At ten minutes to five, they drove down Hawthorne Street. There were a number of cars, their roofs and windshields now coated with snow, parked on the street.

If this snow keeps up, Matt thought, these cars are going to be buried.

The headlights of a rusty and battered Chrysler flicked on and off quickly.

"That's the Homicide guy," Lieutenant Suffern said, and then added, " That wasn't too smart."

"Maybe he's just glad to see you," Mickey O'Hara said. "How long has he been there?"

"Probably since midnight," Suffern said. "When he tries to get out of the car, he'll probably be frozen stiff."

Suffern made the next right, turned his headlights off, and then turned right again into the alley and stopped.

Matt started to open the door.

"We got a couple of minutes," Suffern said, stopping him. "Better to stay in the car."

"Right," Matt said.

Said Officer Payne, the rookie, who don't know no better.

"I want to get out," O'Hara said. "If I just jump out of the car, my lens is likely to fog over."

"Okay, Mick," Suffern said obligingly. "But stick close to the walls, huh?"

O'Hara got out and Matt followed him, carefully closing the car's door. Suffern put the car in gear and inched away from them, stopping fifty yards farther down the alley.

It took Matt's eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness, but gradually the alley took shape. They were standing between two brick walls, but thirty feet away, the alley was lined with wooden fences. There was what looked like a derelict car parked against one wall, between them and Suffern's car. Matt wondered how Suffern had managed to get past it in the dark.

And then, as he looked at Mickey O'Hara, who was wiping the lens of his 35-mm camera with a handkerchief, the hair on the back of Matt's neck began to curl.

What the hell is the matter with me? Abu Ben Whatsisname is sound asleep in his bed. He won't know what hit him when those guys come crashing into his house. And I am a good hundred yards from where the action is going to be anyway.

But he pulled off his right glove, stuffed it into the pocket of his topcoat, and then quickly knelt and took his revolver from the ankle holster on the inside of his left leg. Hoping that Mickey O'Hara hadn' t seen him, he quickly put it, and the hand that held it, into his topcoat pocket.

And then there was first a creaking, tearing noise, like a board being split, somewhere down the alley, and then the sound of crunching snow.

A moment later he saw something moving.

It has to be a cat, or a dog, or something Then he realized that what was coming down the alley toward them was too large to be a dog.

Everything shifted into slow motion.

"Stop!" Matt heard himself say. He had trouble finding his voice. " Police officer-"

"Out of my way, motherfucker!" an intensely angry voice called.

There followed a series of orange flashes, accompanied by sharp cracks.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Mickey O'Hara said softly.

Matt was slapped in the face and then, a half second later, with terrifying force, in his right calf. He felt himself falling hard against the brick wall to his side.

As a voice from the recesses of his brain told him,Hold it in both hands, he pulled his revolver from his topcoat pocket. He got it free and up as he slid to the ground.

There was no way to hold the pistol with both hands. He fired instinctively. And then again. And a third time.

There was a grunt from the vague figure coming down the alley, and then the figure stood erect. Matt fired again. The figure took two more steps, and then fell forward.

Matt tried to get on his feet by pushing himself up the wall, but his hands slipped and his leg seemed unstable. He got on all fours, and somehow, that way, managed to get on his feet.

Now holding the pistol in both hands, Matt moved unsteadily toward the fallen figure.

You only have one cartridge left! Don't fuck this up!

The man on the ground was writhing in pain. Matt saw his pistol-a semiautomatic, probably a Colt.45-on the ground, half buried in snow. The man made no move for it. Matt hobbled to it and put his foot on it and nearly fell down.

There was a white flash, and he turned quickly toward it, pistol extended.

It was Mickey O'Hara's goddamn camera!

"Easy, kid!" Mickey said, fear in his voice.

Matt aimed the pistol at the man on the ground.

A moment later the camera flash went off again.

"Fuck you, O'Hara!" Matt heard himself shout furiously.

Now there were lights, all kinds of lights, headlights, flashing red and blue lights, portable floodlights.

He looked down the alley and saw an RPC squeeze past Lieutenant Suffern's car, and then, in his headlights, Suffern, his pistol drawn, running down the alley.

Suffern hoisted the skirt of his coat and holstered his pistol and came out with handcuffs. He put his knee in the back of the man on the ground and grabbed his arm to handcuff him.

The man screamed in pain.

The Special Operations car slid to a stop and two cops jumped out.

Suffern came to Matt, said, "Jesus!" and touched his face.

"You can put your pistol away, Payne," Suffern said, and then raised his hand and gently forced Matt's arm down.

Matt looked at him. He saw something sticky on Suffern's fingers, and then touched his face. His fingers, too, came away bloody.

He squatted to feel his calf, and fell down.

Suffern ran to the RPC, slid behind the wheel, and found the microphone.

"This is Suffern, get the van here, now!" he called, then: "This is Team A Supervisor. We have had a shooting. We have an officer down. We have a suspect down."

Matt, at the moment he was aware he was lying facedown in the snow, felt hands on his shoulders. He felt himself being first rolled over, and then being held up in a slumping position.

He put his hands to his eyes, and wiped away the bloody slush over them. He could see one of the Special Operations cops looking down at him with concern in his eyes.

"You all right?"

"Shit!"

He heard the wail of a siren in the distance, and then other sirens.

"Suffern, where are you?" Wohl's voice came over the radio.

"In the alley behind the scene."

"Who's down?"

"Payne and the suspect."

"On my way."

Matt saw Suffern's face now, close to his.

"Just take it easy, the van's on the way. We'll have you in a hospital in two minutes."

Mickey O'Hara's flashgun went off again.

"Get that fucking camera out of here, Mickey!" Suffern said angrily.

"You all right, Matt?" O'Hara asked.

"I'm shot, for Christ's sake!"

There was the sound of squealing brakes, of clashing gears, and tires slipping on the ice and snow.

Matt looked over his shoulder and saw a van backing into the alley.

"Here's the van," Suffern said, quite unnecessarily.

Matt felt something scrubbing at his face. When his vision cleared, he saw the cop who had rolled him over throwing a bloody handkerchief away and being handed another. He put the fresh handkerchief to Matt's forehead.

"Can you hold that?" he asked.

Matt put his hand to it.

Two more cops appeared, carrying a stretcher.

"Get me to my feet," Matt said. "I don't need that."

They ignored him. He felt himself being unceremoniously picked up and then dumped onto the stretcher. Then he was lifted up and carried to the van. The feet of the stretcher screeched as it was pushed inside.

"Where do you think you're going, Mickey?" someone asked.

"Where does it look like?" O'Hara replied, and then he was sitting on the floor of the van beside Matt.

And then something else was thrown in the van. Matt looked and saw that it was the man he had shot. He was unconscious.

Two uniformed cops, neither of whom Matt recognized, scrambled inside. The van's rear doors slammed closed, and then a moment later, there was the sound of the front doors slamming. The engine raced and the siren began to wail again.