The Underground Casinos of Paris

CORJICANS RUN VARIOUS

GAMBLING SPOTS

?¦?¦?

IN THE CITY OF LIGHT. THE

WOMEN ARE ALLURING,

>••••? ? i

THE CHAMPAGNE IS SWEET AND

THE CLIENTELE IS TOUGH

I he facade of the Aviation Club de France seems I to be under construction. So seem to be the fa­cades of the buildings to its right and left, build­ings whose likely retail-oriented occupants (I'm on the Champs-Elysees) I fail to note. There are lots of things I'm failing to note, at least as many things as I'll fail to inquire about, let alone re-' ceive clarification on. I don't really know

how to do this. I'm in Paris to write a nonfiction article for playboy about my experiences in

the city's numerous underground gam­bling clubs, and less than 40 hours

into the trip I've learned that the clubs are neither underground nor

numerous. Nor, truth be told, am I really in Paris to write about my experiences in underground gambling clubs. I'm in Paris to see about a girl. Her name isn't Hortense, but that's what I'll call

her since it resembles her name less than any other French girl's name that comes to mind, and she's a little bit famous, and she has a boyfriend. Not that I'm afraid of

him. He plays marimbas or something. Fuck that guy.

I was saying about the facade, though. In front of the Aviation Club de France's facade,

there is some kind of scaffolding. By the time I've gotten through the doorway of the scaffolding, I have forgotten ' the color of the canvas stretched across it, but the club's logo sticks—the letters ACF with a fighter jet's silhouette across the center of the C. I want to say that the name of the club derives from its having opened after World War II, when its membership was composed exclusively of British and American airmen—that's what I'd heard, or thought I'd heard, but according to Wikipedia the club opened in 1907. Then again, according to Wikipedia the games at the ACF are poker, baccarat and backgammon, but once I get inside, though I'll see three rooms of poker tables, there'll be no evidence of backgammon, and be­sides baccarat, it will have punto banco, which might be .

considered a kind of baccarat, but it depends on who you ask, and I don't know who to ask.

My first novel was published at the end of 2010, and it received

some positive attention. A few months later, playboy took me to

lunch and asked me to pitch them nonfiction. Except for school

essays, though, I'd never considered writing nonfiction.

No rush, playboy told me. Then we ate meat.

At the end of the summer of 2011,1 headed to Paris to promote the French edition of my

novel. There I drank a lot (a lot for me, at least at that time, was two and a half

drinks an evening, mostly hypermas-

culine vodka Perriers avec lime), hung

out a lot with Jerome Schmidt—

professional gambler and head

of Editions Inculte, my French

publisher—and met Hortense,

who, despite having a long-term

boyfriend, caused me some kind of

pre-mid- or late-quarter-life crisis

that saw me coming home to break up

with my girlinend or six years, a deeply sweet, brilliant and beautiful person. Upon returning to Chicago, I con-

tinued to drink a lot, to carouse and walk around a lot and to long for Hortense. One

night in fall, I was drunkenly walking somewhere

to carouse while missing Hortense aloud when a friend of mine said, "Dude. Fucking playboy. Figure out how they can send you to France. You've gotta get back to that girl." My friend was right. She often is.

I facebooked Jerome and asked if he'd be willing to take me around Paris to the gambling clubs he frequented. As noted above, I was at the time under the mistaken impression that the clubs were underground and semilegal and that there were scores of them, when in fact they're legal, right out in the open and, all told, there are five of them. (Why this mistaken impres­sion? I can't say. I'd like to blame it on a language barrier, but Jerome's English is top-notch. The more likely explanation: I'm a spaz. I don't pay attention to what I'm supposed to.) In any case, Jerome was enthusiastic (continued on page 135)

CA/INO/

(continued from page 72) about showing me around the casinos.

