While knocking repeatedly, she teases him.As her hair is being pinned up by her black maid-servant Zette (Theresa Harris), she deliberately stalls answering to him.The victim had been following the crime boss and his henchman before he was discovered and murdered.Two Disguised Brooklyn Cops In the Midst of a Drug Bust:In Brooklyn, New York during the Christmas holiday season, two NYPD cops are disguised outside the seedy Oasis Bar & Grill in the course of their work - a drug stakeout:Detective Jimmy ""Popeye"" Doyle (Gene Hackman) - a passionate, tough, pushy, unorthodox, bigoted and racist NYPD cop, disguised as a Santa ClausDetective Buddy "Cloudy" Salvatore Russo (Roy Scheider) posing as a hot dog vendor in a black and white checkered coatAtwo-bit black dope-drug Pusher named Willy (Alan Weeks) is confronted and accosted, who reacts by slashing Russo""s arm with one swipe of his concealed knife.With an overhead camera angle, the Reverend Mother and Sister Clodagh stood above the order of nuns assembled ogether in the dining hall below, who were filing in and sitting at a large cross-shaped table.There are other nightmarish flashbacks of Joe and his girlfriend Annie.In a brutal image, they are pulled from making out in their car by enviously-jealous Texas males.An angry young Joe breaks a bathroom mirror.He finds himself back in his own flop-house hotel room, sitting in the bathtub and watching a TV show, where the host emphasizes he existential predicament that he faces: "Isn""t this really a case of conning a lot of lonely people?" Joe walks into the netherworld of New York""s Times Square, a place of desperation, futility, dashed hopes and false dreams.