Lightning

by Ed McBain

  “Fasten your seat belt,” he told her.

  Hawes was in bed with Annie Rawles when the telephone rang. He looked at the bedside clock. It was ten minutes to 10:00.

  “Let it ring,” Annie said.

  He looked into her eyes. His eyes said he had to answer it; her eyes acknowledged this sad fact of police work. He rolled off her and lifted the receiver.

  “Hawes,” he said.

  “Cotton, it’s Steve.”

  “Yeah, Steve.”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “No, no,” he said, and rolled his eyes at Annie. Annie was naked except for the gold chain and pendant. She toyed with the chain and pendant. He had still not asked her why she never took off the chain and pendant. He had meant to ask her that first night, last week, but he hadn’t. He had meant to ask her tonight, when she’d worn the chain and pendant even in his shower. He had not. “What is it, Steve?” he said.

  “Our man just left Marino’s restaurant at 1118 South Haley. Can you get over there and talk to the waiter who served him?”

  “What’s the rush?” Hawes asked.

  “He had a young girl with him.”

  “Shit, I’m on my way,” Hawes said.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Carella said. “As soon as I can.”

  Both men hung up.

  “I have to go,” Hawes said, getting out of bed.

  “Shall I wait here for you?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t know how long it’ll be. We may have a lead.”

  “I’ll wait,” Annie said. She paused. “If I’m asleep, wake me.” She paused again. “You know how,” she said.

  “This is really very nice of you,” Darcy said. “Going out of your way like this.”

  “Simply my way of thanking you for a wonderful interview,” he said.

  They were on the River Highway now, heading eastward toward the university farther uptown. They had just passed under the Hamilton Bridge, the lights on its suspension cables and piers illuminating the dark waters of the River Harb below. Somewhere on the river, a tugboat sounded its horn. On the opposite bank, the adjoining state’s high-rise towers tried boldly and pointlessly to compete with the magnificent skyline they faced. The dashboard clock read 10:07. The traffic was heavier than he thought it would be; usually, you caught your commuters leaving the city between 5:00 and 6:00, your theatergoers heading home at 11:00, 11:30. He kept his eyes on the road. He did not want to risk an accident. He did not want to become embroiled in anything that might cause him to lose her. Not when he was so close.

  “You think you got everything you need?” she asked.

  “It was a very good interview,” he said. “You’re very articulate.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said.

  “I’m entirely sincere. You have a knack for probing your deepest feelings. That’s very important.”

  “You think so?”

  “I wouldn’t say so otherwise.”

  “Well…you’re very easy to talk to. You make it all…I don’t know. It just sort of flows, talking to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Certainly.”

  “This’ll sound stupid.”

  “Well, we won’t know until you ask, will we?”

  “Could you…Could I hear what my voice sounds like?”

  “On tape, do you mean?”

  “Yeah. That’s stupid, right?”

  “No, that’s entirely normal.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and handed the recorder to her.

  “See the button marked Rewind?” he said. “Just press it.”

  “This one?”

  He took his eyes from the road for a moment.

  “That’s the one. Well, wait, first flip the On-Off button…”

  “Got it.”

  “Now rewind it.”

  “Okay.”

  “And now press the Play button.”

  She pressed the button. Her voice came into the car mid-sentence.

  “…even think of the Olympics right now, you know what I mean? It seems like a dream to me, the idea of Olympics competition somewhere down the line…”

  “God, I sound awful!” she said.

  “…I never even consciously think about it. All I’m concerned with right now is becoming the best runner I can possibly be. If I can break twelve, well then, maybe then I can start thinking about…”

  “Like a six-year-old,” she said, and pressed the Stop button. “How could you bear listening to all that junk?”

  “I found it very informative,” he said.

  “You want this back in your pocket, or can I leave it here on the seat?”

  “Could you run it forward for me, please?”

  “What do I press?”

  “Fast Forward. Just until you get to blank tape again.”

  She experimented as he drove, running the tape forward, stopping it, and finally getting it past the last of their conversation in the restaurant. “That should do it,” she said. She turned the recorder off completely. “In your pocket? Yes? No?”

  “Please,” he said.

  “Hey, you’re missing the exit,” she said.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” he said. “Do you have a minute?”

  The blue sign indicating Hollis Avenue and Converse University flashed by overhead.

  “Well, sure,” she said, “I guess so.” She hesitated. “What do you want to show me?”

  “A statue,” he said.

  “A statue?” She pulled a face. “What kind of statue?”

  “Did you know there’s a statue of a runner in this city?”

  “No. You’re kidding me. Who’d want to put up a statue of a runner?”

  “Ah-ha,” he said. “I thought you’d be surprised.”

  “Where is it? A runner?”

  “Not far from here. If you have a minute.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said. She hesitated again, and then said, “You’re fun, you know that? You’re really a fun guy to be with.”