I pitched piayboy in the morning. By eve­ning the magazine was in. A $5,000 expense cap. A couple of nights later I sent this message to Hortense, with whom I'd been maintaining increasingly sporadic e-epistolary contact:

Hortense LaFauxnom,

I am very drunk right now, and thinking of you. This isn't an uncommon occurrence in Chicago—get drunk, think of Hortense LaFauxnom—but tonight it's especially poignant because I just learned that playboy magazine is sending me to Paris to write a feature. I pitched Paris to them because I want to see you more than I want just about anything else lately. Is that too intense ? If so, forget I said Hand pretend I said, "Hortense LaFauxnom, I happen to be com­ing to Paris to write an article for pi.wboy magazine. My hope is we 'II bump into each other somewhere and have a drink." Whatever works better for you.

Yours,

Adam

Hortense did not respond for five days, at which point she wrote something about friend­ship, something else about confusion, then reminded me about the fucking marimba guy, but also mentioned the possibility of us maybe getting a drink.

With my $5,000 expense cap, I bought a ticket to Paris for January 2012 and booked a 10-day stay at a hotel in the 1 lth Arrondissement with rooms I could smoke in. This left me roughly $2,300 for gambling, food and taxis.

The day I arrived, Jerome met me at the hotel around six p.m., and we walked to a bar around the corner from his office. We made our plans. We'd head to the ACF the next night, check the place out and maybe gamble a little. Later in the week we'd go to the Cerde Cadet (the middle-class gambling dub to the ACF's upper), and some time after that, if I really wanted to, we'd check out Cercle Cen­tral. I would not, Jerome explained, want to gamble at Cercle Central and should never go there without him. "Many Marios at Cerde Central," he said.

"Marios?" I said.

"Stanfield. Dealers from the suburbs. Maybe not as tough as Mario, but you are not Omar and I'm no Bodie."

Once Francois and Mathilde—two friends from the last trip, employees of Inculte— showed up at the bar, Jerome took off to meet his girlfriend. Hortense knew Francpis and had told him she'd be coming, but I wasn't optimistic (I'd left her a voice mail earlier "to test my iPhone's coverage in Paris" and hadn't heard back), so I started to drink a little faster. Francois's new girl was supposed to be there too, but she'd told him she needed a nap first. This aroused Francois's suspidon that the girl was blowing him off, the French term for which translates to "putting a rabbit upon him," as in, "She says she needs a nap first, but I think maybe she's putting a rabbit upon me."

Increasingly frequent and diminishingly lighthearted cracks were made about my rabbit spending time with Francois's rab­bit, rubbing their furry little paws together

and laughing at us, until Hortense appeared around 10. And once she was before me, I realized she had become so legendary a figure in my mind that I couldn't understand her as someone in possession of a body. We did the French face-kissy thing and embraced, but it felt as if I were imagining it.

A few drinks later and we were on a couch in a kitchen in a small apartment—a little before midnight Francois's girl had been awakened by friends, decided it was a party and invited us over—while some dude in a fedora, to whom I'd explained what I was doing in Paris, was telling me, "Adon, you most make your arti­cle like Ownter Thompson. Genzo!" By then I'd swallowed enough champagne and vodka to realize that Hortense did have a body, so I leaned in a little and told her I wanted to take her somewhere and kiss her a lot, and asked her if she wanted me to take her somewhere and kiss her a lot. She said she didn't know, but she thought I should get back to my hotel and suggested I probably didn't know how to get back to my hotel. I told her I thought she was probably right, so she walked me to my hotel, and somewhere along the way I started kissing her a loL

We did more kissing a lot at the hotel, but Marimbas kept calling and sending texts, and Hortense left around four. Anyway, she said, she had to be somewhere in the morning, plus it seemed that maybe I liked her a bit more than she liked me and maybe I shouldn't keep being so sweet to her.

'ITie following morning, which is really after­noon, I—despite my jet-lagged hangover and the increasingly powerful sense that Hortense is never going to leave her boyfriend, let alone return to Chicago with me—find that I'm feel­ing mostly pleasant. All the colors are bright and slightly oversaturated, but there isn't an unblurry edge in sight, and I write Hortense an e-mail saying as much, an e-mail in which I talk about how I enjoy being sweet to her and hope that I'll get to see her tonight when I return from the casino so I can be sweet to her some more.

By evening, having left my hotel room only once—to buy a yogurt, a sandwich and half a dozen croissants for some reason (in case Paris ran out?)—I've still heard nothing back.

