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…”
LuAnne had grimy, broken fingernails packed with dirt. Her hands were scarred and blistered and one sported a cut that seemed infected, the swollen skin turning a dark purplish color around a deep maroon scab. Ricky thought it must have been painful, but he said nothing. LuAnne rubbed her hands together like a cook spreading salt over a dish.
Ricky plopped down in the seat next to her. He shifted about, as if trying to make himself comfortable, then asked, “So, LuAnne, you were in the subway station when the man fell on the tracks?”
LuAnne looked up into the fluorescent lighting, staring at the bright and relentless glare. She gave a little shudder with her shoulders, and then replied, “So, he wants to know was I there when the man went in front of the train? I should tell him what I saw, all blood and people screaming, awful it was, then the police came.”
“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.”
LuAnne finally looked away from the lights, blinking rapidly and seeming to move her head about as if recognizing ghosts throughout the room. After a moment, she finally turned toward Ricky. “I saw,” she said. “Were you there, too?”
“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 LuAnne’s direction. She smiled back. “Tell me, LuAnne, what did you see?”
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.
LuAnne’s eyes seemed to drift off into the distance, trying to focus on something beyond her vision, like a mirage, and she spoke in an offhand, friendly manner. “He wants to know that the pretty woman came up to me, right after the man went boom! And she speaks to me very softly, saying did you see that, LuAnne? Did you see that man jump in front of the train? Did you see how he stepped right over to the edge as the train was coming through, it was the express, see, and doesn’t stop, no, never stops, must get the local if you want to get on a train, and how he just jumps down! Awful, awful! She says to me, LuAnne, did you see him kill himself? No one pushed him, LuAnne, she says. No one at all. Be absolutely sure of that, LuAnne, no one pushed the man, boom! He just stepped out, the woman says. So sad. Must have wanted to die terrible bad all of a sudden, boom! And then there is a man right next to her, right next to the very pretty woman and he says, LuAnne, you must tell the police what you saw, tell them that you saw the man just step right past the other men and other ladies and jump, boom! Dead. And then the beautiful woman says to me, she says, you will tell the police, LuAnne, that is your duty as a citizen, to tell them you saw the man jump. And then she gives me ten dollars. Ten dollars all for me. But she makes me promise. LuAnne, she says, you promise to go to the police and tell them you saw the man jump good-bye? Yes, I says to her. I promise. And so I came to tell the police, just like she said and just like I promised. Did she give you ten dollars, too?”
“No,” Ricky said slowly, “she didn’t give me ten dollars.”
“Oh, too bad,” LuAnne replied, shaking her head. “Unlucky for you.”
“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 LuAnne and added, “LuAnne, I’m going to have an officer drive you over to the 102nd Street shelter for the night. Thank you for coming in. You were very helpful. Stay at the shelter, LuAnne, okay? In case I need to talk to you again.”
“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.”
LuAnne shook her head, but contradictorily said, “I’ll try, detective.”
Detective Riggins pointed toward the doorway, where a pair of uniformed officers were waiting. “Those guys will drop you off, okay?”
LuAnne rose, shaking her head.
“The car ride will be fun, LuAnne. If you like, I’ll ask them to put on their lights and siren.”
This made LuAnne smile. She nodded her head with a childlike enthusiasm. The detective gestured toward the pair of uniformed cops and said, “Guys, give our witness here the red-carpet treatment. Lights and action all the way, okay?”
Both officers shrugged, smiling. This was easy duty, and they had no complaints, as long as LuAnne was in and out of their vehicle rapidly enough so that the pungent odor of sweat, grime, and infection that she carried with her like a perfume wouldn’t linger behind.
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 Cincinnati or Minneapolis. Family, friends, relatives wondering whatever became of their eccentric aunt or cousin. Maybe she’s an heiress to some oil fortune, or a lottery winner. That would be kinda neat, huh? Wonder what happened to her to have her end up like this. All those crazy little chemicals in the brain just bubbling out of control. But that’s more your territory, not mine.”
“I’m not really big on medications,” Ricky said. “Not like some of my colleagues. A schizophrenia as profound as hers genuinely needs medication, but what I do probably wouldn’t help LuAnne all that much.”
Detective Riggins motioned him toward her desk, which had a chair pulled up beside it. They walked across the room together. “You’re into talking, huh? The troubled articulate, huh? All that talk, talk, talk, and sooner or later it all gets figured out?”
“That would be an oversimplification, detective. But not inaccurate.”
“I had a sister who saw a therapist after her divorce. It really helped her get her life straightened out. On the other hand, my cousin Marcie who’s one of those types always got that black cloud over her head-she saw some guy for three years and ended up more authentically fucked-up than before she got started.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Like any profession, there are wide degrees of competency.”
