The Witness

FOUR

At five minutes past one that afternoon, Abu Ben Mohammed pushed open one of the double doors giving access to the business premises of Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc., which occupied all of a three-story building on the north side of South Street, between South 8^th and South 9^th Streets in South Philadelphia.

Abu Ben Mohammed, according to police records, had been born, as Charles David Stevens, at the Temple University Hospital, in North Philadelphia, twenty-four years, six months, and eleven days earlier. On the occasion of his most recent arrest, he had been described as a Negro Male, five feet nine inches tall, weighing approximately 165 pounds, and with no particular deformities or scars.

Goldblatt amp; Sons had a doorman, Albert J. Monahan, who was fifty-six. Red Monahan had been with Goldblatt amp; Sons for thirty-eight years. He went way back to when it had been Samuel Goldblatt Fine Furniture, when Mr. Joshua Goldblatt (now treasurer) and Mr. Harold Goldblatt (now secretary) had been in short pants, and Mr. Samuel Goldblatt, Jr., (now president) then known as "Little Sammy," had been just another muscular eighteen-year-old working one of the trucks delivering merchandise alongside Red.

Before he'd had his heart attack, three years before, Red Monahan had worked his way up to warehouse supervisor. In addition to the portions of the third floor and of the basement of the building on South Street used to warehouse, there was a five-story warehouse building on Washington Avenue two blocks away.

Red had been responsible for checking merchandise as it came in, filling orders from the store to be loaded on trucks, and in moving merchandise back and forth between the store and the warehouse.

Old Mr.Goldblatt had still been alive when Red had his heart attack, although he was getting pretty fragile. But he insisted on being taken to the hospital to see Red, and Young Mr. Sam had, nervously, loaded him into his Buick and taken him.

Old Mr.Goldblatt had told Red that he was too mean an Irishman to die, or even to stay sick for very long, and anyway not to worry. The store had good hospital insurance and what that didn't pay, the store would. And he could consider himself retired, at full pay, from that moment. Anyone with thirty-five years with the store was entitled to take it easy when the time came.

Red told Old Mr.Goldblatt that he didn't want to retire; everybody he knew who retired was dead in a year or eighteen months. And what the hell would he do, anyway, sit around the house all day?

Old Mr.Goldblatt told Red that there would be a job for him at the store as long as he wanted one, and then when he was back in the Buick he told Young Mr. Sam that he was to figure out something for Red to do that wouldn't be a strain on him, but that would also keep him busy.

"No make work. Red's got pride."

"Jesus Christ, Pop!"

"Just do it, Sammy. Let me know what you come up with."

What Young Mr. Sam came up with was what he called "floor walker." When he was a kid, there had been floor walkers in Strawbridge amp; Clothier, John Wanamaker's, and other top-class department stores. What they did was literally walk the floor, keeping an eye on customers, stock, and employees.

Goldblatt amp; Sons had never had such people, but once he thought of it, it struck Young Mr. Sam as a pretty good idea. For one thing, Red was a genial Irishman, charming, silver-haired. People liked him. For another, nobody knew more about the stock than Red did. If when people came through the door, Red could be there to greet them with a smile and find out whether they were interested in a bedroom suite, or a refrigerator, or a rug, or whatever, then he could point them in the right direction. "Appliances are on the second floor, right up the stairs." "Carpets are on the third floor, you'll find the elevator right over there."

The first problem was to think of a new term to describe what he would be doing. Young Mr. Sam didn't think Red would like to be a floor walker. He finally came up with "merchandise counselor." Red's face stiffened when he heard that, but he heard Young Mr. Sam out, listening to Sam explain what would be expected of him.

"You mean like a doorman, Sam, right? To make sure the customers don' t get away?"

"Yeah."

"That sounds like a pretty good idea," Red had said.

Having Red Monahan working as the doorman turned out to be a very good idea, better than Young Mr. Sam would have believed when he first thought of it.