At 9:17 p.m. I get a text from Jerome: "Down­stairs in 5 min? Don't forget your passport:)"

It is a testament to my affection for the man that his emoticon usage isn't just unembarrass-ing to me but cheering. The cab's at the curb when I come through the door. Tonight at the ACF, Jerome tells me, there's something going on called a cabaret soiree—a fun, cornball pro­motional event targeted at the punto banco players. There's food, dancers and a prize drawing. He tells me that, via punto banco, the ACF will earn the cost of the soiree back in under an hour. Punto banco is the casino's most profitable game, and a single table—the ACF has three—earns more dough than the rake on all the poker tables combined.

Jerome knows these things because he's friends with the men who run the ACF—has been for years—and he does some kind of consulting work for them, of which I never quite understand the real nature. Jerome knows a lot of gambling folk. He goes to Vegas for a month each summer, stays in

high-roller suites and earns a minimum of two grand a day playing Omaha.

I ask him how he does it—how he doesn't only stay above water gambling, but also earns a living. I don't know if he deliberately dodges the question, misinterprets it or really believes that it's all about persona, but he answers, "I play educated white guy. It makes people angry. Sometimes they threaten me and I have to call the floor. I'm the nice Jewish boy in a jacket and scarf who knows everything. And I am always correct, and I'm always polite. I always address people formally. 'You have nothing in your hand, sir' 'You behave like a prick, monsieur' 'I would like to pay you 10 euros, mademoiselle, for permission to come on your face.' like that, yes? What?"

I'm laughing.

He is a nice, educated Jewish boy in a scarf. That's the thing. Doctors for parents, a lover of books. But he's also a broad-shouldered six-foot-six, and I've been to parties with him. I've seen the trail of broken-hearted women he leaves in his wake on his way to see his girl­friend and the way the literati whose hands he doesn't shake bend their necks and wilt as he passes them by.

"You have a faraway look," Jerome says. "Last night was very good? She was as bee-you-tee-ful as you remember? You will see her tonight, after we play?"

"I'm dead. She'll ruin me."

"You love her."

'Jerome."

"You do. I can tell. You have feelings. It's gay. That's good. It's really good, man. I'm happy to hear it. I have many gay friends. I admire your gay feelings."

When the cab arrives at the ACF, Jerome tries to pay. I tell him it's on playboy.

"It's a pleasure to say that?" he asks me.

"Big-time."

Once we've passed through the scaffolding of unremembered color, we head through a glass door and up a staircase to a set of two more glass doors. You have to let the first one close to get through the second, and the guy behind the second—a man in a suit to whom Jerome nods—has to buzz you in. We get buzzed. We're in.

To the man, Jerome says something in French, something that I'd guess was "He's with me." The man gives me a nod, then fat­tens his lips while pointing to his head. I see he's talking about my ski cap, and I remove it. Then I try to figure out where the ski cap goes. I try the front pocket of my jacket, but that feels wrong. I'm all turned around sartorially. Since I was 11, my wardrobe—mostly black T-shirts and blue jeans—has been basically the same as Louis C.K.'s but with a slightly heavier empha­sis on hoodies. This jacket is my one and only such jacket, my job interview/wedding/bar mitz-vah/funeral gear. Jerome told me I'd need it to get into a couple of the dubs—that's the only reason I even thought to pack it. I stick the ski cap in my Levi's, rear right pocket.

"I need to smoke," I tell Jerome.

He says, "First we must give some money to this lovely cashier."

There's a lovely cashier behind a counter to our right. I'm supposed to give her 150 euros

to become a member of the ACF. Jerome has to pay too, because it's January 17 and he hasn't been here since before the new year.

No sooner do we pay than a floppy-haired man in a suit and tie walks up to Jerome and they kiss each other's cheeks. I can't remember his name, so we'll call him Danilo. Danilo is the floor manager, Jerome tells me. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to shake his hand or kiss him, so I kind of lean in with my hand in position, and he grasps it. Two pumps, no kissing. He says something to the lovely cashier, and she hands Jerome back his 150 euros, and then Jerome says something to Danilo, and Danilo, again, says something to the cashier, and she hands me back my 150 euros.

