Red Dragon hl-1

by Thomas Harris

  Beside her in the dark, he put his hand on her and pressed her together gently to seal the way back. As she slept, Dolarhyde, damned murderer of eleven, listened time and again to her heart.

  Images. Baroque pearls flying through the friendly dark. A Very pistol he had fired at the moon. A great firework he saw inHong Kongcalled “The Dragon Sows His Pearls.”

  The Dragon.

  He felt stunned, cloven. And all the long night beside her he listened, fearful, for himself coming down the stairs in the kimono.

  She stirred once in the night, searching sleepily until she found the bedside glass. Grandmother’s teeth rattled in it.

  Dolarhyde brought her water. She held him in the dark. When she slept again, he took her hand off his great tattoo and put it on his face.

  * * *

  He slept hard at dawn.

  Reba McClane woke at nine and heard his steady breathing. She stretched lazily in the big bed. He didn’t stir. She reviewed the layout of the house, the order of rugs and floor, the direction of the ticking clock. When she had it straight, she rose quietly and found the bathroom.

  After her long shower, he was still asleep. Her torn underclothes were on the floor. She found them with her feet and stuffed them in her purse. She pulled her cotton dress on over her head, picked up her cane and walked outside.

  He had told her the yard was large and level, bounded by hedges grown wild, but she was cautious at first.

  The morning breeze was cool, the sun warm. She stood in the yard and let the wind toss the seed heads of the elderberry through her hands. The wind found the creases of her body, fresh from the shower. She raised her arms to it and the wind blew cool beneath her breasts and arms and between her legs. Bees went by. She was not afraid of them and they left her alone.

  Dolarhyde woke, puzzled for an instant because he was not in his room upstairs. His yellow eyes grew wide as he remembered. An owlish turn of his head to the other pillow. Empty.

  Was she wandering around the house? What might she find? Or had something happened in the night? Something to clean up. He would be suspected. He might have to run.

  He looked in the bathroom, in the kitchen. Down in the basement where his other wheelchair stood. The upper floor. He didn’t want to go upstairs. He had to look. His tattoo flexed as he climbed the stairs. The Dragon glowed at him from the picture in his bedroom. He could not stay in the room with the Dragon.

  From an upstairs window he spotted her in the yard.

  “FRANCIS.” He knew the voice came from his room. He knew it was the voice of the Dragon. This new twoness with the Dragon disoriented him. He first felt it when he put his hand on Reba’s heart.

  The Dragon had never spoken to him before. It was frightening.

  “FRANCIS, COME HERE.”

  He tried to shut out the voice calling him, calling him as he hurried down the stairs.

  What could she have found? Grandmother’s teeth had rattled in the glass, but he put them away when he brought her water. She couldn’t see anything.

  Freddy’s tape. It was in a cassette recorder in the parlor. He checked it. The cassette was rewound to the beginning. He couldn’t remember if he hadrewound it after he played it on the telephone to the Tattler.

  She must not come back in the house. He didn’t know what might happen in the house. She might get a surprise. The Dragon might come down. He knew how easily she would tear.

  The women saw her getting in his van. Warfield would remember them together, Hurriedly he dressed.

  Reba McClane felt the cool bar of a tree trunk’s shadow, and then the sun again as she wandered across the yard. She could always tell where she was by the heat of the sun and the hum of the window air conditioner. Navigation, her life’s discipline, was easy here. She turned around and around, trailing her hands on the shrubs and overgrown flowers.

  A cloud blocked the sun and she stopped, not knowing in which direction she faced. She listened for the air conditioner. It was off. She felt a moment of uneasiness, then clapped her hands and heard the reassuring echo from the house. Reba flipped up her watch crystal and felt the time. She’d have to wake D. soon. She needed to go home.

  The screen door slammed.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  His keys tinkled as he came across the grass.

  He approached her cautiously, as though the wind of his coming might blow her down, and saw that she was not afraid of him.

