A sudden blast of noise poured in from the booking room — shouts, curses, voices lifted in anger, women screaming, whines of protest, the scuffling of many feet — as a wagon emptied its haul from a raid on a whore-house where drugs were peddled.

The intercome on the desk spoke suddenly: "Lieutenant, you're wanted out here on the desk; they've knocked over Big Liz's circus house."

The lieutenant flicked the switch. "In a few minutes, and for Christ's sake keep them quiet."

He then looked from one detective to the other. "What the hell's going on today? It's only ten o'clock in the evening and judging from the reports it's been going on like this since morning." He leafed through the reports, reading charges: "Man kills his wife with an axe for burning his breakfast pork chop… man shoots another man demonstrating a recent shooting he had witnessed… man stabs another man for spilling beer on his new suit… man kills self in a bar playing Russian roulette with a. 32 revolver… woman stabs man in stomach fourteen times, no reason given… woman scalds neighboring woman with pot of boiling water for speaking to her husband… man arrested for threatening to blow up subway train because he entered wrong station and couldn't get his token back — "

"All colored citizens," Coffin Ed interrupted.

Anderson ignored it. "Man sees stranger wearing his own new suit, slashes him with a razor." he read on. "Man dressed as Cherokee Indian splits white bartender's skull with homemade tomahawk… man arrested on Seventh Avenue for hunting cats with hound dog and shotgun

… twenty-five men arrested for trying to chase all the white people out of Harlem — "

"It's Independence Day," Grave Digger interrupted.

" Independence Day! " Lieutenant Anderson echoed, taking a long, deep breath. He pushed away the reports and pulled a memo from the corner clip of the blotter. "Well, here's your assignment — from the captain."