Don't shoot!  Please don't shoot!"  The commotion came from about 20 yards behind where Rom was sitting.  He heard a struggle, then a sound like metal hitting bone, and another scream.
     He rose quietly from the bench and tiptoed over to a stone-and-steel bridge that led over the bridle path toward Fifth Avenue.  He leaned over and looked down into the shadows.  A figure in a hooded sweatshirt was checking the socks of two horizontal male joggers for valuables.  One of them kept imploring not to be shot.  The robber told him to shut up or he would be.  He found something strapped around one man's ankle.
     "Well, what you got here?  Fancy leg wallet?  Take it off!"
     His heart pounding, Rom took a quick look around.  The jogging path was empty.  He took out the scarf and the mask, then stood looking at them.  He began shaking, and put them back into his pockets and turned away.  He walked quickly for a few yards, until he heard the voice cry out again.  "Don't shoot me, please!   I have kids!  Please!"
     Rom stopped.  With a grimace he turned back.  "God help me," he muttered.  He quickly tied on the scarf and mask and leaned back over the bridge.
     "Never mind, asshole," said the robber.  "I'll do it.  Just put your face back down there."  He put a small gun down onto the ground and began fumbling with the jogger's ankle wallet.
     If I'm going to do anything, Rom thought, it's got to be now.  He took a deep breath, adjusted his mask and jumped the 15 feet to the muddy path with a roar.  The startled robber fell back a bit, and Rom landed half on the robber's shoulders, half on the victim's legs, and wound up on his ass between them.  He reached out and flung the gun away, toward the bare bushes that lined the path.
     The robber, a hollow-cheeked man with big eyes and a grayish face, was momentarily stunned.  He rubbed his shoulder and just looked at the figure in black.  But as Rom steadied himself to rise, a boot shot out and caught him under the chin.  Then the robber was on his feet.  He kicked Rom again, who was sprawled out on the path, this time hard in the ribs.  Rom felt the breath rushing from his lungs.  He couldn't get it back in.
     The robber started laughing.  "And what the fuck is this?  Zorro?  Where's your whip and your hat, Zorro?  I like them big hats."
     He picked Rom up by the lapel and punched him in the face.  Rom saw stars.  He tried to breathe, tried to think.  He felt weak, and he couldn't find his legs.  Well, he thought, he would get his wish, if that were it, tonight.  He would die needlessly, here in Central Park, where no one in their right mind goes after dark, by someone he'd never seen before.  And he had asked for it.
     Now he heard, more than felt, the sharp crack of a fist smashing into his face, and again he saw stars.  These were prettier, some red and some yellow.  He felt himself being picked up and flung.
     He landed against a bare tree, and somehow he clung to it.  He tasted dirt and blood. The mask had slipped and he couldn't see.  He realized everything fully.  He had pushed his luck too far.  He remembered the cold approach of death.  Here it came again.  He could hear it, feel it thundering toward him.  Death was coming for him on a horse from hell.
     Blinded, breathless, the Son of Zorro hung from the tree as if crucified.  Oh God, he prayed, help me.  I'm sorry.  Oh, Jesus.
     At the sound of the gun Rom snapped to, and instinctively he fell into a crouch and whipped off his mask.  He saw the robber on one knee, clutching the side of his face.  The jogger on whose legs Rom had landed sat on the ground, the robber's gun at the end of his stiff arm.  He was trembling, and his voice shook.
     "You're gonna kill me, eh?  I'm gonna kill you, ya fuck!  Now I'm gonna kill you!"
     Rom's heart sang.  He would live!  Quickly he turned his head and put the mask on again.  He straightened up and looked at the two joggers.  One had gotten up; the other still sat with the gun pointed at the robber.  Now he noticed Rom and pointed the gun at him.
     "And you, with the fuckin' mask!  Stay where you are and put your hands up!"  The gun wavered at him, just a few feet away.  "You broke my leg!" yelled the jogger.  "I can't get up.  You broke my fuckin' leg!"
     Rom tried to think of something to say.  His throat was dry.  This guy was flipping out. The gun kept moving between Rom and the robber, who was moaning, writhing on the ground a few feet away, bleeding from his head.  That would be the final irony — to get shot by the victim.
     "Wait!" croaked Rom.  "I was trying to help!  Don't shoot!"  He tensed, ready to break for it.  Just then, a fury of motion and noise came from behind the hedges bordering the path. The jogger jerked the gun toward the commotion and fired twice.
     Rom leapt past the robber and rolled into an opening between two hedges.