  She didn’t seem embarrassed or ashamed of what they had done in the night. She didn’t seem angry. She didn’t run from him or threaten him. He wondered if it was because she had not seen his private parts.

  Reba put her arms around him and laid her head on his hard chest. His heart was going fast.

  He managed to say good morning.

  “I’ve had a really terrific time, D.”

  Really? What would someone say back? “Good. Me too.” That seemed all right. Get her away from here.

  “But I need to go home now,” she was saying. “My sister’s coming by to pick me up for lunch. You could come too if you like.”

  “I have to go the plant,” he said, modifying the lie he had ready, “I’ll get my purse.”

  Oh no . “I’ll get it.”

  Almost blind to his own true feelings, no more able to express them than a scar can blush, Dolarhyde did not know what had happened to him with Reba McClane, or why. He was confused, spiked with new fright at being Two.

  She threatened him, she did not threaten him.

  There was the matter of her startling live movements of acceptance in Grandmother’s bed.

  Often Dolarhyde did not find out what he felt until he acted. He didn’t know how he felt toward Reba MeClane.

  An ugly incident as he drove her home enlightened him a little. Just past theLindbergh Boulevardexit off Interstate 70, Dolarhyde pulled into a Servco Supreme station to fill his van.

  The attendant was a heavyset, sullen man with muscatel on his breath. He made a face when Dolarhyde asked him to check the oil.

  The van was a quart low. The attendant jammed the oil spout into the can and stuck the spout into the engine.

  Dolarhyde climbed out to pay.

  The attendant seemed enthusiastic about wiping the windshield; the passenger side of the windshield. He wiped and wiped.

  Reba McClane sat in the high bucket seat, her legs crossed, her skirt riding up over her knee. Her white cane lay between the seats.

  The attendant started over on the windshield. He was looking up her dress.

  Dolarhyde glanced up from his wallet and caught him. He reached in through the window of the van and turned the wipers on high speed, batting the attendant’s fingers.

  “Hey, watch that.” The attendant got busy removing the oil can from the engine compartment. He knew he was caught and he wore a sly grin until Dolarhyde came around the van to him.

  “You son of a bitch.” Fast over the /s/.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” The attendant was about Dolarhyde’s height and weight, but he had nowhere near the muscle. He was young to have dentures, and he didn’t take care of them.

  Their greenness disgusted Dolarhyde. “What happened to your teeth?” he asked softly.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Did you pull them for your boyfriend, you rotten prick?” Dolarhyde stood too close.

  “Get the hell away from me.”

  Quietly, “Pig. Idiot. Trash. Fool.”

  With a one-hand shove Dolarhyde sent him flying back to slam against the van. The oil can and spout clattered on the asphalt

  Dolarhyde picked it up.

  “Don’t run. I can catch you.” He pulled the spout ftom the can and looked at its sharp end.

  The attendant was pale. There was something in Dolarhyde’s face that he had never seen before, anywhere.

  For a red instant Dolarhyde saw the spout jammed in the man’s chest, draining his heart. He saw Reba’s face through the windshield. She
was shaking her head, saying something. She was trying to find the handle to roll her window down.

  “Ever had anything broken, ass-eyes?”

  The attendant shook his head fast. “I didn’t mean no offense, now. Honest to God.”

  Dolarhyde held the curved metal spout in front of the man’s face. He held it in both hands and his chest muscles bunched as he bent it double. He pulled out the man’s waistband and dropped the spout down the front of his pants.

  “Keep your pig eyes to yourself.” He stuffed money for the gas in the man’s shirt pocket. “You can run now,” he said. “But I could catch you anytime.”

  Chapter 36

  The tape came on Saturday in a small package addressed to Will Graham, c/o FBI Headquarters, Washington. It had been mailed inChicagoon the day Lounds was killed.

  The laboratory and Latent Prints found nothing useful on the cassette case or the wrapper.

