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When he walked out of there he left her sprawled on her living-roo It's possible he thought she was already dead She would have been in shock, with her breathing ins h, and her heart was still beating, but she would have died there on the floor if it hadn't been for the doorman

He was a Brazilian, tall and heavyset, with a headful of glossy black hair and a belly that strained the buttons of his unifor Lopes an hour or so after he showed Motley to the elevator Finally he picked up the intercoht

He rang a few ti of the intercoet out of there When he did leave, striding hurriedly through the lobby around seven o'clock, so through on the intercoain, and of course there was no answer Then he remembered the sketch he'd been shown, the portrait of the one iven access to Miss Mardell's apartht have covered that very ht about it, the surer he was

He abandoned his post and went upstairs He rang the bell and pounded on the door He tried the door, and it was locked; Motley had pulled it shut The police locks were unengaged, as was the deadbolt, but the spring lock was enough to secure the door and it engaged automatically when you closed the door

He turned away, intending to go back downstairs and root around for a passkey Failing to find one, perhaps he would phone the local precinct But then soain and do what not one doorman in twenty would have done

He drew back his foot and kicked the door He kicked a second ti fro They'd always been strong; when he was younger and lighter his legs had been strong froave and the door flew open He saw her on the rug and ran across the rooot up and crossed himself and picked up the phone and called 911 He kneas too late but he did it anyway

And that's whatcoffee at the Fla uptown to Mother Goose, while I sat there listening to quiet jazz, while I paid out money to Brian and to Danny Boy While I traded stories with Mick Ballou, and scared the rats away froe feast, and breakfasted on scrapple in view of the Hudson While I sat in a car on the other side of that river and watched the sun come up over the city

I , and I's that happened that I don't know about, and never will But I think that's pretty close to the way it went down In any case, I' It happened just the way it was supposed to happen Andy Echevarria ht Elaine, but just check with Marcus Aurelius He'll explain the whole thing to you

New York Hospital is at York and Sixty-eighth My cab dropped ency-room entrance and the woman behind the desk deterery and was in the intensive-care unit She pointed to a floor plan of the building and showed et to the ICU

A nurse there told me they only allowed immediate family in the ICU I said the patient didn't have any family, that I was probably as close to family as she had She asked the nature of our relationship, and I said ere friends She asked if ere intimate friends Yes, I said Intimate friends She wrote my name on a card, androoazines, waiting for their loved ones to die I leafed through a copy of Sports Illustrated, but none of the words registered Every once in a while I turned the page out of force of habit

After a while a doctor ca room and looked around and asked for me by name I stood up and heface and a head of hair already thickly shot with gray

He said, "This is a rough one I don't knohat to tell you"

"Is she going to live?"

"She was in surgery for alave her She'd lost a lot of blood by the ti She's still bleeding now and still receiving transfusions" He had his hands clasped in front of his lab coat, and he ringing the it

He said, "We had to remove her spleen You can live without a spleen, there are thousands of people who e But she sustained considerable trauma to her entire systeed-"

He went on, cataloguing her injuries I only caught about half of what he said and only understood a fraction of that "She's intubated," he said, "and we've got her on a respirator Her lungs failed That happens sometimes, it's what they call Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome You see it sometis quit"

There was more, too technical for me to understand I asked how bad it was

"Well, it's bad," he said, and he told

I asked if I could see her

"For a few minutes," he said "She's coot her hooked up to a respirator It's doing the breathing for her" He led me toward a door at the far side of the ICU "It may be a shock for you to see her like this," he said

There wereall over the place Dials flashed numbers, machines beeped and whirred, needles jumped In the midst of it all she lay still as death, her skin waxy, her color awful

I askedto live?"

He didn't answer, and when I looked up he was gone and I was alone with her I wanted to reach out and touch her hand but I didn't know if that was allowed I went on standing there, a nurse ca to one of the machines She told me I could stay for a few more minutes "You can talk to her," she said

"Can she hear me?"

"I think there's a part of the, even when they're deep in coma"

She went out, and I stayed for five or ten minutes I talked some I don't remember what I said

The same nurse came in a second time to tellrooe in the patient's condition

I asked what kind of change she expected

She didn't answer either, not exactly "There are just so ," she said "In a case like this He hurt her so badly in soyou, this city we live in-"

It wasn't the city The city didn't do it to her It was one man, and he could have turned up anywhere

Joe Durkin was in the waiting rooot to his feet when I walked in He hadn't shaved that h he'd slept in his clothes

He asked how she was

"Not good," I said

"She say anything?"