good morning.
"we" being the behavioral science unit, at quantico. you're one of jack crawford's, i expect.
may i see your credentials?
closer, please.  clo-ser.
that expires in one week. you're not real fbi, are you?
jack crawford sent a trainee to me?
mmmmm.  that's rather slippery of you, officer starling. sit. please.
now then. what did miggs say to you? "multiple miggs," in the next cell. he hissed at you. what did he say?
i see. i myself cannot. you use evyan skin cream, and sometimes you wear l'air du temps, but not today. you brought your best bag, though, didn't you?
it's much better than your shoes.
i have no doubt of it.
yes. that's the duomo, seen from the belvedere. do you know florence?
memory, officer starling, is what i have instead of view.
no, no, no. you were doing fine, you'd been courteous and receptive to courtesy, you'd established trust with the embarrassing truth about miggs, and now this ham-handed segue into your questionnaire. it won't do. it's stupid and boring.
jack crawford must be very busy indeed if he's recruiting help from the student body. busy hunting that new one, buffalo bill.  such a naughty boy! did crawford send you to ask for my advice on him?
how many women has he used, our bill?
all flayed?
do you know why he's called buffalo bill? tell me. the newspapers won't say.
witless and misleading. why do you think he takes their skins, officer starling? thrill me with your wisdom.
i didn't.
send that through.
oh, officer starling.  do you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?
you're sooo ambitious, aren't you? you know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? you look like a rube. a well- scrubbed, hustling rube with a little, taste.  good nutrition has given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you officer starling? that accent you're trying so desperately to shed - pure west virginia. what was your father, dear? was he a coal miner? did he stink of the lamp? and oh, how quickly the boys found you! all those tedious, sticky fumblings, in the back seats of cars, while you could only dream of getting out. getting anywhere - yes? getting all the way - to the
you're a tough one, aren't you?
and you'd hate to think you were common. my, wouldn't that sting! well you're far from common, officer starling. all you have is the fear of it. now please excuse me. good day.
a census taker once tried to test me. i ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.  fly back to school, little starling.
officer starling.  officer starling!
who's shivering with rage. for an instant his face opens, and we catch a glimpse into hell itself. then he's composed again.
i would not have had that happen to you. discourtesy is - unspeakably ugly to me.
no. but i will make you happy.  i'll give you a chance for what you love most, clarice starling.
advancement, of course. go to split city. see miss mofet, an old patient of mine. m-o-f-e-t.  now go. go. i don't think miggs could manage again so soon, even if he is crazy - do you?
your bleeding has stopped.
why don't you ask me about buffalo bill?
i might if i saw the case file. you could get that for me.
his real name is benjamin raspail. a former patient of mine, whose romantic attachments ran to, shall we say, the exotic? i didn't kill him, merely tucked him away. very much as i found him, in that ridiculous car, in his own garage, after he's missed three appointments. you'd have him under "missing person" - which, in poor raspail's case, could hardly be more true.
who can say? best thing for him, really. his therapy was going nowhere.
and have them clomping about in my life? oh dear, no.  at that time i still had certain private amusements of my own. how did you feel when you saw him, clarice? may i call you clarice?
ahhh.  why?
do you have something you use, when you need to get up your courage? memories, tableaux.  scenes from your early life?
jack crawford is helping your career, isn't he? apparently he likes you. and you like him, too.
your first lie to me, clarice. how sad. tell me - do you think crawford wants you, sexually? true, he's much older, but - do you think he visualizes.  scenarios, exchanges? fucking you?
not anymore. surely the odd confluence of events hasn't escaped you, clarice. crawford dangles you before me. then i give you a bit of help. do you think it's because i like to look at you, and imagine how good you would taste?
or doesn't this all begin to suggest to you a kind of.  negotiation? there's something crawford can give me, and i want to trade for it. i even wrote to him, offering my help. but he hates me, so he won't deal directly.
