When the train pulled in, Charlie hesitatingly left his cop. Looking around the local for his potential assailants, Charlie was surprised to see a young couple necking and another avidly discussing a Tony Kushner play. From their conversation, Charlie gleaned that they all seemed to be returning from a dinner party. At the other end of the train were two young interns still in their hospital scrubs and an old man fast asleep, holding a bottle of Johnnie Walker.

There was something so reassuring about the passengers on that 3 a.m. train ride compared with Judy Tremont dressed as Tina Turner. After navigating a transfer to the 6 line, Charlie suddenly felt full of hope for New York, for his life, even for his marriage. As the train pulled into the safety of the Upper East Side Hunter College stop on Sixty-eighth and Lexington Avenue, Charlie felt a surge of strength. He was home and had made it. As Charlie walked out of the subway onto the Upper East Side, he had the self-assurance of an adolescent who had escaped a ridiculous prom.

Crossing East Sixty-sixth Street, past the gray Cosmopolitan Club that Samantha’s grandmother had founded and onto the solidity of Park Avenue, Charlie decided his disappearance had probably tortured Samantha enough. Maybe they could have a late drink at the Pierre or the Plaza Athénée. Maybe they could take a room, like out-of-towners, and make love. As he took his cell phone out and began to call her, he felt a thrust in his back.

“Turn around and face the wall, motherfucker. I’ve got a gun.”

Charlie felt a sharp jab in his back. He put his hands against the wall of 625 Park Avenue.

“Give me your wallet and cell phone, asshole.”

Charlie passed both. He never saw his assailant’s face and his hands were gloved. He thought he caught a glimpse of a white sliver of skin, but he couldn’t really say.

“Take off your shoes, fuckhead. I said, take off your shoes or I’ll shoot.”

Charlie took off his shoes. He watched as they were hurled into oncoming traffic and the figure, who wore a hooded Harvard crew sweatshirt, ran off.

Charlie walked into Park Avenue to retrieve his shoes. When he went to pick them up, he saw they had been split in half by a hurtling truck. Returning to the sidewalk, Charlie stepped on the shards of a broken Colt 45 bottle. Limping while he held his bleeding foot, Charlie knocked on the door of the nearby apartment building, but the doorman wouldn’t let him in.

Charlie shouted, “Goddammit, I’m hurt. Open up the goddamn door!” The more Charlie shouted and knocked on the door, the more the doorman of the stately building ignored him.