Now, more than an hour had passed since Alberta Wright had swallowed the first gulps of the water from the bottle Sweet Prophet had blessed, and Sweet Prophet was sitting behind a hand-carved mahogany desk in his sumptuous "Receiving Room" on the third-floor front of his Temple of Wonderful Prayer. Across from him, in the high-backed period chairs usually assigned to the supplicants, sat three detectives. They were enclosed, as it were, by an invisible wall, behind which the room was jammed to the walls by as many of the prophet's followers as could squeeze inside. Others jammed the outside hallways and staircases, and hundreds stood below on the street.

The temple was a four-storied apartment building, housing a modern motion picture theater, which Sweet Prophet had converted into his Church of Wonderful Prayer. His living quarters were on the top floor.

The Homicide sergeant was saying, "Now all I want to do is get the picture straight while the Medical Examiner locates the body and determines the cause of death. There has been some confusion here."

"The Lord shall confound the wicked," Sweet Prophet said.

"Amen," said the followers.

The sergeant, a tall, lean hatchet-faced Irishman named Ratigan, blinked. "As to that, we'll soon find out," he said. "You were baptizing these people?"

"They had answered to the call, and the Sweet Prophet was opening the gates to God's green pastures so that they may graze in faith with God's chosen flock," Sweet Prophet said.

"Amen," the faithful said.

"Just stick to the answers, Reverend," Sergeant Ratigan said.

"I am a prophet," Sweet Prophet said. "God called to me at the corner of this very street and Lenox Avenue more than thirty-three years ago. It was a Saturday night and the street was filled with sinners-pimps and prostitutes and thieves. God touched me on the shoulder. I looked around and saw nobody. He said, 'I am God. I make you my prophet on Earth. I send you forth to save these people from degradation and damnation!' "