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Except for his own personal risk, the matter of ruining Clarice Starling did not weigh with Krendler as would breaking a man. A man had a family to support— Krendler supported his own family, as greedy and ungrateful as they were.

And Starling definitely had to go. Left alone, following the threads with the picky, petty homemaking skills of a woman, Clarice Starling would find Hannibal Lecter. If that happened, Mason Verger would not give Krendler anything.

The sooner she was stripped of her resources and put out there as bait, the better.

Krendler had broken careers before, in his own rise to power, first as a state prosecuting attorney active in politics, and later at Justice. He knew from experience that crippling a woman’s career is easier than damaging a man’s. If a woman gets a promotion that women shouldn’t have, the most efficient way is to say she won it on her back.

It would be impossible to make that charge stick to Clarice Starling, Krendler thought. In fact, he couldn’t think of anyone more in need of a grudge-fucking up the dirt road. He sometimes thought of that abrasive act as he twisted his finger in his nose.

Krendler could not have explained his animosity to Starling. It was visceral and it belonged to a place in himself where he could not go. A place with seat covers and a dome light, door handles and window cranks and a girl with Starling’s coloring but not her sense and her pants around one ankle asking him what in the hell was the matter with him, and why didn’t he come on and do it, was he some kind of queer? some kind of queer? some kind of queer?

If you didn’t know what a cunt Starling was, Krendler reflected, her performance in black and white was much better than her few promotions would indicate—he had to admit that. Her rewards had been satisfyingly few: By adding the odd drop of poison to her record over the years, Krendler had been able to influence the FBI career board enough to block a number of plum assignments she should have gotten, and her independent attitude and smart mouth had helped his cause.

Mason wouldn’t wait for the disposition of Feliciana Fish Market. And there was no guarantee any shit would stick to Starling in a hearing. The shooting of Evelda Drumgo and the others was the result of a security failure, obviously. It was a miracle Starling was able to save that little bastard of a baby. One more for the public to have to feed. Tearing the scab off that ugly event would be easy, but it was an unwieldy way to get at Starling.

Better Mason’s way. It would be quick and she would be out of there. The timing was propitious:

One Washington axiom, proved more times than the Pythagorean theorem, states that in the presence of oxygen, one loud fart with an obvious culprit will cover many small emissions in the same room, provided they are nearly simultaneous.

Ergo, the impeachment trial was distracting the Justice Department enough for him to railroad Starling.

Mason wanted some press coverage for Dr. Lecter to see. But Krendler must make the coverage seem an unhappy accident. Fortunately an occasion was coming that would serve him well: the very birthday of the FBI.

Krendler maintained a tame conscience with which to shrive himself.

It consoled him now: If Starling lost her job, at worst some goddamned dyke den where Starling lived would have to do without the big TV dish for sports. At worst he was giving a loose cannon a way to roll over the side and threaten nobody anymore.

A “loose cannon” over the side would “stop rocking the boat,” he thought, pleased and comforted as though two naval metaphors made a logical equation. That the rocking boat moves the cannon bothered him not at all.

Krendler had the most active fantasy life his imagination would permit. Now, for his pleasure, he pictured Starling as old, tripping over those tits, those trim legs turned blue-veined and lumpy, trudging up and down the stairs carrying laundry, turning her face away from the stains on the sheets, working for her board at a bed-and-breakfast owned by a couple of goddamned hairy old dykes.

He imagined the next thing he would say to her, coming on the heels of his triumph with “cornpone country pussy.”

Armed with Dr. Doemling’s insights, he wanted to stand close to her after she was disarmed and say without moving his mouth, “You’re old to still be fucking your daddy, even for Southern white trash.” He repeated the line in his mind, and considered putting it in his notebook.

Krendler had the tool and the time and the venom he needed to smash Starling’s career, and as he set about it, he was vastly aided by chance and the Italian mail.

CHAPTER

68

THE BATTLE Creek Cemetery outside Hubbard, Texas, is a small scar on the lion-colored hide of central Texas in December. The wind is whistling there at this moment, and it will always whistle there. You cannot wait it out.

The new section of the cemetery has flat markers so it’s easy to mow the grass. Today a silver heart balloon dances there over the grave of a birthday girl. In the older part of the cemetery they mow along the paths every time and get between the tombstones with a mower as often as they can. Bits of ribbon, the stalks of dried flowers, are mixed in the soil. At the very back of the cemetery is a compost heap where the old flowers go. Between the

dancing heart balloon and the compost heap, a backhoe is idling, a young black man at the controls, another on the ground, cupping a match against the wind as he lights a cigarette …

“Mr. Closter, I wanted you to be here when we did this so you could see what we’re up against. I’m sure you will discourage the loved ones from any viewing,” said Mr. Greenlea, director of the Hubbard Funeral Home. “That casket—and I want to compliment you again on your taste—that casket will make a proud presentation, and that’s as far as they need to see. I’m happy to give you the professional discount on it. My own father, who is dead at the present time, rests in one just like it.”

He nodded to the backhoe operator and the machine’s claw took a bite out of the weedy, sunken grave.

“You’re positive about the stone, Mr. Closter?”

“Yes,” Dr. Lecter said. “The children are having one stone made for both the mother and the father.”

They stood without talking, the wind snapping their trouser cuffs, until the backhoe stopped about two feet down.

“We’d better go with shovels from here,” Mr. Greenlea said. The two workers dropped into the hole and started moving dirt with an easy, practiced swing.