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Instead of a click, there was a blast which echoed down the great tubes. While Pearl stood frozen, people began running, yelling, and pointing to her Christmas-wrapped camera (which police later found to be two long wooden boxes with a sawed-off shotgun wired between). Slowly, stupidly, Pearl walked up to the dark woman who lay in a widening pool of blood.
"I took a picture and a gun went off," she mumbled.
Mrs. Rocco did not answer her. She was muttering to herself: "He can have me now if he wants me."
But Mr. Rocco would not be wanting anyone. While his wife lay in a Manhattan hospital with her leg amputated, and Pearl remained in police custody, detectives combed the state for him. After five days they flushed him, crouching in a sleeping bag near a farmhouse in the Catskills. He opened fire with a German automatic. Moments later, Mr. Excitement was dead, with nine slugs in him.