I was looking for the words to apologize when Mrs. Van Alen reached for the broken knife. She charged at me like water from a burst dam. If the knife still had its tip, she would have buried it in my heart. Instead, she contented herself with cutting a long, deep groove down the side of my face.

More than anything, the sensation was surprising. It lanced through me with electric speed, so intense that I had to step away from it, to admire the heat of the blood pouring into my mouth and the blinding force of the pain.

She set the knife against my other cheek, intending to cut a matching scar. The blade was close enough to my nose that I could smell the onions she had cut the night before. My foot slipped, and she fell on top of me, the weight of her enough to push me across her husband’s lap, and halfway out the open window.

I kicked. I bled. Neither helped. My finger pulled uselessly at the trigger of the gun that was no longer in my hand.

I didn’t blame her for cutting my face, and I wouldn’t argue if she pushed me out the window. My spirit had drained out of me as quickly as the blood pouring from Van Alen’s blubbery chest, but my body had not given up the fight.

I have never been a brawler. I have always been small. But I had a funny habit of staying alive, and sometimes that’s all that mattered. Before she could make her second incision, I let my knees buckle and slid out from under her. The metal windowsill clawed at my dress, and I landed safely on the floor. Mrs. Van Alen would have tumbled out the window if Virgil hadn’t grabbed her by her belt, dragged her across the floor, and shoved her into her bedroom.

“Get downstairs,” he said, holding the door closed with the full weight of his body. “Find a callbox. Get Centre Street. Get Thorne.”

I smeared the blood across my cheek, nodded, and ran. No one in the stairwell looked up as I clattered down the steps. No one on the street was put off by the bloody woman sprinting down the sidewalk. There were callboxes on every corner. The first three were disconnected, and somewhere within me I took faint pleasure from knowing that not everything in this perfect city was shiny and clean.

At the fourth, I got through, and every cop I spoke to responded like he could hear the blood in my voice. They passed me up the chain, grateful to let me be someone else’s problem, until I reached the office of Edward Thorne.

“Virgil Carr has a mess that needs tidying,” I said.

“Who’s this calling?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Get up to 172nd and get ready to move a body.”

“What address?”