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“R ight.”

“If you start with the idea that the Tattler set him off, does it strike you that he set this up in a hell of a hurry? The thing came off the press Monday night, he’s in Chicago stealing license plates sometime Tuesday, probably Tuesday morning, and he’s on top of Lounds Tuesday afternoon. What does that say to you?”

“That he saw it early or he didn’t have far to come,” Crawford said. “Either he saw it here in Chicago or he saw it someplace else Monday night. Bear in mind, he’d be watching for it to get the personal column.”

“Either he was already here, or he came from driving distance,” Graham said. “He was on top of Lounds too fast with a big old wheelchair you couldn’t carry on a plane—it doesn’t even fold. And he didn’t fly here, steal a van, steal plates for it, and go around looking for an antique wheelchair to use. He had to have an old wheelchair—a new one wouldn’t work for what he did.” Graham was up, fiddling with the cord on the venetian blinds, staring at the brick wall across the air-shaft. “He already had the wheelchair or he saw it all the time.”

Osborne started to ask a question, but Crawford’s expression cautioned him to wait.

Graham was tying knots in the blind cord. His hands were not steady.

“He saw it all the time . . .” Crawford prompted.

“Um-hmm,” Graham said. “You can see how . . . the idea starts with the wheelchair. From the sight and thought of the wheelchair. That’s where the idea would come from when he’s thinking what he’ll do to those fuckers. Freddy rolling down the street on fire, it must have been quite a sight.”

“Do you think he watched it?”

“Maybe. He certainly saw it before he did it, when he was making up his mind what he’d do.”

Osborne watched Crawford. Crawford was solid. Osborne knew Crawford was solid, and Crawford was going along with this.

“If he had the chair, or he saw it all the time . . . we can check around the nursing homes, the VA,” Osborne said.

“It was perfect to hold Freddy still,” Graham said.

“For a long time. He was gone fifteen hours and twenty-five minutes, more or less,” Osborne said.

“If he had just wanted to snuff Freddy, he could have done that in the garage,” Graham said. “He could have burned him in his car. He wanted to talk to Freddy, or hurt him for a while.”

“Either he did it in the back of the van or he took him somewhere,” Crawford said. “That length of time, I’d say he took him somewhere.”

“It had to be somewhere safe. If he bundled him up good, he wouldn’t attract much notice around a nursing home, going in and out,” Osborne said.

“He’d have the racket, though,” Crawford said. “A certain amount of cleaning up to do. Assume he had the chair, and he had access to the van, and he had a safe place to take him to work on him. Does that sound like . . . home?”

Osborne’s telephone rang. He growled into it.

“What? . . . No, I don’t want to talk to the Tattler . . . Well, it better not be bullshit. Put her on. . . . Captain Osborne, yes . . . What time? Who answered the phone initially—at the switchboard? Take her off the switchboard, please. Tell me again what he said. . . . I’ll have an officer there in five minutes.”

Osborne looked at his telephone thoughtfully after he hung up.

“Lounds’s secretary got a call about five minutes ago,” he said. “She swears it was Lounds’s voice. He said something, something she didn’t get, ‘. . . strength of the Great Red Dragon.’ That’s what she thought he said.”

24

Dr. Frederick Chilton stood in the corridor outside Hannibal Lecter’s cell. With Chilton were three large orderlies. One carried a straitjacket and leg restraints and another held a can of Mace. The third loaded a tranquilizer dart into his air rifle.

Lecter was reading an actuarial chart at his table and taking notes. He had heard the footsteps coming. He heard the rifle breech close behind him, but he continued to read and gave no sign that he knew Chilton was there.

Chilton had sent him the newspapers at noon and let him wait until night to find out his punishment for helping the Dragon.

“Dr. Lecter,” Chilton said.

Lecter turned around. “Good evening, Dr. Chil

ton.” He didn’t acknowledge the presence of the guards. He looked only at Chilton.

“I’ve come for your books. All your books.”