Red Dragon hl-1 Read online

  “The library confirms the Tattler is the only paper that carried a story about Lecter and you,” Crawford said, fixing himself an AlkaSeltzer. “Want one of these? Good for you. It was published Monday night a week ago. It was on the stands Tuesday nationwide—some areas not till Wednesday—AlaskaandMaineand places. The Tooth Fairy got one—couldn’t have done it before Tuesday. He reads it, writes to Lecter. Rankin and Willingham are still sifting the hospital trash for the envelope. Bad job. They don’t separate the papers from the diapers atChesapeake.

  “All right, Lecter gets the note from the Tooth Fairy no sooner than Wednesday. He tears out the part about how to reply and scratches over and pokes out one earlier reference—I don’t know why he didn’t tear that out too.”

  “It was in the middle of a paragraph full of compliments,” Graham said. “He couldn’t stand to ruin them. That’s why he didn’t throw the whole thing away.” He rubbed his temples with his knuckles.

  “Bowman thinks Lecter will use the Tattler to answer the Tooth Fairy. He says that’s probably the setup. You think he’d answer this thing?”

  “Sure. He’s a great correspondent. Pen pals all over.”

  “If they’re using the Tattler, Lecter would barely have time to get his answer in the issue they’ll print tonight, even if he sent it special delivery to the paper the same day he got the Tooth Fairy’s note.Chesterfrom theChicagooffice is down at the Tattler checking the ads. The printers are putting the paper together right now.”

  “Please God don’t stir the Tattler up,” Graham said.

  “The shop foreman thinksChester’s a realtor trying to get a jump on the ads. He’s selling him the proof sheets under the table, one by one as they come off. We’re getting everything, all the classifieds, just to blow some smoke. All right, say we find out how Lecter war to answer and we can duplicate the method. Then we can fake a message to the Tooth Fairy—but what do we say? How do we use it?”

  “The obvious thing is to try to get him to come to a mail drop,” Graham said. “Bait him with something he’d like to see. ‘Important evidence’ that Lecter knows about from talking to me. Some mistake he made that we’re waiting for him to repeat.”

  “He’d be an idiot to go for it.”

  “I know. Want to hear what the best bait would be?”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  “Lecter would be the best bait,” Graham said.

  “Set up how?”

  “It would be hell to do, I know that. We’d take Lecter into federal custody—Chilton would never sit still for this atChesapeake—and we stash him in maximum security at a VA psychiatric hospital. We fake an escape.

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “We send the Tooth Fairy a message in next week’s Tattler, after the big ‘escape.’ It would be Lecter asking him for a rendezvous.”

  “Why in God’s name would anybody want to meet Lecter? I mean, even the Tooth Fairy?”

  “To kill him, Jack.” Graham got up. There was no window to look out of as he talked. He stood in front of the “Ten Most Wanted,” Crawford’s only wall decoration. “See, the Tooth Fairy could absorb him that way, engulf him, become more than he is.

  “You sound pretty sure.”

  “I’m not sure. Who’s sure? What he said in the note was ‘I have some things I’d love to show you. Someday, perhaps, if circumstances permit.’ Maybe it was a serious invitation. I don’t think he was just being polite.”

  “Wonder what he’s got to show? The victims were intact. Nothing missing but a little skin and hair, and that was probably… How did Bloom put it?”

  “Ingested,” Graham said. “God knows what he’s got. Tremont, remember Tremont’s costumes inSpokane? While he was strapped to a stretcher he was pointing with his chin, still trying to show them to the Spokane PD. I’m not sure Lecter would draw the Tooth Fairy, Jack. I say it’s the best shot.”

  “We’d have a goddamn stampede if people thought Lecter was out. Papers all over us screaming. Best shot, maybe, but we’ll save it for last.”

  “He probably wouldn’t come near a mail drop, but he might be curious enough to look at a mail drop to see if Lecter had sold him. If he could do it from a distance. We could pick a drop that could be watched from only a few places a long way off and stake out the observation points.” It sounded weak to Graham even as he said it.

  “Secret Service has a setup they’ve never used. They’d let us have it. But if we don’t put an ad in today, we’ll have to wait until Monday before the next issue comes out. Presses roll at five our time. That givesChicagoanother hour and fifteen minutes to come up with Lecter’s ad, if there is one.