"We've been invited," Jerome tells me, "by the house."

My picture gets snapped, my forefinger scanned, and I'm handed my ACF member­ship card. We walk around the club, looking at stuff. Here is the poker, three warmly lit rooms of it, 20-some tables, Omaha and Hold'em, Limit and No, blinds ranging from two-four to 50-100. The tables are filled, but it's remarkably quiet.

And here is the punto banco room. It's jammed—three big tables surrounded by dressy, mostly middle-aged Asian folks standing three and four deep)—but again, remarkably quiet. How is that? And why do I have the sense that I need to behave, yet feel no resentment? Why do I keep touching my lapel to make sure I still have one? Why does it seem that any number of faux pas are just within reach?

This is why: no slots. Not a single one. Nor video poker. There are, in one poker room, some fiatscreens that, during tournaments, tell you the blinds and how much time is left in the round, but apart from those and the poker queue sign-up computer, there's no conspicuous tech in sight.

When I've had my cigarette—there's an area off the poker rooms—we sign up for No Limit Hold'em with two-four blinds. The guy at the sign-up computer says it will probably be an hour before he calls us. We head back toward the punto banco room but go right instead of left and arrive at the bar.

We watch punto banco players, drink a round, then order another, and I get up to piss. When I return from the bathroom, a young woman is there, bearing a clipboard. She's signing people up for the soiree prize drawing. Jerome introduces us. We kiss each other's cheeks and I forget her name instantly, as five or six dancing girls in shiny updos and heavy makeup, wearing tall leather boots, fishnets and bustiers, blow right past us into the punto banco room.

"Le cabaret!" Jerome reminds me and winks.

The dancing girls do a high-kicking, hip-grinding thing to some music that moves from manic and smiley to purse lipped and dirty and back again twice. We members all clap, and the girls run away.

"Very French," Jerome says, rolling both r's excessively, along with both eyes.

"Schmidt!" exclaims a man who has appeared behind Jerome.

Jerome stands, hugs the man, kisses his cheeks, and within a few seconds, though I don't know who he is, I understand he's not just anyone. This man, whose name is Jean-Phillipe, is wearing a suit and tie that I want, and I have never wanted a suit, let alone one with a tie. Plus, I'm introduced to the man not merely as Adam but as "Adam Levin, one of the writers we publish." After he and Jerome exchange some short paragraphs in French, Jean-Phillipe suggests we join him at his table

in the restaurant and then makes his exit.

"It's okay, yes?" Jerome says. "We will miss our opening, I think, if we go there, but I think it's better if we go there. For your article. We can always play later. We can sign up again."

"Who is that guy?"

"He is the main collaborator of ACF."

"He's the owner?"

"No."

"The manager?"

"Nearly. Somewhat. He manages. It's tricky to explain. And boring to explain. I will say it like this: We have been invited to drink cham­pagne at the bosses' table. Not many people are invited to do this. I do not think any American with a net worth less than—a net worth less than much more than yours, let us say—has been invited to do this in a very long time."

"Good enough for me."

"Good man."

Bottoms up.

The bosses' table is round and is situated next to the restaurant's dance floor. A tuxe-doed waiter hands me a glass of champagne. I take a sip. It tastes good. I take another sip. Great, actually. It tastes great, possibly better than anything I've had to drink, ever. Appar­ently my face indicates this. "It is good Cristal," Jean-Phillipe tells me, "but there is better Cris­tal. We will have some later."

Apart from Jean-Phillipe, myself and Jerome, there are four other people at the bosses' table. Two of them, like Jean-Phillipe, wear gray suits with black ties, each of which is at least as good a suit as Jean-Phillipe's. One of the suits is a three-piece deal, and the man who's inside it, who's a bit older than the rest of us and whose name I never catch, smiles a lot, holds his hands clasped at chest level and speaks in low, counseling-type tones directly into the ear of the man inside the third suit—Xavier. Xavier carries an aura of power even bigger than Jean-Phillipe's. (That doesn't quite cover it. I don't like the word aum.) Is Xavier hand­some? Sure. He has a kind of bright-eyed Don Draper thing happening. But he could kick Don Draper's ass, this Xavier, and if the need arose, he would do so, I'm sure, with some art­ful, judo-type throw to prevent any blood from spraying his suit. Then probably offer Draper a hand in getting back up. It's hard to imag­ine someone disliking Xavier, even fat-lipped, limping Draper.

