I looked over my shoulder and saw the man still coming behind me. The umbrella blocked any view of his face, and the visor of the black rain jacket was pulled low over his forehead. Where were all the yuppies who worked late in the skyscrapers of these canyons below Wall Street? The driving rain seemed to have kept everyone indoors.
I turned the corner and saw the faded lettering on the old wooden sign outside Fraunces Tavern, with its historic plaque noting the spot where General Washington bade farewell to his troops. I pulled at the door handle with all my strength for eight or ten seconds, until I noticed the small block lettering on the window:CLOSED ON MONDAY.
The cell phone was still clasped in my hand. These streets behind the main thoroughfares were too small and winding to use as a sensible retreat. I dialed 911 and moved through the shadows around the corner onto Coentes Slip. Behind me I heard the crashing sound of a metal garbage bin rolling on the ground. I glanced back and stepped out of the way as it rolled toward me. My pursuer was not in sight, but three enormous rats were scrambling over the remains in the barrel as its lid flew off.
The operator asked what the emergency was. "There's a man after me," I said, breathless from the combination of fear and running.
"You'll have to speak more slowly, ma'am. I can't understand you."
"It's a man-"
"Did you say asthma, ma'am? I know you're breathin' hard. Is this a medical emergency?"
I could see the figure again, as I approached the intersection of Water and Broad streets. "No, it isn't. I want a police car."
"You say you're in a police car? I don't understand your problem, ma'am."
I dashed across the street again, splashing in a large puddle that had pooled at the edge of the curb. I had listened to thousands of these 911 tape recordings. Some of the operators had lost their jobs as a result of their responses-telling a rape victim whose lungs had been collapsed by stab wounds in her chest that she damn well better speak up loud enough to be heard and stop that stupid gasping-along with wonderfully compassionate responses that had saved lives with their ingenuity. This communication problem was clearly my own fault.
I stopped and tried to speak more clearly into the phone. "I'm being followed by a man. I need the police."
"What has the man done to you, ma'am?"
Nothing, I thought to myself. Absolutely nothing.
"Ma'am?" she asked once more.
I looked again and watched as he dodged between cars whose windshield wipers were throwing off pints of water. I still couldn't see his face, so I focused on his lower body. His pants looked like the navy blue of a police officer's issue, and his shoes were the shiny black brogans that went with that kind of uniform.
"I-I think he's trying to attack me."
"Where you at?"
"The intersection of State Street and Whitehall."
"Stay on the line with me, okay? I'm gonna get you someone."
I ran again, crossing the last section of highway and climbing over the barrier that separated it from the pavement near the entrance to the Staten Island ferry terminal, dropping the umbrella as I slid off the divider to the ground. My long-legged pursuer vaulted the concrete block, his umbrella blown inside out by the biting wind that kicked up off the harbor.
The boat whistle blasted and caught my attention, buoy bells clanging in the water beyond it and gulls screeching overhead. I had not been on the ferry in more than twenty years. I didn't know the part of the island at which it docked nor whether its fifty-cent fare had doubled or tripled.
In the distance, at the mouth of the drab-looking double-ended boat, I could see clusters of drenched commuters gathering past the turnstile, trying to get inside the dry cabin for the ride home. I started to run in that direction.
Something crashed down on my right shoulder and I dropped onto one knee. Lightning flashes streaked through my eyes and I extended my left hand to push back up to a standing position. The man in the black rain gear lifted the closed umbrella over his head and brought it down toward my back again. I rolled as I saw it coming, swirling in a puddle of cold water.
I was screaming now, hoping to get the attention of someone on his or her way to the departing ferry. The honking car horns, the foghorns, the far-off sirens of what I hoped was an approaching police cruiser all masked my cries.
The heavy black shoe swung at me as I got to my feet and started to run directly for the boat. The arms of the giant iron turnstiles stood in front of me. There was not enough room to pass beneath one, so I turned around and hoisted myself atop the stanchion to swivel around and get to the other side. Again he came at me, and this time, before dropping down, I bent my right leg and kicked hard, landing a blow with my foot against his chest. He yelled out and fell back a step or two.
Now people stopped. I must have looked deranged. My hair was hanging in wet clumps and my clothes were mud-soaked from that last roll on the ground. I had jumped the turnstile and I had kicked a stranger in his gut for no apparent reason.
I ran past the onlookers. Another man in a brown uniform with a Department of Transportation logo on his jacket reached out a hand to slow me down and collect the fare. I screamed at him to get out of my way, shoved him against a column with both hands, and jumped onto the ferry as the boarding ramp was being pulled out of place. A police car stopped thirty feet away, at the point I had crossed the road in my run to make the boat.
Another DOT guard clamped his hand on my shoulder and I grimaced in pain.
"Take it easy, lady. Calm yourself down," he said to me. "The kicking and shoving is over. You're under arrest."
24
I was probably the happiest prisoner in history.
"I've got the money to pay the fare," I told the officer, knowing it was a story he had probably heard every day that he was on duty.
"It's a free ride, lady. That's not the problem."
"No, no. I mean I realize that I jumped the-"
"Guess you haven't been on board since ninety-seven. The token's been eliminated. You're not in trouble for beating the fare."
I didn't even mind that there was no reason for me to be in cuffs, in the safe hands of PO Guido Cappetti.
"Assault on a peace officer," he said to me. "I saw you shove that guy right out of the way."
"I'm not going to argue with you," I said. "That's exactly what I did. But it's only because I was being chased by a man who attacked me."
"I didn't see nobody doing nothin' to you."
"I kicked the guy after he smacked me with an umbrella. He'd been chasing me up and down Whitehall."
Cappetti got on his radio and called ahead for a patrol car. "Possible 730."
"You're gonna psycho me?"
He was surprised I recognized the designation. "You been before?"
"No. Actually, I'm a prosecutor. Manhattan DA's office."
"Here we go, sweetheart. And I'm the commissioner."
"Do I get a phone call?"
"Back at the house."
"I was waiting for a New York City detective when I was attacked. I can give you my cell phone. If you call him, he can come meet me. Verify what I'm saying."
Cappetti listened to me for a few minutes, took the phone from my pocket, and dialed the number I gave him. "You Mercer Wallace?" he paused, then asked a few more questions, establishing to his satisfaction the fact that Mercer was, in fact, on the job, a real New York City cop. "I'm with Alexandra Cooper. She tells me she's an assistant DA." Another pause. "Really?" And then, "Is that right?"
Mercer told Cappetti to keep me with him when the boat landed at the St. George Terminal on Staten Island. For the next fifteen minutes, I sat side by side with Cappetti, who had liberated me from my restraints, leaving me to stare back at the sweeping vista of the great New York Harbor gleaming through the mist. The burning torch in the outstretched arm of Lady Liberty, the wide mouth of the Hudson River, the office towers of Lower Manhattan, and the spidery, weblike cables of the Brooklyn Bridge occupied my imagination while I kneaded my shoulder and tried to figure out who my assailant had been.