  There was no siren on Carella’s private car. Driving as fast as he could, running as many red lights as he possibly could without smashing into any pedestrians or cars, it nonetheless took him half an hour to get to the restaurant. By that time, Hawes had already talked to the waiter, and was talking to the maitre d’ who’d taken McIntyre’s reservation on the phone. The moment Carella came in, Hawes said, “Excuse me,” and walked over to him. Carella seemed out of breath, as if he’d trotted all the way from Riverhead.

  “What’ve we got?” he asked.

  “A little,” Hawes said. “Guy who made the phone reservation said he was Corey McIntyre…”

  “Who’s in Los Angeles,” Carella said.

  “Right, but who was here last week, too, the guy who’s calling himself Corey McIntyre. The maitre d’ confirmed that, but he checked back through his book, and there’s nothing for a McIntyre before then, the guy who’s calling himself McIntyre.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Just this side of forty, the waiter said. About five-ten or eleven, hundred and seventy pounds, brown hair and brown eyes, mustache, no visible scars or tattoos. Wearing a dark brown suit, tan tie, brown shoes. No overcoat, according to the lady in the checkroom.”

  “How’d he pay for dinner?”

  “No luck there, Steve. Cash.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “The waiter says she looked about eighteen, nineteen. Slender…Well, wiry was the word he used. I thought only men were wiry,” Hawes said and shrugged. “Anyway, wiry. About five-eight or five-nine, tall girl, the waiter said. Black hair, blue eyes.”

  “Did the waiter catch her name?”

  “Darcy. When he asked them if they wanted drinks before dinner, the guy said, ‘Darcy?’ The girl said she wasn’t supposed to. She told him she was in training.”

  “Another athlete?” Carella sai
d. “Jesus!”

  “Another runner, Steve.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The waiter heard them talking about running. About how good running made her feel. This was when he was bringing their drinks to the table. The girl had white wine, the guy had Dewar’s on the rocks.”

  “Reliable witness?” Carella asked.

  “Sharp as a tack. Memory like an elephant.”

  “What else?”

  “The guy was taping her,” Hawes said. “Put a recorder on the table, taped every word she said. Well, he turned it off while they were eating, but he started taping again when they were on coffee.

  The waiter said he kept asking her questions, as if it was an interview or something.”

  “He didn’t happen to catch her last name, did he?”

  “You expect miracles?”

  “What was she wearing?”

  “Red dress and red high-heeled shoes. Red barrette in her hair. The hair was pulled back. Not a ponytail, but pulled back and fastened with the barrette.”

  “We ought to hire the waiter,” Carella said. “How’d they leave?”

  “Doorman outside asked if they needed a taxi, our guy told him no.”

  “So did they walk away, or what? Did he see them get into a car?”

  “They walked.”

  “Which way?”

  “North. Toward Jefferson.”

  “They may still be walking,” Carella said. “What precinct is this? Midtown South, isn’t it?”

  “To Hall Avenue. Then it’s North.”

  “Let’s get it on the radio to both precincts. If they’re walking, one of the cars may spot them.”

  “You know how many garages there are in the side streets around here? Suppose the guy was driving?”

  “That’s our job,” Carella said.

  He had turned off the parkway just before the tollbooth that separated Isola from Riverhead, and was driving southward now toward the Diamondback River and the park bordering its northern bank. The statue, he had told her, was in the park. He doubted that anyone else in the city knew the statue even existed; that’s what he had told her. She seemed keen on seeing the statue, but he could tell that the streets through which they now drove were making her a little nervous. The old Maurice Avenue fish market was on their right, its windows shattered by vandals, its once-white walls adorned with spray-painted graffiti. Just beyond that was the century-old building that housed the 84th Precinct, green globes flanking the front steps. He had taken this street deliberately, hoping the sight of a police station would reassure her. He drove past the several police cars angled into the curb out front. A uniformed cop was just coming down the front steps.

  “Good to know they’re around, isn’t it?” he said.

  “You said it. This is some neighborhood.”

  It had, at one time, been a fine neighborhood indeed, but the Bridge Street Section, as it was called, had deteriorated over the years until it resembled all too many other rundown areas of the city, its streets potholed, its buildings crumbling, many of them in fact abandoned. Years ago, when the police department chose Bridge Street as the location for one of its precincts, the street had been a lively thoroughfare brimming with merchant shops, the nucleus of which was the huge fish market close to the River Harb, where—back then—the clear waters had made possible a daily harvest of fresh fish. Now the river was polluted and the neighborhood scarcely habitable. He could not understand why it was called Bridge Street. The nearest bridges were to the east and west—the Hamilton Bridge that spanned the River Harb and connected two states; and the shorter bridge running over Devil’s Bight to join Riverhead with Isola. Nor was there any bridge at either end of the park bordering the Diamondback River, at which point Bridge Street ended in a perpendicular fusing with Turret Road. There were no turrets in evidence, either, though perhaps there had been when the Dutch or the British were here. Turret Road certainly sounded British. In any case, Bridge Street ran directly into it, and ended, and the Bridge Street Park began on the other side of Turret Road.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  The dashboard clock read 10:37.

  “Spooky around here,” Darcy said.

  “It’s well-patrolled,” he said.

