The Lost Wages of Sin - Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Monday, October 16, 11:30 PM, Summerlin

Dr. Lecter was out by the pool again, sitting on the ground as he had so much earlier in the day, and as he often did when he was troubled. He found the poolside a more appealing environment in which to wait for time to pass than the secluded but cramped attic room Margot had given him. Though it had been close to ten years since he'd last seen the inside of a prison cell, he was still uncomfortable in confined spaces.


The evening weather was pleasing to him too, and he'd wanted to be outside to enjoy it. There was a melancholy loveliness abroad in the night that suited his frame of mind. A cold breeze with a hint of ice in it had blown in from the north, and clouds scudded across the night sky ahead of the wind, slate grey on black, alternately shrouding and revealing the pale golden light of the Harvest moon above and its coldly twinkling coterie of stars.

Shadow and light. He was watching the stars in particular on this crisp autumn night, with its presentiments of winter in the wind.

In an hour, he would board a private chartered business flight, again, courtesy of Margot Verger. This flight would take him to Los Angeles, where he would land in the small, private-planes-only Van Nuys Airport. From L.A., or San Pedro, to be exact, he would board a ship bound for South America, tomorrow. He'd booked a last minute cancellation passage on a two week murder mystery cruise. The irony of this particular travel arrangement was faintly amusing to him. He wondered if any of the amateur sleuths that would be aboard the vessel would succeed in determining who the murderer was before he would jump ship in Rio.

A taxi would be coming to pick him up soon, within a half hour or so. In the hours since he'd left the hospital, he'd had time to activate one of the many paper identities he had created for just such emergencies as this, and had stashed away in various countries against future trouble. He'd accessed the funds attached to this particular identity by phone, and the assorted documents and credit cards and identification he would need to travel would be overnighted to a post office box in Los Angeles, ready for him to pick up in the morning. Uncle Bob's wallet and suit (cleaned and pressed, as had been promised) had been "found" and returned to that sandwich-making gentleman earlier in the evening.

So there was really nothing left for him to do but wait. He sat in the same obscure corner by the pool he had chosen just after dawn on this long Monday, savoring the faint bitter edge in the autumn wind and trying to quell the thought of how empty the mansion in Buenos Aires might seem when he at last returned to it.

"Hello? Are you out here, doctor?"

Judy Ingram's voice, recalling him from a reverie that was fast becoming unpleasant.

He rose from his nest of shadows before answering her, so that she could see him. He did not wish to startle one of his gracious hostesses with a voice out of the dark.

"Miss Ingram? I'm here. Has my taxi come so early?"


The petite, pleasantly rounded brunette walked to the covered deck to join him, carrying a small nylon duffel bag.

"No, it's not the cab. I just thought I'd bring you this. We weren't sure where you were. Margot said you might be out here."

She came a little closer, and held out the bag to him, waiting patiently until he took it.

"Thank you," he said. "What is it?"

"Oh, just some stuff you might need, overnight. Um . . . may I sit?"

"Miss Ingram. Of course." He waved at a deck chair and waited until she sat down before taking a seat near her.

Once they were both seated, he unzipped the bag and looked inside. He saw a few simple toiletries, a toothbrush and razor and the like, some extra pairs of socks, clean underwear, pajamas, a travel clock, a wireless phone.

"I noticed you didn't have any of this kind of stuff for your trip. You might not want to hassle with picking anything up tonight."

"You're very kind, Miss Ingram. This was thoughtful. Thank you. But I greatly fear that poor Uncle Bob may have been robbed on my behalf once again."

"Yeah, too bad for him you're the same size, more or less. Don't worry about it. He'll never know."

"I've been told that crime doesn't pay, Miss Ingram."

She smiled. "Maybe you're a bad influence. Would you consider calling me Judy?"

"I'd consider it a pleasure. Thank you, again, Judy."

"Uh . . . Margot and I feel terrible about everything that's happened. I wanted

to tell you that."

"You simply invited us to a party, Judy. There's no ill will in that. We appreciated the invitation, and we were glad to come. You have nothing to feel terrible for."

