The artificial-heart purse theft, the manhunt, and the smashed Jarvik IX

pivotal · ~29 July YDAU (2009); reported 10 Aug YDAU

• When: the theft ~29 July YDAU ("the black July day"; non grata "since 29 July," scene 069); reported in a Moment article datelined 10 Aug YDAU (scene 045)
• What: In Harvard Square, Poor Tony (the unnamed "transvestite purse snatcher... bizarrely outfitted in a strapless cocktail dress, spike heels, tattered feather boa, and auburn wig") tears the purse from a 46-year-old Boston accountant who was carrying her Jarvik IX Exterior Artificial Heart in a stylish Etienne Aigner purse (ventricular tubes shunted to her arms). She gives chase four blocks, crying "She stole my heart, stop her!" — passers-by and two patrolmen misread it as a lovers' quarrel — then collapses onto her empty chest and dies (her brain later dissected). Discovering the still-beating prosthesis, Poor Tony smashes it "repeatedly with a stone or small hammer-like tool," its remains found behind the Boston Public Library in Copley Square (his own blowergrate turf). The heart-boost makes him permanently non grata at the Square and terrified of any "Aigner accessory"; he "had simply never felt so beset and overcome on all sides as the black July day when it fell to his lot to boost a heart." [Closed loop: the Jarvik IX is the very artificial-heart model Marathe is betraying his A.F.R. cell to secure for his dying wife Gertraude — see Marathe's timeline (event 6); spelling Jarvik/Jaarvik both authorial, as printed.]