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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.

“We’re running down the license number,” the detective said. “Could you understand what he was saying?”