And in that moment, I twitch my head to the side, and there, in front of the settee, lie my empty boots and my half-read newspaper.

"And why should you have any call to hunt me?" I ask.

Except I already know.

Eulalie.

With distressing speed, the writ scrolls out in my head. Eulalie and her law clerk . . . fencing stolen plate . . . captured by the gendarmes . . . we' ll let you off this time if you give up your mastermind . . . and who better to give up than poor little Hector? Won't he do anything for Eulalie-still? Won't he go to La Force for her?

And back from my shriveled clod of heart comes the answer: yes.

"It's absurd," I say. "I've done-what could I have-"

"Now now," he says, working the crick out of his neck. "If there's interrogating to do, you really should leave it to me. That's what they pay me for, you know. Let me see. . . ." He gulps down another draft of wine, swipes his arm across his lips. "You could start by telling me what a certain Monsieur Chretien Leblanc wanted with you." "I don't know anyone named Leblanc."

He smiles softly. "You're quite sure about that, Doctor?" "As sure as I can be, yes."

"Well then, it's a very funny business. Because I'm here to tell you that Monsieur Leblanc knows you."

Fumbling once more in his shirtfront cache, he draws out-not another arm, no-a piece of butcher's paper. Flecked with wax, stiff with grease. And from this corrupted surface, the words leap up: hot, black.

DR. HECTOR CARPENTIER No. 18, Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve He's beh i nd me now, t he ter r i ble st r a nger, watch i ng me read , w reat h ing my neck with his breath. The air grows confused with wine.

"That is your address, is it not, Doctor?"

"Of course."

"And that is your name?"

"Yes."

"And I believe you have the honor of being the only Dr. Carpentier in all of Paris. Don't think I didn't check," he adds, cuffing me gently on the ear. "Damnit, though, I'm still hungry as the devil. Anything else to eat? That fucking macaroon . . ."

A moment later, I hear him rustling in the pantry, arraigning each article as he finds it. "Chestnuts have seen better days. . . . Pear preserves? I think not. . . . Cheese looks all right, except . . . well, that's a scary purple, you don't see that particular . . ."

"This is ridiculous! " I call after him. "I've never received a Monsieur Leblanc here! I'm not-"

Not even a practicing physician . . .

But pride cuts me short. Or else it's the sight of the stranger, reemerging with a potato in his mouth. A raw potato, crammed like an apple into a trussed pig.

"Well, Doctor." He grinds out a hunk of its hard flesh, mashes it into submission. "We're certainly-in agreement on-on one point. You couldn't have-received Monsieur . . ."

"Leblanc."

"Leblanc ," he echoes, through whirling pellets of tuber. "For the simple reason . . . he never made it here."

"Well, then, why are you bothering me? Why don't you question him?"

Another hunk of potato. Another round of gnashing.

"Because he's . . . mpxxcchsik. . . ."

That's how it comes out, I'm afraid. He puts up a single finger- Wait, please-but it's a good long minute before his larynx breaks free.

"Because he's dead."

The taste of the raw potato must finally breach his senses, for all of a sudden, it comes sluicing out in a fast brown stream-right into the waiting carafe.

"Thought it was a bit riper," he mutters.

And my first thought is, yes: Mother. Must clean up the mess before Mother gets here. I'm already reaching for the carafe when he intercepts me.

"Three blocks from here." (His sausage fingers curled round the carafe handle.) "That's where the unfortunate Monsieur Leblanc died. Not too far from the Universite where you spend so much of your days."