  “What about Lecter’s ad order, the letter he’d have sent the Tattler ordering the ad—could we get to that quicker?”

  “Chicagoput out some general feelers to the shop foreman,” Crawford said. “The mail stays in the classified advertising manager’s office. They sell the names and return addresses to mailing lists—outfits that sell products for lonely people, love charms, rooster pills, squack dealers, ‘meet beautiful Asian girls,’ personality courses, that sort of stuff.

  “We might appeal to the ad manager’s citizenship and all and get a look, request him to be quiet, but I don’t want to chance it and risk the Tattler slobbering all over us. It would take a warrant to go in there and Bogart the mail. I’m thinking about it.”

  “IfChicagoturns up nothing, we could put an ad in anyway. If we’re wrong about the Tattler, we wouldn’t lose anything,” Graham said.

  “And if we’re right that the Tattler is the medium and we make up a reply based on what we have in this note and screw it up—if it doesn’t look right to him—we’re down the tubes. I didn’t ask you aboutBirmingham. Anything?”

  “Birmingham’s shut down and over with. The Jacobi house has been painted and redecorated and it’s on the market. Their stuff is in storage waiting for probate. I went through the crates. The people I talked to didn’t know the Jacobis very well. The one thing they always mentioned was how affectionate the Jacobis were to each other. Always patting. Nothing left of them now but five pallet loads of stuff in a warehouse. I wish I had—”

  “Quit wishing, you’re on it now.”

  “What about the mark on the tree?”

  “‘You hit it on the head’? Means nothing to me,” Crawford said. “The Red Dragon either.Beverlyknows Mah-Jongg. She’s sharp, and she can’t see it. We know from his hair he’s not Chinese.”

  “He cut the limb with a bolt cutter. I don’t see—”

  Crawford’s telephone rang. He spoke into it briefly.

  “Lab’s ready on the note, Will. Let’s go up to Zeller’s office. It’s bigger and not so gray.”

  Lloyd Bowman, dry as a document in spite of the heat, caught up with them in the corridor. He was flapping damp photographs in each hand and held a sheaf of Datafax sheets under his arm. “Jack, I have to be in court at four-fifteen,” he said as he flapped ahead. “It’s that paper hanger Nilton Eskew and his sweetheart,Nan. She could draw a Treasury note freehand. They’ve been driving me crazy for two years making their own traveler’s checks on a color Xerox. Won’t leave home without them. Will I make it in time, or should I call the prosecutor?”

  “You’ll make it,” Crawford said. “Here we are.”

  Beverly Katz smiled at Graham from the couch in Zeller’s office, making up for the scowl of Price beside her.

  Scientific Analysis Section Chief Brian Zeller was young for his job, but already his hair was thinning and he wore bifocals. On the shelf behind Zeller’s desk Graham saw H. J. Walls’s forensic science text, Tedeschi’s great Forensic Medicine in three volumes, and an antique edition of Hopkins’ The Wreck of the Deutschland.

  “Will, we met once at GWU I think,” he said. “Do you know everybody?.. Fine.”

  Crawford leaned against the corner of Zeller’s desk, his arans folded. “Anybody got a blockbuster? Okay, does anything you found indicate the note did not come fr
om the Tooth Fairy?”

  “No,” Bowman said. “I talked toChicagoa few minutes ago to give them some numerals I picked up from an impression on the back of the note. Six-six-six. I’ll show you when we get to it.Chicagohas over two hundred personal ads so far.” He handed Graham a sheaf of Datafax copies. “I’ve read them and they’re all the usual stuff—marriage offers, appeals to runaways. I’m not sure how we’d recognize the ad if it’s here.”

  Crawford shook his head. “I don’t know either. Let’s break down the physical. Now, Jimmy Price did everything we could do and there was no print. What about you, Bev?”

  “I got one whisker. Scale count and core size match samples from Hannibal Lecter. So does color. The color’s markedly different from samples taken inBirminghamandAtlanta. Three blue grains and some dark flecks went to Brian’s end.” She raised her eyebrows at Brian Zeller.

