Published in 2004, Three Days as the Crow Flies gives the reader a glimpse of the 1980s art scene in downtown Manhattan.
Crow is an African-American who lives in an under-furnished room in a boarding house in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
Withdrawing from the cocaine and desperate for another high, Crow resolves to visit his friend Danny, an artist, and borrow one hundred dollars.
At that point, Crow impulsively decides to steal three of Danny's paintings and sell them for drug money.
On his way out of the apartment, Crow also steals the manuscript that Danny has been working on so that he will have something to read on the train to Manhattan.
He makes an unsuccessful attempt to sell the paintings before a white man named Bones Young strikes up a conversation.
When the men arrive in the Lower East Side, they meet up with Candy, an old friend of Bones and a follower of the art scene.
Although Crow momentarily worries that he will be found out, he goes downstair in Melissa's studio and, drawing on the information that Danny has imparted to him previously, paints three pictures.
She demands that she turn over the keys to his car and she, Crow, Candy, and Bones, who had previously arrived, head to the gallery.
Candy, Bones, and Crow then accompany Geoff back to his home in suburban New Jersey (using Burt's car) to help him placate his angry wife.
When the two men reach Brooklyn, Crow makes several unsuccessful attempts to wake Bones up.
Deciding to put off going to Danny's house, Crow steps into the Palm Coast Bar, an after-hours spot and notorious drug den.
On the way out, he bumps into Sergeant Dobson, an old friend of Crow's late police officer father.