I looked down the platform: the bench was empty. Somehow, invisibly, Durkee had gotten down the length of the platform and was behind me. He put his heavy hand on my shoulder. His eyes were shining with excitement, and he was looking toward the tunnel.
“Looks like our boy,” he said, and we both knew he was right. We stood then at the top of the stairs and could hear a faint thudding sound. “He’s prowling,” Durkee said. “You go down first, I’ll follow. I think he’ll make the other side before we connect.” He started me off so quickly I didn’t have a chance to hesitate.
On the Independent platform, a train was just pulling out. No one had gotten off. Durkee waited on the landing, and I signaled for him to come up. The platform was empty. Durkee pulled me quickly to the edge of the platform—his instincts were incredible—and he gestured toward the far end of the station. The suspect was walking silently away from us; then he stopped, turned, stood motionless like some animal listening for danger, sniffing the air. Then he headed back toward us and the tunnel leading back to the BMT station. We flattened ourselves against the pillars at the farthest end of the platform and watched him enter the stairwell. He was walking more slowly now, descending the stairs with a purpose.
Durkee’s voice, soft now, was surprisingly calm as we walked to the entrance of the tunnel. It was matter of fact, like this was something you do every day. “Now, I’m gonna have to be at least a staircase behind you—that’s the setup—he sees me and that’s it.” His powerful hand was biting into my arm and his eyes, motionless for once, held mine. There was no question in his mind but that we were going into that tunnel, and I nodded. “Now, you’re not gonna hear me and you’re not gonna see me, but I’m gonna be there. You know that, don’t you?” He spoke rapidly, exerting a slight pressure on my arm, leading me down the first step. I nodded again, and he winked and released me.
“Okay,” I said. “I guess we go down.” I stopped halfway down and looked back at him. He winked and grinned, and I held it in my mind and went ahead.
I could hear the sound of my shoes on the stairs. I had started to walk on my toes, then I remembered—I should be heard. The clicking step of a woman was being awaited somewhere within this winding passageway. I walked slowly, close to the wall on my left, so that I could take the corners. I had to give myself that much leeway against him—the waiter.
I walked down the three staircases and reached the bottom level and stopped, listening for the sounds of the suspect and also for the sounds of Durkee behind me. I heard nothing; I held my breath and felt my heart. I could taste that cold saliva that comes when you have been running fast in a cold wind or when you are fighting fear.
The landing was about twenty feet long and five feet wide; then there was a stairway leading up, to be followed by two other stairways and three corners to be turned. I had fully expected to be lunged at from some corner; the corners represented the danger, to my mind. There was a yellow bulb encased in wire beaming from the ceiling at the center of the stretch of landing, directly over a small water drain. A woman had been raped here, at this exact spot, two weeks ago.
I sensed his presence before I saw him, sensed the shadow at the top of the stairs, the flicker of movement not caused by the glare of the bulb. He was at the top of the stairs, waiting, listening for my hesitant step. I had my pocketbook in my left hand now, and I was leaning heavily against the right side of the passageway. The corners were on the other side now, and that was all I seemed to think about. I kept my eyes on the steps, concentrating on the slow, arduous, heavy climbing, and I saw his feet coming down the stairs along the left side of the staircase. We were both walking slowly, and then we were passing each other, both on the same step, not touching, and it flashed through me, a kind of weightless relief, an instantaneous relaxation. He was past me, continuing on down the stairs. But he had whirled about and come behind me and was on the step below me. I could sense him though he had been soundless, sense the nearness before the impact of his body fell against me as he stood on the same step with me and grasped my throat with a hand encased in a leather glove. It was my first thought: he has a leather glove on his left hand. He pulled me back, close against him, and pressed something into my forehead and my eyes. Straining in the light I could see the shine of the revolver. It was silver.
His voice was hollow and warm in my ear: “Don’t make a sound or I’ll kill you! I’ll pull the trigger!”
