Red 1-2-3 (7 page)

43

5

At the top of the key, Jordan heard the play called, the point guard’s voice just overcoming the crowd noise filling the gymnasium. She hesitated, unsure why the coach would signal for a play that had never once worked in practice. Then she spun to her right and set a pick for the weak-side forward. The play was designed for an easy layup right down the lane.

Jordan loved the architecture of the game, how every small detail became an element in an equation that resulted in success. But every time they’d run this play in training, it had broken down, because the girl who was supposed to drive her defender into Jordan slowed, allowing the opposing player to slide into the small space that indecision created and not be picked off, but to maintain steady defensive pressure. There were variations that they’d attempted, but these, too, would fall apart if the other girl didn’t commit to initially forcing her defender into Jordan’s chest.

Things happen quickly on a basketball court. Motion is defined not only by speed, but also by placement. Angles are critical. Body position is crucial. Everything depends on that first thrust and motion.

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RED 1–2–3

Jordan hated all these plays, because the failure to pick off the defender was always seen as
her
fault. She was the only one on the floor aware of the poor angle her teammate invariably took. It was like her teammate was afraid to cause anyone to get hurt—but the result was that the other girls all thought it was Jordan who was being weak and timid, when in reality she liked nothing more than the sensation of bodies clashing.

Small moments of danger and threat of injury—that was what Jordan lived for.

She lowered her arms close to her body so that she was like a pillar on the court. She knew that the point guard was dribbling behind her, perhaps ten feet away. There was a steady cacophony of noise that seemed to hover just above the court, so that the squeak and squeal of basketball shoes against the polished wooden floor rose up and mingled with cheers and exhortations from the people jammed into the bleachers.

Jordan saw her teammate faking along the baseline, and then turning and digging hard for the elbow—the spot where the foul line ends, and where Jordan waited. She could see the defender moving fast to keep pace, and instantly Jordan saw that, as she expected, her teammate hadn’t taken the right angle. She was
close
but not close
enough
.

Jordan despised the lack of passion she felt from some of her teammates, when she felt every minute on the court as one of total devotion and release. The game would start and she could forget everything. Or so she thought. She imagined if she were religious, the ecstasy of prayer would be exactly the same as the feeling that overcame her in the game she played.

She imagined:
I am a nun on the court
.

She bent forward at the waist and tensed her muscles.

But not so innocent.

She knew that was she was about to do was illegal, but she also knew that a great journalist had once written that basketball is a game of subtle felonies, and so, in a split second, she decided this was a good moment to risk one.

45

JOHN KATZENBACH

Jordan saw that the defender was moving fast into the gap between her teammate and herself—a space that shouldn’t have been there. And so, just as the three of them closed, she slightly dipped her shoulder and moved forward an inch or two at the moment they came together. The girl on the other team took the force of Jordan’s shoulder in her chest. Jordan could hear wind knocked from her body, and a grunt and a small gasp as the two of them locked together. Her own teammate slipped past the instant tangle of players, emerged free on the far side, and took the pass.

An easy two,
Jordan thought, as she rolled toward the basket, not expecting a rebound, but moving into position as she had both been coached and had learned by instinct.

She fully expected to hear the referee’s whistle.
Foul! Number 23!

She could hear the crowd cheering. She could hear the opposing coach from his sideline bench, frantically screaming, “Illegal pick! Illegal pick!”

You’re damn right, coach,
she thought.

To her side, the opposing player, having regained her wind, whispered,

“Bitch!”

Damn right again,
she told herself. She didn’t say this out loud. Instead, she loped back down the floor to take up her defensive position, knowing she should watch out for a stray elbow aimed at her cheek, or a fist shoved into her back where the ref couldn’t see it. Basketball is also a game of hidden paybacks, and she knew she was due at least one.

The noise from the crowd rose in anticipation, filling the gym—there wasn’t much time left and the game was close and Jordan knew that every action on the court in the seconds remaining would define who won and who lost. The dying moments of a basketball game require the greatest focus and most intense concentration. But something quite different popped into her head.
The Big Bad Wolf outthinks Little Red Riding Hood.

He outmaneuvers her at every point. No one comes to her rescue. No one saves
her. She is completely alone in the forest and she can do nothing to stop the
inevitable. She dies. No, worse: She is eaten alive.

Jordan tried to shake loose the prior evening’s research. She had spent two hours in the library, reading the Grimms’ fairy tales, then another 46

RED 1–2–3

ninety minutes on the computer examining psychological interpretations of the story of
Little Red Riding Hood
. Everything she’d learned had terrified her and fascinated her. This was an awful combination of feelings.

She heard one of her teammates yell, “D-Up! D-Up!” And when her opposite number came into position, Jordan set her shoulder against the girl’s back in an
I’m right here
movement. She could hear voices shouting warnings. “Back pick! Watch the screen!”
Organized chaos,
Jordan thought. It was the part of the game she most loved.

A girl on the opposing team took an ill-advised, hurried three-pointer.

The combination of cheering, the clock winding down, the closeness of the score, and the girl’s overconfidence all conspired to push the ball away from the rim. Jordan jumped, reaching for the rebound, snatching it from the air, swinging her elbows wildly to clear away anyone who might try to steal it from her. For a second she felt as if she were alone, soaring angel-like above the court. Then she thudded back to the hardwood floor. She could feel the rough surface of the synthetic leather beneath her sweaty palms. She wanted to hit someone, just foul her savagely, but she did not.

Instead she flipped the ball to a guard and thought,
Now we’ll win,
but understanding that the point of the fairy tale was that death of innocence was unavoidable and that the Big Bad Wolf and everything he symbol-ized about the inexorable force of evil would ultimately win out.
No wonder they changed the story around,
she thought.
The original version was a
nightmare.

