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hit his shoulder, spun him halfway around, and he fell on his back. Julie started to scream again but Black-Shirt said, “Shut up or we’ll cut your face,” and she was silent.
    Casson tried to stand up, got to his knees but that was the best he could do. He felt hands going through his pockets; Black-Shirt was excited, breathing hard, Casson could smell sweat—something like sweat, but much worse—and hair oil. When the man was done he stood up, then kicked Casson in the ribs. Casson heard himself cry out. He fell forward, tried to roll up to protect himself, saw the two men walking away, back toward place Clichy.
    Julie knelt by his side, touched his face, her hand was trembling. She took a tiny handkerchief from her purse and held it against his mouth. There were blood drops on the pavement.
    “No police.” He tried to say it but it came out a mumble.
    “Your mouth is hurt,” she said.
    Somehow he got up. Very shaky, but on his feet. He had to get off the street. She took his arm, helped him walk. In the lobby of the hotel, a night clerk was behind the counter.
    “I’m taking him to his room,” Julie said.
    The clerk hesitated a moment, then said, “The patronne comes in at eight—just be out before then.”
    They started up the stairs. Casson said, “My key.”
    “I have it,” she said. “And your papers. They only wanted money.”
    He held the little handkerchief against his mouth so he didn’t bleed on his shirt. She took his arm, helped him up each step.
    It took a long time to climb to the sixth floor. She got most of his clothes off, he fell onto the bed, faded out. He woke later, she was sitting on the bed in the dark room. He reached out, rested a hand on her knee. “Are you all right?” he said.
    “Yes,” she said. But she had been crying.
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    “You couldn’t help it.” She paused a moment. “Somebody like you . . .”
    They were quiet for a time. “They should be shot,” she said.
    “You know them?”
    “They are always in that place. You see them next week, they’ll smile at you. Up here, nobody goes to the police, that only makes it worse.”
    He turned toward her. His side throbbed, his face was numb. She smoothed his hair back. “Go to sleep,” she said. “I’ll be here.”
    He didn’t want to sleep but he couldn’t stop it. For a few seconds he came back awake, felt how warm she was, sitting on the bed. Sometimes jagged and plummeting, sometimes about Citrine. Just before making love, when together they took her clothes off. She had once said that when a woman goes with a man, and for the first time he sees her with nothing on, that it is the best at that moment that it will ever be. Later he tried to turn in his sleep and a sharp pain under his arm woke him up. He reached out, felt nothing, opened his eyes. The first gray light of dawn was in the room and the girl was gone.
    An hour later, the knock on the door.
    “Police, open up.”
    My revolver, he thought. Drawing it from beneath his pillow, firing through the door, pounding down the stairs. In the lobby, the patronne, eyes wide with horror. “No! Please! Have mercy!” Shots ring out in the Hotel Victoria.
    “I’m coming,” he called out, struggling to stand up. There was no revolver. When he got the door open he saw it was the same flic from the day before. So, he thought, it had been his photograph after all—he had been betrayed. By the patronne? Somebody else? He didn’t know.
    “Is your name Marin? Jean Louis?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re wanted for questioning.”
    Not arrested, not handcuffed. He thought about making a run for it, but he was too banged up—the flic had to wait for him as he worked at getting dressed.
    “Let’s go, eh?”
    “I’m trying.”
    “Have you been fighting, Marin?”
    He touched the swollen side of his face and winced. “I was robbed. They beat me up.”
    “Report the crime?”
    “No.”
    Probably that’s a crime too, he thought. He managed