We beat the ambulance by two minutes.

The emergency room at Mount Sinai was filling with gray-suited men wearing plastic IDs, and out front were the cops—motormen, patrol officers, detectives, SWAT commandos, all with the same haggard look in their eyes. The look of the Grim Wait.

The call had gone out as a hostage situation, then a sniper and then this: "We have two police officers down!"

Racing across the Julia Tuttle Causeway, we'd heard another voice on the radio: "They're on the way to Sinai. We need a trauma team. We need a trauma team!"

And both of us, the photographer and I, thought the worst. Somebody murdered some cops, we thought.

At the emergency room we were told that the number was four. Four police officers shot during—what else—a drug deal.

In the swank Doral Beach Hotel, of all places. In the middle of a dead summer, in the murder capital of America.

What exactly had gone wrong was not clear, but it certainly wasn't Crockett andTubbs gliding through a TV bust. Four cops down was life gravely mocking art.

It doesn't matter how long you do this sort of thing, the sight of the first ambulance always turns your throat to sandpaper.

Because the first ambulance usually is where they put the one who took the worst shot.The first ambulance tells the story—just how bad it's going to be.

The doors swung open and there lay Detective Jim Mahle. His head was wrapped to cover two bullet holes in the right side of his skull. But one hand was moving. Best of all, he was conscious.

Then came Detective Joe White, bearded and shirtless, his white shorts bloodied. His eyes were open and he was holding his own IV bag. Sgt. Mike Lowe, a crimson smear on his forehead, walked into the emergency room on his own.

Another ambulance delivered undercover man James Scarberry ("I'm OK," he said), and then came the wounded police informant, pale, and moaning into an oxygen mask.

A few minutes later, a woman in a pink outfit gingerly made her way past the police cordon. A reporter asked if she were related to one of the victims. "No, my daughter just had a baby," the woman said, smiling. "I'm here for a happy occasion."

Soon a trauma specialist came out to announce that the policemen were going to make it. Miraculously, none of the injuries was life-threatening.

Over at the Doral, a man with a mop swabbed the front steps. The place was quiet.

"I got to work and I saw all these cop cars," said Rocky Hile, the downstairs bartender. "I thought they were shooting another episode of MiamiVice. I saw the blood on the steps and I thought: Boy, they really go all out. Then I come in and turn on the news at six o'clock and that's when I found out ...

"I had a guy at the bar earlier tonight who was on the loth floor when it happened. Heard all the shots and thought it was some kind of celebration," Rocky said. "Then the elevator door opens and there's a guy on a stretcher, all covered with blood. It still didn't occur to the guy that somebody had actually been shot.

"Until he got downstairs and saw the SWAT team."

I thought about that poor tourist—gaping at the stretcher in the elevator, finding the elegant lobby taken over by men with automatic weapons. I imagined the fellow turning to his wife and muttering, "You were right. We should've gone to Epcot Center."

Or maybe not. Maybe he knew what to expect from the South Florida vacation package: four days-three nights-one shootout.

That evening, by the hotel pool, Pfizer and Co. threw a private party attended by trim executives with new golf-course tans. There was an open bar and a twirling ice sculpture of a sailfish.

Upstairs, in a suite on the 11th floor, forensic experts hunted for bullet fragments and measured the bloodstains on the carpet.

Imagine this: It's a sunny holiday afternoon in autumn. Birds sing. Teenagers lounge on Haulover Beach. Joggers trot through the Grove.

Yet in a dark downtown theater, redolent of foul hot dogs, more than 40 people are watching one of the most abominable movies of all time.

The film is called The Mutilator. Its profoundly repugnant newspaper advertisement features a gleaming marlin gaff and promises: "By sword. By ax. By pick. Bye bye."

I have not come to review this motion picture, but rather the audience. I anticipate a cavalcade of geeks, troglodytes and sociopaths—who else would pay $2.50 to watch a bunch of dumb white college kids get hacked into corned beef?

But a quick survey before the action starts offers these demographics: A well-dressed young couple, sharing Polaroid snapshots; a moody guy in a dingy tank top, girlfriend on his lap; several teenagers, slightly rowdy but too muscular to rebuke; up front, an entire family, including a 6-year-old, a toddler and a nursing infant.

And, of course, sitting by himself: the obligatory strange pale man with the baggy pants and bucket of popcorn. You know the one.

The film begins, and even before the opening credits there is a gruesome killing that would send most normal folks scurrying for the door or the restrooms. Not this bunch—a true gore corps.

The titles flash: The Mutilator. "Written and directed by Buddy Cooper." Enough said.

Then the actors, none of whose names are remotely familiar (aliases, no doubt).

Then: "Special appearance by Ben Moore."

Who the heck is Ben Moore? No one seems to know, but instinct suggests that he plays the title role.

The plot unfolds:

A group of boisterous, beer-guzzling college kids talks a pal into crashing Dad's beachfront townhouse for the weekend. The father happens to be a demented lunatic who sleeps under some gardening tools in the garage and has a respiratory disorder so severe that his breathing can be heard all the way to Seattle.

Beyond this, The Mutilator follows the identical script of Friday the Thirteenth, Halloween and all other teen slasher movies:

1. The Trampy Co-Ed is the first to die, but only after the mandatory semi-nude swimming scene.

2. The Dumb Blond Jock is the next to be mangled.

3. The Goofy Comic-Relief Guy is third on the menu (and the only character whose mutilation seems to sadden the audience).

4. Next is the Concerned Cop, who gets beheaded.

5. Then there's quite a tedious Stalking Sequence, with lots of bad camera work and bass violas.

6. The climax is the tired old Car-Won't-Start-Scene, with Mr. Mutilator clumsily hacking his way through the convertible top.

7. Finally the killer is gored, stabbed, burned and run over by the young collegiate heroine, who is (I swear) a self-proclaimed virgin and proud of it. She also is a master of kung fu, as any Southern California virgin must be.

During all this carnage I expect raucous outbursts from the crowd, but the theater is reverently quiet, as if we are watching Olivier do Hamlet.

According to my notes, the only audible exclamation comes during the decapitation scene when a man in the back row cries, "Oh s—!" Which pretty much sums up my sentiments, too.

Sitting one row ahead of me is a handsome gray-haired woman with an embroidered shopping bag. She watches the entire film silently, without a murmur or a flinch. In fact, she is sitting so still that I begin to worry that she might have passed away during the marlin-gaff scene.

But, moments after the final mutilation, the old woman bolts for the exit, understandably eager to escape before the house lights come on. I catch up with her and ask what she thought of The Mutilator.

She smiles and says, "It's incredible, yes?"