rain continued through the night.
Click:
Click:
Click:
Things had suddenly gotten more complicated at 174th and Broadway. The EDP had a gun.
Click:
Click:
He had been spotted with it.
Click:
Click:
They didn’t know who he was.
Click:
Click:
Or exactly where he was.
Click:
Click:
It was getting dangerous. The radio responding unit wanted help.
Click:
It was coming.
For an instant, the frequency went silent, then another click, another call, a bus had overturned on the Major Deegan Expressway and several people were wandering half-dazed among the stalled cars and onlookers. Another EDP was running half-naked along the FDR Drive.
Corman walked into the small kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. He could tell it was going to be a long night. It was almost two in the morning already, and he had not even begun to feel the first fleeting drowsiness.
He brought his cup back into the living room and sat down once again on the windowsill. The voices had returned, and the first had grown a bit more tense.
Click:
The EDP had not left the building.
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
The backup had not arrived. The Jake was alone.
In his mind, it was easy for Corman to get a good clear picture of what was happening on 174th Street and Broadway. A foot patrolman had responded to an EDP call. The EDP, Emotionally Disturbed Person, was now wandering the halls of a large apartment building with a gun in his hand. The Jake was following him, moving cautiously up the dim stairwells or along the empty corridors, his hands already on his pistol. He was sweating under his arms, and he could feel a tightening in his muscles. He jumped a little, each time his radio clicked on.
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
For a moment, there was silence. The SOD central dispatcher was young, inexperienced. He wasn’t sure what to tell the Jake. For an instant, he hesitated. Then he made his decision.
Click:
Corman leaned forward in his chair. The dispatcher had made a serious mistake. The Jake was alone. A Ten-17 was in place, on the way. He should wait. There were no civilians in danger. He should wait. The dispatcher had screwed up. If everything went well, he’d be chewed out in the morning. If anything happened to the Jake, he’d never pin on a badge again.
Click:
The Jake didn’t respond. He was afraid. Corman could hear his fear, smell it. The Jake thought he was going to die in this little shitcan apartment house high above Broadway; he was going to open a grimy metal door, peek out and take a bullet in the face.
Click:
Click:
Click:
He was going to do what he’d been told, follow the dispatcher’s orders. He wasn’t going to wait. He was going ahead, slowly, cautiously, the sweat now beading on his forehead, gathering in a little pool in his navel. But he was going ahead, and he was wrong.
In the meantime, restaurants were burning, cars colliding, and at the southern tip of Manhattan, yet another EDP was dancing around a smoldering ashcan while he hurled small stones at passing cars.
Corman took a sip of coffee and continued to listen as radio cars and emergency vehicles were sent hurtling along the empty, early morning streets, their sirens echoing through the towering glass corridors.
Click:
It was the Jake on 174th Street. He’d spotted the EDP.
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Again, the radio went silent very briefly, before the usual round of calls began. Through the city, the usual night’s work went on, but Corman found his attention now entirely focused on the ninth floor of a building that was over a hundred and thirty blocks away.
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
Click:
The EDP had gotten himself into a corner. He was facing three blank walls and a corridor with a single patrolman at the end of it.
Click:
Click:
