gi, were there with them, looking scared. I
couldn't blame them. The kids looked perfectly all right, but it was
obvious that they weren't. I bent down and smelled, but there was no
trace of liquor or anything else on their breath.

I stood up. "We'd better get a doctor."

"Nay. You call the meat wagon, and a cop comes right with it, man," Yogi
said, and his brother nodded.

I laid off that for a moment. "What happened?"

Hawk said, "You know that witch Gloria, goes with one of the Boomer
Dukes? She opened her big mouth to my girl. Yeah, opened her mouth and
much bad talk came out. Said Fayo primed some jumper with a zip and the
punk cooled him, and then a couple of the Boomers moved in real cool.
Now they got the punk with the zip and much other stuff, real stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

Hawk looked worried. He finally admitted that he didn't know what kind
of stuff, but it was something dangerous in the way of weapons. It had
been the "zip" that had knocked out the five Leopards.

I sent Hawk out to the drug-store for smelling salts and containers of
hot black coffee--not that I knew what I was doing, of course, but they
were dead set against calling an ambulance. And the boys didn't seem to
be in any particular danger, only sleep.

* * * * *

However, even then I knew that this kind of trouble was something I
couldn't handle alone. It was a tossup what to do--the smart thing was
to call the precinct right then and there; but I couldn't help feeling
that that would make the Leopards clam up hopelessly. The six months I
had spent trying to work with them had not been too successful--a lot of
the other neighborhood workers had made a lot more progress than I--but
at least they were willing to talk to me; and they wouldn't talk to
uniformed police.

Besides, as soon as I had been sworn in, the day before, I had begun the
practice of carrying my .38 at all times, as the regulations say. It was
in my coat. There was no reason for me to feel I needed it. But I did.
If there was any truth to the story of a "zip" knocking out the
boys--and I had all five of them right there for evidence--I had the
unpleasant conviction that there was real trouble circulating around
East Harlem that afternoon.

"Champ. They all waking up!"

I turned around, and Hawk was right. The five Leopards, all of a sudden,
were stirring and opening their eyes. Maybe the smelling salts had
something to do wit