Red started out by telling people, "Bedroom suites are in the front of the third floor. Take the elevator and when you get up there ask for Mrs.Lipshutz." Or "Wall-to-wall carpeting is in the back of the store. Ask for Mr.Callahan."

The next step was to have the salespeople waiting downstairs near the door. Red would march the customer over to Mrs.Lipshutz or whoever and introduce her with a naughty little wink: "Mrs.Lipshutz is our bedroom expert."

And when somebody came in sore because the Credit Department hadn't credited their account, or because the leg had come off a kitchen chair, or something, Red would be the soul of sympathy and calm them down.

And he kept the undesirables out. There were a lot of drunks around South Street, particularly on Friday nights, when the store was open until nine P.M. and he discouraged them from coming in the store. And he kept the religious loonies from bothering the customers too. The ones who just wanted to pass out their literature were bad enough, but the ones who just about demanded money to plant trees in Israel, or save souls for Jesus in the Congo, or to buy tickets for the Annual Picnic of the 3^rd Abyssinian Baptist Church, things like that, had been, pre-Red the Doorman, a real pain in the ass.

Now Red either discouraged them before they got through the doors, or got rid of the really determined ones with a couple of bucks from a roll of singles he got, as needed, from petty cash.

Abu Ben Mohammed, when Red Monahan greeted him at the door, told him he wanted to see about some wall-to-wall carpet.

"You saw the ad in the paper, I guess?" Red asked.

"Huh?"

"We're having a special sale," Red explained. "Twenty-five percent off everything we have in stock, plus free pad and installation."

"No kidding?"

"Absolutely," Red said. "You picked the right day to get yourself some carpet."

He guided Abu Ben Mohammed over to where Phil Katz, who was Old Mr. Sam's nephew, was sitting with the other salespeople on the tufted blue velvet couch and matching armchairs that a sign advertised as " Today's Special! Three-Piece Suite! $99 Down! No Payment Until March!"

"Mr. Katz," Red began, which caused Phil Katz to break off his conversation with Mr. Callahan in midsentence and get to his feet with a smile in place.

"Mr. Katz," Red went on, "this is Mr.-I didn't catch your name?"

"I didn't tell you," Abu Ben Mohammed replied.

"This gentleman," Red Monahan went on, "is interested in some wallto-wall carpeting."

"Well, this is your day," Mr. Katz said, "we're running a special sale. Why don't we ride up to the carpet department and let me show you what we have?"

Mr. Katz thought he might have a live one. He had, of course, noticed that Abu Ben Mohammed was wearing what he thought of as African clothes. Over a purple turtleneck sweater and baggy black trousers, Abu Ben Mohammed was wearing a brightly colored dashiki. Perched on the back of his head was sort of a black yarmulke, neatly and rather brightly embroidered in a yellow and green pattern. He was also wearing a trench coat over his shoulders. Maybe they didn't have overcoats in North Africa, Mr. Katz thought, or maybe this guy just didn't have an African coat to handle the chill of January in Philadelphia.

What was important was that he was into the African thing, and the Africans were deep into carpets. They put them two and three deep on the floors, and sometimes they even upholstered their walls with them.

What was just about as important was that he had come into the store today. The furniture business just about died after Christmas; it was Phil Katz's personal opinion that the store was just pissing money down the toilet with their advertisements in the PhiladelphiaDaily News for "After Christmas" and "New Year's" sales. People had spent their money (or used up their credit, which was the same thing) buying Christmas presents. They had no money to do anything but start paying the bills they had run up for Christmas.

But there were exceptions to every rule, and this guy in the dashiki just might be one of them. Mr. Katz had heard that the blacks who had become Muslims had to stop drinking and smoking and gambling, which meant this guy might just have the money to cover the floors of his apartment with carpet.

He led Abu Ben Mohammed to the elevator, slid the door shut, and took him up to the third floor.

Five minutes after Abu Ben Mohammed entered the store, a man subsequently identified as Hector Carlos Estivez, twenty-four, five feet nine inches tall, and weighing 140 pounds, and again with no distinguishing marks or features, came in.

