chance to breathe. Then the crowd did as expected. They leaned forward to see the effect. There was none. The young woman was unquestionably dead.
This was a crowd of neighbors, and it was easy for Stein to drift around, pretending to be one of them. He looked enough like someone you’d see every day walking the dog, waiting for the elevator, checking the mail, carrying a bag of groceries. He could fit in and be mistaken for the neighbor down the hall whom you saw occasionally, nodded to maybe, but never really noticed. That’s what neighbors were: vaguely familiar faces or forms, people who were seen but rarely known. People you never actually talked to except on special occasions: an accident, a blackout, a car slamming into another car in the middle of the block, an elevator caught between floors, an ambulance pulling up, a heart-attack victim hustled out expertly by the professionals who handle such things, a death of an elderly lady who used to sit in the window on the ground floor. A few older women and some retired men knew more than they let on. They could put names to the faces and weave relationships: married sons and daughters, college students who dropped out or graduated; a job lost, a career changed. They were here, too, the older people. They didn’t press too close. They stayed together and waited and watched.
“Who is she? She’s familiar a little bit.”
“I thought she was, you know, that girl who...”
“Yeah, that’s who I thought, but now...”
“When she cried out...”
“Did you hear that, too?”
The question was directed toward Mike Stein, and he shrugged vaguely and gestured over his shoulder, indicating he lived at the other end of the street.
“Even across the street they could hear,” a man told his wife. She pressed her lips together and nodded and he said, “We thought at first it was a dog. You know, hit by a car.”
Yes. That’s what it sounded like at first. There was some agreement as to the sound: a high-pitched, far-carrying, wounded-animal sound which had carried up and down the canyon of Barclay Street. A sound repeated many times, it seemed. The information was offered and affirmed by people first from one side of the street and then from the other.
“We turned the sound off on the TV, we thought it was interference of some kind, from the radio waves, you know, those CB radios that sometimes get into the TV.”
Yes, it sounded like that. At first.
Stein looked toward the dead body. The young woman had at some point been alive before sliding down and tilting in death against the lamppost. Many people could bear witness to that fact. They had heard her voice.
“I thought she was drunk, you know, or drugged, staggering like that.”
And now the crowd had her staggering. Had watched in life what they all looked at from time to time in death.
“The way she moved, hunched forward...”
“Not at the end. She threw her head back and...” The young man’s demonstration brought forth some agreement and some contradictions.
“That was when she screamed the last time, she threw her head back and...”
“No, that was before she fell.”
This crowd was filled with witnesses, and there was a relaxing, an almost relieved atmosphere, a freewheeling unloading of information they wanted to be rid of; they unburdened themselves by comparing impressions of the dead girl’s last moments.
An unmarked police car pulled up alongside several patrol cars. The driver was unmistakably a police officer. The gold shield pinned to the lapel of his jacket gave him authority on the scene. His manner would give him authority anywhere. He let the uniformed officers come to him. He turned his back on the crowd and spoke in a deep, quiet rumbling voice, lifted a hand and snapped his fingers. He was taller than everyone except the young blond officer, whom he outweighed by about fifty pounds.
“Torres,” he ordered, “go over there and take a look. And don’t touch
This was a crowd of neighbors, and it was easy for Stein to drift around, pretending to be one of them. He looked enough like someone you’d see every day walking the dog, waiting for the elevator, checking the mail, carrying a bag of groceries. He could fit in and be mistaken for the neighbor down the hall whom you saw occasionally, nodded to maybe, but never really noticed. That’s what neighbors were: vaguely familiar faces or forms, people who were seen but rarely known. People you never actually talked to except on special occasions: an accident, a blackout, a car slamming into another car in the middle of the block, an elevator caught between floors, an ambulance pulling up, a heart-attack victim hustled out expertly by the professionals who handle such things, a death of an elderly lady who used to sit in the window on the ground floor. A few older women and some retired men knew more than they let on. They could put names to the faces and weave relationships: married sons and daughters, college students who dropped out or graduated; a job lost, a career changed. They were here, too, the older people. They didn’t press too close. They stayed together and waited and watched.
“Who is she? She’s familiar a little bit.”
“I thought she was, you know, that girl who...”
“Yeah, that’s who I thought, but now...”
“When she cried out...”
“Did you hear that, too?”
The question was directed toward Mike Stein, and he shrugged vaguely and gestured over his shoulder, indicating he lived at the other end of the street.
“Even across the street they could hear,” a man told his wife. She pressed her lips together and nodded and he said, “We thought at first it was a dog. You know, hit by a car.”
Yes. That’s what it sounded like at first. There was some agreement as to the sound: a high-pitched, far-carrying, wounded-animal sound which had carried up and down the canyon of Barclay Street. A sound repeated many times, it seemed. The information was offered and affirmed by people first from one side of the street and then from the other.
“We turned the sound off on the TV, we thought it was interference of some kind, from the radio waves, you know, those CB radios that sometimes get into the TV.”
Yes, it sounded like that. At first.
Stein looked toward the dead body. The young woman had at some point been alive before sliding down and tilting in death against the lamppost. Many people could bear witness to that fact. They had heard her voice.
“I thought she was drunk, you know, or drugged, staggering like that.”
And now the crowd had her staggering. Had watched in life what they all looked at from time to time in death.
“The way she moved, hunched forward...”
“Not at the end. She threw her head back and...” The young man’s demonstration brought forth some agreement and some contradictions.
“That was when she screamed the last time, she threw her head back and...”
“No, that was before she fell.”
This crowd was filled with witnesses, and there was a relaxing, an almost relieved atmosphere, a freewheeling unloading of information they wanted to be rid of; they unburdened themselves by comparing impressions of the dead girl’s last moments.
An unmarked police car pulled up alongside several patrol cars. The driver was unmistakably a police officer. The gold shield pinned to the lapel of his jacket gave him authority on the scene. His manner would give him authority anywhere. He let the uniformed officers come to him. He turned his back on the crowd and spoke in a deep, quiet rumbling voice, lifted a hand and snapped his fingers. He was taller than everyone except the young blond officer, whom he outweighed by about fifty pounds.
“Torres,” he ordered, “go over there and take a look. And don’t touch
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