"It's gonna to take awhile to run down the list, Mr...?" the receptionist said in an acid tone, the light bouncing off her Chanel earrings and making Clarice dizzy.
"Graham, Will Graham. This is Clarice Starling."
"Starling, huh? Read a story about you in the paper," the receptionist punctuated the remark with a snapping pop of her bubble gum. Starling made a noncommital noise and smiled insincerely. The secretary clicked her talon-like fingernails and withdrew a pad of paper emblazoned with the Gucci logo.
"You can leave your number and Fran will call you back."
"Who's Fran, if you don't mind?" Clarice queried impatiently, tapping her pen in the palm of her hand.
"The head of dis-tri-bution and all that stuff," the receptionist rolled her eyes as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Thank you very much. You've been very helpful," Graham said cheerily, gently taking Clarice's elbow before she worsened relations by speaking her mind to the pitifully generic woman, and led her away.
"You didn't need to do that," Clarice muttered once they were outside.
"Yes, I did. I recognize that look, I know the feeling." Graham asked, turning up his collar as they both wove through the onslaught of people towards the subway station.
"It's different." Clarice insisted as she pushed change into the ticket kiosk. "They weren't writing it like you were in bed with a serial killer. Plus, they weren't writing anything after Lounds."
"No, they weren't," Graham said softly. Clarice bit her lip, realizing her mistake.
"I'm sorry-"
Her next words were cut out by the roar of the oncoming subway train. Graham's words of "it's okay" were lost in the din. He shrugged his shoulders as they boarded the subway and were spirited back to Eagle.
---
Henry Bath the Third was greatly disliked by his neighbours. Loud, obnoxious and often drunk, he was a figure in the London underworld, with a reputation of nervous habits and unpredictable mood swings. After he was accused of strangling a prostitute in a back alley, the magistrates ordered that he be exiled to the Americas with all haste.
As improvidence would have it, Henry Bath met a scullery maid named Mathilda, and for some yet unknown reason, Mathilda consented to marriage with the corpulent alcoholic. After a year, she gave birth to a son, whom they named James. Years passed, the Bath's Virginia farm estate grew in size, and eventually both Henry and Mathilda were swept away by a bout of yellow fever.
The following year, James Bath married the woman with whom he'd been having a secret affair for two years. They gave birth to two children, a boy named Lawrence and a girl named Dorothy. After the Civil War, the Bath estate had swelled in size, James having turned the family money to weapons and munitions manufacturing. While the rest of the South suffered, the Baths prospered, becoming the ruling force behind the tiny city council of Protestant, Virginia.
The winter after James' 58th year, Lawrence (a child known for his stutter and cruelty to his sister) shot his father in the head with the family winchester. His mother had passed away the previous year after taking an unusual fall from the cliff at the edge of the Bath estate. Dorothy was entitled to half the estate only if she was able to produce a heir. To prevent this from happening, Lawrence drugged his sister and performed a home hysterectomy with a pair of kitchen sheers. She died within a day, and the black servants carried her body to the city council, demanding justice be done upon Lawrence Bath.
However, Lawrence withdrew all of the Bath money from local accounts, transferred it to Maryland and sold the Bath estate before any charges could be made. Today, the two hundred acres are still considered haunted by local Protestant residents.
Having moved his fortunes to Baltimore, Lawrence Bath spent out his days, grew old and repulsive, and was completely solitary until Molly Brand, a fortune-hunter and a woman of little repute married him and had his son. She promptly inherited his munitions company and all attached when he died a year later.
Unlike his predecessors, Argentine Bath showed no indication of possessing his ancestor's violent and crude tendencies. Groomed by his mother, he was a soft soul whose speech was difficult to understand because he was marked by a series of twitches, stutters and other physical afflictions. When Molly Bath died in the middle of having her hair curled, control of Bath Munitions fell to Argentine. He began to sell stock, turning the munition's excesses into a charitable fund called the Argentine Bath Foundation. He met a woman in Lubbock, Tennessee during a conference about poverty awareness and married her the following year. Together, they had three children, Theresa, Frances and Gabriel.
Theresa and Frances were kind, intelligent children with enough genetic strength on their mother's side to have avoided any physical or mental aberrations. This was not so for Gabriel, an undersized runty boy with flat brown eyes and hair that always seemed to be greasy. At the age of 7, he could be found prodding the dead bodies of mice beneath the front porch. At 12, he savaged his brother with a pair of scissors when Frances berated him for not saying 'please' when asking for the milk. At 16, he raped his sister and nearly strangled her. That was when the family reluctantly put him in a special private hospital for disturbed individuals.
He was released in 1970 at age 43 when the hospital closed. His father and mother having passed, and Theresa having committed suicide less than a year previous when her husband divorced her upon learning about her disturbed brother's physical and sexual assault upon her, Gabriel Bath found himself under the supervision of Frances, now the chief executive officer of Bath Munitions. Frances, not wishing to reinstate his brother in another mental institution, sent him to a family friend, the psychiatrist that his sister had seen a month before her decision to drink bleach. His methods had helped Theresa make wonderful progress: that was until her ex-husband had called, demanding monetary reimbursement for the past fifteen years he had spent with her. After her suicide, he disappeared from Baltimore and had not been heard from since. Frances (though he would never admit it, kind soul that he was) was glad. He learned last year that he was nearing the final stages in a degenerative disease he didn't bother to have identified. He wished to enjoy life as fully as possible, without anger or hatred sullying it. During this time, he made the arrangements for all of the Bath assets to be held in trust by the family shrink until Gabriel had made enough progress to reclaim them, or died, in which case they would be surrendered to the federal government.
