It was coming on three A.M. when I finally managed to get myself smuggled out of Harlem by a uniform who owed me a favor.

As we negotiated the gridlock maze of news satellite vans, barricades, and mounted crowd-control cops, there still wasn’t the slightest hint about who had killed D-Ray.

Any standoff that led to a death would have been bad enough, but this bizarre shooting was the department’s worst nightmare come true. No matter how much evidence suggested that the NYPD wasn’t responsible, it looked like we were. The rabble-rousers, conspiracy theorists, and their many friends in the New York City media were going to have a field day.

And if that wasn’t enough to make me rip into a blister pack of Prilosec, there was the mountain of reports and other red tape I’d be facing come morning. I’d have gladly accepted another caning from D-Ray’s grandaunt instead.

When the cop dropped me off in front of my West End Avenue apartment building, I was so burnt out from fatigue, unresolved tension, and worry about what lay ahead that I almost stumbled to the door. I craved a few hours of peaceful sleep as a man who’d been crawling for days through the desert craves an oasis.

But the oasis turned out to be a mirage. Right off the bat, my crazy Dominican doorman, Ralph, seemed pissed off that I had to wake him up. I liked Ralph, but I was in no mood for petty surliness, and I gave him a look that told him so.