She shifted in her chair a bit, and looked out into the night.

"I want to ask you something, but . . . " she said, and then trailed off.

"Yes? But what?"

"I'm afraid it'll seem rude. Margot says rudeness just drives you batshit."

He laughed. "That's one way of putting it, I suppose. How essentially Margot! I will admit to being . . . intractable on the subject, Judy, but rudeness is largely a matter of intent. I can hardly believe that YOUR intentions could ever be objectionable. What was it you wanted to ask me?"

"I don't really know you well enough to be asking . . . so, maybe I'll tell you something first. How would that be?"

"Familiar. I like it when people tell me things. Please go on."

She smiled. "You were born to be a shrink, I think. You have the touch. I've seen about a hundred different therapists, believe me, over the years. Being gay, coming out, all those things just breed therapy. Thought I might go into it myself, one day."

"Forgive me for saying, but you lack the necessary detachment. You have the intelligence and the insight, but there is too much compassion in you to tinker effectively with the emotions of others. It takes a certain callousness to do that."

"Yeah, you're right. I thought so too, so I never seriously pursued it.

"What was it that you wanted to tell me?"

"About Margot. I wanted to tell you about Margot and me. The first time I saw Margot, I was . . . you know . . . afraid of her."

"Were you? Why?"

She smiled. "Why was I afraid of her? Or why would I tell you this?"

"Take your pick."

"Oh, yeah, you're a shrink all right!" She laughed, perhaps a little grimly.

"Okay. I thought she was the most haunted woman I'd ever met. The body-building, the steroids, the tough mouth and the hurt eyes. Talk about baggage! And all that rage, simmering away just below the surface. I knew right away she must have seen some terrible places in her life, was still seeing them, in a way. . . but all that wasn't the scary part."

"No? What was the scary part?"

"It was the way I just knew, almost from first sight, that I was just . . . desperate to be with her. And how I knew I would always feel that way, like I could see my whole life ahead of me, for a moment. There were a hundred different reasons not to even think about getting involved with her, and I could see them all, in perfect detail. Twenty-twenty rational vision."

"And that frightened you?" he asked, watching her closely. "That you knew she would be so hard to love?"

"No. I was scared because none of that mattered. I saw her, I talked to her, and I was gone. Just like that. For me, all of a sudden, she was . . . what water is to thirsty people. It was scary to feel so irrational, and to be so powerless to do a damn thing about it. Love, real love, it's not some syrupy Valentine card emotion like they tell you. It's this titanic, awesome force that can move the world, like wind or fire. A miracle and a disaster and a revelation, all at the same time. It's like being crazy."

She glanced at him quickly, a bit embarrassed by the depth of passion she had revealed to him, this feared and infamous man whom she knew only slightly. She folded her neat brown hands in her lap and stared at them silently for a time, and then went on, not raising her head.

"But it's also like suddenly being handed some cosmic key you don't really know how to use," she said quietly, and found the will to raise her head and look him in the eye as she continued.

"The key to everything, just lying there in your imperfect hand. And you just know that key can unlock every door there is, even the ones you're afraid to open. Especially those. But you want to. Unlock the doors, unlock 'em all, even though you know that maybe you shouldn't. You know you want to use that key, that's ALL you want, that's all you ever wanted."

Lecter's eyes were on Judy's faintly blushing face, but his truest vision gazed intently into a barren internal landscape, only recently beginning to flower and fruit and thaw, only within the past twelve astounding months. He examined and verified the complex pattern he saw there.

"Yes," he agreed after a long pause, voice barely audible. It was hard to tell whether he was speaking to Judy, or to himself. "Yes. Oh, yes. That's how it is . . . "

Judy smiled, and then shrugged, an attractive, strangely Gallic gesture. C'est la vie.

"So . . . THAT was the scary part," she said, and grinned.

"You're very frank, Judy," Dr. Lecter said, smiling back. Judy Ingram's grins were a minor force of nature unto themselves. It was impossible not to respond to them.