Gabriel Bath disliked the idea of a psychiatrist, but feared the possibility of confinement. In order to make him feel more at ease, Frances invited him to one of the post opera meals that he and the other members of the board of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra enjoyed at the behest of their most affluent patron.
Gabriel did not like wearing a bow-tie. It itched, and his new tuxedo suit felt stiff and sweaty. Unconsciously he finger a piece of lint in his pocket. He blinked excessively, and felt uncomfortable sitting, standing, or being stationary in any way. The low lights of the residence hid some of his nervous habits from the other patrons. The food had been strange and diverse, so Gabriel stuck with simple dipping crackers. He shied away from conversation, until Frances, the tall, well aged and handsome opposite of his brother gently took his arm and steered him in the direction of a stocky man wearing black suspenders and stripped down to his shirt sleeves. He stood at the end of the long buffet table with a small butane stove and a skillet full of frying vegetables.
There wasn't anything extraordinary about this man. He was a few inches shorter than many of the guests, but not altogether diminished. His face was gently creased, his slicked back hair black and inconsequential. His eyes, however, disturbed Gabriel, their clear blue intensity making him want to fidget.
"Gabe, I want you to meet someone," Frances said in a slow, pandering voice, nudging his brother forward slightly. "Hannibal, this is my brother Gabriel, whom I mentioned to you last night."
"Yes, I remember, Frances, thank you." The man said in a cultured voice that didn't ring any bells for Gabriel. Not that he was familiar with accents. "How do you do, Mr. Bath?"
"I...uh. I'm fine. I'm okay. Everything's okay. You can call me Gabriel. Okay?" the twitch in his cheek had started. He tilted his head, an automatic attempt to cover his agitation. It creeped him out when Dr. Lecter called him 'Mr. Bath'.
"This is Dr. Lecter, Gabe. Remember talking about him?"
"Name rhymes with stuff," Gabriel pointed out. "I remember t-t-talking about it last night. Rhymes with cannibal. And...what was it, Frank? I don't remember what you called it."
"Spectre. A spectre, like a ghost," Frances replied indulgently.
"Others have made that observation before, Gabriel. Would you care to expand on it?" Dr. Lecter asked, his voice patient but brisk.
"I bet cannibals have more fun than ghosts. I feel like a ghost sometimes, feel like I'm going to fall through the floor. Sometimes you need a little blood." Gabriel said, looking around uncertainly.
"Quite." Dr. Lecter said in perfect agreement, a patented smile on his face. Frances patted his brother's shoulder, blushing slightly with embarrassment.
"But we don't need blood right now, huh, Gabe? Why don't we bring you back to the car."
"It was nice meeting you, Dr. Spectre. I mean, Lecter."
"A pleasure meeting you, Gabriel, and I look forward to repeating it."
---
Early in 1972, about the same time that Special Agent Graham was investigating the wrongful death of the smelting worker, Louis Whitter, Frances Bath passed away at his vacation home in Upstate New York.
Dr. Lecter had very much liked Theresa Bath. On many occasions, they were able to discuss things like music and art, both of which Theresa donated liberally to. She had an astounding memory, a polite upbringing and a sound education, which showed in the musical patterns of her speech. A music teacher at an elite private school, she was loved, respected, and even adored. Except of course, by her husband. Dr. Lecter considered many times the benefits of disposing of this brute, but was dissuaded when Theresa's obvious love of the man would've proved far more traumatic with a sudden loss than with careful psychological weaning. In addition, she would tell him stories of her younger brother, the unsavoury and deranged little Gabriel whose antics had inflicted so much damage on the woman's fragile psyche. When Gabriel became Dr. Lecter's patient, he immediately set to breaking down the barriers that institutional routine had tentatively raised. He found his personal dislike of the man increased by the moment, as Gabriel gleefully spilled out the details of his attack on his siblings, his abuse of the little children at his school, the pain he had caused other members of the mental hospital. All of this accompanied by an orchestra of twitches and stutters made Dr. Lecter quite certain of his intentions. He set about forming a treatment plan.
After months worth of careful therpay, Gabriel Bath became a very malleable person, open to suggestion, his psychotic behaviour regulated by a heavy dose of anti-depression medication and hypnotic drugs.
When Special Agent Graham left his office, Dr. Lecter had turned to phone with a specific purpose in mind. When Gabriel picked up the line on the other end, he was greeted with a familiar calm and levelled voice.
"Gabriel. It's Hannibal Lecter. I was terribly displeased to hear about the death of your brother."
"Yeah," the noncommital reply came with its usual drab lacklustre. "Yeah. There wasn't any pain. The doctors said so."
"That's good to know. Don't you agree?"
"Yeah, Dr. Lecter. Yeah. That was good. Good to kn-kn-know."
"Listen, Gabriel. Before he died, your brother entrusted all of your fortune to me. In the unlikely event of your death, I would retain control of your assets and later submit it to the federal government"
"Okay."
"Tomorrow, in your mail, you will find a letter. It will tell you to authorize me to take care of your money, instead of giving it to the government. I want you to sign it for me. Will you do that, Gabriel?"
"Yeah. Yeah, okay."
"Thank you."
When Gabriel Bath went missing, no one asked questions. Dr. Lecter speculated on the effects ground human flesh had as a fertilizer. His rose garden bloomed brighter than ever.