To Xavier's right is a man called Bully—his driver or something. He's a large man, this Bully, his suit isn't gray and he doesn't have a tie. I wouldn't tangle with Bully either. Not that there are many with whom I would tangle. But even if I were a big tangler, I think I'd draw a line at Bully. First off, they call him Bully. Sec­ond, he seems comfortable with that.

The girl to Bully's right, a knockout blonde to whom I'm never introduced, is falling out of her dress. She's touching and kissing Bully on the arms and neck in such a conspicuous way that I actually start thinking about the mean­ing of the word shameless and how maybe it shouldn't have such negative connotations. She's young and pretty and seems really happy, like she's in love with Bully and wants every­one to know. And what's wrong with that? I think. And where the fuck is Hortense? I check my phone slyly, under the table, to see if she's responded to my e-mail yet (she hasn't).

Xavier stands up. "Adam," he says. "This guy here"—he's pointing to Jean-Phillipe— "grew up in the village next to mine on the beautiful little island of Corsica. Do you know about Corsica?"

I think about saying, "I've seen that movie A Prophet," but given its portrayal of Corsi-cans as ultraviolent mafiosi, I bite my tongue, figuring it would probably sound something like the way "I've seen The Merchant of Venice" would in response to the question "Do you know about Jews?"

"I've heard of Corsica," I say.

"France's greatest leader was from Corsica. Napoleon Bonaparte," says Xavier. "And where are you from?"

"Chicago."

"Ah, Chicago. Jordan. Blues. Jazz. Al Capone."

"Yeah," I say. "All that stuff."

"And the skyline," Jerome adds.

"I'd like to see it. I've never been to Chi­cago," Xavier says. "You know," he says to me, "Al Capone—he was Corsican."

"Well...wait. No," I say. "Al Capone was Italian."

"Yes, Adam, of course. But you understand what I mean, right?"

How do you respond to that? You wait for a signal from the speaker, that is what you do. You wait for a cue. You look at the other faces around you. They seem to be waiting on a cue as well. Then you find yourself picturing Wile E. Coyote for some reason. The edge of the cliff has just disappeared beneath him, but the fall hasn't started yet. What does Wile E. Coyote do? He gulps. But this isn't a cartoon, and so you don't gulp. What you do is you remember you're just some lucky, schlubby writer from Chicago who no one expects to know how to behave. Smiling, you lift your flute of champagne, and you do that salute-y thing one does when one is making ready to offer a toast, but you offer no toast, and Xavier, who has raised his glass in turn, cracks a big smile, says, "Lchatm! Yes?" and the whole table laughs, and you slug the Cristal back.

Then you gulp.

Xavier smokes. He wants one. So does Bully. Jean-Phillipe can take it or leave it. So we take it, the lot of us, minus three-piece, who heads for home. We get up for a smoke. I trip on the carpet, recover before falling.

Jerome's got my elbow. "We are going to the office," he says.

"I thought we were smoking."

"We are smoking in the office."

"Loffke," I say.

"No one gets to go to the office," he says. "And you will now get to go to the office."

"And smoke in the office."

"And smoke in the office!"

The door to the office is set behind a wall panel just off one of the poker rooms. To get inside involves all kinds of code punching and key twisting. I take out my phone. It's a little past midnight, and I'm not hoping for much, but—there's an e-mail from Hortense. She will not come out but hopes to see me the day after tomorrow and notes that it's fine if I'm determined to be sweet to her but that it's important to her that I know that although she likes me, she is not "crazy about" me the way that I am "crazy about" her.

"Hortense?" Jerome asks.

"Yes."

"She will not meet up with you tonight."

"No."

"You are dead. You are wrecked. You are dying from love."

"Yes."