We stood unmoving then, and he pushed me with his shoulder. “Come up to this little landing here,” he said, and somehow my feet complied, for I was climbing the steps and facing into the corner of dirty tile. He released my throat, his touch remaining—a scraping sensation—and he pulled me around to face him.
To say I was afraid would not be accurate. I felt a certain giddiness, a sense of unreality. Somehow, I had the feeling that this had all happened before—or rather, that it had been so intensely anticipated that it was almost a natural thing, a thing I had planned or was fully expecting. It was like being in a play, and we each had our words to say and our actions and our cues were determined. It wasn’t a real occurrence; it was removed from any concrete reality.
We stood there confronting each other within the confines of the tile landing: it was as strange and desolate as a tomb. The quickening of all the processes of my own body, the sense of pounding, thudding, pulsating pressures, was reflected in his face. His heavy lips were parted and dry; his eyes, gleaming like startled points in the dim yellowness of the place, twitched. There was one incredible, breathless instant, a frozen moment in time, when neither of us moved or breathed, just regarded each other blankly, as though hypnotized, each by the other, not taking measure.
And then it snapped, that suspended time. My breath came in a painful, short spurt. The necessity to breathe brought us both back to the moment, but my mind, removed and apart from the numbness that was my body, made cold and clear observations. It was not paralyzed by the panic in my chest, the fear which buckled my knees weakly. My brain took control and frigidly ignored the contractions of my stomach. From some remote, safe, far, insane distance, my mind refused to admit any participation, refused, to believe in its vulnerability, refused to recognize the brown, drawn face as Death’s or the silver shining gun as the instrument of its eternity. Confronted with Death, that cool observer somewhere within me denied even the possibility of destruction and drew together all its faculties into a waiting and a watching. I knew, despite the hand that had grasped my throat, despite the revolver which had pressed against my forehead hard enough to leave its round imprint, I knew he could not destroy me. It was impossible.
My sense of observation seemed honed to a fantastic degree: the tiles behind him were clearly shaped, the yellow light on them created shadows and images. The man’s face was sharply detailed: a small gutted scar on his cheek looked like a fat caterpillar, the stitch marks were furry and uneven. I could see the thick, short lashes on his eyes, the small, individual ovals of sweat around his mouth. I could smell fear surrounding us, heavy and thick as smoke, tangible and real, his fear as well as my own. My brain marked it, ignoring everything but this exact moment, discounting every other circumstance of my life or my experience. Only now, this moment, counted, meant anything. His eyes were the key to the man. They darted, twitched and flickered and gave him away.
“Whut you got in that pocketbook?” His husky voice was stretched thin and tight as a cord and was as hollow as air. And then it came to me: the advantage is mine. He doesn’t know what I’m going to do, but I do.
I moved the pocketbook toward my body, my right hand going to the clasp. His eyes dropped to follow the motion, and that was his mistake: failing to read my eyes. Fascinated by my hands, he did not see my right hand shoot out, directed by my brain, which said: Now! Now! I caught the inside of his right wrist, not hard, not very hard, but swiftly. Shocked, the hand lost its grip on the gun, which flew through the air and landed, clattering, on the stairway which stretched upward toward the
next landing.
We lunged together then, but we were moving toward different goals—he was reaching upward to the top step where the gun lay, and I was clinging to his waist and feeling the strength of his body trying to shake me off. He gained his feet and thrust me from him without turning, but that sharp voice within said: Hold! Hold him! I became a part of him, of his feet, his knees, his thighs, his torso, holding him, weighing him down away from that gun, from climbing upward. I dragged him down, feeling the brutal scraping of the steel-edged cement steps on my legs, aware of the dark smell and feel of his corduroy jacket on my face, which was lost against him, my hands and arms blindly holding. We rose, then tumbled, both losing our footing. Then his weight was against me like a heavy blanket and we fell, and it came to me that our wrestling had been an almost silent thing—no sound but the soft grunts of breath and resolve.
