Perry had only recently decided to leave the department to pursue a career in the law. Indeed, that morning he had been blocks away, literally handing in his retirement papers at Police Headquarters, when news spread that a plane had hit the trade center. Perry, in street clothes, asked the clerk for his badge back. He rushed downstairs to a police supply shop on the first floor, bought a thirty-five-dollar golf shirt with an NYPD logo and raced to the scene.
