The store was on 124th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, and the car was pointing toward Seventh.

The Paris Bar was due north as the bird flies on 125th Street, midway between the Apollo Bar and the Palm Cafe and across the street from Blumstein’s Department Store.

It was ten minutes by foot, if you were on your way to church, about two and a half minutes if your old lady was chasing you with a razor.

Coffin Ed checked his watch when Grave Digger mashed the starter. The little car might have looked like a bow-legged turtle, but it ran like an antelope.

It passed the Theresa Hotel, going up the wrong side of the street, bright lights on and siren screaming. Jokers in the lobby staring out the windows scattered like a hurricane had passed. They made it in thirty-three seconds.

Two prowl cars and Lieutenant Anderson’s black sedan were parked in front of the Paris Bar, taking up all the available space. Save for the cops standing about in clusters, the street was deserted.

“One’s a white man,” Grave Digger said.

“What else?” Coffin Ed replied.

What he meant was what else could keep the black citizens away from the circus provided by a killing.

“Butts going to jump,” Grave Digger added as he made a sharp-angled turn and squeezed between the front car and a fireplug, jumping the curb.

Before he had dragged to a stop, crosswise the sidewalk, just short of banging into the grilled front of a drugstore adjacent to the Paris Bar, they saw the three prone figures on the sidewalk.

The one nearest wore a belted trench coat and a dark snapbrim hat that was still clinging to his head. He lay that on his belly, his legs spread and his feet resting on his toes.