"You've been honest with me," he went on. "And much more important, I suspect you are one of those rare and wonderful people who are always scrupulously honest with themselves. What was it you wanted to ask me, Judy? Please tell me. I'll try to match your candor, if I can."

She took a deep breath and set herself, like a diver about to swan off the high board.

"Did you tell Starling you were leaving her? Did you ask her about it?"

Tension immediately crackled through the small space between the two of them, like electricity arcing, the way it does when an intruder attempts to breach an electrically charged perimeter fence.

All visible expression drained out of Dr. Lecter's face, like rainwater seeping quickly away into the earth. Nothing was left behind but a flat impenetrable surface, a pale, featureless mask with glittering eyes.

Judy trembled visibly at this fearsome transformation, but she did not drop her gaze.

"Have you thought about what you're doing? Have you counted the costs? All of them?"

Dr. Lecter knew that Judy was not a stupid woman. He saw that she was aware that she was questioning his judgment, and knew this to be a wildly risky venture, at best. He could be out of his seat and at her throat in a heartbeat, and she was seeing, for the first time in their short acquaintance, this potential in him clearly. But he imagined that she was a woman well accustomed to putting her faith in doubtful causes, and rather suspected her faith might be at least as unwavering as his will.

The moment stretched, strength matched to strength, powerful opposing forces poised in a precise balance.

Good manners, in the end, provided the best path away from confrontation. It would be unthinkably churlish to offer violence to this woman who had opened her heart and her home to him, a virtual stranger, at some considerable risk to herself, Dr. Lecter decided. Besides, in his estimation, she was the victor in this particular skirmish. He must accept defeat as gracefully as he might contrive. He gathered his thoughts, assembling them into the candid answers he had promised her.

"Judy. No, I didn't tell her. Time was short, and frankly, I don't believe I could have entertained argument without being swayed from my course. I'll confess, Clarice can talk me into nearly anything. Rather a disturbing ability of hers, in my opinion. I've made every effort not to let her find out, but I sometimes think she knows."

He smiled, fondly, a wrenching smile that was awful to see, and could, perhaps, have drawn blood. He went on.

"I might have been persuaded to abandon this course. And that would have been fatal, ultimately. I do not propose to allow her to continue to pay the price for MY choices. At least, no more than she already has, no more than she'll be obliged to, in the coming weeks. I've incurred these costs, she has not. QED. We must part ways."

"But - " Judy started to object.

Dr. Lecter interrupted her. "I'm not a good man, Judy. I'm neither kind nor forgiving, neither gentle nor caring, and I've been given the blood-soaked public name I bear because I've put my own faith in the premise that one must do as one wills. I've been called 'inhuman' and 'monster' and similar things, and these terms are not inappropriate; I could not reasonably refute any of them, nor would I ever care to. But I can love, I've discovered, and I will no longer permit the one I love to pay my debts. And I know you can understand all I've said. You've already shown me that."

He showed her a wolfish smile, a sight that only a very few had survived.

"Pretend you don't, Judy, and I shall be quite vexed with you, I'm afraid."

Judy blinked as she took this last razor-edged remark in, along with its implications. But she mastered her fear and answered him anyway.

"Yes, you're a scary guy, and I'm sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong and you're pissed about it and you've got some cause, and I'm good and scared right now, if that makes you feel any better."

She leaned forward in her deck chair, narrowing the charged space between them, coming dangerously close to invading his side of the psychic chessboard, and holding him in the stern gaze she occasionally transfixed Margot with.

"But I'm gonna tell you this anyway: You are making a mistake. You're wrong about this. Don't do it."

Her words hung in the air for what seemed an unnaturally long time, as though they had somehow amassed weight and substance, had taken on the significance of prophecy.

The two gazed at each other in the odd portentous silence that followed, both a bit puzzled to find themselves in such intimate communication, in so short a time, on such short acquaintance. It occurred to both of them in the same moment, though they didn't know it, that they might have far more in common than would have seemed probable to either of them, before this conversation had begun.

Dr. Lecter smiled, breaking the peculiar moment, amused. "How odd. You don't LOOK stubborn, unyielding, and opinionated."

