I investigate—I guess. I look around, I tell them to pay attention to certain things, I don't pretend to be Vince Vasquez wheezing in his final moments of breath but I miraculously get the job done. Even Crawford looks impressed with my deductions, and Lecter seems unaffected; that's good enough for me, feeling like I'm bathed in holy light and injected with liquid piety when his eyes rove over me: his attention is crazy, like I can't get enough of his approval. His lack of emotion is a test: I want to be the one to incite something out of a marble statue, to force a smile, a grimace, a crack in the foundation of a Hellenistic idol. God is so powerful, and I'm so close to touching him: I stare at his face and the lines in his skin and his pores and his mouth while he talks, bitter hatred and freakish fascination growing like an ulcer on my insides.
They often say that, even when trapped or subjugated, people take great pleasure in certain small freedoms because it makes them feel powerful.
We discuss the murder, Jack Crawford congratulates me, I stare at Vince's brown eyes and slack-jawed skull. He was a singer, or something, his bandmates reported him missing, they found his corpse at the base of a tree. Someone strung him up, butchered him, and cut him down. It makes me sad, but it doesn't profoundly make me grieve. I should: Vince looks like me, late twenties, brown hair, brown eyes, dark skin, long nose and small jaw. He was going places, and now he's rotting. I don't feel anything more than fascination, though not even the morbid kind: just wonder.
Hannibal drives me back to my hotel in uncomfortable silence. I catch him after he buckles his seatbelt, eyes shut lightly as he purses his lips and rests his hands in his lap instead of the steering wheel. Only after he's on the road and he maintains that look of serene indifference do I ask him if he was praying.
"Pardon me?" he asks, inquiring, and I know it's a question that he doesn't expect an answer to. I shrug, despite the fact that his eyes are on the road instead of my shoulders, and I lean my head against the window. I'm so tired. I'm so overwhelmed.
"What, do you think it's futile or something? Why do you sound so adverse?" I ask, embarrassed that I said something stupid, a flush heating my cheeks.
"Not at all. I'm not particularly religious, but I suspect you are. I was simply reflecting—though, I suppose, prayer is nothing more than reflection directed as a conversation rather as a personal soliloquy." He is soft-spoken, deep voiced, his tone reminds me of metal shavings and muddy water. I feel childish compared to him, and it makes me sadder than I already am.
"I'm not that religious either, but I just felt like it would be appropriate. I don't know what else to do: I mean, I do, but I can only do so much." Guilty, ugly, filthy creature: I sound like a troubled teen. He's a psychiatrist, isn't he? A doctor? He dedicated his life to helping other people and pulling their fates from the hands of God and into his own welcoming, sacrosanct arms. I think of The Virgin Mary holding Jesus, limp, in her arms, eyes roving skywards.
"Grieving?" His voice is jarring. "There's no need to mourn. It's not a necessity—though common, not everyone 'mourns.' Acceptance of death is achieved through any form and vehicle and the variability is endless: there is no need to pray, cry, weep or mourn the dead, though it does often help the individual come to terms with it. If you've already accepted his fate and understand the unfortunate situation surrounding his demise…" Dr. Lecter pauses. "My apologies, I'm a little distracted. If you feel as if you may be having a lack of empathy that you would consider a danger to your mental well-being, indifference and unwanted stoicism in situations that usually profoundly affect you and cause you to need to go through procedure to accept is sometimes a sign of depression. It's common in people your age—young adults, to be specific."
His treatment sounds like a panacea, just being able to have him tell me every scathing truth about the world in his awful, dingy voice, like I'm being selected as a prophet: drink in his words like kombucha tea, a cure-all, feel it lace and coat my innards with warmth and sincerity. What I would give to hold an egg in my hand right this second and crack the shell with my fist, feeling the yolk ooze from my fingers: that sort of power over life, over creation, over development and over direction must make him feel incredible.
I see his hand and I want to hold it, clench his tungsten bones between my fingers until they break. He drops me off at my hotel, a bad first date, an awkward prom night, before he says goodnight and leaves.