He had not run this hard since he was a kid in high school. Track wasn’t his sport; he’d played right field on the school’s baseball team, and his serious running had been confined to chasing high flies or rounding third base on a locomotive dash for home. That had been a long time ago; only on television and in movies did cops chase all over the city trying to nail a runaway suspect.
The man ahead of him was too fast.
Carella fired his pistol into the darkness, and the muzzle flash and ensuing explosion — like lightning and thunder on the night — coincided with a rain as sudden as it was fierce, almost as if his squeezing the trigger had served as a release mechanism, the lever action opening a hopper somewhere above. The rain was all-consuming. It pelted the path and the trees arching overhead, combining with the wind to create a multicolored shower of water and withering leaves. He pounded through the rain and the falling leaves, gasping for breath, his heart lurching in his chest, certain he would lose Lytell — if this was Lytell — knowing the man was simply too fast for him.
And then suddenly, up ahead, he saw Lytell lose purchase on the wet leaves underfoot, his arms flailing out for balance as his feet went out from under him. He fell to the sodden path sideways, his left shoulder hitting the asphalt, the blow of the impact softened somewhat by the covering of leaves. He was getting to his feet again when Carella ran up to him.
“Police,” Carella said breathlessly. “Don’t move.”
Lytell smiled.
“What took you so long?” he said.
11
It was still raining when the man from the D.A.’s office arrived at the 87th Precinct. He did not get there till six the next morning, by which time Ollie and Carella had already searched — armed with a magistrate’s warrant this time — Henry Lytell’s premises at 843 Holmes Street. Several articles they had found in the apartment were on the desk in Lieutenant Byrnes’s office when the assistant DA arrived. A stenographer recorded the presence of Lieutenant Byrnes, Detectives Carella and Weeks, and Assistant District Attorney Ralph Jenkins. The stenographer also recorded the date, Friday, October 21, and the time the interrogation took place, 6:05 A.M. Jenkins read Lytell his rights. Lytell said he understood them, and further stated that he did not wish his own attorney present during the questioning. Jenkins began the Q and A.
Q: May I have your full name, please?
A: Henry Lewis Lytell.
Q: And your address, Mr. Ly—
A: You probably know me as Lightning Lytell. That’s what the reporters used to call me. Back then.
Q: Yes. Mr. Lytell, may I have your address, please?
A: 843 Holmes Street.
Q: Here in Isola?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Are you employed, Mr. Lytell?
A: Yes, sir, I am.
Q: In what line of work?
A: You understand, don’t you, that I’m a runner. I mean, that’s what I am. How I earn my living has nothing to do with what I really am.
Q: How do you earn your living, Mr. Lytell?
A: I’m a researcher.
Q: For whom? What sort of research?
A: A freelance researcher. For advertising agencies, writers, anybody needing information about any particular subject or subjects.
Q: And your place of business is where?
A: At home. I work out of my apartment.
Q: Do you set your own hours, Mr. Lytell?
A: Yes. That’s the only good thing about the job, the freedom it gives me. To do other things. I try to run every day for at least—
Q: Mr. Lytell, can you tell me where you were and what you were doing on the night of October sixth? That would have been a Thursday night, two weeks ago.
A: Yes, sir. I was with a runner from Ramsey University. A girl on the track team.
Q: Her name, please.
A: Marcia Schaffer.
Q: When you say you were with her...
A: I was with her first in her apartment where I represented myself as a man named Corey McIntyre of Sports USA magazine. Then—
Q: You told Miss Schaffer you were someone named Corey McIntyre?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: How did you come upon this name?
A: I got it from the masthead of the magazine.
Q: And Miss Schaffer accepted you as a person from the magazine?
A: I had an I.D. card.
Q: Where did you get an I.D. card?
A: I made it. I used to work for an advertising agency. This was, oh, eight, nine years ago, after all the hullaballoo was dying down. I learned a lot in the art department, I know how to do these things.
Q: What things?
A: Making up a card that looks legitimate. Getting it laminated.
Q: You were working in the art department of an advertising agency?
A: No, no. But I knew art directors, I was always hanging around with them. I was working directly with one of the creative assistants, you see. Trying to dream up campaigns involving sports, you see. That’s why I was hired in the first place. Because of my athletic expertise.
Q: As I understand this, then, you were working at an advertising agency some eight or nine years ago...
A: Yes.
Q: When did you begin doing independent research, Mr. Lytell?
A: Three years ago.
Q: And you’ve been so employed since?
A: Running is what I really do.
Q: Yes, but to earn a living...
A: Yes, I do research work.
Q: Getting back to the night of October sixth. You went to Miss Schaffer’s apartment and represented yourself as an employee of Sports USA—
A: A writer-reporter for Sports USA.
Q: A writer-reporter, yes. And then what?
A: I told her we were preparing an article on promising young runners.
Q: She accepted this?
A: Well, I know all about running, that’s what I am, a runner. So naturally, I knew what I was talking about. Yes, she accepted me.
Q: And then what?
A: I asked her if she’d like to have dinner with me. To do the interview.
Q: Did you, in fact, have dinner with Miss Schaffer that night?
A: Yes. At a seafood place near her apartment. There’re lots of good restaurants in that neighborhood, we just picked one at random.
Q: What time was this, Mr. Lytell?
A: Early. Six o’clock, I think. Early.
Q: You took her to dinner at six o’clock?