Judy giggled, and the tension broke for her too. "I know. I look like a hobbit. It takes everybody in."

"An admirable camouflage. I rather envy it, to be quite honest. I apologize for losing my temper with you, Judy. Can we agree to disagree? Without being disagreeable?"

"I guess we'd better."

"Good. I think it's - "

He cut himself short as he noticed Margot approaching the pool from the house.

"Doctor Lecter," she said, as soon as she was close enough to speak quietly. "Your cab is here. I told the driver to pull around in the driveway. We can go around the back of the house to meet him."

None of them wanted to risk a chance encounter with any of Judy and Margot's houseguests by going through the public rooms of the house. Margot pulled a flashlight out of her jacket pocket to light their way.
Dr. Lecter and Judy rose from their seats, very nearly simultaneously.

"Thank you, Margot," he said, matching her quiet tones. "Just give me a moment, I'll be right with you."

He turned to Judy. "It's been . . . interesting, coming to know you, Judy. You've surprised me, and I cannot often say that. I hope we'll meet again."

"I do too. Next time, maybe we can play some checkers or something. Will you please give what I said some thought?"

"I doubt I'll be able to avoid it. I do appreciate your kindness, I hope you know that."

"Sure," she said, a trifle hoarsely, as though she might be on the verge of tears. "Well. It's damn cold out here. I'm going inside. Good-bye, Dr. Lecter. Good luck."

"Luck to you as well. Good-bye, Judy."

She turned away from them and walked toward the lights of the house, warm and inviting in the chilly fall night. Just a small, plump woman who looked like a hobbit and had the all the faith and the fervor of a secular saint. Dr. Lecter experienced an instant of biting envy toward Margot, who'd found such an extraordinary partner, and who would go home to her love after he was on his way, leaving his own love behind.

He put this jealousy aside. It was petty and stupid.

"Lead on, Margot. You look a bit like the Statue of Liberty with that flashlight, you know. And you've presided over a safe harbor for me. I remain in your debt."

They passed around the dark side of the house, and out to the taxi the waited in the drive. Dr. Lecter hovered outside the rear door for a moment, staring at Margot.

"Margot, I . . . I'd like to ask you another favor . . . " he paused, uncharacteristically hesitant.

But Margot knew what he wanted.

"We'll look out for her, I promise," she said. "If you're really gonna do this stupid thing, fine, we can do that much for you. She'll have friends, she wont have to be alone if she doesn't want to be. And we'll keep you posted, let you know if there's trouble. I wish you wouldn't do this! I'd set fire to myself before I'd ever leave Judy."

"You've never harmed Judy, and you never will. Alas, I cannot say the same. Good-bye, Margot. Thank you so much for all your help."

He opened the door and got in the cab, the small nylon duffel bag his only luggage. He'd come to Las Vegas with so much more. One often left Las Vegas the poorer, as everyone knew.

He rolled down the window and leaned out.

"Oh, and Margot?" he called out. "Just one more thing. Lovely party."

Margot snorted, almost out of sight in the darkness, and declined to answer as she walked away, back toward her home.

And then Dr. Lecter was gone.


October 17, 12:00 Midnight, Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center

Clarice Starling stood, thin and ghostly in her hospital gown, at her window. She was looking out into the endless night beyond, a vast empty blackness, just on the other side of the thin glass.

She was trembling, shuddering uncontrollably as she spasmodically crushed and released the handwritten letter in her hands. Tears spilled out of her eyes and stained her cheeks and stung when they touched the cuts on her face. Every so often she would rest her forehead on the glass of the window, and would close her burning eyes, trying to take some small comfort from the feel of the cool glass against her hot face.

She was likewise attempting to discern some viable answers in the mystery of the hollow night beyond her window. There must be some pattern, some clue in the configuration of the stars in the heavens, in the light of the moon, in the movement of the night clouds, if one could just SEE it. Did people wink in and out of existence in this universe for no reason at all? Was there random joy and pain and endless effort and then just nothing? What malign, mad Creator would devise such a pointless game?