"But you will drink champagne and you will also drink cognac, and then you will gamble with playboy's money."

"Yes."

"Not so bad."

"No."

The office is large. I couldn't say how large. I'm bad enough at estimating size as it is, but I'm particularly thrown offhere because the office is hung with golden silk, one enor­mous sheet of golden silk.

"What do you think of this place?" Xavier asks me. "My grandfather, he designed it in 1951."

"Don't change it," I say.

"You understand what it's supposed to be, yes?"

"A war tent."

"Napoleon's."

He gestures to a painting of Napoleon, and as he takes a step back to remove a framed photograph from a shelf near the desk, I note no fewer than four statuettes of Napoleon on the same shelving system.

The photograph is an old black-and-white of immaculately dressed men and knickered children in Corsica: Xavier's grandfather, great-uncle, father and father's brothers.

"They really knew how to dress back then," says Xavier.

Xavier isn't showing off. He's just showing. It reminds me of being 15. Of going to the home of a new friend who wants to turn you on to a new band. No sooner does this occur to me than Xavier heads to the stereo—one of those new-fashioned blatantly analog ones with lots of wood and big glass tubes exposed—and puts on a record of Serge Gainsbourg doing reggae. Halfway into the first song, a waiter enters the room bearing bottles of champagne and a bot­tle of cognac with a silver cork that outweighs my iPhone. We sit on the couches.

And so the next few hours proceed: Xavier playing DJ, telling tales of Gainsbourg, the waiter pouring the "better" Cristaljean-Phillipe mentioned earlier and opening a second bot­tle of cognac called Louis XIII that's worth more than my car and tastes that way too. I get drunk(er), dear reader. I hear about the casino business, about buying and selling casi­nos, and Bully's girl's hands are all over Bully until Xavier sends them home to fuck. We're served heaping plates of gourmet Chinese brought in by the waiter from the ACF res­taurant, pastries of the best-ever variety. Soon it's four in the morning. It's time to go, and we bid good night to Xavier, thank him for his hospitality and head out the doors with Jean-Phillipe, down the stairs, out more doors, up the street and.. .home? Not home. To Xavier's other club. To the Cercle Gaillon.

An annual membership at the Cercle Gaillon is 250 euros, and the cashier is just as lovely as the one at the ACF, but this time there's no exchange of money at all—we're invited

from the get—and Jean-Phillipe takes us to the bar while we wait for our memberships to be processed.

Cercle Gaillon, at least as it seems through my sleepy, drunken eyes, is one giant room with vaguely purple, dreamlike lighting and hardly any sound. There are far fewer people here than there were at the ACE It's a much smaller, more exclusive club, plus it's four in the morning.

Jerome asks if I want to play. There are four tables going but only one with two-four blinds, which are as high as I can reasonably work with, given my budget. The problem with that table is it rotates between Omaha and Hold'em, and I'm scared of Omaha. Not that I'm particularly unafraid of Hold'em, but I know it well enough to at least under­stand what moves I think I'm making. Beyond that, I'm just too tired.

And yet I've come here, to Paris, to write about gambling dubs. I've been given money that I'm supposed to gamble. I've been given money that if I don't gamble won't be mine anyway. So I say, "Let's do it."

We each buy 150 euros in chips and sit at the Hold'em-Omaha table.

An exciting blow-by-blow of even one single hand is beyond my powers of description. I do remember Jerome causing two players he didn't like (one slow-played him in an overly stagy chin-stroking, hemming-and-hawing fashion; the other was an angle-shooting geek who kept calling the floor over and losing the arguments) to cash in and vacate the prem­ises, but all that went on between them went on in French. And I remember the older man seated between us, who I believe drove cabs, was extremely friendly, but all that went on between us went on in pantomime. Did Jerome propose marriage to all the female dealers? He did. Did they seem to mind? They seemed to enjoy it.

Over the next eight days, I returned to the ACF for a Hold'em tournament, bounced out honorably in the second round and then, hungry and on tilt, lost 300 euros in 10 minutes in a cash game. A similar thing hap­pened at the middle-class club, Cercle Cadet. Jerome joined me in that tournament and got to the final table, and while I, after bouncing out honorably in the third round, waited for him to finish, I became again hungry, again went on tilt and lost 250 euros in 10 minutes in a cash game.

