It was just after 10 o'clock and Harlem had begun like an orchestra to tune up for another great performance. Traffic rumbled. Stores were open. Sidewalk vendors were out. And people moved briskly in the cold December morning, headed for work or shops or favorite haunts, carrying bags like responsibilities.

Across from the famed Apollo Theater, on the southeast corner of 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the gunman appeared out of nowhere at Freddie's Fashion Mart, a white-owned business that for months had been picketed and boycotted over a plan to expand that meant the eviction of a black-owned record shop next door. Feelings had run high. There had been threats.

The gunman was black, about 35 years old and 6 feet tall, and the police said he had on at least one occasion joined in picketing the store -- protests at which the police said another demonstrator had been heard 10 days ago threatening to "burn and loot the Jews." Freddie's is owned by Fred Harari, who is Jewish.

Witnesses said the gunman had the tense, quick movements of a man on a deadly mission. He carried a revolver in one hand, and in the other, a bag holding a white container of a flammable liquid, the police said.

Somehow, someone noted that it was just 10:12 A.M. when the gunman strode into Freddie's, a store at 272 West 125th Street, two doors from the corner in a two-story tan building that, on its second floor, houses the property's owner, the United House of Prayer.

The gunman immediately began shouting and waving his weapon.

"It's on now!" he screamed, some witnesses recalled. "Everybody gets out." Others said he had ordered only black customers out -- except for a security guard, no blacks were employed by the store -- and there were several versions of the words he used.

"He was yelling wildly for everyone to get out," said Louis R. Anemone, the Chief of Department of the New York City Police.

Then the gunman fired at least one shot. It was unclear if anyone was hit.

About 15 people were in the store at the time: employees, customers and construction workers hammering and sawing in the store's expansion remodeling. Some were in the basement salesroom, while others were on the ground level. But all were trapped on the wrong side of a shrieking man who swiftly opened his bag, took out the white container and began splashing the flammable liquid over piles of clothing on tables and racks, according to the police and witnesses.

In his haste, he must have splashed some of the liquid on himself. "His clothing reeked of accelerant," Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said.

Survivors said the events were like those in a dream: fearful yet fascinating, disjointed but inexorable, as if the store where Luz Ramos, Carlotta Herring, Garnette Ramantar and others worked had somehow turned lunatic.

In the initial confusion, several people ran out the door, witnesses said, while others retreated toward the back.

The gunman apparently began setting fires around the store.

Four trapped men tried to run out and were shot. A 23-year-old construction worker was hit near the spine and his spleen was shattered. A man in his 20's was hit in the abdomen by a bullet that slashed his bladder and colon. A middle-age man was hit by a shot that narrowly missed his heart. Another man suffered a graze wound of the head. Three of them staggered out, despite their wounds.

Outside, meantime, a passerby who had seen the gunman go in alerted two 28th Precinct police officers passing on foot patrol. One officer entered the store and was fired upon by the gunman and pinned down. His partner outside radioed for reinforcements, and soon 125th Street was filled with the wailing sirens and flashing lights of police cars, emergency service units and fire engines.

Two officers from the 25th Precinct crept carefully up to the store, crawled in and pulled their trapped comrade and one of the wounded civilians to safety. Three of the wounded men were rushed to St. Luke's Hospital Center; the fourth was taken to Harlem Hospital.

The fire in the store, meantime, was growing quickly. Feeding on stacks of clothing, the flames leaped and spread. Fabrics glowed and shriveled in their racks and piles. Sparks leaped into more flames. Tables caught fire, then the stairway to the basement. Dense smoke billowed through the store.

From a third-floor window across the street, Thomas Pierre, a voter-registration worker, saw the inside of the store suddenly engulfed. There was a burst of flames, he said, and "just like that the whole place went up."

Because of the gunshots and the intensity of the flames, firefighters had to fight the fire from outside, and police officers and other emergency workers were prevented for more than an hour from entering the building.

When firefighters and the police finally entered shortly after noon, they found four bodies on the ground floor at the back. One was believed to be that of the assailant. He had been shot in the chest, and the police, who said they had not fired any shots in the episode, called it an apparently self-inflicted wound. It was unclear who he was, though the police said he had been among the protesters at recent demonstrations at the store.

Beside his body was a revolver, and nearby, the container that had held the flammable liquid. The bodies of three women were also nearby.

In the basement, officials found four more bodies -- two women and two men -- all huddled at the back.

The gunman's seven victims were all believed to be employees of the store. The police and fire officials said they believed all seven had died of inhaling the noxious poisons in the fire's smoke. It was unclear if any of them had been shot, officials said. The bodies were all taken to the Medical Examiner's office for autopsies to determine precise causes of death.

Meantime, police investigators and fire officials began the laborious task of collecting evidence and attempting to explain the reasons for the mass murder.

"We will, over the next several days, be literally going through this very severely damaged building to recover whatever evidence we can," Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said at a news conference.

Throughout the afternoon, sobbing, confused relatives and friends of those who had been caught up in the incident -- people killed or wounded or perhaps just missing in the confusion -- gathered at the 28th Precinct on Eighth Avenue at 122d Street. As terrible uncertainty went on hour after hour, many could not contain their emotions. They banged on the walls with their fists, stomped their feet and screamed their anguish.

"My baby, my baby," one woman wailed. "Don't tell me I can't have my baby."

Later, two vans brought them downtown to the morgue to view the dead. For their loved ones, there was a kind of inevitability about it all, like the climax of a tragedy. One could see it coming, but there was nothing anyone could do.

HOW IT HAPPENED:
A Gunman and a Fire Leave 8 Dead

Police and fire officials gave this account of events on 125th. About 10 A.M. a gunman enters Freddie's screaming at people to get out and begins firing. Then...

1. Two police officers on foot patrol nearby are told by a passer-by that a man is inside Freddie's with a gun. It is 10:12 A.M. One officer goes into the store.
2. The gunman fires several shots, preventing the officer from leaving. A body the police say is the gunman's is later found near the rear of the store.
3. Meanwhile, the second officer calls for backup.
4. Backup police officers arrive shortly thereafter, enter the store and retrieve the officer and one other person.
5. During the confusion, some other people escape from the store.
6. Suddenly, a burst of flames from inside engulfs the building. Firefighters are initially prevented from entering the building by the police because of the danger of gunfire.

Putting Out the Fire

1. 10:22 -- Fire Department receives a report of a building fire.
2. 10:28 -- First firefighters arrive on the scene.
3. 12:07 -- Fire is brought under control.

The Victims

Four dead bodies, including the gunman, are found on the ground floor and four in the basement. Four others are wounded by gunshots.