He told Red Monahan that he wanted to look at a washer-drier combination, and was turned over by Red to Mrs. Emily Watkins, who was forty-eight, and had worked for fifteen years in the Credit Department of Goldblatt amp; Sons before deciding, three years before, that she could make more money on the floor, on a small salary plus commission, than she could at her desk. She had asked Young Mr. Sam for a chance to try, and to his surprise, she had done very well, probably, he had finally decided, because women did most of the buying of washers and driers and other appliances, and probably trusted another woman more than they would a man.

Mrs. Watkins led Mr. Estivez up the stairs to the second floor, and then to the rear of the building, where the washer-driers were on display. She was not nearly as enthusiastic about her chances to make a sale to her potential customer as Mr. Katz had been about his. She had been in the credit business a long time, and had a feel for who would have credit and who wouldn't. Mr. Estivez did not strike her as the kind of man who held a steady job. But on the other hand, he might have hit his number or something and might have the cash.

In a similar manner, over the next twenty minutes, seven more potential customers pushed open the door from South Street into Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc., were greeted by Red Monahan and turned over to a member of the sales force.

One of them, the third to come in the store, was a woman. She was later identified as Doris M. (Mrs. Harold) Martin, fifty-two, of East Hagert Street in Kensington. She had come in to look at carpet for her upstairs corridor and bedrooms after having seen the Goldblatt amp; Sons advertisement in that day'sDaily News. Red Monahan introduced Mrs. Martin to Mrs. Irene Dougherty, who took her by elevator to the third floor.

The other six people to come in were all men. Two of them wore clothing suggesting they were either Muslims or at least had some connection with an African culture. All of them were, according to the race codification then in use by the Philadelphia Police Department, Negroid. Two of them, however, had such pale skin pigmentation that there was some question whether they were "really colored" or "maybe Puerto Rican or Mexican, or something like that."

The last of the six men to enter the store, at approximately 1:32 P.M., described as a "black male, approximately six feet tall, thirty years of age, and weighing approximately one hundred seventy-five pounds," was wearing a "dark blue, waist-length woolen jacket similar in appearance to the U.S. Navy pea coat."

Immediately upon entering Goldblatt amp; Sons, this suspect, subsequently identified as Kenneth H. Dome, aka "King," aka Hussein El Baruca, turned and began to bolt the door shut.

"Hey, friend," Red Monahan asked as he walked up to him, "what are you doing?"

"Shut your face, motherfucker!" Hussein El Baruca replied, simultaneously drawing a large, blue in color, large-caliber semiautomatic pistol (probably a Colt Model 1911 or 1911A1.45-caliber service pistol) and pointing it at Red Monahan.

"Hey, you don't really want to do this-" Red Monahan said, whereupon Hussein El Baruca struck him, with a slashing backward motion of his right arm, in the face with the pistol, with sufficient force to knock him down and, it was subsequently learned, to cause a crack in Mr. Monahan's full upper denture.

Then he raised the pistol to a nearly vertical position and fired it three times. One of the bullets struck a fluorescent lighting fixture on the ceiling, smashing a bulb, which caused broken glass and then a cloud of powder, from the interior coating of the bulb, to float down from the ceiling. Then, the fixture itself tore loose at one end, causing a short-circuit in the wiring. There was a flash of light, and then that entire line of lighting fixtures, one of two running from the front of the store to the rear, went off, reducing the light on the ground floor by half.

"On your fucking bellies or I'll blow your fucking heads off!" Hussein El Baruca ordered.

The three salespeople, two men and a woman, waiting for customers in the living-room suite, and Red Monahan complied with the order. The woman crossed herself, and her lips moved in prayer as she got onto her knees and then laid on the floor.

Hussein El Baruca then turned back to the double doors and closed the Venetian blinds on them. There was a large display window on either side of the entrance. A complete bedroom set was on display in one window, and a complete bedroom set in the other. The "walls" behind the furniture in each window blocked the view of the interior of the store to passersby, and with the blinds on the doors now closed, there was no way anyone on South Street could look into Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc.

