The Analyst

“Excuse me,” he said.

“You want change? Directions? Map’s on the wall over there.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I wonder, I’m sorry this sounds strange but…”

“What you want, fella?”

“Well, I was wondering, did something happen down here today? This afternoon…”

“You gotta talk to the cops about that,” she said briskly. “Happened before my shift.”

“But what…”

“I wadn’t here. Didn’t see nothing.”

“But what happened?”

“Guy jumped in front offa train. Or fell, I du

“What cops?”

“Transit. Ninety-sixth and Broadway. Talk to them. I got no details at all.”

Ricky stepped back, his stomach clenched, head spi

“You okay, mister?” the woman in the booth shouted above the racket. “You look kinda sick.”

He nodded, and whispered a reply that she undoubtedly couldn’t hear. “I’m fine,” he said, but this was clearly a lie. Like a drunk trying to maneuver a car through twisting roads, Ricky swerved toward the exit.

Chapter Five

Everything about the world Ricky entered that evening was alien to him.

The sights, sounds, and smells of the Transit Authority police station at 96th and Broadway seemed to him to represent a window on the city that he’d never before looked through and that he was only vaguely aware existed. There was a faint aroma of urine and vomit fighting the harsher odor of strong disinfectant right inside the headquarters door, as if someone had been violently ill and the cleanup had been sloppily and hastily managed in the aftermath. The pungency made him hesitate, just long enough to be overcome with a curious din, the blending of the routine and the surreal. A man was shouting unintelligible word concoctions from some hidden holding area, words that seemed to reverberate around the entranceway unco

Ricky swayed inside the door, assaulted by all he saw and heard, unsure what to do. An officer suddenly brushed past him in a hurry, saying “Ouddadaway fella, coming through here…” making him step forward abruptly, as if jerked by a rope.

The woman at the sergeant’s desk raised her fist and shook it at the officer ma

“I’m sorry,” Ricky started, only to be interrupted.

“Nobody’s ever really sorry, fella. It’s just what they say. Never really mean it. But hey, I’ll listen to anybody. So, what is it that you think you’re sorry about?”

“No, you misunderstand me. What I mean is…”

“No one ever says what they mean, either. Important lesson in life. It’d be helpful if more people would learn it.”

The policeman was probably in his early forties and wore an insouciant smile that seemed to indicate that he’d seen just about everything up to this point in his life worth seeing. He was a thickset man, with a solid, bodybuilder’s neck and sleek black hair that was pushed slickly back from his forehead. The surface of the desk was littered with paper forms and incident reports, seemingly tossed about with no concept of organization. Occasionally the officer would grab a couple and staple them together, punching the old-fashioned desk stapler with a bang before tossing them in a wire basket.

“Let me start over,” Ricky finally stated sharply. The policeman gri

“No one ever gets to start over-at least, not in my experience. We all say that we want to find a way to begin life all over again, but it just doesn’t work out that way. But hey, give it a shot. Maybe you’ll be the first. So, how can I help you, fella?”

“Earlier today there was an incident at the 92nd Street station. A man fell…”

“Jumped, I heard. You a witness?”

“No. But I knew the man, I believe. I was his doctor. I need information…”

“Doctor, huh? What sort of doctor?”

“He was in psychoanalytic treatment with me for the past year.”

“You’re a shrink?”

Ricky nodded.

“Interesting job, that,” the officer said. “You use one of those couches?”

“That’s correct.”

“No shit? And people still have stuff to talk about? Me, I think I’d be looking for a catnap as soon as I put my head down. One yawn and I’d be out like a light. But people really talk up a storm, huh?”

“Sometimes.”

“Cool. Well, one guy ain’t go

The policeman gestured in the direction of a pair of doors that led into the bowels of the station. As he pointed, Ricky could hear a spiraling sound rising from some room that seemed alternately below and then above them. The desk sergeant smiled. “That guy’s go

There was a door on the left marked detective bureau which Ricky Starks pushed through, entering a small office warren of grimy gray steel desks and more of the sickeningly bright overhead lighting. He blinked for a second, as if the glare stung his eyes like saltwater. A detective wearing a white shirt and red tie, sitting at the closest desk, looked up at him.

“Help you?”

“Detective Riggins?”

The detective shook his head. “Nah, not me. She’s over in the back, talking to the last of those people who got some kinda look at the jumper today.”

Ricky looked across the rooms and spotted a woman just shy of middle age wearing a man’s pale blue button-down shirt and striped silk rep tie, although the tie was loosely hung around her neck, more like a noose than anything else, gray slacks which seemed to blend with the decor, and a contradictory pair of white ru