     Another shot rang out, and a bullet zinged off a tree next to Rom's head.  He bounced to his feet and saw that the jogger had shot at a mounted policeman, whose still figure lay on the ground a few feet away.  The horse whinnied and fussed next to him.
     "Hold your fire!" yelled Rom.  "That was a cop!  You hit a cop!"  He carefully pulled a branch back and looked toward the joggers.  The one with the gun had lowered it, and his companion moved over and took it from the man's clenched fingers.
     Rom knelt by the cop and quickly looked for bullet wounds, ready to begin the last rites, ready to put the purple silk stole around his neck and anoint the dying.  But he found no wounds, decided the cop had been thrown and just knocked out, and whispered a short prayer of thanks.
     "You there, with the mask!  Come out where we can see you!"  It was the second jogger.  His voice quavered.  "We still have the gun! Come out here!"
     On the other side of the hedges, Rom briefly considered helping the shot mugger, but crept away.  He would not become a target twice. He heard sirens approaching. Probably the mounted cop had heard the shot, radioed for help and responded.  He was surprised more cops weren't there already.  Now Rom hesitated, trying to get his bearings.  He looked up at the horse.  It looked back and snorted, its breath coming in great frosty blasts from its nostrils.  Rom decided.  It was three hands taller than any horse he'd ever ridden, but it was the only horse around.
     Rom approached the beast as calmly as he could.  It backed away once, but at the second attempt, Rom grabbed the reins.  He spent a few seconds stroking the horse's muzzle and neck, speaking softy, before the sirens' approach made Rom forego the get-acquainted routine.  The brown leather saddle was English style, with no horn.  It had a gold police department seal embedded into it and a little holster that held a leather-wrapped nightstick. Rom, who was used to the western- style saddle, put his black-sneakered foot into the stirrup and clumsily swung up.  He took a deep breath and yanked the giant steed southward.
     Rom looked back and could see the police units coming down from the 96th Street entrance.  He spurred the horse down the bridle path and along East Drive and found his way onto the Great Lawn, whose dark expanse stretched south to Belvedere, now a stark, medieval profile against the cool glow of Midtown.  His battered ribs ached with every bounce.  His face hurt, especially his nose.  When he had a moment he would feel it to see if it were broken.
     The horse was magnificent and the ride exhilarating.  He thundered past singles and couples still visible on the immense, dark sea of earth, eliciting shouts and curses along the way.  How very strange and delicious it felt to gallop across Central Park on a Saturday night! If his luck would hold out just a few more minutes . . .
     Then, from the southwest corner of the Great Lawn, Rom saw the lights of a police cruiser bouncing across the terrain.  He quickly reined the horse in and turned east.  He guided the steed across a couple of paved pedestrian roads, toward Cleopatra's Needle, a tall obelisk atop a hill.  As sirens approached from several parts of the park, Rom dismounted, turned the horse toward the Lawn and sent it galloping with a smack on its flank.   "Thanks for the ride, pal," he said quietly.
     He removed his mask and scarf and made for Fifth Avenue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose massive western glass wall rose before him like a pyramid.  Ribs aching, Rom crept along the base of the wall, which was concrete covered with climbing ivy.  He coughed and spat a mixture of phlegm and blood, then gingerly wiped his nose with his handkerchief.  It came back bloody, and his nose, although apparently not broken, hurt with every step he took.  As he rounded the corner of the building, he awkwardly re-inserted his Roman collar, covered it with his lapels and nearly stumbled down a small rock outcropping.  He walked along the northern wall, catching the red and blue reflections of the approaching police cruisers in its glass panels.  Inside he could see an Egyptian display, complete with columns, tablets and sarcophagi, as well as the surprised faces of those wandering around inside who'd spotted the bloodied man in black slinking around outside.
     Rom stumbled down the embankment, toward Fifth Avenue.  He felt faint, and he was sweating from every pore, it seemed.  He hit Fifth at 84th Street and walked south toward the main museum entrance.  He could see a bank of spotlights set up out in front and a string of taxis pulling in and taking off again, and realized an exhibit was just opening.  He brushed the dirt — ineffectually — off his suit, wiped his nose again, wincing from the shock of pain, and briskly fingerbrushed his hair, now soaked with sweat.  His eye was throbbing and had started to close.  God, he must look like hell!
     Rom heard sirens behind him as he passed the fountains in front of the wide stone steps.  The edges of his vision began to blacken, and he somehow reached a taxi, got in, said "Penn Station" and slid down in the seat.  By the time the cab reached Central Park South, the bloodied priest was vomiting out the window.