From where Officer Herbert Prasko of the Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department had stationed himself on the second-floor balcony of the Howard Johnson motel on Roosevelt Boulevard, he had an extraordinarily good view of the vehicle he was surveilling.

The new four-door Chevrolet sedan was parked, nose out, in front of a row of rooms in the rear of the motel. It was a Hertz rental, picked up at the Philadelphia International Airport four hours before by Ronald R. Ketcham, white male, twenty-five, five-ten, brown hair, 165 pounds, no previous arrests, who resided in a luxury apartment on Overbrook Avenue not far from the Episcopal Academy, of which he was a graduate.

Mr. Ketcham, who was not quite as smart as he believed himself to be, was laboring under the misimpression that the use of a rental automobile rather than his Buick coupe was one more clever thing he had done to conceal both his illegal activity and identity from both the police and other criminals.

Officer Prasko didn't know if the other criminals involved knew Mr. Ketcham's identity-the scumbags probably couldn't care less-but his identity had been known to Five Squad for five weeks, from the time they had first followed Amos J. Williams, black male, thirty-two, six-three, 180 pounds, twenty-eight previous arrests, and four of his goons to a delivery rendezvous with Mr. Ketcham, who seemed to be one of his better customers.

For a number of reasons, it had been decided not to make an arrest at that time, but it had not been hard at all to trace the customer's rental car back through the Hertz main office to their airport rental operation, and from the rental agreement to identify Mr. Ketcham in some detail.

Hertz had been very cooperative. They had promised to notify Five Squad the next time Mr. Ketcham rented a car, and had done so today. Officer Prasko thought that was pretty dumb on Mr. Ketcham's part, to go back to Hertz; he should have changed to Avis, or somebody else. And it was also dumb for him to go back to the Howard Johnson motel. There were a lot of other motels. If he had set up this meet someplace else, he would not be about to find his ass in a very deep crack.

Five Squad had come up with a plan after the first time they had followed Mr. Williams to his rendezvous with Mr. Ketcham. On being notified by Hertz that Mr. Ketcham had again rented an automobile, a Five Squad plainclothes officer-who turned out to be Officer Prasko-would proceed to the Howard Johnson motel, and there await the possible arrival of Mr. Ketcham.

Herb Prasko, en route to the motel in an undercover car-a two-year-old Mercury, formerly the property of another drug dealer scumbag-had thought the odds were that he would be pissing in the wind. But you never could really tell. Sometimes people were really stupid, as Mr. Ketcham had turned out to be by returning to the same Howard Johnson motel instead of going someplace else to do his business.

But he had waited, parked just inside the motel, slumped down on the front seat of the Mercury, watching the entrance to the motel, for nearly three hours, before Ketcham had shown up.

He had a dame with him, white female, early twenties, 120 pounds, blonde, nice figure, who sat in the car while Mr. Ketcham went in the motel office for the key. Officer Prasko slipped down all the way on the seat of the Mercury as they drove past him, and then watched where they were going in the rearview mirror.

Then, when the Chevy had gone around the first row of rooms to the back, he got out of the car, trotted quickly after them, and got to the corner of the building in time to see Mr. Ketcham enter 138, a ground-floor room in about the middle of the back row of rooms.

He then went to the pay phone outside the motel office and called Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan at Narcotics and told him what he had. Dolan-who could be a prick-made him repeat everything he said, and then told him not to let the door to 138 out of his sight, as if he thought Prasko had come on the job last Tuesday and had to be told shit like that.

Five Squad would be there as soon as they could get there, Dolan said, and said to meet them on the H Band. That was the special radio frequency assigned for the use of detectives, but available for other purposes as well.

Officer Prasko then took a pair of binoculars and a walkie-talkie from the floor of the backseat of the Mercury and went up the stairs to the second-floor balcony of the first building. He stationed himself between a Coke machine and an ice machine in an alcove, from where he could see the rental Chevy and the door to 138.

He had a good view of both the door and the car, especially the car and the girl in it.

She was a looker. And she was nervous. She lit a cigarette and took only a couple of puffs before putting it out and turning to look at the door, which made her breasts stretch the thin material of her blouse. Then she lit another cigarette.

A little after that, she put her hand in her blouse and adjusted her bra, which Prasko found exciting.

What the hell was Ketcham thinking, bringing a girl like that along on a meet like this? Amos Williams was a mean son of a bitch, and the first thing he was likely to do if something went wrong was grab the girl. By the time Ketcham fixed whatever Williams didn't like, Christ only knew what Williams and his goons would do with a white girl like that, a real looker.

"Six?" the radio went off. Too loud.

He recognized the voice. It was that of Officer Joe Grider. More important, it wasn't Dolan's, which was a good thing, meaning they could put Plan B into operation.

Officer Prasko adjusted the volume and the squelch before putting the microphone to his lips.

"Six," he said.

"He still there?"

"Yeah."

"Where's the room?"

"Around in the back. Middle. Ground floor."

"Any sign of his friends?"

"No."

"We're about there. I'm going to park up the street and see who shows up."

"What are you in?"

"The van."

The van was not standard, but a 1971 Dodge panel truck, also formerly the property of someone who had been apprehended while illegally trafficking in controlled substances. After the forfeited vehicle had been turned over to Five Squad for undercover work, they had chipped in and had it painted in the color scheme used by-and with the logotype of-Philadelphia Gas Works.

"Who's the super?"

"I am. Plan B," Officer Grider replied.

"Just the van?"

"One car."

"One of you block the Chevy."

"You got it."

Officer Prasko picked up his binoculars again. The curtains were drawn across the picture window of 138-Why the fuck do you suppose they put in picture windows? Nobody ever looks out of a motel room, and if you did, all you would see is the other part of the motel-and there was no sign of activity. The blonde in the front seat of the Hertz Chevy was lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old one.

Three minutes later, the radio went off again. He couldn't hear what was being said.

"Repeat," he ordered.

"Turn the goddamn volume up!"

"I just did."

"Bingo, here comes our friends. Light blue new Olds 98. Tell me when he gets inside, and we'll come in halfway. "

Officer Prasko scurried across the balcony, keeping low so that he wouldn't be seen.

He saw the Blue Olds 98-well enough to recognize Amos Williams sitting beside the driver-enter the motel area and drive toward the rear. And stop.

"He stopped halfway to the back," Prasko reported.

"Being careful," Officer Grider replied.

Mr. Williams was careful for three minutes, which seemed like much longer, and then the driver's-side rear door of the Olds 98 opened and Marcus C. aka "Baby" Brownlee, black male, thirty-six, six-one, 240 pounds, thirty-two previous arrests, got out, looked around, and walked very quickly toward room 138.