Chapter 3

"Lecter!"

Chilton's incredulous cry at the sight of my altered face with the familiar eyes and voice sounded frightened and he took a violent step back – or was it just his knees giving way? I kept aiming at his head with the gun borrowed from Finch.

"I would recommend you not to move, Dr. Chilton. As you know, I've got a steady hand even in stress situations."

"Don't be ridiculous, Lecter!" Chilton panted, his eyes slightly bulging. "If you shoot me, the noise will attract a dozen officers and you'll be caught faster than blinking!"

"I'm a psychopath, Dr. Chilton. Don't you think I would take that risk to achieve my ends? Come on, give me a taste of that expertise of yours!"

I stared him in the eye with my usual blank expression.

"You wouldn't! You hated prison far too much to risk going back there just for shooting me."

"Really? With you gone it might not be as bad. No hypo-Christian TV shows, no techno music blaring out of the speakers in the middle of the night, no turned-off lights when I want to read. So, why don't you try me?"

He opened his thin lips but nothing came out. So he closed them again. He seemed to be thinking hard, weighing the odds.

"Before you get any funny ideas, I suggest that you take off your jacket because I'm sure you have a gun on you somewhere," I interrupted his thoughts. I kept a safe distance and gripped the pistol with both hands in case Chilton made a desperate attempt at escape or a grab for the gun.

"Dr. Chilton. I'm not going to ask you a second time."

Sourly, Chilton took off his checkered jacket and let it fall to the floor. Underneath it he wore a shoulder holster over his white shirt. Step by step I moved behind him and unfastened the weapon in the holster before I took it out. As I stood behind him an army of smells assailed my senses.

"You still wear too much cologne," I told Chilton, close to his ear. He flinched when my breath grazed his skin and I felt an amused smile playing on my lips as I was putting on a pair of latex gloves so I wouldn't leave any fingerprints. Anywhere.

"Stop it, Lecter," Chilton snarled. "If you must kill me, then for heaven's sake, get it over with and kill me now!"

"Tut-tut-tut," I said reproachfully. "Impatience is not a nice character trait, doctor."

Did he really think he was in a position to tell me what to do, even if it concerned about negotiating the time of his unfortunate demise? This alone would have been reason enough for me not to finish him off right away. Just to show him where he was at. I put Chilton's pistol into my back pocket so that it was safely out of reach for him and checked Henderson's status while keeping one eye on Chilton. The man was still lying on the floor face down and unconscious. I would have to take care of him before he woke up. I advised Chilton to sit on a chair and not to scream if he didn't want to die a very nasty, imminent death. Then I quickly fixed his right wrist to the arm of the chair with Henderson's handcuffs so he wouldn't be able to really fight back as I tied his arms and legs with the same rope with which I had ended Sergeant Finch's life earlier on in the restroom. With a flick knife I cut off what was left of the rope and used it to tie up Henderson after I had disarmed him. I took a syringe filled with a clear liquid from a case the size and shape of a wallet and gave Henderson an injection.

"What's that? Some kind of venom?" Chilton asked breathlessly and began pulling on the handcuffs in spite of himself.

"A benzodiazepine cocktail. It mostly consists of lorazepam. The dose should not be strong enough to kill him though."

But still strong enough to sedate him and induce a retrograde amnesia, I added silently. Tomorrow he wouldn't even remember meeting the fake Sergeant Finch. Plus not killing Henderson gave Chilton the vague hope of getting out of this alive – which would probably help loosen his tongue during the little talk we were about to have.

Putting the case with the syringe back into my pocket I looked up from Henderson, who lay next to the door, and saw the key in the lock. How convenient! I turned it and made sure our session wouldn't be disturbed by any surprise visitors. When I crossed the room again after switching on the lights Chilton was already frantically tearing at his ties again and cursing under his breath. His wrists bore red marks from the forceful pulling and in the corner of his mouth there were traces of saliva.

I closed the heavy curtains and shut out the last rays of the dying sun in the dark orange sky, our only spectator. I picked up my hat that had fallen to the floor in the general commotion earlier on and carefully placed it on Chilton's desk along with my jacket and Finch's gun since I still had Chilton's pistol on me. Then I pulled up a chair and sat eye to eye with my oldest enemy.

Chilton stopped struggling and looked at me, panting. A strand of his hair had come loose and fallen into his face.

