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 are 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.