"At the least. Calm your fears. Ease your mind. Wallow in sensory gratification. Have something outlandish done to your hair. Go play."
She stared at him.
"How did you know I'd need something like this? How could you know that?"
He smiled, smugly. "I have my ways. Some things will never be told, Clarice."
"I suppose not . . ." she murmured, and then squeezed his hand. "It's perfect. Thank you. But are you sure you want to trust me about the hair?"
"Oh, that reminds me. Shake the envelope."
She did as he suggested, and two small emerald studs in platinum settings fell out onto the table and flashed like pirate treasure.
"To wear to the salon. As a kind of style guide," he explained, an ironic smile on his lips.
"I see. Make sure I do justice to the earrings?"
"On the contrary. They hardly do justice to you."
He rose smoothly from his seat and came around to her side of the table.
He took the pair of the earrings up. "May I?" he asked, and then bent to put one of the studs into her ear, and then the other. Then he finished the small ritual with a kiss to both ears, in turn.
"A reminder, only. Like . . . oh . . . like a pair of post-it notes. Of what a splendid creature you are. You tend to forget it. And now you'd better run, little Starling, or you'll miss your first appointment."
She rose from the table as he pulled her chair out.
"What will you do?" she asked, gathering up her handbag and jacket. "Are you going to be all right, on your own?"
He helped her on with the jacket. "In the savage wilds of Las Vegas, and not a guide in sight? I think I'll be able to manage. I plan to visit that F.A.O. Schwartz down the way and buy some particularly noisy toys for young Michael, for one thing."
"Will you manage to stay out of trouble?"
He laughed. "I don't promise THAT."
"Where am I going, after I'm done? Back to the hotel?"
"No, meet me at Renoir, at eight. It's in one of these hyper-thyroidal pleasure domes around here, the one called "Mirage", I've read."
"In the "Sun", I suppose. Okay, eight tonight. I'll be wearing emeralds, so you know me."
"Agreed."
They came together for a quick embrace, giving due consideration to the public setting. And then Clarice was off.
Dr. Lecter sat back down at his table, watching her until she was out of sight. Then he returned his full attention to a young couple near the fountain whom he had noticed earlier.
They'd been arguing steadily for some twenty minutes or so, and the argument had been escalating in patterned increments. From the hangdog expression on the young man's face, the closed and slumped posture of his body, and the panicked, accusing attitude of his female companion, Dr. Lecter felt reasonably certain the argument was probably about lost money and excessive gambling. And it was on the verge of exploding into a scene.
He settled back into his chair comfortably and watched, awaiting further developments.
There were all kinds of shows in Las Vegas. If one knew how to look. And there were always compensations, even in the direst straits.
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