“Blink your lights once,” the white man said from the rear.

The driver hit the bright lights for an instant.

Jackson waved his right hand and got into the hearse.

The snowplows hadn’t got into the small side streets, and the hearse made slow progress until it came to Seventh Avenue. The Cadillac followed half a block behind with the lights dimmed.

The white man turned George Drake over on the floor, placed one foot on his back between the shoulder blades, the other on the back of his head, and drew the noose as tight as it would go. He kept it like that while the Cadillac followed down the cleaned traffic lane of Seventh Avenue and turned into 125th Street.

Scores of colored laborers, willing to pick up a few extra bucks on their off day, were shoveling the piles of snow into city dump trucks.

Cars were out again in the cleaned streets, and gay, laughing drunks were bar-hopping. Jokers were chunking tight, loose snowballs at their girl friends, who ran screaming in delight. A mail truck passed, emptying the boxes.

Big Six kept shuffling slowly toward Seventh Avenue with the knife stuck through his head. He passed a young couple. The woman gasped and turned ashy.

“It’s a joke,” the man said knowingly. “You can buy those things in the toy stores. Magical stuff. You stick ’em on each side of your head.”

The woman shuddered. “It ain’t funny,” she said. “A big grown man like him playing with kid stuff.”

He passed a woman with two children, on their way to the movies to see a horror film. The children shrieked. The woman was indignant.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, frightening little children,” she accused.

Big Six kept on slowly, lost to the world. “George!” he was calling silently in the rational part of his mind. “George. The mother-raper stuck me.”

He started across Seventh Avenue. Snow was banked against the curb, and his feet plowed into the snow bank. He slipped but somehow managed not to fall. He got into the traffic lane. He stepped in front of a fast-moving car. Brakes shrieked.

“Drunken idiot!” the driver cried. Then he saw the knife sticking from Big Six’s head.

He jumped from his car, ran forward and took Big Six gently by the arm.

“My God in heaven,” he said.

He was a young colored doctor doing his internship in Brooklyn hospital. They had had a case similar to that a year ago; the other victim had been a colored man, also. The only way to save him was to leave the knife in the wound.

A woman started to get out of the car.

“Dick, can I help?” She had only seen the handle of the knife. She hadn’t seen the blade coming out the other side.

“No-no, don’t come near,” he cautioned. “Drive to the first bar and telephone for an ambulance—better cross over to Small’s; make a U-turn.”

As she drove off, another car with two men stopped. “Need any help?” the driver called.