  “The grains were commercial granulated cleaner with chlorine,” he said. “It must have come off the cleaning man’s hands. There were several very minute particles of dried blood. It’s definitely blood, but there’s not enough to type.”

  “The tears at the end of the pieces wandered off the perforations,” Beverly Katz continued. “If we find the roll in somebody’s possession and he hasn’t torn it again, we can get a definite match. I recommend issuing an advisory now, so the arresting officers will be sure to search for the roll.”

  Crawford nodded. “Bowman?”

  “Sharonfrom my office went after the paper and got samples to match. It’s toilet tissue for marine heads and motor homes. The texture matches brand name Wedeker manufactured inMinneapolis. It has nationwide distribution.”

  Bowman set up his photographs on an easel near the windows. His voice was surprisingly deep for his slight stature, and his bow tie moved slightly when he talked. “On the handwriting itself, this is a right-handed person using his left hand and printing in a deliberate block pattern. You can see the unsteadiness in the strokes and varying letter sizes.

  “The proportions make me think our man has a touch of uncorrected astigmatism.

  “The inks on both pieces of the note look like the same standard ball-point royal blue in natural light, but a slight difference appears under colored filters. He used two pens, changing somewhere in the missing section of the note. You can see where the first one began to skip. The first pen is not used frequently—see the blob it starts with? It might have been stored point-down and uncapped in a pencil jar or canister, which suggests a desk situation. Also the surface the paper lay on was soft enough to be a blotter. A blotter might retain impressions if you find it. I want to add the blotter toBeverly’s advisory.”

  Bowman flipped to a photograph of the back of the note. The extreme enlargement made the paper look fuzzy. It was grooved with shadowed impressions. “He folded the note to write the bottom part, including what was later torn out. In this enlargement of the back side, oblique light reveals a few impressions. We can make out ‘666 an.’ Maybe that’s where he had pen trouble and had to bear down and overwrite. I didn’t spot it until I had this high-contrast print. There’s no 666 in any ad so far.

  “The sentence structure is orderly, and there’s no rambling. The folds suggest it was delivered in a standard letter-size envelope. These two dark places are printing-ink smudges. The note was probably folded inside some innocuous printed matter in the envelope.

  “That’s about it,” Bowman said. “Unless you have questions, Jack, I’d better go to the courthouse. I’ll check in after I testify.”

  “Sink ‘em deep,” Crawford said.

  Graham studied the Tattler personals column. (“Attractive queen-size lady, young52,seeks Christian Leo nonsmoker 40—70. No children please. Artificial limb welcomed. No phonies. Send photo first letter.”)

  Lost in the pain and desperation of the ads, he didn’t notice that the others were leaving until Beverly Katz spoke to him.

  “I’m sorry,Beverly. What did you say?” He looked at her bright eyes and kindly, well-worn face.

  “I just said I’m glad to see you back, Champ. You’re looking good.”

  “Thanks,Beverly.”

  “Saul’s going to cooking school. He’s still hit-or-miss, but when the dust settles come over and let him practice on you.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Zeller went away to prowl his laboratory. Only Crawford and Graham were left, looking at the clock.

  “Forty minutes to Tattler press time,” Crawford said. “I’m going after their mail. What do you say?”

  “I think you have to.”

  Crawford passed the word toChicagoon Zeller’s telephone. “Will, we need to be ready with a substitute ad ifChicagobingoes.”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  “I’ll set up the drop.” Crawford called the Secret Service and talked at some length. Graham was still scribbling when he finished.

  “Okay, the mail drop’s a beauty,” Crawford said at last. “It’s an outside message box on a fire-extinguisher-service outfit inAnnapolis. That’s Lecter territory. The Tooth Fairy will see that it’s something Lecter could know about Alphabetical pigeonholes. The service peopIe drive up to it and get assignments and mail. Our boy can check it out from a park across the street. Secret Service swears it looks good. They set it up to catch a counterfeiter, but it turned out they didn’t need it. Here’s the address. What about the message?”

