One Dead Drag Queen Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t want to be under the tracks when its jangling rumble passed overhead. At the best of times the el train noise was a major annoyance. Another train hurtled toward us from the west. McCutcheon and I stopped. The cacophony was terrible. Then the ground shook. Tom’s truck blew up.

5
     
    For the second time in a few hours, I was knocked to the ground. It was more instinct than conscious decision that I got my hands out in front of me and broke my fall. McCutcheon and I scrambled away from the intense heat. Down the block about fifty feet, we stopped. I sat myself on the curb on the far side of the street from the burning wreck. At this distance I could barely feel the heat from the flames. Bits of pavement were gouged into my already begrimed palms. I picked out the larger bits, then dusted my hands on my jeans to dislodge the remaining dirt. McCutcheon stood over me. As we watched Tom’s truck burn, random thoughts and fears flitted through my mind. They centered on who would do this, and how did they know his truck was here?
    I was determined to do all I could to make the terror I was feeling disappear. I was angry at the perpetrators and frightened for Tom’s life and my own. Mixed with fear and anger were feelings of dread and hopelessness. I already knew that there was no way to stop the unreasonably angryand the totally mad from wreaking destruction on the rest of us. I guess we all know this, but how often do we really face it? I’m not sure if I was trying to keep myself from thinking about the accumulated terror of the night or from looking for real answers. I realized I’d never come this close to dying before. That scared the hell out of me. I pictured myself getting into Tom’s truck and being instantly immolated. I threw up what little was left in my stomach.
    People from the scene of the clinic explosion rushed toward the flames of this new terror. A fire engine arrived in less than five minutes. Tom’s truck was a complete loss, but they worked to keep the flames from spreading to the other cars or melting the struts of the superstructure on which the el ran.
    A mess of cops showed up. I told the first ones I was the lover of the owner of the truck and that he’d been hurt in the earlier bombing. A crowd of onlookers and a few camera crews trickled over. I was recognized early on, but McCutcheon and I got to stand inside the crime-scene tape and be less hassled.
    A uniformed cop took down basic information. Then Larry Jantoro, a Chicago police detective, showed up. He and McCutcheon nodded to each other—wasn’t hard to figure they knew one another—and Jantoro addressed his first questions to McCutcheon.
    Full dawn broke as McCutcheon gave him the details about what had happened from the moment we turned onto this street. When Jantoro asked me about my movements that night, I told him everything. As I explained, he took notes and asked questions. The one he repeated most often was, “Did you come back here at all after you arrived?”
    I hadn’t. After I finished, Jantoro said, “We’ve got to figureout if someone knew this was actually your buddy’s truck, or if you and him were a victim of random chance. This auxiliary parking lot for the clinic may have been a secondary target or the killer’s last cruel joke to hurt people who thought they were safe.”
    “Or it could have been a planned attack on us,” I said.
    “Anything’s possible,” Jantoro said in that grudging tone that meant he didn’t really think it was probable. “You’ve got guards. You might think about hiring a few more.”
    The police had sent for the bomb squad to inspect all the other cars in the vicinity. I was unwilling to wait the extra time. I could get my car later.
    “The world has lost its mind,” I said as Jantoro walked away.
    McCutcheon nodded. “Looks that way a lot. I’d be out of a job if it wasn’t.”
    “Is that security-guard humor?” I asked.
    “Just an observation.”
    “Somebody