The Analyst

The detective sitting in front of him suddenly asked, “You here on that jumper today at 92nd Street?”

Ricky nodded. The detective picked up his phone. He gestured to a half-dozen stiff-backed wooden chairs lined up against one wall of the office. Only one chair was currently occupied, by a bedraggled, dirt-strewn woman of indistinct age, whose wiry silver gray hair seemed to explode from her head in a multitude of directions, and who appeared to Ricky to be speaking to herself. The woman wore a threadbare overcoat that she kept hugging increasingly tighter to her body, and she rocked a little bit in the seat, as if keeping rhythm with the electricity bounding about within her. Homeless and schizophrenic, Ricky diagnosed immediately. He had not seen anyone with her condition professionally since his graduate school days, although he’d hurried past many similar people over the years, picking up his pace on the sidewalk like virtually every other New Yorker. In recent years, the number of homeless street people seemed to have diminished, but Ricky always assumed that they had simply been shunted to different locations by political maneuverings so that the enthusiastic tourists and the well-heeled and well-moneyed folk making their way through midtown would not have to encounter them as frequently.

“Just have a seat over there next to LuA

Ricky stiffened when he heard the woman’s name. He took a deep breath and walked over toward the row of chairs.

“May I sit here?” he asked, pointing to a seat next to the woman. She looked up at him, slightly astonished.

“He wants to know if he can sit here. What am I? The queen of chairs? What should I say? Yes? No? He can sit where he likes…”

LuA

Ricky plopped down in the seat next to her. He shifted about, as if trying to make himself comfortable, then asked, “So, LuA

LuA

“Do you live in the subway station?”

“He wants to know do I live there, well, sometimes I should tell him, sometimes I live there.”

LuA

“No,” he replied. “The man who died was someone I knew.”

“Oh, sad,” she shook her head. “So sad for you. I’ve known people who died. Sad for me, then.”

“Yes,” he answered. “It’s sad.” He forced a weak smile in LuA

She coughed once or twice, as if trying to clear her throat. “He wants to know what I saw,” she said, facing Ricky but not necessarily addressing him. “He wants to know about the man who died and then the pretty woman.”

“What pretty woman was that?” Ricky asked, trying to keep himself calm.

“He doesn’t know about the very pretty woman.”

“No, I don’t. But now I’m interested,” he said, trying to prod her along carefully.

LuA

“No,” Ricky said slowly, “she didn’t give me ten dollars.”

“Oh, too bad,” LuA

“Yes. That is too bad,” Ricky agreed. “And unlucky, as well.”

He looked up and saw the detective crossing the room toward them.

She looked even more exhausted by the day’s events than Ricky had first guessed when he saw her across the room. Detective Riggins moved with a deliberateness that spoke of sore muscles, fatigue, and a spirit sapped at least in part by the day’s heat and certainly by spending the afternoon laboriously helping to gather up the remains of the unfortunate Mr. Zimmerman, followed by piecing together his last few moments before stepping off the subway platform. That she managed the most meager of smiles by way of introduction surprised him.

“Hello,” she said. “I gather you’re here on Mr. Zimmerman?” But before he could reply, Detective Riggins turned toward LuA

“She says stay at the shelter but she doesn’t know we hate the shelter. It’s filled with mean and crazy folks who’ll rob you and stab you if they know you have ten dollars from a pretty woman.”

“I’ll make sure that no one knows, and you’ll be safe. Please.”

LuA

Detective Riggins pointed toward the doorway, where a pair of uniformed officers were waiting. “Those guys will drop you off, okay?”

LuA

“The car ride will be fun, LuA

This made LuA

Both officers shrugged, smiling. This was easy duty, and they had no complaints, as long as LuA

Ricky watched as the deranged woman, nodding and speaking to herself again, shuffled off toward the exit with the policemen. He turned and saw that Detective Riggins was watching her departure as well. The policewoman sighed. “She’s not nearly as bad off as some,” she said. “And she stays pretty local. Either behind the bodega on 97th Street, in the station where she was today, or up at the entrance to Riverside Park on 96th. I mean, she’s crazy and way out there, but not nasty about it, like some. I wonder who she really is. You think, doctor, maybe there’s someone somewhere worrying about her? Out in Cinci