punishment, you see. for miggs. just like that gospel program. when you leave, they'll turn the volume way up. chilton does enjoy his petty torments.
i've been in this room for eight years, clarice. i know they will never, ever let me out while i'm alive. what i want is a view. i want a window where i can see a tree, or even water. i want to be in a federal institution, away from chilton - and i want a view. i'll give good value for it. crawford could do that for me, but he won't. you persuade him.
oh, a very naughty boy. someone you and jack crawford are most anxious to meet.
who is he stalking right now, clarice? i wonder, don't you? how many more young women will have to die, before you trade with me?
wouldn't you say, clarice, that for a united states senator, you're an odd choice of messenger?
that is both impudent and untrue.  tell me, how did you feel when you viewed our billy's latest effort? or should i say, his "next-to-latest"?
life's too slippery for books, clarice. typhoid and swans came from the same god. tell me, miss west virginia - was she a large girl?
big through the hips. roomy.
mmm. and what else?
was it a butterfly?
i'm waiting for your offer, clarice. enchant me.
"plum island animal disease research center." sounds charming.
terns.  if i help you, clarice, it will be "turns" with us, too. quid pro quo. i tell you things, you tell me things. not about this case, though - about yourself. yes or no? yes or no, clarice. catherine is waiting. tick-tock, tick-tock.
what's your worst memory of childhood? quicker than that. i'm not interested in your worst invention.
tell me. don't lie, or i'll know.
killed outright?
you're very frank, clarice. i think - it would be quite something to know you in private life.
the significance of the moth is change. caterpillar into cocoon into beauty.  billy wants to change, too, clarice. but there's the problem of his size, you see. even if he were a woman, he'd have to be a big one.
clever girl. you're so close to the way you're going to catch him - do you realize that?
after your father's death, you were orphaned. what happened next? i don't imagine the answer's on those second-rate shoes, clarice.
a cattle ranch?
how long did you live there?
why so briefly?
why, clarice? did the rancher fuck you?
did he try to?
billy's not a real transsexual, but he thinks he is. he tries to be. he's tried to be a lot of things, i expect.
there are three major centers for transsexual surgery: johns hopkins, the university of minnesota, and columbus medical center. i wouldn't be surprised if billy has applied for sex reassignment at one or all of them, and been rejected.
the personality inventories would trip him up. rorschach, wechsler, house-tree-person.  he wouldn't test like a real transsexual.
that's enough, i think. happy hunting. oh, and clarice - next time you will tell me why you ran away. shall i summarize?
you should try to obtain a list of males rejected from all three gender reassignment centers.
check first the ones rejected for lying about criminal records.
among those who tried to conceal their past, look for severe childhood disturbances, associated with violence.  possibly you'll find a childhood incarceration.  then go to their personality tests.
study their drawings, especially. billy's house drawings will show no happy future.  no baby carriage, out in the yard. no pets, no toys, no flowers, no sun.
his females will be more crudely sketched than him males - but he'll compensate by adding exaggerated adornments.  jewelry, big breasts.  and his tree drawings - oh, his trees will be frightful.
billy hates his own identity, he always has - and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. but his pathology is a thousand times more savage.  he wants to be reborn, clarice. he will be reborn.
i'll tell the senator herself. but only in tennessee.
oh yes, officer pembry. i certainly do.
i won't waste your time and catherine's time bargaining for petty privileges. clarice starling and that awful jack crawford have wasted far too much already. i only pray they haven't doomed the poor girl.  let me help you now, and i'll trust you when it's all over.
buffalo bill's real name is william rubin. i met him just once. he was referred to me in april or may, 1980, by my patient benjamin raspail. they were lovers, but raspail had become very frightened. apparently rubin had murdered a transient, and - done things with the skin. he thought if i could cure billy, then billy'd be safe from the police, and he's be safe from billy.  obviously, he was wrong.
did you nurse catherine?
did you breast-feed her?