For some curious reason my voice was inhibited by the immediate problem. What do you yell? Help? Come on? In the center of all this, then, was my awareness of myself, a crazy, wild, senseless awareness of myself, shattered suddenly by an explosion of sound, wordless, like a cry from an animal. I did not control or direct this cry, but I felt my prisoner edging from my hold, upward. Then Paul Durkee was there, over us, saying something and leaning heavily and untangling my arms, prying my locked fingers apart and forcing the man’s hands behind him into handcuffs. Durkee seemed to fill the tunnel, his body hugely in motion, expertly attending to his job.
I walked to the top of the stairs and picked up the gun and held it, heavy and glistening, in the palm of my hand. My brain believed it now, accepted it, as I felt the heft of the weapon and touched its shape. I went down the steps to where the prisoner lay face down, his body stretched upward on the stairs. Paul was standing over him, his revolver in his hand.
I stood over him, prisoner now truly, and called softly, “Hey.” He turned his body, and with vile fury I kicked him just once with whatever energy was left. My foot slammed his stomach and he caught his breath soundlessly, his eyes not seeing me. Paul’s head jerked up in some surprise, his face a question, and I met his eyes steadily.
“Take it easy, tiger,” he said softly. “Papa’s here now.”
And then all emotion left me, and I was as empty and as unfeeling as Death. My face became set and blank, my mask in place.
I called the squad commander from inside the change booth. The agent, a small, hunched little man, gaped wide-eyed at the prisoner leaning against the wall, feet set back and forehead bearing his full weight, and at Durkee, holding his revolver close to the prisoner’s head. The squad commander let out one small whoop and said a wagon would be on its way, and I hung up and lit a cigarette. The agent, nervous and distraught, told me smoking was prohibited in the station, but something in my face must have reached him. He waved his hand and laughed and said, “No, it’s okay, it’s okay, go ahead and smoke.”
The wagon came quickly, or it seemed to arrive quickly, and then we were entering the station house. The squad commander was at the desk waiting, and several uniformed men were there, all waiting, watching Durkee lead the prisoner up the stairs. The squad commander stopped, turned and waited for me, then put his hand on my shoulder. “Okay?” he said. “Are you okay, Mrs. Uhnak?” I nodded and he hesitated a moment, then let me pass him, and we entered the Detectives’ Room. I sat at the nearest vacant desk and held my hand over the blotter: there was no tremor. Durkee had gone into the squad commander’s office, and a uniformed lieutenant entered the room, walked past me, and closed the door to the squad commanders office behind him. I began writing in my cramped, backward little handwriting, consulting my watch, noting times and locations. I heard a phone ring and heard a detective’s voice saying: “What the hell’s the big deal—she’s a policewoman, that’s her job. Well, come over if you want. It’s up to you.” And then he hung up, cast a quick glance at me, met my face and must have seen something there. He shrugged. “These newspaper guys are going to be climbing all over you.” But I didn’t answer and he walked back to his own desk.
The activity was all around me. Detectives issued back and forth from the squad commander’s office to their complaint file box. They were pulling out slips of paper and calling complainants to come down to the precinct or court the next morning to make a positive identification. I felt possessed by some terrible calmness, some lack of feeling, as though I were invisible, sitting here in the midst of all this activity and excitement and phone-calling, having no part in it—it not concerning me in any way. I felt like some intruder who had wandered into this place and would be asked to leave as soon as someone noticed me. There was a detective at a desk by the door, scrawling on his note pad, nodding. Then he looked up at me, and his hand missed placing the phone on its receiver. He lit a cigarette, his eyes on me all the time, then finally came over.
“I’m O’Calin,” he said, and it surprised me. He looked Italian. He was regarding me with some strange curiosity. “Are you okay?” he asked, but with a lack of concern.
“I’m fine.”
“You want something—a shot or something?”
“No.”
His voice was harsh and unfriendly. “You’re pretty cool, aren’t you?” It was a contemptuous compliment.