The sound of the three pistol shots fired by Hussein El Baruca was muffled somewhat by the upholstered furniture on the ground floor, and because the store was open from the front to the rear, where the Credit Department was located. But it was loud enough to be heard on the second floor, where it was correctly interpreted by Hector Carlos Estivez as the signal he had been expecting.

He took what was probably a Smith amp; Wesson Military amp; Police.38 Special caliber revolver from where he had concealed it in the small of his back, held it in both hands at arm's length, and fired two shots at the glass viewing port of a Hotpoint drier that was sitting on the floor approximately six feet from him, and two feet to the left of Mrs. Emily Watkins.

Mrs. Watkins yelped and covered her mouth with both hands.

Hector Carlos Estivez when he saw that he missed the glass viewing port with one of his shots, and that the second had cracked but not smashed or penetrated the glass, said, "Shit!" and fired a third time. This time the thick, tempered glass of the viewing port broke.

"On the floor, bitch!" Hector Carlos Estivez said, and Mrs. Watkins, now whimpering, dropped to her knees and then spread herself on the floor.

The shots from Estivez's revolver were audible to Abu Ben Mohammed on the third floor, where Phil Katz was explaining to him that trying to get by with bottom-of-the-line cheap carpet was really not economy at all.

"It's just like tires," Mr. Katz was saying, "what you're really buying is wear. You- What the hell was that?"

"You're being robbed, motherfucker, that's what it is," Abu Ben Mohammed said, taking a large-caliber, single-action, Western-style revolver with plastic "pearl" grips from beneath his dashiki. He pushed the hammer back, cocking the pistol, and then fired at a threefoot-tall, stainless-steel cigarette receptacle that had been placed beside the elevator door.

A hole appeared near the top of the receptacle, which then slowly tilted to one side, as if in a slow-motion picture, and then fell, dislodging a sand-filled glass tray, which shattered upon striking the metal elevator threshold.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Phil Katz said.

"Lay down on the floor," Abu Ben Mohammed ordered.

"What?"

"On the fucking floor, you heard me."

"Yes, sir."

The executive offices of Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc., those of Mr. Samuel Goldblatt, Jr., and Mr. Harold Goldblatt, the secretary, and their secretary, Mrs. Blanche Steiner, forty-four, were at the right rear of the building. Mr. Joshua Goldblatt, the treasurer, maintained his office in the Credit Department on the ground floor.

The sound of Abu Ben Mohammed's pistol shot attracted the attention of Mr. Samuel Goldblatt, Jr., who looked up from the work on his desk, and then stood up. When the executive offices had been built, one-way glass panels providing a view of the third-floor showroom had been installed. But they had never really worked, and eventually had been almost entirely covered up by a row of filing cabinets. The only way to see what was going on on the floor was to open the door and look.

Mr. Goldblatt did so, and found himself looking into the barrel of Abu Ben Mohammed's revolver.

"Hands up, honky!"

"Yes, sir," Mr. Goldblatt said.

"Oh, myGod!" Mrs. Steiner said, thereby attracting Abu Ben Mohammed's attention.

"Out here, bitch!"

"Do what he says, Blanche," Mr. Goldblatt said.

Abu Ben Mohammed then took careful aim at Mrs. Steiner's IBM typewriter and fired. The machine seemed to lift slightly off the desk and then settled back. There was a faint screeching noise, and then, a short-circuit within the typewriter having caused a fuse to blow, the overhead lights in the executive office went out. Desk lamps on Mr. Goldblatt's and Mrs. Steiner's desks continued to burn and produced sufficient light to see.

"Oh, myGod!" Mrs. Steiner wailed.

"Please don't hurt anyone," Mr. Goldblatt pleaded. "We'll do whatever you want us to do."

