"Do you like it?" the cultured voice asked.
She opened her eyes to look at the speaker. The man was average height, grey-white hair of about fifty or so years in age, mild face with piercing blue eyes whose pupils easily reflected red light. "Have we been introduced?" she asked politely, continuing to sit placidly on the couch in Jim Brass' living room where she'd been dozing. Disbelief had worn her down to a disassociated curiosity.
"Madeleine, I am Dr. Lecter," he replied with formal tones.
"Dr. Hannibal Lecter?" she asked without any hint of surprise.
"You have heard of me, then?" He seemed to be quite pleased to be recognized.
"I've read about you," she replied without any kind of emotion.
"In old newspapers, perhaps?"
"No. Books." She was studying him with guarded eyes.
"An unauthorized biography? I shall have to inform the author how impolite it was not to tell me about it." Dr. Lecter's tone remained mild, yet his pupils flashed red with deep-seated venom as he said it.
"No. Fiction," she breathed, gazing into his eyes without flinching. "Do I like — what?"
"The identity I created for you," he replied smoothly.
"You did this?" she frowned.
"Of course."
"How?"
"Now that, my dear Madeleine," his silken voice glided over her name, "would be telling. I make it a practice not to give away my secrets. One would not want other — less sophisticated — people doing what I have done. Too chaotic."
"Why?"
"Better question. I wanted to see if it could work. And it did. So do you like it?"
"Maybe."
"Tut. Tut. Lying does not become you, Madeleine. Do not spoil our honest relationship with a lie. I might be forced into teaching you a lesson..." his eyes flashed again before retreating back to mild attentiveness. "Then again, you said maybe, which is more evasive than actual lying. But maybe is still a lie if you know the answer. I shall ask you again. And this time, please do not lie: do you like it?"
"No," she breathed. Throughout the conversation, her eyes never left him, even as he turned his back on her, walking around to examine minute details of Brass' living room.
"And why not, Madeleine? I used your own stories to create this delicious fiction for you."
"That's why. My stories are fiction, not real. They're not supposed to happen."
"Really? What about the characters you create, dear Madeleine? For them, all your invented fictions are real. They have to endure the little tortures you put in their lives, do they not? And how they respond to those events, well, that is up to them, now is it not? They have to rely on the character development you provided for them as to whether they can endure and survive or be killed off like..." He now focused his penetrating gaze on her transfixed eyes. "Like a red-shirt from Star Trek?"
He looked over his shoulder in response to an unheard sound. "I shall have to say farewell for now. Take care, Madeleine." And he left the wind blowing the curtains in his wake.
Seized by a sudden muse, Leinney took up a pencil and filled a blank page with feverish scribbling. When she was done, her pent-up frustration was spent. Abandoning the cartoon drawing on the coffee table, she stuffed her slim wallet in a back pocket and ran out the door to seek fresher air. Some food might be nice, too.
In her rush she slammed into Jim Brass, sending his carefully balanced grocery bags tumbling everywhere.
"Whoa, there," he said as he restrained his automatic police response to unexpected physical confrontation.
"Oh! I'm so sorry!" she said, quickly bending to catch a rolling fruit. She began picking up and repacking his bags for him. He caught her by the shoulders and examined her face. At first she shied away, darting looks towards the bags, before finally consenting to look him in the eye. While her mouth was closed and relaxed in a typical poker face, her eyes spoke a different story to him.
"Why are you upset?" he asked tenderly.
"I—I—I just needed some fresh air. That's all. I'm OK. Really," she said, calming down.
He was reminded of the day he first met her, blithely talking about a dead body while her eyes revealed the turmoil inside. "All right," he said. "Let me put away these groceries and then I'll show you the park down the street. Great place for fresh air."
She nodded and sat down on the bench outside waiting for him. He entered the apartment and quickly emptied the bags into the refrigerator and cupboards. Out of habit, he performed a visual sweep of the living room, but a piece of paper on the coffee table caught his eye. Picking it up, he saw a semi-realistic cartoon drawing of 'Asbestos Man,' as it proclaimed across the bottom. It seemed to him that the drawing was good enough to identify the model, although he couldn't recall anyone who matched the description. There was a scary quality to the man — perhaps what had prompted Leinney to seek air.
He found her outside and waved the drawing at her casually, but without bringing it too close. "Did you draw this? It's quite good," he said, testing her reaction.
"Oh. That. Yeah." Her troubled eyes confirmed his suspicion. "I meant to throw it out. It's from a nightmare," she explained with a long sigh.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, folding it up and sticking it in his pocket.
"No. I'd rather forget. No sense dwelling on awful things. Where's this nice park?"
By the time they walked the few blocks to the park, all traces of her recent anxiety were obliterated from her sparkling eyes. After walking and talking of completely mundane and pleasant things, they rested together on the swings, like a comfortable suburban couple. Brass could give up his J&B doubles for such a life.
On impulse, he asked if she would like to go to dinner with him. Nestled in his comforting embrace, she agreed, but only if they could stop by a store where she could find a less casual outfit suitable for the occasion. At the inexpensive boutique he'd heard Catherine talking favorably about with Sara, he resigned himself to boredom. Instead, Leinney's first choice turned out to be a modest but pleasingly layered diaphanous ensemble that matched her slate blue eyes perfectly. He didn't have to say anything; one look at his face and she made an instant decision. The sales clerk helped her find flats and hose to match and they were out of the store within fifteen minutes.
He took her to dinner at a romantic restaurant he rarely frequented. Catherine had recommended it months ago as a place to take special ladies, knowing his old-fashioned tastes. The dinner theatre was old-school Las Vegas, near Fremont Street and the older casinos. After dinner, they danced to live orchestral music, faces buried shyly in each others necks during the slow songs.
The evening ended in bliss. The next morning, the coverlet on the guestbed remained untouched. As he gazed at the sleeping form beside him, Brass felt untouchably content for the first time in decades.