  A copy of the tape went toChicagoin the afternoon pouch. Special Agent Chester brought it to Graham in the jury room at midafternoon. A memo from Lloyd Bowman was attached:

  Voiceprints verify this is Lounds. Obviously he was repeating dictation. It’s a new tape, manufactured in the last three months and never used before. Behavioral Science is picking at the content. Dr. Bloom should hear it when he’s well enough—you decide about that.

  Clearly the killer’s trying to rattle you.

  He’ll do that once too often, I think.

  A dry vote of confidence, much appreciated.

  Graham knew he had to listen to the tape. He waited untilChesterleft.

  He didn’t want to be closed up in the jury room with it. The empty courtroom was better—some sun came in the tall windows. The cleaning women had been in and dust still hung in the sunlight.

  The tape recorder was small and gray. Graham put it on a counsel table and pushed the button.

  A technician’s monotone: “Case number 426238, item 814, tagged and logged, a tape cassette. This is a rerecording.”

  A shift in the quality of the sound.

  Graham held on to the railing of the jury box with both hands.

  Freddy Lounds sounded tired and frightened.

  “I have had a great privilege. I have seen… I have seen with wonder… wonder and awe… awe… the strength of the Great Red Dragon.”

  The original recording had been interrupted frequently as it was made. The machine caught the clack of the stop key each time. Graham saw the finger on the key. Dragon finger.

  “I lied about Him. All I wrote was lies from Will Graham. He made me write them. I have… I have blasphemed against the Dragon. Even so… the Dragon is merciful. Now I want to serve Him. He… has helped me understand… His Splendor and I will praise Him. Newspapers, when you print this, always capitalize the H in ‘Him.’

  “He knows you made me lie, Will Graham. Because I was forced to lie, He will be more… more merciful to me than to you, Will Graham.

  “Reach behind you, Will Graham… and feel for the small knobs on the top of your pelvis. Feel your spine between them… that is the precise spot… where the Dragon will snap your spine.

  Graham kept his hands on the railing. Damn if I’ll feel. Did the Dragon not know the nomenclature of the iliac spine, or did he choose not to use it?

  “There’s much… for you to dread. From… from my own lips you’ll learn a little more to dread.”

  A pause before the awful screaming. Worse, the blubbering lipless cry, “You goddanned astard you romised.”

  Graham put his head between his knees until the bright spots stopped dancing in front of his eyes. He opened his mouth and breathed deep.

  An hour passed before he could listen to it again.

  He took the recorder into the jury room and tried to listen there. Too close. He left the tape recorder turning and went back into the courtroom. He could hear through the open door.

  “I have had a great privilege…”

  Someone was at the courtroom door. Graham recognized the young clerk from the Chicago FBI office and motioned for him to come in.

  “A letter came for you,” the clerk said. “Mr. Chester sent me with it. He told me to be sure and say the postal inspector fluoroscoped it.”

  The clerk pulled the letter out of his breast pocket. Heavy mauve stationery. Graham hoped it was from Molly.

  “It’s stamped, see?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Also it’s payday.” The clerk handed him his check. On the tape, Freddy screamed.

  The young man flinched.

  “Sorry,” Graham said.

  “I don’t see how you stand it,” the young man said.

  “Go home,” Graham said.

  He sat in the jury box to read his letter. He wanted some relief. The letter was from Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

  Dear Will,

  A brief note of congratulations for the job you did on Mr. Lounds. I admired it enormously. What a cunning boy you are!

  Mr. Lounds often offended me with his ignorant drivel, but he did enlighten me on one thing—your confinement in the mental hospital. My inept attorney should have brought that out in court, but never mind.

  You know, Will, you worry too much. You’d be so much more comfortable if you relaxed with yourself.

  We don’t invent our natures, Will; they’re issued to us along with our lungs and pancreas and everything else. Why fight it?

  I want to help you, Will, and I’d like to start by asking you this: When you were so depressed after you shot Mr. Ganett Jacob Hobbs to death, it wasn’t the act that got you down, was it? Really, didn’t you feel so bad because killing him felt so good?