Abu Ben Mohammed then struck Mr. Goldblatt on the head, with a downward slashing motion of his pistol, causing him to fall to his knees and also causing a small cut on the (bald) top of his head.

"Get the money and some rope," Abu Ben Mohammed ordered.

"What?" Mrs. Steiner asked.

"There's no money up here," Mr. Goldblatt said. "Honest to God there isn't!"

"Bullshit!" Abu Ben Mohammed said. "Get the fucking money!"

Mr. Goldblatt reached into the hip pocket of his trousers and came out with his wallet that he handed to Abu Ben Mohammed.

"Take this," he said.

Abu Ben Mohammed took the wallet, and from it not less than one hundred twenty dollars and not more than two hundred dollars and put the bills in a pocket of his dashiki. Then he threw the wallet at Mr. Goldblatt.

"Give him your purse, Blanche," Mr. Goldblatt said.

"Go get it," Abu Ben Mohammed said to Mrs. Steiner, and then added to Mr. Goldblatt, "If you're lying to me, if we find any money in that office, I'm going to blow your fucking honky head off."

"I swear to God, believe me, we don't keep any money up here."

"Then what's that fucking safe for?"

"Business papers. Look for yourself."

"Don't you tell me what to do, you honky motherfucker!" Abu Ben Mohammed said, and swung his pistol at Mr. Goldblatt's head again. Mr. Goldblatt was able to ward off most of the force of this blow with his hands, suffering only a minor bruise to his left hand.

Mrs. Steiner took her purse from a desk drawer and offered it to Abu Ben Mohammed. A coin purse contained approximately sixteen dollars in bills, and there was approximately sixty dollars in her wallet. Abu Ben Mohammed removed these monies and placed them in a pocket of his dashiki.

On the second floor, meanwhile, Hector Carlos Estivez had startled Mrs. Emily Watkins by ordering her to remove her shoes and stockings. When she had done so, he used one of the stockings to bind her hands behind her back. He then told her to lie down again, on her stomach, and when she failed to so quickly enough to satisfy him, he pushed her so that she fell.

A minute or so later Mrs. Watkins was ordered to get up, and when she was not able to get to her feet quickly enough to satisfy Hector Carlos Estivez, he kicked her in the side, and then jerked her to an upright position.

She saw then for the first time Mr. Ted Sadowsky, a Goldblatt employee specializing in televisions and stereo equipment, who had been in the front part of the building. He was being held at gunpoint, probably a Colt Police Positive.38 Special caliber snub-nosed revolver (or the Smith amp; Wesson equivalent) by a suspect subsequently identified as Randolph George Dawes, aka Muhammed el Sikkim, Negro Male, twenty-four, five feet nine inches, 160 pounds.

"Tie the cocksucker up," Hector Carlos Estivez said to Muhammed el Sikkim, and handed him Mrs. Watkins's other stocking.

Muhammed el Sikkim tied Mr. Sadowsky's hands behind his back with Mrs. Watkins's stocking, and then led the two of them to the stairway between the passenger and freight elevators and took them to the third floor, where he ordered them to get on the floor on their stomachs.

"No fucking rope and no fucking money," Abu Ben Mohammed said to Muhammed el Sikkim.

"Use stockings. Tell that kike bitch to take hers off."

Mrs. Steiner was then forced to remove her panty hose, which were torn apart at the crotch and one part of them then used to tie her arms behind her back. Mr. Samuel Goldblatt was then tied in a similar manner, with the other leg of Mrs. Steiner's panty hose, and he and Mrs. Steiner were then forced to lay on their stomachs beside Mr. Sadowsky and Mrs. Watkins.

Within the next five minutes, all Goldblatt employees, plus the one customer in the store, Mrs. Doris Martin, were brought to the third floor by the perpetrators. These included the three employees on duty in the first-floor Credit Department, the remaining salespeople, and Mr. Monahan.

