Red 1-2-3 (9780802192844)

by Katzenbach, John

  Red One will be angry.

  Red Two will be confused.

  Red Three will be scared.

  He took a moment to look at slightly blurry pictures of each woman, taken with a long-lens camera. On the wall above his computer he had tacked more than a dozen pictures of each Red, along with note cards filled with information about each woman. Months of observation—from a distance yet intensely personal—were delineated on the wall. Little bits of their history, small aspects of their lives—all gleaned from cautious study—became words on a note card or glossy full-color pictures. Red One was caught smoking. A dangerously bad habit, he thought. Red Three was sitting alone beneath a campus tree. Always lonely, he reminded himself. Red Two was pictured emerging from a liquor store, arms filled with packages. You are so weak, he whispered. He had placed that photograph above a newspaper clipping that was frayed around the edges. The headline was Fireman and Daughter, 3, Killed in Crash.

  It was not unlike the sort of display that police detective bureaus collected so that the cops could have a visual representation of the way a case was progressing. It was a staple cinematographer’s shot in a hundred movies—with justification, because it was so commonplace. There was one large difference, however: The police tacked up crime scene photos of murdered bodies because they needed answers to questions. His array was of the living, destined to die, most questions already answered.

  He knew each Red would respond differently to the letter. He had spent considerable time examining literary and scientific works that assessed human behavior in the turmoil that direct threats create. While there were common reactions associated with fear—see a shark’s fin and the heart skips a beat—the Big Bad Wolf instinctively believed fear was processed individually. When an airplane hits unexpected turbulence and seems to stagger in the sky, the passenger in seat 10A screams and grips the armrests white-knuckled, while in seat 10B the traveler shrugs and goes back to reading. This fascinated him. He liked to think that in both his careers, novelist and killer, he had explored these things deeply. And he was not one to underestimate the correlation between fear and creativity.

  He expected several concrete things to happen after they’d read his letter. He also tried to anticipate some of the emotions that were within them. They will stumble and fall, he thought. They will twitch and shake. He had recently watched a television show on the History Channel that interviewed famous military snipers. Using high-tech camerawork, it had reconstructed some of the remarkable assassinations they had performed, in Korea, in Vietnam, and in the Iraq war. But what struck him was not merely the extraordinary competence of these snipers who stole lives, but the emotional detachment they displayed, what the French call sangfroid. The military killers called their victims targets, as if they had no more personality than a black-and-white bull’s-eye, and boasted that they had not the slightest hint of a subsequent nightmare. He did not know that he believed this. In his murderous experience, the stealing of a life was only as significant as the mental reverberations afterward. Indeed, reliving moments was where the real satisfaction rested. He embraced nightmares. He guessed that the snipers did as well. They just weren’t about to say that in public with a documentary camera rolling.

  That, too, made him special. He was documenting everything. That was what he found delicious: actions and thoughts, the stew of death. He typed furiously, words racing at him.

  One of them—at least one, but not all—will call the police. That’s to be expected. But the police will be as confused as they are. Preventing something from happening is precisely not what the police are skilled at. Maybe the police are capable of finding out who performed a murder, after it happens—but they are relatively incompetent at preventing one from taking place. The Secret Service protects the president, and they devote thousands of man-hours, computer time, psychological analysis, and academic study to keeping one man safe. And yet—they fail. Regularly.

  No one is protecting the Reds.

  One—maybe all three of them at some point—will try to hide from me. Think of the children’s game of hide-and-seek. The advantages are always with the person doing the seeking: He knows his quarry. He knows what drives them into concealment. He probably knows the places they will try to hide, and he knows the uncertainty that fuels their fear.

  One—I’m sure at least one—will refuse to believe the truth: that they are going to die at my hands. Fear corners some people underground. But sometimes fear insists that people ignore danger. It is much easier to believe nothing will happen to you than it is to think each breath you take may be one of the last you’ll ever enjoy.

  One—maybe all three—will think they need to seek out assistance, only to have no idea what sort of assistance they need. So they will be stifled by uncertainty. And even were they to seek out another person’s counsel—well, that person is likely to downplay the threat, not underscore it. This is because we do not want to ever believe in the capriciousness of life. We do not want to believe in thunderbolts and accidents. We do not want to believe that we are being hunted, when in truth, we are every day of our lives. And so, whoever they consult will want to reassure my Red that everything is going to be all right, when the exact opposite is the case.

  What is the challenge facing me?

  My Reds will try to protect themselves in any number of ways. My task, obviously, is to make certain that they cannot. To achieve that, I have to get close to each of them, so that I can anticipate each pathetic step they will try. But at the same time, I have to maintain my anonymity. Close, yet hidden—that’s the approach.

  He paused. It was nearing the dinner hour. His fingers flew across the keyboard. He wanted to finish up with some of his initial thoughts before breaking for the evening meal.

  No one has ever done what I intend to do.

  Three wildly different victims.

  Three distinct locations.

  Three different deaths.

  All on the same day. Within hours of each other. Maybe within minutes. Deaths that tumble together like dominoes. Each one falling against the next. Click. Click. Click.

  He stopped. He liked that image.

  Maybe one of those military snipers had achieved multiple kills all on the same day, or in the same hour, or even in the same minute, he thought. But they had a single enemy to focus on that walked stupidly and thoughtlessly directly into their line of fire. And there were killers he had studied who had achieved multiple murders in short order. But again, these were genuinely random acts—shoot this person, walk across town, shoot another person. The D.C. Sniper. Son of Sam. The Zodiac. There were others. But none had done anything as special as what he planned. What he was attempting was truly something that no one had ever tried. Guinness World Records-worthy. He could barely contain his excitement. Proximity, he told himself. Get closer. That was what the Big Bad Wolf did in the children’s story. That was what he was busy planning.

  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 ar
e critical. Body position is crucial. Everything depends on that first thrust and motion.

  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.

  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 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 symbolized 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 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 rooting 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 tha
t 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, 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.