ALVIN JONES PARKED his Special on 15th Street, along Meridian Hill, and cut through the park to 16th. He headed for a strip of stone-and-brick row houses, apartments, and a few small hotels. Real nice over here on the Avenue of the Presidents. A broad, clean street, lots of trees… usually lots of white people, too. But not today. They were all stuck in their vehicles, looking out the windows. Paler than usual, eyes full of fear.

It had taken Jones a couple of hours to get across town. He realized he would have to leave his car where he had parked it and walk back to Ronnie’s crib. He hoped what he was about to do would be worth all this sweat and time.

Jones went up a sidewalk leading to the hotel. Looked like just another house, but it was not. He had cased it a couple of weeks back, walked right up to the registration desk and asked about their rates. Young white boy behind the desk, had doll lips, looked like he took it in his hind parts, had said, “Which type of room are you looking for?” not even thinking to call him “sir.” Well, he was gonna show some respect now.

Jones put the stocking over his face right before he stepped through the door. He had the gun out of his pocket two steps in. A woman sitting in a chair in the lobby got a look at him and said, “Oh!” in a loud voice.

“Shut up, bitch,” said Jones. She made no further sound.

Wasn’t anyone else in the lobby. Jones walked right up to the desk where that boy with the doll lips stood. He had put his hands up in the air. They were already shaking before Jones spoke. Boy wore one of those shirts with the flaps and brass buttons on the shoulders, like he was an admiral in the navy, sumshit like that. Figured that this one would be wearing a sailor suit.

“You know what this is, motherfucker,” said Jones, pointing the.38 at the white boy’s chest. “Give it up.”

Jones looked through the lobby window to the street as the desk boy extracted some bills from the cash drawer and placed them on the counter. Wasn’t anyone out there except those who were jammed up in their cars. The guests who were staying in the hotel were probably all upstairs, holed up in their rooms.

“You got a safe in this piece?” said Jones.

“Yes, but -”

“Open it, slim.”

“It will take a few minutes.”

“It’ll take a few minutes, sir.”

“Sir,” said the young man, his lips trembling.

Jones smiled through the mask. “I got time.”

Fifteen minutes later he was walking east, his gun in one pocket, eight hundred dollars in the other, smiling occasionally at nothing at all, thinking on what a good day it had been, dreaming of a white El Dorado with red interior and electric windows and seats.

Here I go, thought Jones. No more police on my ass or women with babies trying to bust on my groove. I will be out of this motherfucker tonight. And: I am rich.

FRANK VAUGHN PARKED his Polara in a Howard University lot and walked with his shoulders squared into the fray on 7th. He had removed his badge from his case and pinned it on his lapel.

Everything around him was burning. Ladder trucks, now topped with plywood and wrapped with chicken-wire cages to protect the firemen, attempted to move through the crowds. White-helmeted riot police hung on the sides. Vaughn had not seen anything like this on the soil of his own country. It reminded him of the last days of the war.

He cut left down past P. Rats, fleeing the flames, smoke, and heat, scurried across the street. A couple of blocks in, he passed a corner market that had been looted and tossed, all its windows shattered. He had Criss-Crossed the phone number to the apartment and found the building, a common row house, where Alvin Jones’s cousin Ronnie Moses had his place. Vaughn went into a small foyer and up a flight of stairs.

He knocked on the door several times. He knocked again. He said, “Police,” just to have said it, and then he drew his service revolver and kicked in the door at the knob. He walked into Moses’s apartment and closed the door behind him.

Vaughn went from room to room. He found nudie magazines and women’s clothing in the bedroom. He found a Polaroid camera next to a photo album and an open duffel bag holding clothing and shaving equipment dropped beside the shredded couch in the living room. These items told him that Ronnie Moses was a gash-hound and that he was currently hosting a male guest.

Vaughn went back down to the street.

ON H STREET, the Sixth Armored Cavalry arrived in jeeps and trucks and blocked both ends of the shopping district. The soldiers wore yellow kerchiefs around their necks and black gas masks over their faces. They marched in combat formation down the center of the street, carrying M14s with sheathed bayonets, thrusting them at looters, throwing tear gas grenades liberally. Paddy wagons and police officers followed them, making arrests.

Kenneth Willis pushed a drunk down to the sidewalk as he made his way home, going by the big Western Auto store at 9th, completely in flames. There were plenty of drunks on the street, stumbling and laughing, feeling the effects of the liquor they had stolen.

Willis had gotten lucky. He had found that watch in the jewelry store, though it was not in the window where he had expected it to be; there was no window anymore, or anything behind it on display. The watch had been knocked to the floor and kicked by someone toward the back of the shop. The face was scratched some, but Willis knew that a little toothpaste would remove the marks. Willis wore the watch now on his wrist.

He neared his building. Firemen were spraying water into the liquor store and the units above. The fire had engulfed the apartments. The building was completely aflame.

Willis stood there frozen, watching. He had lost his job, for sure. He was up on a felony gun charge. In the last few days he had taken multiple beat-downs from various police. Now everything he owned was carbon and smoke.

He looked at the watch on his wrist. He saw that one of the diamonds circling the face had come loose. He picked it out and squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger. It turned to dust.

Rhinestones, thought Willis. He found this funny, and he laughed.

STRANGE HAD USED his nightstick and muscle to make some arrests. He had chased several kids off the corridor, into alleys and onto side streets, hoping they would stay off the main drag. He was doing what he could.

He walked down 7th at Q. An apartment house over a clothing store was burning. A man was screaming at firemen, telling them that his mother, too slow to get down the stairs, was trapped in the blaze. Newspapers would later report that the woman, who died of smoke inhalation, had weighed over four hundred pounds. Her son had begged arsonists not to set the building afire, but they had ignored his pleas.

Strange passed a small furniture store with a plate-glass display window that had not been looted or burned. A white man sat in a rocking chair in the window with a double-barreled shotgun cradled in his arms, a cigar wedged between his lips. The man winked at Strange.

Strange walked by a black man wearing fatigues and shades, pleading with a group of young men to get off the streets, invoking the teachings of Dr. King. Strange knew this was an undercover officer, a man trained in counterrioting techniques. He was not having much success today.

Strange wiped tears from his face. His throat was raw and his eyes stung mercilessly from the gas. His exposed skin felt seared from the heat. Seventh Street was burning down all around him.

Third Infantry soldiers had arrived on 7th and begun to teargas and pursue looters. They protected firemen whose hoses had been cut as they were shelled by bricks and beer bottles from all directions. The soldiers had also begun to make massive arrests. The worst appeared to be over. But there was little left of the street.