I looked at him fully now. He was studying me, looking for some reaction. “I’m an iceberg,” I said, feeling that cold and that lifeless. He blinked at me, slid his eyes over me, sucked his cheek and walked away.
I could hear the voices now, Durkee’s, the squad commander’s, some other detectives’. Then, suddenly, the door burst open and Durkee barreled out.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he roared. “They’re in there slicing up the pie—getting the pinches lined up. Don’t you want your slice?”
I saw O’Calin watching me. “Yes,” I said, and let Durkee half push me into the squad commander’s office.
Apparently, my presence was strictly Durkee’s idea. The squad commander, a thin, balding man with watery blue eyes, looked up from his desk, and they all looked up at me as though I were some apparition; but I was no intruder there. It came to me then. I was supposed to be there. I looked around, counting them—the prisoner, cuffed by each hand to a chair before the desk, some unknown detectives seated on either side of him, and the uniformed lieutenant leaning against a file cabinet, and two other detectives standing by the window. Durkee grabbed an empty chair and pulled it up alongside his and motioned me into it. I sat down and no one said a word. The squad commander coughed, glanced at some papers on his desk, and resumed the interrogation as though I hadn’t interrupted.
The prisoner, his head down, answered in grunts, acknowledging all the accusations: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was me. Yeah, that was me, too. Yeah. He acknowledged the stacks of pawn tickets on the desk which had been taken from his pockets: jewelry, rings, watches. Yeah, he pawned them. Yeah, he took them from those women. Yeah.
O’Calin entered and tapped on the door at the same time and said to the squad commander: “Reporters from the News and Mirror. They wanna talk to the policewoman.” The watery eyes slid to me. “You ready to talk to them?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m ready to talk to them.”
My voice, telling it, was steady and even in answer to their questions, and I volunteered nothing. I just told them what they wanted to know, flatly, methodically, the way you write the reports up—a cold, routine police event. Then the questions stopped, and I noticed a phone was free. I picked it up and asked for an outside line. Tony picked the phone up on the first ring and wasn’t surprised to hear from me.
“We got him,” I said, “the Fulton Street mugger. He held a gun on me. I guess I did a stupid thing—knocked it from his hand. No, I’m okay, truly, Honey. Just tired, you know.”
Telling him, telling Tony, it was a completed thing now; whatever else was to come, this part of it was completed. His voice was a whisper; I hated the sound of it—the worry and the concern—and I wanted to be with him now. We sp
oke for a moment, and I asked him to call my mother and my sister to say I was all right—not a scratch. “You’re too calm,” he said, catching it, knowing my defense. “Ask someone to give you a drink or something.”
“No,” I said, “not yet. I need this—you know that I need this right now.” And he said yes and reluctantly ended the conversation. And then I looked up, and there were the reporters, grinning, taking their notes. They had recorded my end of the conversation.
The director of the Policewomen’s Bureau arrived shortly after that, but the reporters were gone by then. Her face was unreadable and her voice steady and even. “Are you all right, Mrs. Uhnak?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
And then, coldly, “Was this the only way you could have taken him?”
“No,” I said quietly. “I was grandstanding.”
She snapped away from me, wordless, and entered the squad commander’s office. Then they all came out, the prisoner between Durkee and another detective, and she came up to me. “You’re taking the pinch—assault, attempted robbery and 1897. The others are dividing up the various other arrests as soon as they get identification from the other complainants. After the arraignment tomorrow, I want to see you in my office.” And then she was gone.
Photographers were downstairs now, and they flashed their lights at us, aiming at me, placing me next to the giant of a prisoner, telling us look here, look up at him, come on, kid, put your head way back, he’s a big one. The prisoner was booked, and then the squad commander said to me, “Durkee and O’Calin and Davis are taking him to his place—we want a search of his belongings to see if anything else turns up. You want to go?”
“Yes,” I said. “I want to go.”
I don’t know why I went: maybe just so I wouldn’t get squeezed out, maybe just to finish with it all the way.
Policewoman Page 16