  He was lying. He had scouted the park on three separate nighttime occasions, and he hadn’t seen a single policeman on its paths, despite the park’s proximity to the police station. Moreover, the park was known to be dangerous at night, and a pedestrian abroad in it after 9:00 was a rare sight. He had seen only two people in the park on his previous nocturnal outings: a sailor and a girl who looked like a hooker on her knees before him in the bushes.

  He parked the car some distance from the nearest streetlamp, came around to the passenger side at the curb, and opened the door for her. As she stepped out of the car, he reached into his pocket and snapped on the recorder.

  “Will we be able to see this statue?” she asked. “It looks dark in there.”

  “Oh, there are lights,” he said.

  There were, in fact, lampposts inside the park. The old-fashioned vertical sort, a single post supporting a globe-enclosed lightbulb at the top of the pole. No arms arcing out over the path. He considered this a drawback. This time, he would have preferred hanging her right where he killed her, in a deserted park in another precinct.

  The park was bordered by a low stone wall on the Turret Road side and a cyclone fence on the far side near the Diamondback River. He had no intention of taking her that deep into the park. He planned to do this at once, as soon as they had cleared the entrance. The entrance was an opening in the wall defined by two higher stone pillars flanking it. A globe-enclosed lightbulb topped each of the pillars, but the lamps were out just now; he had shattered both of them two nights ago. The sidewalk and the park path beyond were in almost complete darkness.

  “Should have brought a flashlight,” Darcy said.

  “Vandals,” he said. “But there’s a lamppost just a little ways in.”

  They entered the park.

  “Who’s this a statue of, anyway?” she asked.

  “Jesse Owens,” he said.

  He was lying again. The only statue in the park was an equestrian statue of an obscure colonel who, according to the bronze plaque at its base, had fought bravely in the Battle of Gettysburg.

  “Really? Here? I thought he was from Cleveland.”

  “You know the name, do you?”

  “Well, sure. He ran the socks off everybody in the world… When was it?”

  “1936. The Berlin Olympics.”

  “Made a fool of Hitler and all his Aryan theories.”

  “Ten-six for the hundred meter,” he said, nodding. “Broke the world record at twenty-point-seven for the two-hundred, and also won the four-hundred meter relay.”

  “Not to mention the broad jump,” Darcy said.

  “You do know him then,” he said, smiling, pleased.

  “Of course I know him, I’m a runner,” she said, and that was when he made his move.

  He intended to do this as swiftly and as easily as he had with the other two. A modified arm drag, designed neither to take her down nor to bend her over at the waist but instead to force her body weight over to her left foot, exposing her side. With her left arm extended, he would move up under her armpit, and before she could turn her head, would clamp his hand at the back of her neck in a half nelson. Swinging around behind her, he would move his other hand up under her right armpit and clasp it at the back of her neck to complete a full nelson. Then he would press her head straight downward, forcing her chin onto her chest and, by exerting pressure, cracking her spine.

  The full nelson, because it was so dangerous, could be used by wrestlers only in international competition, and then provided that it was applied at a ninety-degree angle to the spinal column. Once the hands were locked behind an opponent’s head, a body shift to the right or left was mandatory to create the legal angle before applying pressure. He was not
concerned with legal angles. He was concerned only with dispatching her effectively, soundlessly, and as quickly as possible. His experience with the other two had taught him that he could apply the hold and the necessary pressure to break her neck in twenty seconds. But this time, the girl wasn’t having any of it.

  The instant he locked his hand around her wrist, she shouted, “Hey!” and immediately took a step away from him, trying to free herself. Pulling her into him again, he tried to maneuver his arm up under hers to apply the first half of the nelson, but she jabbed her free elbow into his ribs and then, her back still partially to him, stamped on the insole of his foot with her high-heeled shoe.

  The pain in his foot was excruciating, but he would not release his hold on her wrist. They struggled fiercely and soundlessly, their dancing feet rasping over the light cover of fallen leaves underfoot, their bodies intercepting light from the lamppost ahead and casting fitful shadows on the path. She would not allow him to get under her arm. She kept trying to free her wrist, pulling away, attacking whenever he tried to get under that arm to apply his hold. As she came at him again, her right hand clawing at his face, he punched her. His closed left fist caught her in the center of her chest, between her compact athlete’s breasts, knocking the wind out of her. He hit her again, in the face this time, and he kept punching her in anger at the difficulty she was causing, her refusal to cooperate in her own demise. A short sharp jab broke her nose. Blood spilled onto his fist and stained the front of her red dress a darker crimson. She was gasping for breath now, her blue eyes wide in fright. He punched her in the mouth, shattering her front teeth, and as she started to fall toward him, he quickly maneuvered his arm up under hers, applied the hold at the back of her neck, and then moved completely behind her, his groin tight against her buttocks. Supporting her, looping his free arm under her armpit, and over the back of her head, he locked the fingers of both hands behind her neck, spread his legs wide to distribute his weight, and swiftly applied pressure.

  He heard the cracking snap of her spine.

  It sounded like a rifle shot on the still October air.