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.

Together, Cappetti and I waited almost an hour until Mercer made his way out through Bay Ridge and across the Verrazano Bridge.

Mercer found us in the terminal police station, wrapping me in an embrace.

"Let go before you get yourself covered in this filth," I warned him.

"Your prisoner free to leave, Cappetti?"

"Yeah."

"Did I hurt the ferry guy when I shoved him? I'd like to apologize to him."

"Nah," Cappetti answered. "We get loonies all the time. Maybe you had a good reason tonight."

"Why don't you go inside the rest room and wash up?" Mercer said.

It was stupid of me to be nervous about it, but I had handled too many assaults that had occurred in public bathrooms. He picked up on my hesitation.

"C'mon. I'll check it out and stand at the door."

I went into the grim ladies' room, with its faded yellow tiles, exposed lightbulbs, and paperless towel holders. I avoided the mirror, stooping to wash my face and hands, letting them drip dry. I knew Mercer needed five minutes alone with Cappetti, to see whether there was anyone to corroborate my strange encounter.

It was almost eleven o'clock when we got in the car to drive back over the Verrazano, one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. The fog was now so thick that the skyline had been lost from sight altogether, and the immense tower at the far end of the span was barely visible.

"Buy you a drink?" Mercer asked.

I nodded my head.

"Mike's sitting at the bar at Lumi's," Mercer said, referring to one of my favorite restaurants, just a block from home. Warm and quiet, with a superb kitchen, the restaurant owner would have a fire burning in the small hearth right inside the front door.

"You've told him already?"

"You know how he hates surprises, Alex. Might as well get his thoughts on it, too."

While we drove to Manhattan's Upper East Side, I told Mercer exactly what had happened. We parked at the fire hydrant in front of the restaurant.

Lumi was entertaining Mike when we came in. "Holy shit," Mike said, getting off the stool, holding up two fingers in the sign of the cross, as though warding off a vampire. "You're really rushing the season on Halloween, aren't you, kid?"

Lumi kissed me on both cheeks and took me into her office, handing me a pullover sweater of hers, a hairbrush, and a tube of lipstick, closing the door so that I could repair some of the water damage.

"You're still shivering, Alex," she said when I returned to the bar. "Are you hungry, too?"

I warmed my hands in front of the fire. "It's gotten so raw out there. No thanks. Maybe when I defrost."

"I'll nibble on some osso buco," Mike said. "And an artichoke dip to start. Mercer?"

"Vickee fed me at home. It's all yours."

Lumi went into the kitchen to place the order while we talked.

"So what did he look like?"

"I can't say."

"Didn't you see him?"

"His face? Never."

"Well, was he white or black or-"

"I don't know."

"Don't give me that color-blind crap," Mike said. "I hate when my victims do that."

Mercer laughed. "She never saw his face."

"How about his hands?"

"Gloves."

"I gave you a damn umbrella. Why the hell didn't you hit him first?"

"Because I thought that he was just a drunken bum who had gotten too close to me by accident. Or that he was going to ask me for money."

"You should have taken the point of it, shoved it in his butt, pressed the button to open it, and sent him flying like Mary Poppins. What a waste of a weapon."

"Tell him about the pants and shoes," Mercer said, prompting me.

"That's when I realized he wasn't a bum. Navy wool gabardine, nicely center pleated uniform pants. And department-issue shoes."

"You're talking cop?"

"Or fireman. Or any uniform force in the city, except the Brownies."

"You do anything lately to piss anybody off? You're like our poster girl, Coop."

"I feel more like a poster girl for the Salvation Army. The only thing I can think of is that I just gave the go-ahead to lock up a sergeant in Correction. Impregnated a female prisoner over at Bayview."

"Give us his name and we'll get on it."

"The victim says at least five of the guards are involved. They take turns looking out for each other, divvying up the new inmates, charging for protection."

Mercer had another thought. "Mrs. Gatts got any relatives on the job?"

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. "I don't know anything about her."