The several seconds it took for Mike's voice to come over the intercom seemed like an hour.
"Yeah?"
"I've got a problem. It's Alex. Buzz me in?"
The brass handle yielded to my grip as the signal to unlock it sounded in the small lobby. I grabbed at the banister in the dingy hallway and jogged up the staircase, flight after flight, to the fifth floor of the narrow building. I was huffing and puffing when I got to the landing and stopped to catch my breath.
I could hear Mike unlatch the dead bolt. He cracked the door about a foot wide and stood in the opening, his chest bare and a towel wrapped around him and knotted at his waist.
"Sorry, it never occurred to me you'd be asleep at this hour." I walked toward the door, expecting him to let me in. "Don't be modest, Mikey. I won't rip it off you. That could be the first thing I've had to laugh about all evening."
I reached my arm out to push at the door. I assumed he thought I'd want him to get dressed before I came into the small room. He held his ground as he gave me a once-over, as though looking from head to toe for an injury. "You okay?"
"Cold and wet. And furious. You've got to help me."
I brushed past him and stepped over the threshold as he started to speak. "Alex, just give me a minute to-"
I gasped as I stood beside him. There was a woman asleep in his bed, and I cringed as I realized how rude I had been to burst in and impose on his friendship so abruptly.
I put my right hand up in front of my face and tried to whisper an apology. "I'm mortified," I said, fighting off tears and backing out of the doorway. "It was so inconsiderate of me to rush up here without calling."
He grabbed for my wrist as I pulled away and turned toward the staircase. "Alex, don't be ridiculous. I just want to-"
"I'll call you in the morning," I said over my shoulder. "Don't worry. I'm on my way to Jake's. I'm fine." I was flying down the steps, calling up to him from two flights below. There was no way I'd go back to Jake's apartment now, but I didn't want Mike to worry about me heading for my own place. I ignored Mike's shouts to me to slow down and stop, and instead was planning the most direct route to the station house to get someone in the squad to help me.
There was very little traffic on the slick street so I dismissed the traffic light and dashed across York Avenue, moving west. If Mike had been dressed, I knew he would have been chasing me by now, so I broke into a trot and started running, in case he even thought about putting clothes on to follow me.
My mind was short-circuiting with irrelevancies. What would he do when he called Jake's apartment in five minutes and learned that I hadn't returned there? Maybe I should just suck up what had happened and go back to confront Jake, call the police in his presence. But if he objected to my doing so, I would be forced to walk out on him again anyway. Who was the woman in Mike's apartment, I wondered, and why had he been so closemouthed about her? And how sorry I felt for her to have this madwoman burst in on her in her boyfriend’s home at a most unsuitable time for a house call.
I stood on the corner of First Avenue to wait for a bus to pass, panting as I came to a halt. Maybe she slept through the whole thing, I thought to myself. And what would he say to explain the situation to her if she had not?
I reached the curb on the far side of the street and practically lost my balance as I stepped on a slippery patch of black ice. Calm down, I tried to urge myself. Just a few blocks more and I could sit in the detectives' squad room making my calls, warm and secure.
Footsteps smacked at the pavement off in the distance behind me. Some other fool was out on this miserable night. I spun around to make sure that it was not Chapman coming after me, but saw only the dark figure of a man crossing the avenue against the traffic. If it were Mike, he would have called out to me by this point, and I assured myself that I would have stopped and explained to him the reason for my untimely visit.
I started loping along again, wiping the freezing rain from my eyelids and ducking my head to avoid the wind.
The running steps grew closer to me now and I turned again. This time the man was almost upon me and I could see him clearly. His face resembled the sketch of the young assailant who had been attacking women in this neighborhood for the past two months. My heart beat wildly as I tried to think of a way to get out of his path. Second Avenue was a long sprint from the middle of the block, but the brownstone buildings on either side of the quiet street required keys to get inside their front doors.
I accelerated and ran into the middle of the roadway, racing toward the busier thoroughfare ahead that would be bound to have taxi and bus traffic. Before I could reach the corner, the man had lapped me from the back. His muscular arms stabbed my shoulder blades and he tried to clutch at my mouth, muttering at me in a soft accented voice, repeatedly telling me to shut up.
I fell to the ground and my knees smashed against the concrete. My gloved hands flapped out in front of me and broke my fall. In a flash, my attacker ripped the strap of my bag off my arm and ran toward the avenue as I lay sprawled on the icy street.
28
"Hey, Quick Draw, wanna put out an APB for me?"
I was sitting inside the Nineteenth Precinct squad commander's office, shielded from the detectives' desks by the clouded glass window on the door, when I heard Chapman's voice, at top volume, calling across the room to Walter DeGraw.
"I'm looking for a dumb blonde. Big-time bad judgment written all over her. Put it out on the wires in case any of your guys see her skating around the city streets on the midnight tour. About five feet ten inches, too skinny for my taste, too stubborn to ask a cop for help, too vain to shed tears and run her mascara, too stupid to put a hat on her head in a snowstorm so her blonde hair's looking a little bedraggled from the sleet. But great wheels. And well dressed. They find her alive, she's likely to kill me if I didn't add those things. You seen her around or I oughtta try the psych ward down at Bellevue?"
DeGraw pushed open the door and Chapman reached out his arm to balance himself against the frame of it and stare down at me. I was sitting in the lieutenant's armchair, holding a steaming mug of coffee in both hands to warm them up, and wearing a turtleneck sweater that one of the guys had taken from his locker to put over my wet clothes.
"For a smart broad, sometimes you got the brains of a pigeon."
DeGraw started to excuse himself and get out of the room.
"Don't go, Walter," I implored him. He had begun to type the complaint report and the sooner I finished giving him the details, the faster I could get out of the cold station house.
Chapman stepped into the room and squatted in front of me. He placed his palms against my knees and realized when I jerked reflexively away from him that I had hurt them in my fall. He pried the coffee cup away from my clutches and pressed my hands between his own, rubbing them together gently but firmly.
"What's this all about, kid?"
I shook my head, not wanting to tell the whole story here and now, and DeGraw shuffled nervously, knowing that he was in the middle of something more personal. A uniformed cop knocked on the door, which was still ajar.
"Excuse me, Detective DeGraw? The desk sergeant sent me up." He was clutching my shoulder bag. "My partner found this on the sidewalk, about two blocks south of where she was hit. Nothing in it. Sarge wants to know if you can identify it, Counselor."
"There wasn't much in it anyway. Yes, it's mine."
DeGraw called over his shoulder to another detective in the squad room. "Hey, Guido. Wanna bring me a voucher for Ms. Cooper's bag?"