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dizzyingly. The conductor stood holding the overhead bar with both hands. Out of the corner of Paweł’s eye, a white sneaker tapping the black floor. A woman in a red coat stood at the exit. “So what now—keep playing stupid or do we get off and talk like people?” The bus slowed and rolled into a stop. He waited for the hiss and jumped. He felt a hand on his hair, ducked, the woman jumped too, pushing the crowd aside, clearing a path, stumbling. He jumped over her, hit someone with his shoulder, and made it to the steps. Running up, he knew he didn’t have much of a chance, but didn’t stop, went right, to the open gate of the park. The place was empty, damp, quiet. He tried to go faster but tripped, and his knees barely kept him up. He’d had enough,
thought of stopping, then was tackled. Headfirst, his hands in the gravel. Now he could catch his breath. He tried to get up, but a foot was on his neck pushing his face into the ground. He got two kicks; he curled up, turned on his side, and saw there were three of them. The one in leather was doubled over and gasping for breath, the others too, though less so. On his knees, he waited in the middle of the triangle.
    â€œWhat good did that do you?” asked the short one in jeans and a baseball cap. “Fucking sprinter,” said the third. From his panting, his words were tattered, faint.
    Paweł got up slowly and sat on a bench. The men surrounded him and waited for their hearts and lungs to manage the air and blood. Their anger gradually left them, and his fear left him. Red lights from the buses on the Aleje, through the gloom of the park; drops of silver on the branches. The drops fell, losing their gleam in the air.
    â€œAll right, your papers,” said the one in leather.
    â€œI don’t have any,” he replied.
    â€œThen out with the money.”
    â€œNo money either.”
    The one in leather nodded, and the other two pulled Paweł to his feet. They found some change, less than a hundred, looked at his lighter, then gave it all back.
    â€œCrap,” said the one in the baseball cap. “We should take this joker in. If we tell the cops he resisted, they’ll keep him for a bit.”
    â€œWhy bother?” said the third.
    â€œHe pissed me off. I got all sweaty.”
    They tried to push him toward the exit on Piękna, but he wouldn’t move. They grabbed him by the shoulders, and one of
them whacked him on the back of the head. “Move it, you piece of shit, or you stay here for good.”
    â€œPlease, I can’t go to the cops—I don’t have time.”
    He tried to break away. They pulled him; the gravel crunched. A woman with a stroller appeared, and feverishly he remembered the black grip of the gun he saw in Bolek’s hall, it had been sticking out between the clothes in the cabinet by the front door. Just a glimpse, but Bolek had been behind him and knew he saw it. The woman with the stroller was getting closer; she had on a gray coat. In the mist the glasses she wore were like disks of ice. She slowed, then took a side path and broke into a run. The child started crying.
    â€œListen,” he said, “I have a wedding ring—take it. It’s worth something.” He pulled at the ring, but it was fast. With spit, the ring came off.
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    In the meantime Bolek was pacing from room to room in his apartment. From the room where they sat before, black and gold, to the blue room with silver trinkets, to the red one. The kitchen was white and gleaming. Coming back, there were two more rooms—one the color of seawater with an empty aquarium, then a silver-gray room with a swivel chair in the middle and a mirror full of sky but brighter and prettier than the sky. The dog stayed in its corner. Bolek opened the last door—this room was pink. Dark inside, but smelling like a powder compact. He went to the window and parted the curtains. A woman lay under a