Thomas Harris - Red Dragon

Dawn in Chicago, heavy air and the gray sky low.

A security guard came out of the lobby of the Tattler building and stood at the curb smoking a cigarette and rubbing the small of his back. He was alone on the street and in the quiet he could hear the clack of the traffic light changing at the top of the hill, a long block away.

Half a block north of the light, out of the guard’s sight, Francis Dolarhyde squatted beside Lounds in the back of the van. He arranged the blanket in a deep cowl that hid Lounds’s head.

Lounds was in great pain. He appeared stuporous, but his mind was racing. There were things he must remember. The blindfold was tented across his nose and he could see Dolarhyde’s fingers checking the crusted gag.

Dolarhyde put on the white jacket of a medical orderly, laid a thermos in Lounds’s lap and rolled him out of the van. When he locked the wheels of the chair and turned to put the ramp back in the van, Lounds could see the end of the van’s bumper beneath his blindfold.

Turning now, seeing the bumper guard… Yes! The license plate. Only a flash, but Lounds burned it into his mind.

Rolling now. Sidewalk seams. Around a corner and down a curb. Paper crackled under the wheels.

Dolarhyde stopped the wheelchair in a bit of littered shelter between a garbage dumpster and a parked truck. He pulled at the blindfold. Lounds closed his eyes. An ammonia bottle under his nose.

The soft voice close beside him.

“Can you hear me? You’re almost there.” The blindfold off now. “Blink if you can hear me.”

Dolarhyde opened his eye with a thumb and forefinger. Lounds was looking at Dolarhyde’s face.

“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.

The schedule called for Graham to leave the staked-out 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 all-points bulletin for a license number about six-twenty."

"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 old-young 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 okay. I had the SWAT team."

Lounds's head was elevated in the bed. His hair and ears were gone and compresses over his sightless eyes replaced the burned-off lids. His gums were puffed with blisters.

The nurse beside him moved an IV stand so Graham could come close. Lounds smelled like a stable fire.

"Freddy, it's Will Graham."

Lounds arched his neck against the pillow.

"The movement's just reflex, he's not conscious," the nurse said. The plastic airway holding open his scorched and swollen throat hissed in time with the respirator.

A pale detective sergeant sat in the corner with a tape recorder and a clipboard on his lap. Graham didn't notice him until he spoke.

"Lounds said your name in the emergency room before they put the airway in."

"You were there?"

"Later I was there. But I've got what he said on tape. He gave the firemen a license number when they first got to him. He passed out, and he was out in the ambulance, but he came around for a minute in the emergency room when they gave him a shot in the chest. Some Tattler people had followed the ambulance – they were there. I have a copy of their tape."

"Let me hear it." The detective fiddled with his tape recorder. "I think you want to use the earphone," he said, his face carefully blank. He pushed the button.

Graham heard voices, the rattle of casters,"… put him in there," the bump of a litter on a swinging door, a retching cough and a voice croaking, speaking without lips.

" Tooth Hairy ."

"Freddy, did you see him? What did he look like, Freddy?"

" Wendy? Hlease Wendy. Grahan set ne uh. The cunt knew it. Grahan set ne uh. Cunt tut his hand on ne in the ticture like a hucking tet. Wendy? "

A noise like a drain sucking. A doctor's voice: "That's it. Let me get there. Get out of the way. Now ."

That was all. Graham stood over Lounds while Crawford listened to the tape.