“He’s okay,” said Fabienne. “We know him.” The policeman shook his head no, but the other French reporter—an older man who had the official Yves Montand putty face and nicotine-stained fingers—said into the policeman’s ear that it was all right, I could stay, and that was it. So I joined the little circle of hacks and hackettes, and listened in on their gossip. They were talking about a recently resigned Socialist minister of education, who was said to be sleeping with a woman reporter at Figaro—not Fabienne, but a friend of hers. That led to a conversation about another reporter at Le Nouvel Observateur who had been propositioned a few years before by King Hussein, no less. I listened with half an ear, keeping my eyes on the police farther down the street. There were sharpshooters on top of each of the buildings across from the restaurant, and it looked as if a small army was assembling on the Avenue de Friedland. The reporter gossip continued. It wasn’t what I had come for.

“Has anyone tried to get inside and talk to the people holding the hostages?” I asked. The group looked at me quizzically.

“Of course not,” said the older French reporter. He examined me as if I were a bumpkin, just off the bus and in the big city for the first time. “The police don’t want anyone to talk to the terrorists.”

“But I don’t work for the police,” I said. “I work for The New York Mirror.” It sounded even more arrogant in French than in English.

Several of the reporters frowned and motioned with their hands, up and down, in a gesture that translated roughly as “big fucking deal.” I stood back from the group and let them continue with their chatter. More police were continuing to arrive at the far end of the street. It was obvious that at some point something was going to go down. The time to cover this story was running out.

How could I get inside the restaurant? I scanned the row of buildings that adjoined Taillevent. They were all the same height, about six stories, except for the last one, the corner building across from where I stood, which was one story taller. It housed a modeling agency—called, inevitably, “Élysées Models.” If I could get to the roof of that building, there might be a way to slip down one floor to the common rooftop that led up the street to Taillevent. I had no idea how I would get inside the restaurant from there, but it seemed like the only possibility.