I remember the surreal mix-up at the bottom of the street: the jam of vehicles, the flashing blue lights, the jumble of guns and helmets and walkie-talkies, the C.R.S. packed in tight like a phalanx. They grow them big in the C.R.S. and they arm them to the teeth, and when this wild-haired Watusi came charging at them, all they had to do was hit him low, hit him high, and carry him off on their shields. But they didn’t. He went through them like Julius Erving on the front end of a fast break, and nobody laid a hand on him. He dodged across the street that was jammed up with cars and men, and when he hit the spiked fence that borders the Parc Montsouris, he put one hand on the top railing and vaulted. By then they’d seen him all right. One of them had a revolver out and pointed when I ran past. “God Almighty, don’t shoot!” I shouted at him in the din. Maybe he heard, maybe he didn’t. Somebody else was shouting, “Make way for the ambulances!” But there were more guns than one, and they hadn’t all had the chance to use them, and when Roscoe soared over the fence, a whole fusillade of bullets followed him.