The whistle blew. One of her teammates had been fouled. The other team was resorting to hacking its way back into the game.
Just pathetic
hope
, Jordan imagined.
They believe we’ll miss our free throws. Not goddamn
very likely.

But she did not believe that she had won anything that evening. The game perhaps. But nothing else.

In the stands, in the seconds following the final whistle, especially in a close contest, there is a surge of relief crashing against waves of disappointment. Elation and disappointment are like conflicted currents in a 47

JOHN KATZENBACH

tight channel as the tide begins to change. The Big Bad Wolf basked in the palpable ebb and flow surrounding him. Winners and losers.

He was incredibly proud of Red Three. He loved the way she fought on every single play and the way she had taken advantage of every mistake her opposing number had made. He thought he could taste the sweat that matted her hair and glistened on her forehead.
She’s a real competitor,
he thought.

Affection and admiration only made his desire to kill her increase. He felt drawn to her, as if she exuded some magnetic force that only he could feel.

He let out a loud, “Yeah! Way to go!” like any parent or spectator root-ing in the stands.

He closed up his notebook and stuffed his mechanical pencil into a jacket pocket. Later, in the privacy of his writing room, he would go over his scribbled observations. Like a journalist’s, the Big Bad Wolf ’s rapid notations tended toward the cryptic: Single words, like
lithe, nasty, tough,
and
fierce
mixed with larger descriptions, such as
seems possessed by the game
and
never appears to talk to anyone else on the court, either on her team or the
other. No trash-talking and no encouragement. No high-fives for teammates.

No “In your face” or shouts of “And One!” directed at the opposition. No
self-satisfied, chest-pounding, preening for the people watching. Just singular
intensity that every minute exceeds that of the other nine players on the floor.

And one other delicious observation:
Red Three’s hair makes her seem on
fire.

The Big Bad Wolf could hardly rip his eyes away from watching Red Three, but he knew that he should think of himself as on stage, so he forced himself to avert his gaze and watch some of the other players. This was almost painful for him. Although he knew no one was watching him, he liked to imagine that
everyone
was watching him, every second. There were marks that had to be hit, and lines that had to be uttered at just the precise moment, so that he seemed no different from anyone else crammed into the wooden bleacher rows.

Around him, people were standing, stretching, gathering coats as they readied to leave, or, if they were students, looking for book bags or backpacks. He stole one look back over his shoulder as he pulled on his jacket, 48

RED 1–2–3

and watched the team—with Red Three bringing up the rear—as they jogged off the court. The boys’ varsity game was scheduled to start in twenty minutes, and there was a press of people moving out of seats and newcomers working their way in. He tugged on his baseball hat, emblazoned with the school’s name. He believed deeply that he looked like any parent, friend, school official, or townie who just enjoyed high school basketball. And he doubted that anyone noticed his note taking; there were too many college scouts and local sports reporters who watched the games with notebooks in hand to draw any real attention to his interest.

This was something the Big Bad Wolf loved: looking ordinary when he was far from it. He could feel his pulse accelerate. He looked at the people pressing around him.
Can any of you imagine who I truly am?
he wondered.

He took a final glance toward the door to the locker room and caught a glimpse of Red Three’s hair, disappearing.
Do you know how close I was
today?
He wanted to whisper this in her ear.

He thought,
She does not know it, but we are more intimate than lovers.

The Big Bad Wolf began to make his way out of the gym, caught up in the throng of moving people. He had much to do, both planning and writing, and he was eager to get back to his office. He wondered if he’d acquired enough knowledge in what he’d seen to start a new chapter of his book, and his mind suddenly went to beginnings. He wrote in his head:
Red Three wore a look of utter determination and total devotion when
she snatched the rebound from the air. I don’t think she could even hear the
cheers that rained down on her. Even knowing she was scheduled to die did
not distract her.

Yes. He liked that.

He suddenly heard a quiet, cheery voice coming from right beside him.

“Are you absolutely sure we shouldn’t stay for the boys’ game?”

He hesitated as he turned to Mrs. Big Bad Wolf. She, too, had pulled on a well-worn baseball cap with the school’s name on it.

“No, dear,” he replied, smiling. He reached out like a teenager in love for the first time and took his wife’s hand. “I think I’ve seen more than enough for one day.”

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JOHN KATZENBACH

* * *

Sarah Locksley twitched with tension as she stood in the small vestibule of her house. She was dressed in brown leather boots, tight jeans, and a long tan winter overcoat. She had showered and brushed her hair and even applied a small amount of makeup to her cheeks and eyes. She had her large multicolored pocketbook slung over her shoulder and she could feel the bricklike weight of the loaded .357 Magnum pulling it down.

She knew she appeared completely presentable and totally put together and that any stranger walking by would think that she was just another woman in her early thirties on her way out for groceries or on some other errand. Maybe a trip to the mall or to meet with some girlfriends for a ladies’ night out of shared appetizers and calorie-conscious salads followed by some inane romantic comedy at the multiplex.

That Sarah was crippled by despair was effectively hidden. All she had to do was open the door to her house, step outside into the wan afternoon light, make her way to her car, start the engine, put it into gear, and off she would go, just like any normal person with something to do on a weekend evening.

But she knew that she was not a normal person. She shivered as if she were cold.
Not normal in the slightest way whatsoever. Not anymore.

Strange, conflicted thoughts crashed into Sarah’s mind:
He’s right outside. He will kill me before I have a chance to pull out Ted’s gun. But at least
I look nice. If I die in the next minute, at least the EMTs who arrive at my
murder and the medical examiner who inspects my dead body will think I’m
clean and organized and not like I really am. Why does that make a difference?