From this point, inasmuch as all Goldblatt employees (including Mr. Samuel Goldblatt, Jr.) and Mrs. Martin were lying on their stomachs on the floor of the third floor of the Goldblatt Building with their arms bound behind them, the only witnesses to the perpetrators' actions on the first and second floors of the Goldblatt Building were the perpetrators themselves.

What is known is that three (or four) of the perpetrators (almost certainly including Abu Ben Mohammed, and probably including Hector Carlos Estivez and Muhammed el Sikkim) went to the Credit Department on the first floor and

(a) Removed approximately four hundred eighty dollars in bills and coins-in-rolls from the cashier's cash drawer.

(b) Broke into the interior compartments (three) of the safe. The safe itself was open at the time the robbery began. There was no cash in the safe.

(c) Emptied the contents of a wastebasket (mostly waste paper) into the safe and set it afire.

Sometime during this period, Mr. John Francis Cohn, forty-nine, of Queen Lane in East Falls, supervisor of the Maintenance Department of Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc., apparently entered the building via a door on Rodman Street, the narrow alley at the rear of the building. This self-closing door was closed to the public and was normally locked. Mr. Cohn had a key.

Apparently, Mr. Cohn then descended to the basement of the store by the stairwell between the freight and passenger elevators. He then uncrated (or completed uncrating) a special, demonstration model Hotpoint washing machine, constructed of a plastic material so that the interior of the apparatus was visible, and, using a hand truck, put the machine onto the freight elevator.

He then apparently ascended to the second floor, where he had received instructions to install the machine in the Washer and Drier Department.

He moved the machine to the rear of the second floor, and then apparently became aware that there were no salespeople on duty. (Or possibly wished to ascertain precisely where he was to set up the machine.) He then got back onto the freight elevator and descended to the first floor, and opened the door and the elevator gate.

At this point, apparently, he saw the perpetrators and attempted to flee by moving the elevator. At this point, the perpetrators saw him, and at least two of them then fired their weapons at him.

Mr. Cohn was struck by four bullets, two of.38 Special caliber and two of.45 Colt Automatic Pistol caliber. Three additional.38 Special caliber and one additional.45 ACP bullets were later found in the woodwork of the elevator.

Mr. Cohn fell inward into the elevator.

The perpetrators then entered the stairwell and went to the third floor. They reported to the others that they "had blown away a honky motherfucker on the elevator," and that the cash register had contained "only a lousy five hundred fucking dollars."

A conversation, within hearing, but out of sight of the victims, was then held, during which one of the perpetrators announced he had found an inflammable fluid and soaked some carpet with it, and that he was going to "burn the fucking place down, and the honkies with it."

Another perpetrator was heard to say, "It's time to get the fuck out of here."

The perpetrators then, without further discussion, apparently ignited the inflammable fluid that had been poured upon a stack of carpet, descending to the first floor by means of the stairwell between the freight and passenger elevators, exited the building via a fire door in the rear of the building opening onto the alley (Rodman Street).

Opening of the fire door set off an alarm, which both caused bells mounted on the front and rear of the building and in the finance and executive offices to begin to ring, and was connected with the Holmes Security Service. A Holmes employee then

(a) Telephoned the Police Radio Room,

(b) Attempted to telephone the Goldblatt Building to verify that the alarm had not been accidentally triggered, and on failing to have anyone answer the telephone,

(c) Contacted a Holmes patrol unit in the area, informing him of the triggering of the alarm in the Goldblatt Building.

The Radio Room of the Philadelphia Police Department is on the second floor of the Police Administration Building at Eighth and Race Streets in downtown Philadelphia.

"Police Emergency," the operator, a thirty-seven-year-old woman named Janet Grosse, said into her headset.

"This is Holmes," the caller said. "I have a signal of a fire door audible alarm at Goldblatt Furniture, northwest corner, 8^th and South."

The call from Holmes Security Service was treated exactly as any other call for help would be treated, except of course that Mrs. Grosse, who had worked in Police Radio for eleven years, seemed to recognize the voice of the Holmes man and made a subconscious decision from the phrasing of the report that it was genuine, and not coming from someone who got his kicks sending the cops on wild goose chases.

