60

At the sound of the cocked trigger, I reacted, elbowed the man in the ribs, and he faltered but fired, the gun going off so close to my head I felt the bullet whiz by, my ears ringing. But the gun popped out of his grip, zipped through the air, and hit the floor with a clunk, both of us now lunging for it, falling together, the big guy landing on top of me. Air exploded out of me, a sharp pain in my ribs, but I still scrambled, straining to reach the gun.

He got there first.

His hand on the grip, other arm around my neck, cold steel against my temple, the trigger cocked again. No time to pray.

A flash. Not a shot. Another man sprinting across the room, knocking the gun from the big guy’s hand, a kick to his gut, the guy rolling off me as the second man dove, the two of them rolling on the floor just beside me, and I joined the fight—all of us punching, kicking, cursing, staggering forward to get hold of the gun, one massive six-armed, six-legged creature. I wasn’t sure who got it, just knew it wasn’t me, heard it fire, and a yowling cry, a man up, holding his side, tearing down the hall and out the front door.

I managed to get up, the other man still on the floor.

“Perrone!” he shouted.

I tried to get my bearings, to make sense of it—make sense of him. “What the… What are you doing here?”

“How about saying”—he struggled for a breath—“thank you for saving…my life?”

“Fuck that,” I said. “Maybe I…just saved yours!”

61

I was led from the townhouse to a police station and into an interrogation room where I was left alone. Cold fluorescent light. One mirrored wall. No doubt someone watching from the other side. I rapped on it, asked “Anyone there?” then stared at my reflection—disheveled hair and sleep-deprived eyes, one swollen and twitching, a purple bruise already forming on my jaw. An hour passed. I knocked on the mirror again and called, “Hello…hello?” then asked to see a lawyer. I might as well have been talking to myself.

Another hour passed, then the door opened, and the guy strode in, deep scratches on his cheek and the beginning of a black eye. He handed me a Styrofoam cup of black coffee.

I stared into his face. “Who are you?”

He dragged a chair up to the table, lit a cigarette, then laid his ID on the table—blue, laminated, his picture on it, the word INTERPOL at the top. He took out a second card, said, “This has my personal cell-phone number,” and jammed it into my shirt pocket. “You’re going to need it.”

“What’s this about, Smith, if that’s even your name. John Smith… You couldn’t think of anything better than that?”

“I never gave you a false name, no reason to…” He raised his glasses, met my eyes. “The Paris police have lent me this room for my investigation.”