"Well hello, Clarice…"
The line rang quietly. Five, six…nine…ten times. She answered breathlessly, and he knew she'd been out running. She always ran. To keep fit, yes, but now for something more.
"Hello?"
"Well hello, Clarice."
Silence.
"You know," he said confidently, as always, "you shouldn't hang your loss of status atop my head. I am, however, sorry to hear that you are no longer with the proud and prestigious FBI." A beat. "Tell me, how long did it take you to realize that I was right all along? You should've left eleven years ago, while you were just starting out. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble." He paused. "I doubt, however, that you and I would have met under different circumstances, and therefore, I'm glad that you stayed on."
"Why are you boasting, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice said sharply. "You've always known you were right about everything."
He gave a small laugh.
"What do you want?"
"So how are you keeping yourself in these days following your unpleasantness?" he said, ignoring her question. "I hope well. I trust that we'll see one another soon, Clarice, as I've missed your company."
"How's the hand, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice retorted, wanting to sound angrier that she did.
Dr. Lecter bent his left wrist forwards and backwards as he spoke. "Doing fine, thank you, Clarice."
She wanted to slam the phone down, but didn't, and he knew this.
"Tell me, Clarice," he said more softly, "what do you do when you're alone, when your thoughts trail to something other than your pretentious hatred for me? Do you catch up on reading the books you always wanted to when you were a trainee in the bureau, but never had the time? Do you drink cheap wine until you fall asleep on the sofa, watching old re-runs on television as a ploy to feel like you're somewhat normal? Do you soak in a hot bath for hours until the water becomes cold and your skin wrinkles…" He breathed in deeply and added, "I can almost smell the Evyan, Clarice…"
She listened intently, captivated by the sound of his voice. It was amazing to her that someone so grotesque and horrible in some aspects of life could speak so melancholy and passionately about others.
"Does that excite you, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice asked blatantly.
"No. It pleases me, Clarice."
She sighed, feeling drained from the call, and asked, "What do you want?"
Lecter's voice became acrid and clear as he spoke his proposition.
"It is not necessarily a matter of want, Ex Special Agent Starling," he said professionally, "but a matter of stipulation. Quid Pro Quo, remember?" he added coolly. "You want something, I want something. What for what, Clarice?"
Clarice waited patiently for the next words.
"I want you to find me, Clarice."
"Isn't that obvious from your call, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice observed.
"You have the same intent as I do, Clarice. You want to find me, don't you? You want to be able to say that the lambs will never scream again, that you can sleep a full night, that there are no shadows in your path. You want to find me as much as I want you to find me, Clarice."
"Quid Pro Quo, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice asked, playing the game.
"If you succeed in finding and apprehending me, you will no doubt be reinstated as a Special Agent with the FBI," he said mockingly. "You will be redeemed, shall we say, of your sins, Ex Special Agent Starling. And perhaps your lambs will be silenced forever."
She thought about the proposition, as it were, and imagined Dr. Lecter on the other end of the line, a smile of victory crossing his medium lips. They both knew that he had won, there was no sense in prolonging the answer.
"Alright."
"I'll make it easy for you, Clarice," Dr. Lecter said after a pause. "There are a series of drawings…if you're intelligent enough, you'll know when you've reached the last, if you reach that far. On each will be a clue of the next and so on. They'll ultimately lead you to me."
"Isn't that a little too easy, Dr. Lecter?"
She heard the smile in his voice.
"Things that we do not wish to see, Clarice, are never easy to be seen. 'Wounds heal and become scars, but scars grow with us,'" he said, a quote from King Stanislaus I.
"Ta-Ta, Clarice."