New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [286]
It’s clear that our little friend never turned up at the boat. I wonder if she’s trapped in Brooklyn!
I’ll make sure to see her, as we agreed, before I let Frank out on the street again.
Hetty almost laughed. She hoped little Miss Clipp was freezing her toes off, wherever she was. In its curious way, the plan was still working.
In fact, at that moment, Donna Clipp was standing by the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. And she was getting angry.
She could have stayed at the hotel, of course, but they were getting pretty insistent that she pay. And anyway, she was bored. Donna Clipp didn’t like doing nothing. One of the other guests had offered to lend her a book. But Donna could never see the point of reading. That was boring too.
So she’d decided to go home. She’d taken the few valuables she had and stuffed them into her handbag. Then she’d demanded a length of rope and tied her suitcase with it in a series of intricate knots that it would have broken your fingernails to tackle. Then she’d made the manager give her a written receipt for it, and told him she’d collect it herself in a few days, and that if it wasn’t there, she’d fetch the police. Then she’d announced she was leaving. There was no transport of any kind. The whole of Brooklyn was staying indoors. But the manager did not try to stop her. He hoped the blizzard would freeze her to death, just as soon as she was well away from his hotel.
Donna Clipp had made her way to the Brooklyn Bridge, which wasn’t far. And though she looked like a walking snowman by the time she got there, she was still very much alive. There were railcars across the bridge, and once she was over, she’d manage to find a way across to her lodgings, somehow or other. At the bridge, however, she encountered a check.
“The bridge is closed,” the policeman told her.
The mighty structure was, indeed, totally deserted. Its huge span rose into the blizzard and disappeared in the whiteness. There were barriers across the roadway, and the railcars were sitting by their platforms, frozen solid. The policeman had wisely occupied the tollbooth, where pedestrians paid their penny to cross. He had a lamp in there to keep himself warm, and was unwilling even to open the little window to speak to her.
“Whaddaya mean, it’s closed?” she cried. “It’s a goddam bridge.”
“It’s closed. Too dangerous, lady,” he shouted back.
“I gotta get to Manhattan,” she protested.
“You can’t. There’s no ferry, and the bridge is closed. There’s no way to get there.”
“Then I’ll walk across.”
“Are you crazy, lady?” he exploded. “I just told you the bridge is closed. Especially to pedestrians.” He pointed to the path that led into the howling blizzard. “You’d never get across.”
“So how much is the toll? It says a penny. I’m not paying more than a penny.”
“You ain’t paying a penny,” the policeman bawled, “because I told you three times, the bridge is closed.”
“So you say.”
“I do say. Get out of here, lady.”
“I’ll stand here as long as I like. I ain’t breaking any law.”
“Jeezus,” cried the policeman. “Freeze to death where you are, then. But you ain’t crossing this bridge.”
Five minutes later, she was still there. In exasperation, the policeman turned his back to her. He stayed that way for a minute or two. When he turned round, she’d gone, thank God. He sighed, glanced up at the bridge, and shouted with fury.
She was up there on the walkway, a couple of hundred yards already, and about to disappear into the snowstorm. How the devil did she get past the booth? He opened the door, and the freezing storm smacked him in the face. He started after her, with a volley of oaths.
And then he stopped. Any minute now, he reckoned, the wind would like as not lift her up and blow her over the railings, then either drop her onto the tracks