  Think about it, but don’t worry about it. Why shouldn’t it feel good? It must feel good to God—He does it all the time, and are we not made in His image?

  You may have noticed in the paper yesterday, God dropped a church roof on thirty-four of His worshipers inTexasWednesday night—just as they were groveling through a hymn. Don’t you think that felt good?

  Thirty-four . He’d let you haveHobbs.

  He got 160 Filipinos in one plane crash last week—He’ll let you have measlyHobbs. He won’t begrudge you one measly murder. Two now. That’s all right.

  Watch the papers. God always stays ahead.

  Best,

  HannibalLecter, M.D.

  Graham knew that Lecter was dead wrong aboutHobbs, but for a half-second he wondered if Lecter might be a little bit right in the case of Freddy Lounds. The enemy inside Graham agreed with any accusation.

  He had put his hand on Freddy’s shoulder in the Tattler photograph to establish that he really had told Freddy those insulting things about the Dragon. Or had he wanted to put Freddy at risk, just a little? He wondered.

  The certain knowledge that he would not knowingly miss a chance at the Dragon reprieved him.

  “I’m just about worn out with you crazy sons of bitches,” Graham said aloud.

  He wanted a break. He called Molly, but no one answered the telephone at Willy’s grandparents’ house. “Probably out in their damned motorhome,” he mumbled.

  He went out for coffee, partly to assure himself that he was not hiding in the jury room.

  In the window of a jewelry store he saw a delicate antique gold bracelet. It cost him most of his paycheck. He had it wrapped and stamped for mailing. Only when he was sure he was alone at the mail drop did he address it to Molly inOregon. Graham did not realize, as Molly did, that he gave presents when he was angry.

  He didn’t want to go back to his jury room and work, but he had to. The thought of Valerie Leeds spurred him.

  I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone nght now, Valerie Leeds had said.

  He wished that he had known her. He wished… Useless, childish thought.

  Graham was tired, selfish, resentful, fatigued to a child-minded state in which his standards of measurement were the first ones he learned; where the direction “north” was Highway 61 and “six feet” was forever the length of his
father.

  He made himself settle down to the minutely detailed victim profile he was putting together from a fan of reports and his own observations.

  Affluence. That was one parallel. Both families were affluent. Odd that Valerie Leeds saved money on panty hose.

  Graham wondered if she had been a poor child. He thought so; her own children were a little too well turned out.

  Graham had been a poor child, following his father from the boatyards inBiloxiandGreenvilleto the lake boats onErie. Always the new boy at school, always the stranger. He had a half-buried grudge against the rich.

  Valerie Leeds might have been a poor child. He was tempted to watch his film of her again. He could do it in the courtroom. No. The Leedses were not his immediate problem. He knew the Leedses. He did not know the Jacobis.

  His lack of intimate knowledge about the Jacobis plagued him. The house fire inDetroithad taken everything—family albums, probably diaries too.

  Graham tried to know them through the objects they wanted, bought and used. That was all he had.

  The Jacobi probate file was three inches thick, and a lot of it was lists of possessions—a new household outfitted since the move toBirmingham. Look at all this skit. It was all insured, listed with serial numbers as the insurance companies required. Trust a man who has been burned out to buy plenty of insurance for the next time.

  The attorney, Byron Metcalf, had sent him carbons instead of Xerox copies of the insurance declarations. The carbons were fuzzy and hard to read.

  Jacobi had a ski boat,Leedshad a ski boat. Jacobi had a three-wheeler,Leedshad a trail bike. Graham licked his thumb and turned the page.

  The fourth item on the second page was a Chinon Pacific movie projector.

  Graham stopped. How had he missed it? He had looked through every crate on every pallet in theBirminghamwarehouse, alert for anything that would give him an intimate view of the Jacobis.

  Where was the projector? He could cross-check this insurance declaration against the inventory Byron Metcalf had prepared as executor when he stored the Jacobis’ things. The items had been checked off by the warehouse supervisor who signed the storage contract.