Kate concussed after the purse-snatch (pp. 715–716)
Ruth van Cleve had cried out as the apparition of just about the most unattractive woman Kate Gompert had ever seen crashed forward between them, knocking them apart. Ruth van Cleve’s vinyl purse’s strap gave right away, but Kate Gompert’s thin but densely macramé’d strap held around her shoulder and she was pulled wrenchingly forward by the womanly apparition’s momentum as it tried to sprint up Prospect St. […] The apparition spun itself violently around, trying to shake off Ruth van Cleve, and her/its spin with her purse took the strap-attached Kate Gompert (who didn’t weigh very much) out around in a wide circle
Context
The flashback replay of the snatch itself, the diction sustained: "the apparition" three times in one paragraph, plus the pronoun collapse "her/its." Poor Tony — starved, seizure-wrecked, in withdrawal — has by this point stopped registering as a person at all; Kate's concussed perception just makes official what 131 and 136 were building.