"Got you covered," she said, which was not exactly the precise response called for by regulations.

Eighth and South streets, Mrs. Grosse knew, was in the 6^th Police District, which has its headquarters at 11^th and Winter Streets. She looked up at her board and saw that Radio Patrol Car 611 was available for service.

She opened her microphone.

"Six Eleven, northwest corner, 8^th and South, Goldblatt's Furniture, an audible alarm."

RPC 611 was a somewhat battered 1972 Plymouth with more than 100,000 miles on its odometer. When the call came, Officer James J. Molyneux, Badge Number 6771, who had been on the job eighteen years, had just turned left off South Broad Street onto South Street.

He picked up his microphone.

"Six Eleven, okay."

Officer Molyneux turned on his flashing lights, but not the siren, and held his hand down on the horn button to clear the traffic in front of him.

At just about this time, the ringing of the alarm bell had attracted the attention of Police Officer Johnson V. Collins, Badge Number 2662, who was then on foot patrol (Beat Two) on South Street between 10^th and 11^th Streets.

Officer Collins was equipped with a portable radio, and heard Mrs. Grosse's call to RPC 611. He took his radio from its holster and spoke into it.

"Six Beat Two," he said. "That's on me. I've got it."

Mrs. Grosse immediately replied, "Okay, Six Beat Two. Six Eleven, resume patrol."

Officer Molyneux, without responding, turned off his flashing lights, but, having nothing better to do, continued driving down South Street toward Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc.

Officer Collins walked purposefully (but did not run or even trot; audible alarms went off all the time) down South Street to the Goldblatt Building. It was only when he found the doors closed and the Venetian blinds closed that he suspected that anything might be out of the ordinary. Business was slow, but Goldblatt's shouldn't be closed.

He glanced up the street and saw RPC 611 coming in his direction. Now trotting, he went to the corner of South and South Ninth Streets, stepped into the street, and raised his arm to attract the attention of the driver of 611. He recognized Officer Molyneux.

He made a signal for Molyneux to cover the front of the building, and when he was sure that Molyneux understood what was being asked of him, Collins trotted down South Ninth Street to Rodman Street, which was more of an alley than a street, and then to the rear of the Goldblatt Building.

The fire door had an automatic closing device, but it had not completely closed the door. Collins was able to get his fingers behind the inch-wide strip of steel welded to the end of the door to shield the crack between door and jamb and pull the door open.

He took several steps inside the building, and then saw the body lying in the freight elevator and the blood on the elevator's wall.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" he breathed, and reached for his radio.

"Six Beat Two, Six Beat Two, give me some backup here, I think I've got a robbery in progress! Give me a wagon too. I've got a shooting victim!"

Then, suddenly remembering that portable radios often fail to work inside a building, he went back into the alley and repeated his call.

"What's your location, Six Beat Two?" Police Radio replied.

"800 South Street. Goldblatt Furniture."

The first response was from Officer Molyneux.

"Six Eleven, I'm on the scene. In front."

He was drowned out by the Police Radio transmission. First there were three beeps, and then Mrs. Grosse announced, "800 South Street. Assist officer. Holdup in progress. Report of shooting and hospital case."

Then there came a brief pause, and the entire message, including the three beeps, was repeated.

The response was immediate:

"Six A, in." Six A was one of the two 9^th District sergeants on duty. He was responsible for covering the lower end of the district, from Vine Street to South Street. The other sergeant (Six B) covered the upper end of the district from Vine to Poplar Streets.

"Six Oh One, in." Six Oh One was one of the 9^th District's two-man vans.

"Highway Twenty-Two, in on that."

"Six Ten, in," came from another 6^th District RPC.

"Six Command, in," came from the car of the 6^th District lieutenant on duty, who was responsible for covering the entire district.

Officer Collins replace his radio in its holster, drew his service revolver, and, with his mouth dry and his heart beating almost audibly, went, very carefully, back into the building.