  “We have to use two messages in the same edition. The first one warns the Tooth Fairy that his enemies are closer than he thinks. It tells him he made a bad mistake inAtlantaand if he repeats the mistake he’s doomed. It tells him Lecter has mailed ‘secret information’ I showed Lecter about what we’re doing, how close we are, the leads we have. It directs the Tooth Fairy to a second message that begins with ‘your signature.’

  “The second message begins ‘Avid Fan…’ and contains the address of the mail drop. We have to do it that way. Even in roundabout language, the warning in the first message is going to excite some casual nuts. If they can’t find out the address, they can’t come to the drop and screw things up.”

  “Good. Damn good. Want to wait it out in my office?”

  “I’d rather be doing something. I need to see Brian Zeller.”

  “Go ahead, I can get you in a hurry if I have to.” Graham found the section chief in Serology.

  “Brian, could you show me a couple of things?”

  “Sure, what?”

  “The samples you used to type the Tooth Fairy.”

  Zeller looked at Graham through the close-range section of his bifocals. “Was there something in the report you didn’t understand?”

  “No.”

  “Was something unclear?”

  “No.”

  “Something incomplete?” Zeller mouthed the word as if it had an unpleasant taste.

  “Your report was fine, couldn’t ask for better. I just want to hold the evidence in my hand.”

  “Ah, certainly. We can do that.” Zeller believed that all field men retain the superstitions of the hunt. He was glad to humor Graham. “It’s all together down at that end.”

  Graham followed him between the long counters of apparatus. “You’re reading Tedeschi.”

  “Yes,” Zeller said over his shoulder. “We don’t do any forensic medicine here, as you know, but Tedeschi has a lot of useful things in there. Graham. Will Graham. You wrote the standard monograph on determining time of death by insect activity, didn’t you. Or do I have the right Graham?”

  “I did it.” A pause. “You’re right, Mant and Nuorteva in the Tedeschi are better on insects.”

  Zeller was surprised to hear his thought spoken. “Well, it does have more pictures and a table of invasion waves. No offense.”

  “Of course not. They’re better. I told them so.”

  Zeller gathered vials and slides from a cabinet and a refrigerator and set them on the laboratory counter. “If you want to ask me anything, I’ll be where you found me. The stage light
on this microscope is on the side here.”

  Graham did not want the microscope. He doubted none of Zeller’s findings. He didn’t know what he wanted. He raised the vials and slides to the light, and a glassine envelope with two blond hairs found inBirmingham. A second envelope held three hairs found on Mrs. Leeds.

  There were spit and hair and semen on the table in front of Graham and empty air where he tried to see an image, a face, something to replace the shapeless dread he carried.

  A woman’s voice came from a speaker in the ceiling. “Graham, Will Graham, to Special Agent Crawford’s office. On Red.”

  He found Sarah in her headset typing, with Crawford looking over her shoulder.

  “Chicago’s got an ad order with 666 in it,” Crawford said out of the side of his mouth. “They’re dictating it to Sarah now. They said part of it looks like code.”

  The lines were climbing out of Sarah’s typewriter.

  Deer Pilgrim,

  You honor me…

  “That’s it. That’s it,” Graham said. “Lecter called him a pilgrim when he was talking to me.”

  You’re very beautiful…

  “Christ,” Crawford said.

  I offer 100 prayers for your safety.

  Find help in John 6:22, 8:16, 9:1; Luke 1:7, 3:1; Galatians 6:11, 15:2; Acis 3:3; Revelation 18:7; Jonah 6:8…

  The typing slowed as Sarah read back each pair of numbers to the agent inChicago. When she had finished, the list of scriptural references covered a quarter of a page. It was signed “Bless you, 666.”

  “That’s it,” Sarah said.

  Crawford picked up the phone. “Okay,Chester, how did it go down with the ad manager?.. No, you did right… A complete clam, right. Stand by at that phone, I’ll get back to you.”

  “Code,” Graham said.

  “Has to be. We’ve got twenty-two minutes to get a message in if we can break it. Shop foreman needs ten minutes’ notice and three hundred dollars to shoehorn one in this edition. Bowman’s in his office, he got a recess. If you’ll get him cracking, I’ll talk to Cryptography atLangley. Sarah, shoot a telex of the ad to CIA cryptography section. I’ll tell ‘em it’s coming.”