He went down in the tiny elevator, jammed his hat over his head, and set out into what might as well become an all night bar crawl. Maybe he’d even break up the tedium with a few fights. He loved to use his fists, always had. Just loved it. Probably be pretty easy to pick a fight with a frog. Hopefully, he’d find somebody with good enough moves to make it fun. Guys who liked to fight, they could spot each other in a bar. There were signals—some heavyset asshole glares at you for no damn reason, that’s an invitation. Practiced bar fighters lived in their own secret world, and he was very much part of it. Nothing like beating the shit out of each other to make a couple of guys friends for life.

He set out along the Boulevard Montparnasse. There were lots of theaters, more than he remembered from when he was last here. Too bad it was night; he could have slipped over to the Orangerie and seen some fuckin’ Monets.

Maybe the thing to do was go to a movie and brush up on his French. But there were also lots of bars. He went into one. Fulla damn tourists, wouldn’t you know. Nervous Arabs sipping glasses of wine; Americans loudly demanding martinis.

There were a few Frenchies at the bar huddling over drinks or coffee. He slid up and managed, with some effort, to get a Stoli.

It was small and overpriced, but it worked okay, so he ordered another. He wondered if the whores around here were as overpriced as the liquor. He’d been spoiled by the Asians, who worked their asses off for a few bucks, massaging, blowing, sucking, fucking, combing, tickling, licking, and then handing you off to the social director for another round with a fresh face.

He said to nobody in particular, “You know why the predator is always smarter than the prey?” Nobody answered.

“He has to be. The prey lives by work—crop the grass, till the field, whatever. The predator lives by his wits. That’s why the gazelle hardly ever sees the lion. It’s why the damn deer doesn’t see us.” He paused, then raised his glass. The barkeep did him. He knocked it back.

He’d come in here to fight, let’s face it. But he was damn forty-eight years old; what was he gonna do? Also, you couldn’t insult people who didn’t understand your goddamn lingo.

He left. Rain hit him in the face. Striding along, he wished to God he had something to do that mattered. Why hadn’t anybody taken a picture of the woman? Why hadn’t they confiscated the damn passport? You couldn’t even dragnet for her!