The one I picked was just past the fountain. When Washington Square had been a potter’s field, this was the hanging tree. Now it was two hundred feet tall, as stout and wide as a subway car turned on end. I had been climbing it since I was a girl, and I knew every twist of its branches. I gripped the vines and scaled it quickly, high enough to see the edge of the park, where Lavangetto had just made it over the oak and onto the moss. I twisted the vines into a harness, held the cobblestone against my chest, and dangled.

As a child, I used this tree to escape children who saw reading as a sign of weakness. I would climb high enough for the wind to diffuse their taunts and read in peace, straddling a branch with my back against the oak, only occasionally distracted by the beauty of the city laid out beneath my feet.

In those days, I wanted to be alone forever. Now, I hoped to be found. I had never climbed so high before. I’ve no fondness for heights—not because I fear falling, but because I worry that I might be seized by a mad impulse and jump. Today, at least, that fear was gone. I waited ten minutes or more, eyes locked on the dirt below my feet. Lavangetto did not appear. A thicket of leaves rattled on the far side of the park.

“Moron!” I shouted. A few minutes later, he appeared beneath my feet, out of breath and out of ideas. I held the cobblestone over his head, drew in my breath, and let my missile go. It fell, straight, silent, and heavy, and landed just wide of my mark. The cop knelt, raised his gun, and fired three shots without bothering to aim.

The bullets thudded into the wood a few branches below my perch. My palms went slick. The cop tucked his gun into his pants, wrapped his arms around the lowest branch, and started to climb. My legs locked in place. I took a deep breath, and the muscles loosened. I glanced down, and Lavangetto was a few branches closer. He stopped, drew his pistol, and pointed it at me.

I swung to the next branch just as he fired. The shot crashed through the canopy of red and yellow, inches behind my back. I did not look down again. I swung around to the far side of the tree and crashed down as fast as I could. I was halfway to the ground when he intercepted me. He glared up, gun held loosely in his left hand.

“You stabbed Emil,” he yelled. “You cockeyed lunatic. You stabbed him in the back.”

“He was going to kill that priest.”