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 fold 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.
22
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.