"You're just a common psychopath," he said with deepest derision. "You're no different from any of the insane killers I've had to deal with although I know that you like to pretend you are."

Anger welled up inside of me but my face remained a wooden mask. "I am nothing like those pathetic lowlifes in Baltimore and you know that full well." I tried to keep my voice calm but it sounded annoyingly close to a hiss even in my own ears. "Whatever you are trying to insinuate here, doctor, I am the master of my urges. Can you say the same for yourself? Can you say that when you phone your wife and tell her that you are not going to join her for dinner because you're working late?"

Chilton's inscrutable eyes narrowed for a split second but he composed himself and fired back: "That is preposterous, Lecter, and completely unfounded; nothing but a shot in the dark! Shot and missed. How amateurish, by the way."

"The fact that I missed doesn't automatically mean that there's no aim, Chilton. A man of your status and personality is bound to have some skeleton in the closet."

Chilton gave a coughing laugh. "There is no point in this, Lecter: everybody has their flaws."

"Yes, indeed, but not everyone is a narcissistic, career-oriented son of a bitch who sacrifices his colleagues for his own advancement."

Chilton pursed his lips. "What are you talking about?"

"Not 'what', Chilton, 'who'. Agent Clarice Starling from the F – B – I."

His face changed from disdain to amazement to amusement in quick succession.

"Is this why we're both here? Because you've… taken a liking to Agent Starling? What, are you throwing down the gauntlet to me because I asked her out to dinner once?"

I cocked my head ever so slightly. "A liking? That is neither here nor there, Chilton. But let's talk about Clarice Starling anyway. I could always see that you didn't like her; you used to purse your lips just like that when you spoke of her. I guess she is not one who would kiss her way up, no? What did she do to you, Chilton? Did she not feign worship to you in the presence of your subordinates? Could your megalomaniac ego not cope with that offense? Being talked back to by a woman?"

His eyes flashed. Apparently I had waved a red flag in front of the bull.

"You don't know what you're saying, Lecter. And you call yourself a professional?" he spat. "Yes, I loathed her but it wasn't because of her talking back! That little FBI priss – and a student too! – came to my institution, she tried to outsmart me, and she tried to take my project – you. She, an amateur, thought she could do better than I, someone who had already had twenty-four years of experience with every kind of mental illness you can think of! I even warned her about you but that goddamn rube from West Virginia simply wouldn't listen!"

It was strange to hear my own words coming out of Chilton's mouth. As they were ringing in my ears like a mocking chorus from the Carmina Burana, however, I recognized the difference between the two of us: in contrast to Chilton I had at least been so sincere as to say those things straight to Clarice's face – and with a different motive behind them. Chilton was just being plain rude. He was nothing like me. Even the thought of bearing only the slightest similarity to that common quack disgusted me beyond compare.

"How considerate of you to warn her, doctor!" I retorted, thrusting myself in his direction like an angry cobra but he barely flinched. "I wonder why she chose to ignore your advice... Maybe she despised your importunate behavior even more than mine."

"That's hardly possible."

"Well, you must have had some kind of quarrel or else you wouldn't have needed to listen in on our private conversations."

"There are no private conversations in prison, Lecter."

"Yet Agent Starling and I were allowed to talk directly and without any guards present."

"Yes, you were. You could have whispered your love for each other through the glass wall like Pyramus and Thisbe did without anyone knowing. I always found this comparison highly amusing until it turned out that Starling was actually more than a lab rat to you, unlike any other of your former visitors. You allowed her to come back again and again. That's when you aroused my attention – though I admit I should already have become suspicious by the time Miggs died. So I started to eavesdrop on you two."

"Did that arouse you, too, Dr. Chilton? Spying on unsuspecting people? I always had you down as a common sadist, you know: power-hungry, sexist, getting off in your office when you tortured the inmates of the Baltimore by turning off the lights or playing music at full blast for hours on end…"

"You're not going to get to me like that, Lecter. I've long since read your strategy of pulling some embarrassing sexual scenario or taboo out of the hat and throwing it at someone when he least expects it. Very effective. But brilliant as your preceding analyses may be, they always follow the same pattern. Aw, I'm sorry, did I just debunk the myth of the inscrutable Hannibal Lecter?"