She'd already called Margot Verger's house, only a few minutes too late. She'd dropped the phone receiver from nerveless hands, her fingers too numb to close around the suddenly unfamiliar object. She hadn't noticed and the phone had beeped relentlessly from the floor for some minutes, as though in reproach at being cast off so.

She opened the crumpled letter in her hands, the ink smudged in spots by the pressure of her convulsively working palms.

What would she do now? She didn't know. She didn't know.

She read the letter again, the familiarity of the hand cutting into the quick of her as she read, standing at her window with the night turning cold outside.

"Dearest Clarice:

Immediately following the words 'Lazarus come forth,' we are told, a divine miracle occurred.

You and I, though, must content ourselves with an earthly marvel. Through the random workings of fate, as well as the blind malice and greed of our late friend Dr. Doemling, you, like Lazarus, have been resurrected.

How does that feel, Clarice? To be reborn? Have you thought about it yet?

I have. Do something for me now, as you read, please. Rise out of your hospital bed. You're well enough. I expect it's uncomfortable for you anyway; you've never enjoyed lying about. Go to your window. Are you there? Look out.

What can you see? The "Strip"? Possibly. Not the place I would have preferred to start, but as good a beginning as any. What else? The mountains to the west? The desert all around? The city? The airport? Is it dark out now, Clarice? Can you see the stars?

Just after my escape from custody, I enjoyed a brief stay in the Marcus Hotel in St. Louis. I wrote to you from there, do you remember that? I looked out my window that night, for the first time in many years, just as you are looking out yours now. I wrote to you then, in part, to tell you what I'd seen. And now I'll tell you what you see.

Freedom. Wherever you look, there, if you wish, you can go. As yourself, Clarice, for the first time since we left Muskrat Farm together, over a year ago. You may move about freely in that great open night you see, as any citizen might. You need not concern yourself with concealment or risk or danger as you consider the dizzying myriad of choices now open before you. You need not concern yourself with these things ever again.

Clarice, you have escaped. The gates of your prison of obscured identity and the semblance of death have inadvertently been thrown wide, and you must walk through them. Please, try to remember that freedom, even freedom unsought and unexpected, is, nevertheless, precious. A fruit of rare savor that you could never have hoped to taste again, not so you long as you remained at my side.

I myself chose the path I now tread, through my own actions, and have long since made my peace with the consequent narrowness of my way. Must you, then, be held to this same narrow fugitive's path as well; a way that, as we have recently seen, leads only to a predestined end? What terrible crimes have you committed, Clarice?

Has loving me been a crime? I would rather not judge it so, dear Clarice. Not now. You yourself have taught me, over time, that judgment, untempered by compassion, is rarely truly just. I've had your compassion. Now I ask only that you offer yourself the same matchless gift.

I'm leaving. I ask that you stay behind and rediscover your own life, your own fate. Persephone rejoined the world of the living, and now, so can you. It's an improbable opportunity. Seize it.

You'll have to, actually. If you, famous media heroine that you'll soon become, were to "vanish" a second time, there would be no place on earth where we could hide from those who would rescue you from me. It was easy for your former FBI jailers to dismiss the disappearance of a single unwanted and despised agent. That will no longer be the case.

Should you think of rushing to rejoin me, perhaps so that we might debate this course of action I've chosen further, please think of the hue and cry it would cause before you do. Lead the world to my door if you will, Clarice, but don't do it by accident or by rash action.

I expect you'll be angry with me for making this decision for you. I can almost hear your tart commentary now, little Starling, and the phrases "high-handed", "arrogant", "egotistical", and other, less printable utterances come to mind.

Am I right? How delicious. How I'll miss your gift for vivid vituperation.

Perhaps you'll consider that I've abandoned you, as others have done before. Not so. Look out your window again. Can you see the stars?

If you remember that I love you as you wander the wide world, fully open to you once again, I'll know. When some beauty pierces your heart, I'll see it too. When some joy moves you to laughter, I'll hear your voice. We cannot be entirely separated by mere distance or time.

You do see the stars, don't you?

I see them too. Some of our stars will always be the same, my Clarice.

- H.

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