He blinked back the tears and shone his light on the old oak wheelchair he had uncovered. It was high-backed, heavy, and strong, one of three in the basement. The county had provided them to Grandmother in the 1940s when she ran her nursing home here.
The wheels squeaked as he rolled the chair across the floor. Despite its weight, he carried it easily up the stairs. In the kitchen he oiled the wheels. The small front wheels still squeaked, but the back ones had good bearings and spun freely at a flip of his finger.
The searing anger in him was eased by the wheels’ soothing hum. As he spun them, Dolarhyde hummed too.
20
When Freddy Lounds left the Tattler office at noon on Tuesday he was tired and high. He had put together the Tattler story on the plane to Chicago and laid it out in the composing room in thirty minutes flat.
The rest of the time he had worked steadily on his paperback, brushing off all callers. He was a good organizer and now he had fifty thousand words of solid background.
When the Tooth Fairy was caught, he’d do a whammo lead and an account of the capture. The background material would fit in neatly. He had arranged to have three of the Tattler’s better reporters ready to go on short notice. Within hours of the capture they could be digging for details wherever the Tooth Fairy lived.
His agent talked very big numbers. Discussing the project with the agent ahead of time was, strictly speaking, a violation of his agreement with Crawford. All contracts and memos would be postdated after the capture to cover that up.
Crawford held a big stick—he had Lounds’s threat on tape. Interstate transmission of a threatening message was an indictable offense outside any protection Lounds enjoyed under the First Amendment. Lounds also knew that Crawford, with one phone call, could give him a permanent problem with the Internal Revenue Service.
There were polyps of honesty in Lounds; he had few illusions about the nature of his work. But he had developed a near-religious fervor about this project.
He was possessed with a vision of a better life on the other side of the money. Buried under all the dirt he had ever done, his old hopes still faced east. Now they stirred and strained to rise.
Satisfied that his cameras and recording equipment were ready, he drove home to sleep for three hours before the flight to Washington, where he would meet Crawford near the trap.
A damned nuisance in the underground garage. The black van, parked in the space next to his, was over the line. It crowded into the space clearly marked “Mr. Frederick Lounds.”
Lounds opened his door hard, banging the side of the van and leaving a dent and a mark. That would teach the inconsiderate bastard.
Lounds was locking his car when the van door opened behind him. He was turning, had half-turned when the flat sap thocked over his ear. He got his hands up, but his knees were going and there was tremendous pressure around his neck and the air was shut off. When his heaving chest could fill again it sucked chloroform.
Dolarhyde parked the van behind his house, climbed out and stretched. He had fought a crosswind all the way from Chicago and his arms were tired. He studied the night sky. The Perseid meteor shower was due soon, and he must not miss it.
Revelation: And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them down to the earth . . .
His doing in another time. He must see it and remember.
Dolarhyde unlocked the back door and made his routine search of the house. When he came outside again he wore a stocking mask.
He opened the van and attached a ramp. Then he rolled out Freddy Lounds. Lounds wore nothing but his shorts and a gag and blindfold. Though he was only semiconscious, he did not slump. He sat up very straight, his head against the high back of the old oak wheelchair. From the back of his head to the soles of his feet he was bonded to the chair with epoxy glue.
Dolarhyde rolled him into the house and parked him in a corner of the parlor with his back to the room, as though he had misbehaved.
“Are you too cool? Would you like a blanket?”
Dolarhyde peeled off the sanitary napkins covering Lounds’s eyes and mouth. Lounds didn’t answer. The odor of chloroform hung on him.
“I’ll get you a blanket.” Dolarhyde took an afghan from the sofa and tucked it around Lounds up to the chin, then pressed an ammonia bottle under his nose.
Lounds’s eyes opened wide on a blurred joining of walls. He coughed and started talking.
“Accident? Am I hurt bad?”
The voice behind him: “No, Mr. Lounds. You’ll be just fine.”
“My back hurts. My skin. Did I get burned? I hope to God I’m not burned.”
“Burned? Burned. No. You just rest here. I’ll be with you in a little while.”
“Let me lie down. Listen, I want you to call my office. My God, I’m in a Striker frame. My back’s broken—tell me the truth!”