He stared me in the eye, jaws clenched in veiled triumph as I moved my face closer to his, returning the stare with blank eyes. If I couldn't scare him verbally any more, the physical threat should do the trick, at least for the moment. Chilton didn't budge. He just sat there tied to the chair, a smug expression on his face. The courage of despair certainly bore strange fruit. His thin lips curled up into a smile and I gazed into the black and white gap behind them when he whispered: "I'm not as incompetent a psychologist as you think, Hannibal. How do you think did I get to where I am today?"

"Bound to a chair and at the mercy of a serial killer?" I breathed sardonically and humbly stating the obvious. I could see my own reflection in his dark pupils as he blinked at me angrily. Whatever had happened to 'frightfully', I wondered, still close enough to him that I could feel his warm breathing and smell his sweat over the after shave –though no fear.

"You know damn well what I mean. You feel so superior and in control of everyone when really your lack of self-control has put us both in this situation. You just couldn't resist the temptation, could you? But if you kill me, a police associate, they will intensify the hunt for you. Can you really afford fleeing yet another country for good?"

"The question is not whether I can afford it but whether this is worth all that. You as my former therapist, Frederick, should know I always think very carefully about my decisions."

I was still right in front of his face to give him a taste of the same treatment he had administered to me back in Baltimore: the invasion of one's personal space, the denial of the smallest form of privacy you were left with in prison and even that got stripped away once you were put in that revolting straitjacket with the face mask.

"Are you telling me your wrath against me is deeper than your fear of losing your freedom again? I'm honored to play such a dominant role in your life," Chilton said drily.

"Oh, don't flatter yourself," I cut him off coolly. "In fact, I'm here to settle two outstanding scores at once with you. One of these is on my own humble behalf; the other is for throwing Agent Starling to the wolves."

"I don't believe it," said Chilton, thus voicing what his face already showed. "Eventually, I was right! Pyramus and Thisbe. What did she do, Hannibal? Vow her eternal love for you through the hole in the wall and then help you escape from prison in Tennessee? I knew I should have kicked her out the moment she set foot in my office!"

"Shh, Frederick, contain your jealousy!"

"My what?"

"You tried treating me, your prized exhibit, for years but you didn't really get anywhere because I didn't cooperate. When Clarice Starling came along a whole new window of opportunity opened up for me. I decided to share my knowledge with her which in turn made you… jealous… of our relationship. Quod erat demonstrandum, doctor. Now, back to your original question." My voice became icy again. "Agent Starling has done nothing whatsoever nor shown any propensity to what you're insinuating. As a matter of fact, she is as innocent as a newborn lamb concerning my escape and our private meeting here. You on the other hand have done quite enough."

I got up and went over to an antique dresser that was probably just there because it complemented the desk. It had a mirror on top which was fastened on two hinges left and right. I tipped the mirror slightly over so that Chilton would be able to see himself from his sitting position in the chair. I got back to my prisoner and turned his chair to face the mirror. Since it didn't have wheels I spared myself the effort of pushing the heavy seat closer to the glass. The reflection now showed me standing behind Chilton with my hands on his shoulders. I looked into his eyes that stared back at me from the mirror and for the first time since being chained to the chair they showed something akin to fright and insecurity. I smiled. My reflection smiled back with wide, red lips.

"What do you see, Chilton?" I asked businesslike – but the furtive glow in my eyes gave me away.

"I see a new face but still the same soulless eyes I have looked into through a glass wall for eight years. I didn't like them then, I don't like them now." Chilton paused.

"That is quite a bold statement considering we're both on the same side of the glass now… But I was actually talking about your own face. Tell me something about it. Does it represent you well? Did the once innocent, young boy's features transform accordingly as his identity transformed into this raving sadist in the wake of puberty?"

"Really, Lecter? Do we really have to descend to this level? I thought you could do better than refer to that basic psychology." He shook his head gently and gave me a disparaging look in the mirror.

"I guess for once we agree, Dr. Chilton. Though I myself am a fan of the classics, I must say that I regard Freud as highly overrated – but we both know that there is always a kernel of truth to every fairytale. With this in mind, let's now talk about your oedipal desires."

"My oedipal desires!" echoed Chilton wearily.

"The very same. So… What I see in that face of yours is that you were a big mama's boy as a child and when you grew older your aggressiveness also grew – following Freud here this was of course an expression of your identification with the father figure whose symbolic meaning changed from rival to possessor of the loved object you couldn't have: your mother. Since this symbolic domination of a person, the 'possession' of the other in a monogamous relationship, just wasn't enough for you, you started to exert power over others in a different way, and especially over women. Judging by the behavior you've shown since I've known you, you must have loved your mother a lot. Only a strong love can turn into such strong feelings of hatred."

