When I won the triple gold — this was fifteen years back, I was only twenty-four years old, man, I was off like lightning... well, that’s where I got the nickname. Lightning. Talk about exploding! It was lightning and thunder, boom, out of the blocks and no stopping me! Well, hell, three gold medals! The one-hundred, the two-hundred, and the relay! I was anchor in the relay. At the handoff, we were five yards behind Italy, running third in the race! Jimmy was coming in really fast, man, he was stepping, but I was ready to explode the second I got that baton! Boom! I ran that last hundred meters in eight-six! Incredible! I made up all that lost distance and won going away! Hell, I won them all in my day. You name them, I won them. High school, college, AAU, NCAA, invitationals, Olympic trials — all of them, you name them.
You know what it means to be a winner? You know what it means to be the best at what you do? Do you have any concept of what that means? Do you know anything at all about the sheer exuberance of running to win? When you get out there, you not only want to beat the other guy, you want to murder him, do you know what I mean? You want to run him right into the ground, you want him to collapse behind you and start vomiting up his guts, you want him to know he has met his match, man, and he has succumbed, he has lost! You get out there, you’re behind that starting line there, and the world funnels down to just the track, the whole world becomes that turf or cinder and you’re already streaking down it like lightning in your mind, you’re already hitting the string even though the race hasn’t started yet. And you do your little dance in your shoes, your shoes tickle the cinder or the turf, tap-tap-tap, and you hear the starter’s whistle, and you keep doing your little jig, sucking in great big gulps of oxygen, and everything inside you is boiling up, ready to boil over, ready to explode when you hear that call to the marks, crouching into the blocks, waiting for the gun — and the gold.
But they forget, don’t they? They forget what you did, what you were. All those commercials I made — God, the money was pouring in — everybody wanted Lightning Lytell to endorse his product. Shit, I was signed by William Morris, have you ever heard of William Morris? They’re a talent agency in New York and L.A., they’ve got offices all over the world, they were going to make me a movie star! Damn well on the way to doing it, too, all those commercials, you couldn’t turn on your television set without seeing me on the screen holding up a product, Lightning Lytell — “You think I’m fast? Wait’ll you see how fast this razor shaves you” — all of it, everything from orange juice to vitamin capsules, I was all over the screen, I was a household word, Lightning Lytell. But then it... you know... it falls apart somehow. You stop getting offers, they told me it was overexposure, they told me people were getting too used to seeing my face on the screen. And suddenly you’re not a movie star, you’re not even a television pitchman, you’re just Henry Lewis Lytell again, and nobody knows who the hell you are.
They forget.
You... want to remind them, you know what I mean?
You want to remind them.
Q: Is that why you committed these murders, Mr. Lytell? To remind them?
A: No, no.
Q: Is that why you hanged these young women? To create a sensation that would—
A: No, no. Hey, no.
Q: —remind people you were still around?
A: I’m the fastest human being on earth!
Q: Is that why?
A: The fastest human being.
The detectives were all staring at him now. Lytell was looking at the three gold medals on Lieutenant Byrnes’s desk. Assistant District Attorney Jenkins picked up one of the medals, held it on the palm of his hand and stared at it thoughtfully. When he looked up at Lytell again, Lytell seemed lost in reverie, listening perhaps to the distant sound of a starting gun, the roar of a stadium crowd as he thundered down the track.
“Is there anything you’d like to add to this?” Jenkins asked.
Lytell shook his head.
“Anything you’d like to change or delete?”
Lytell shook his head again.
Jenkins looked at the stenographer.
“That’s it then,” he said.
At eleven o’clock that morning, Eileen called Annie Rawles to ask her how she thought she should proceed that night. Should she stay home, or should she go out? It was still raining; the rain might dissuade their man. It was Annie’s opinion that he wouldn’t try coming into the apartment again. He undoubtedly knew the last rape had been reported to the police, and he couldn’t risk the possibility that the apartment was staked out. Annie thought he would try to hit Eileen on the street if he could, and only try the apartment as a last resort.
“So you want me to go out, huh?” Eileen asked. “In the rain.”
“Supposed to get worse tonight,” Annie said. “So far, it’s trickled off to a nice steady drizzle.”
“What’s so nice about a steady drizzle?” Eileen asked.
“Better than lightning and thunder, no?”
“Is that what we’re supposed to get?”
“According to the forecast.”
“I’m afraid of lightning,” Eileen said.
“Wear rubber-soled shoes.”
“Sure. Where do you think I should go? Another movie? I went to a movie Wednesday night.”
“How about a disco?”
“Not Mary’s style.”
“He may think that’s odd, two movies in the same week. Why don’t you go out for an early dinner? If he’s as eager to get to you as we think he is, he may make his move as soon as it’s dark.”
“Ever try getting raped on a full stomach?” Eileen said.
Annie laughed.
“Get back to me later, okay?” she said. “Let me know what you plan.”
“I will,” Eileen said.
“That it?”
“One other thing. What’s A.I.M.?”
“This is a riddle, right?”
“No, this is something Mary contributed to three times this year. Total of two hundred bucks, all of them marked in her checkbook as contributions. I was thinking... if it’s some kind of nutty handgun organization...”
“Yeah, I follow. Let me run it through the computer, okay?”
“They’ve got an office right here in the city,” Eileen said. “Get back to me, will you? I’m curious.”
Annie got back to her at a little before one o’clock.
“Well,” she said, “you want to hear this list?”
“Shoot.”
“It’s a long one.”
“I don’t have anyplace to go till six-thirty.”
“Oh? What’d you decide?”
“Dinner at a place called Ocho Rios, three blocks from here. Mexican joint.”
“You like Mexican food?”
“I like the idea that it’s only three blocks from here. That means I can walk it. A taxi might scare him off. I’ll tell you, Annie, I hope he makes his play on the street, I don’t want him coming here to the apartment. More room to swing outside, you follow me?”
“However you want it.”
“I’ll pace out the terrain this afternoon, get the feel of it. I don’t want him jumping out of some alley I don’t know exists.”