Red Dragon - Thomas Harris [72]
“I told you one fib.” Dolarhyde tapped the thermos. “I don’t really have your lips on ice.” He whipped off the blanket and opened the thermos.
Lounds strained hard when he smelled the gasoline, separating the skin from under his forearms and making the stout chair groan. The gas was cold all over him, fumes filling his throat and they were rolling toward the center of the street
“Do you like being Graham’s pet, Freeeeedeeeee?”
Lit with a whump and shoved, sent rolling down on the Tattler, eeek, eeek, eeekeeekeeek the wheels.
The guard looked up as a scream blew the burning gag away. He saw the fireball coming, bouncing on the potholes, trailing smoke and sparks and the flames blown back like wings, disjointed reflections leaping along the shop windows.
It veered, struck a parked car and overturned in front of the building, one wheel spinning and flames through the spokes, blazing arms rising in the fighting posture of the burned.
The guard ran back into the lobby. He wondered if it would blow up, if he should get away from the windows. He pulled the fire alarm. What else? He grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and looked outside. It hadn’t blown up yet.
The guard approached cautiously through the greasy smoke spreading low over the pavement and, at last, sprayed foam on Freddy Lounds.
? HYPERLINK “” \l “CONTENTS” ??
Red Dragon
CHAPTER 22
The schedule called for Graham to leave the stakedout apartment in Washington at 5:45 A.M., well ahead of the morning rush.
Crawford called while he was shaving.
“Good morning.”
“Not so good,” Crawford said. “The Tooth Fairy got Lounds in Chicago.”
“Oh hell no.”
“He’s not dead yet and he’s asking for you. He can’t wait long.”
“I’ll go.”
“Meet me at the airport. United 245. It leaves in forty minutes. You can be back for the stakeout, if it’s still on.”
# # #
Special Agent Chester from the Chicago FBI office met them at O'Hare in a downpour. Chicago is a city used to sirens. The traffic parted reluctantly in front of them as Chester howled down the expressway, his red light flashing pink on the driving rain.
He raised his voice above the siren. “Chicago PD says he was jumped in his garage. My stuff is secondhand. We're not popular around here today.”
“How much is out?” Crawford said.
“The whole thing, trap, all of it.”
“Did Lounds get a look at him?”
“I haven't heard a description. Chicago PD put out an allpoints bulletin for a license number about sixtwenty.”
“Did you get hold of Dr. Bloom for me?”
“I got his wife, Jack. Dr. Bloom had his gall bladder taken out this morning.”
“Glorious,” Crawford said.
Chester pulled under the dripping hospital portico. He turned in his seat. “Jack, Will, before you go up . . . I hear this fruit really trashed Lounds. You ought to be ready for that.”
Graham nodded. All the way to Chicago he had tried to choke his hope that Lounds would die before he had to see him.
The corridor of Paege Burn Center was a tube of spotless tile. A tall doctor with a curiously oldyoung face beckoned Graham and Crawford away from the knot of people at Lounds's door.
“Mr. Lounds's burns are fatal,” the doctor said. "I can help him with the pain, and I intend to do it. He breathed flames and his throat and lungs are damaged. He may not regain consciousness. In his condition, that would be a blessing.
"In the event that he does regain consciousness, the city police have asked me to take the airway out of his throat so that he might possibly answer questions. I've agreed to try that - briefly.
“At the moment his nerve endings are anesthetized by fire. A lot of pain is coming, if he lives that long. I made this clear to the police and I want to make it clear to you: I'll interrupt any attempted questioning to sedate him if he wants me to. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Crawford said.
With a nod to the patrolman in front of the door, the doctor clasped his hands behind his white lab coat and moved away like a wading egret.
Crawford glanced at Graham. “You okay?”
“I'm