Goldengirl

‘Trust the goddamned Reds to think of something like that,’ said Valenti. ‘Hey, she’s holding up good. Keep it going, chick. What’s the record?’

‘One minute twenty,’ called Klugman.

‘Running on a treadmill isn’t an activity for which records are kept,’ answered Lee. ‘She is moving at a speed equivalent to an eight-hundred-metre run in two minutes, which would have won each Olympic title up to 1972, but she has not trained for eight-hundred-metre running.’

‘One forty,’ called Klugman. ‘Keep going.’

Signs of stress were starting to appear in Goldengirl. Her intake of breath was stertorous and her face was pink.

‘The Russian girl Kazankina, who won the 1976 Olympic 800 metres, could probably manage something better than two minutes twenty at this tempo,’ said Lee. ‘We shan’t see anything of that caliber today.’

‘One fifty,’ interjected Klugman. ‘Can you hold on?’

Goldengirl’s feet were drumming heavily on the rubber. Her head was going back. She closed her eyes. Suddenly the stride shortened, and she was carried back. She stumbled, tottered forward and finished on her knees beside the still-moving belt.

‘One fifty-four point six,’ announced Klugman.

‘Check,’ said Valenti.

‘Check,’ said Dryden. Actually, he had omitted to press the stop button on the Accusplit.

‘So what does it prove?’ asked Valenti.

‘Nothing yet,’ said Lee.

Klugman said to Goldengirl, ‘Take a ten-minute rest.’

She moved obediently to a rubber mat and lay on her back. The sweat was breaking through her pores and her legs were trembling.

‘She has to do something else?’ said Valenti.

‘The same exercise, but with ergogenic motivation,’ answered Lee.

‘You sure it won’t louse up her chances tomorrow?’

‘Quite sure,’ said Lee. ‘If she wasn’t on the treadmill, she would be doing this on the track.’

It seemed a short ten minutes later when Klugman tersely ordered, ‘On your feet. Take up your position.’

She sprang upright and ran toward them as she had the first time, the only indication of her effort a deeper coloration at points where the leotard was moistened by sweat.

Lee gave the instruction this time. ‘You are to try again now. First, let us be clear why we are doing this. You are going for gold. I want you to repeat that: ‘I am going for gold.’

She repeated the words with a conviction that would have paralysed any rival who overheard.

‘I am going to give you a tablet that will eliminate fatigue,’ Lee went on. ‘I shall then count to five and it will begin to take effect. You will be able to stay on the treadmill until I tell you to step off. Instead of fatigue, you will have a sensation of weightlessness. You will feel your body grow lighter as the tablet is absorbed into your bloodstream. Are you ready?’

She nodded.

Lee handed her a white pill, which she swallowed. He counted to five and started the treadmill.

Dryden swiftly reset his timer to zero. Goldengirl was on the moving band of rubber again, steadily raising her stride rate.

‘Now,’ said Lee, and they started their timers.

‘This sort of thing won’t get by in Moscow,’ said Valenti with a sniff. ‘They’re going to be right down on anyone using dope.’

‘We have no intention of using this at the Olympics,’ Serafin assured him. ‘It is an aid to training, nothing more. If you eliminate fatigue, the quality of the athlete’s workout is improved, and this will obviously assist her performances on the track.’

They watched in silence except Klugman calling the intervals. With a minute gone, Goldengirl was showing no obvious strain. Valenti put his timer on a bench and lit a cigar.

At one minute forty, she was moving smoothly.

Dryden listened to the metronomic beat on the treadmill and watched the illuminated digits replacing each other on the Accusplit display. One fifty-four, her previous performance, flickered by. When two minutes registered, he glanced up at Goldengirl. Her cheeks were flushed and the muscles were flexing round her neck, but she looked capable of enduring it longer.

‘Two ten,’ called Klugman.

‘That will do,’ said Lee. ‘Stop now.’

Goldengirl clipped her stride, allowing the treadmill to take her back and off the belt like a skater leaving the rink. She leaned forward with her hands resting on her knees a few seconds, then walked to the mat and stretched out.

‘What was she on — Dexie?’ asked Valenti.

Lee shook his head. ‘As it happens—’

‘Bennie, then?’

‘The tablet was not an amphetamine,’ said Lee. ‘It had no stimulant properties at all.’ He took a wrapped tube of the tablets from his pocket. ‘They’re called Sweetbreathers. I bought them from the coffee stand at Los Angeles Union Terminal. In other words, I gave her a placebo. Try one. It gave no chemical assistance to the metabolism.’

Valenti cautiously touched the tablet Lee had given him with the tip of his tongue. ‘How d’you do it, then?’

‘By motivational suggestion,’ said Lee. ‘Goldengirl is a good hypnotic subject.’

‘That was a trance?’ said Valenti in disbelief.

‘Correct.’

‘You could have fooled me. Don’t you have to dangle a locket or something?’