"Nice summary of the Oedipus complex, Lecter, but so generic that it is not even going to make me blush," he said unimpressed.

"Yes, I can see… Funny you should mention that… On my way here I was thinking about why people blush. An interesting phenomenon. Did you know that it is a psychosomatic reaction of the body, a physical symptom of emotional unease? No wonder I never blush." The lips of my reflection widened in a genuine smile while my beady eyes remained unmoved as if to bear witness to my words.

"My, my, look who's finally found his sense of humor," Chilton said sarcastically.

"Oh, I've always had a sense of humor; you just never understood it – like so many other things. By the way, have you found out by now why Agent Starling turned your advances down?"

"Starling is a conceited little idealist who thought she didn't have to submit to the machineries of power. That stupid girl would have gotten much further much faster if she had just known when to be a little nicer to me."

"Doubtful. The actual point, however, is that she was repulsed by your chauvinist behavior and your demeanor as the 'al – pha – male'. And here we've come full circle: the role you've taken on, the one generated by the Oedipus complex, failed. Miserably. Starling would not let you possess her, she would not hand over the reins. That must have hurt! But since she was an outsider you could not control or bully her. Oh, you don't like to hear that, do you? I can see it in your face. Tell me, doctor, what did you do to your wife when you came home that evening? Did you regain control?"

"You're one to talk about control!" Chilton hissed at me like an angry snake. "When out of the two of us it's you who walks around and randomly kills off people! That's an exertion of absolute power if I ever saw one! And still you keep telling yourself that you are in control of your actions, that your perverse desire does not control you! You think yourself above everyone else when you're really nothing but scum that needs to be locked away for the common good!"

"You should watch your tongue, Dr. Chilton, or you might lose it!" I retorted louder than I had intended.

The following silence exploded like a bomb while we were staring at each other in the mirror. Finally Chilton spoke again, in a quiet yet distinct voice: "People fear you because they know you kill and eat humans. But they only know half the story. I, however, have studied you for years and years and although you avoided the pitfalls of all the psychological tests we ran on you I recognize a monster if I see one. And you certainly are the evil incarnate."

"Is that why you used to keep me tied up and gagged when we were in the same room together?" I asked gently.

Chilton didn't answer.

I sighed and left my place behind him to get the wallet-sized case with the syringe from my jacket pocket. The reason why the case was oversized was that it actually contained much more than just the syringe. I smoothed down the jacket so it wouldn't crinkle and walked back to the chair and around it to face Chilton directly.

"Evil…" I repeated thoughtfully. "What's evil is always a matter of perspective, doctor. 'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' Even Shakespeare already knew that and who would dare call him a liar? I see your point though… To the families and loved ones of my… victims I surely must seem evil." I shook my head disapprovingly. "How very simplistic, how hackneyed this is! Have you ever tried to regard the matter on the meta-level though? Imagine I die – yes, I know you long to see the day – will my evil really disappear with me? Or will it live on in anthologies about serial killers, in memories, in the people I have inflicted, like they say beloved persons live on in others once they've passed by? Will I ever die in this particular sense of the word or is every attempt at locking me up until I finally draw my last, rattling breath really an exercise in futility?"

Chilton stared at me, clearly at a loss for words. It could have been shock but I assumed it was rather because in the last thirty seconds I had given him more information about me than in the eight years we had spent together at the Baltimore. I smiled at him and said: "I've done what only few people have accomplished, Chilton: I've become immortal. 'So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee.' Shakespeare again, though he was actually talking about poetry. I told you I was a fan of the classics. See, even back then in the Renaissance they were much more clear-sighted than we are today. And how do we know that? Because they are immortal."

"This is your basic motive, Hannibal? Becoming immortal by establishing a name as a serial killer?" Chilton panted breathlessly. "You've got to be joking! This is what I would call simplistic!"

"Shhh, Frederick, don't get so excited. Listen, I'll let you in on a secret here: I don't care if it makes me immortal or not; that's just a delightful side effect. No, what I really want is to carry on with my life just the way it was before Baltimore. But as I already told my taxi driver about an hour ago: I came here for leisure and for business, and unfortunately for you, business means that you will have to repay your debt, Frederick. I believe you know what it will cost you."