toughened your nipples, didn't it? six foot one, strongly built, about 190 pounds. hair brown, eyes pale blue. he'd be about 35 now. he said he lived in philadelphia, but may have lied. that's really all i can remember, senator - but if i think of any more, i'll let you know.
senator martin! you can't trust jack crawford or clarice starling. it's such a game with these people. they're determined to get the arrest for themselves. the "collar," i think they say.
oh, and senator? love you suit.
good afternoon, clarice.
how very thoughtful.  or did crawford send you here for one last wheedle - before you're both booted off the case?
people will say we're in love. pity you tried to fool me, isn't it? pity for poor catherine. tick-tock.
clarice.  you're hardly in a position to accuse me of lying.
i've studied the case file, have you? everything you need to find him is right in these pages. whatever his name is.
first principles, clarice. simplicity. read marcus aurelius. of each particular thing, ask: what is it, in itself, what is its nature? what does he do, this man you seek?
no! that's incidental.
what is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing?
no, he covets. that's his nature. and how do we begin to covet, clarice? do we seek out things to covet? make an effort to answer.
no. precisely. we begin by coveting what we see every day. don't you feel eyes moving over your body, clarice? i hardly see how you couldn't. and don't your eyes move over the things you want?
no. it's your turn to tell me, clarice. you don't have any more vacations to sell, on anthrax island. why did you run away from that ranch?
we don't reckon time the same way, clarice. this is all the time you'll ever have.
i'll listen now. after your father's murder, you were orphaned. you were ten years old. you went to live with cousins, on a sheep and horse ranch in montana. and - ?
not "just," clarice. what set you off? you started what time?
then something woke you. what? did you dream? what was it?
what was it?
what did you do?
and what did you see, clarice?
they were slaughtering the spring lambs?
so you ran away.
but you could. you did.
where were you going?
but what became of your lamb? clarice?
you still wake up sometimes, don't you? wake up in the dark, with the lambs screaming?
do you think if you saved catherine, you could make them stop? do you think, if catherine lives, you won't wake up in the dark, ever again, to the screaming of the lambs? do you?
thank you, clarice.
dr. chilton.  i believe you know each other?
brave clarice. will you let me know if ever the lambs stop screaming?
promise? then why not take your case file? i won't be needing it anymore.
good-bye, clarice.
just another minute, please!
lines up his thumbnail just shy of the square edge, then braces it against the stainless steel toilet rim. he pushes down, hard, using both hands for leverage. after a moment he smiles, holding up the result, and twirling it before his eyes.
i'm ready when you are, officer pembry.
watches as boyle approaches the table, above five feet from him. boyle has to set his tray down on the floor to clear off some of the mess of drawings. the music plays on.
picks up the pocketknife, examines it happily. about a four- inch blade. he becomes aware of the whimpering, off screen, turns.
clarice, doesn't this random scattering of sites seem overdone to you? doesn't it seem desperately random - like the elaborations of a bad liar? ta.  hannibal lecter.
billy wants to change, too, clarice. but there's the problem of his size, you see.
even if he were a woman, he'd have to be a big one.
well, clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?
don't bother with a trace, i won't be on long enough.
where i have a view, clarice.
orion is looking splendid tonight, and arcturus, the herdsman, with his flock.
smiles into his mobile phone. he is stretched out on a lounger, on a tiled patio, languidly paring an orange with a penknife. his appearance is quite altered - a beard, glasses, lighter hair. he's has some cosmetic surgery, as well.
your lambs are still for now, clarice, but not forever.  you'll have to earn it again and again, this blessed silence. because it's the plight that drives you, and the plight will never end.
i have no plans to call on you, clarice, the world being more interesting with you in it. be sure you extend me the same courtesy.
goodbye, clarice.  you looked - so very lovely today, in your blue suit.
considers him for a genial moment, then raises the little pen-knife. his eyes are twinkling.
well, dr. chilton. shall we begin?