Would I have played any differently had the gambling money been mine? I don't think I would have; not, at least, on a hand-by-hand basis. Poker, to me, is an aggressive thing. That's the fun of it: cowing people who would try to cow you, forcing the need to make choices on others who lack the information to make those choices too confidently and mak­ing such choices—taking risks—yourself. And doing all that in a sanctioned way, a way that everyone around you agrees is fair. It almost has nothing to do with money. Almost.

But that's on a hand-by-hand basis. What I would not have done the same, had the money been mine, was play on tilt. Nor would I be likely to have played until I busted.

I never saw Cercle Central. We'd planned to go there two days before I left, but Jerome caught a nasty flu and insisted again that

Cercle Central was too fucked-up a place for me to go alone. So I never got to see any Marios in action.

When Jerome and I left the Gaillon, it was a little past six. Jean-Phillipe had bid us farewell shortly after we'd sat down to play. We walked up the street in search of a cab. The sun was coming up, and there was a surprising lot of people out, heading home from dance clubs.

"It was a good night, yes?" Jerome said.

I agreed it was and thanked him for show­ing me around.

"I think you have your story, man," he said. "I think nothing crazier than this eve­ning is going to happen while you are here, and you have had experiences that few oth­ers have. You sat at the bosses' table. You smoked in the bosses' office. You lost some money—or did you win?"

"I'm up 50."

"You won 50 euros!"

"Yeah," I said. "It was an amazing night, but I don't know what to make of it."

"What do you have to make of it?"

"Something meaningful. I don't know. I don't know how to write nonfiction. I've barely read any. I think you have to have a thesis."

"It is fun to drink 4,000-euro bottles of cognac at the ACF, with the bosses."

"I don't know."

"It is fun to drink 4,000-euro bottles of cognac at the ACF with the bosses, even as one pines for a girl who puts rabbits upon him while having a boyfriend."

"Maybe," I say. "But then, what, I bring Hortense up?"

"Yes. There you go," Jerome says. "You just name her Elise or Genevieve or some­thing. So what?"

"Meh."

"What will you call the article?"

"Corsicans Like Napoleon?"

"Not bad."

"Ten Euros to Come on Your Face, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes, that's perfect. See, no worries, man. Seriously. What? Why the long face? The long face? That is right? Yes. Why the long face? You think they sent you here to discover the meaning of life?"

"No. Of course not. But I think I'm sup­posed to have something more to say. I'm supposed to have something analytical to say. All I'm thinking is I had fun. I drank expensive stuff, I gambled with someone else's money, I met les bosses. But what's it mean, though?"

"It doesn't have to mean anything."

"I'm supposed to be critical, maybe? Say something about gambling's power to destroy the human blah-blah-blah? Or something about vastly wealthy men? Or Paris? Compare love to poker? Courtship to betting? How I Went All In and Then Busted, or some shit? I have no opinion that I value regarding these matters, let alone an original thought. I don't think I believe all too strongly in anything, Jerome, much less anything having directly to do with this evening. It all seems meaningless."

"You are drunk."

"No arguing that, but "

"And I think it is all meaningless."

"We're getting deep now?"

"You started. I think it is all meaningless and I think you think it is all meaningless— you're a fiction writer. That is what it is to be a fiction writer, no? To professionally find it all meaningless. To mourn the incapacity of narrative to encompass reality while simulta­neously rejoicing in the creation of an illusion that suggests narrative can encompass reality. The point I'm trying to make, Adam, is this: This evening was interesting. Why not just attempt to describe what happened this eve­ning in a way that conveys how it felt?"

The truth is that the conversation described above actually ended around the point at which Jerome said "It doesn't have to mean anything." It ended because, just across the street from us, outside a dance club, two groups of black youths, six or seven to a group, all dressed to the nines, started shouting at one another, and we wanted to watch.

Within a minute, two or three from each group were colliding and falling.

The rest rushed forward, following suit.

Doormen from two clubs joined the fray, presumably attempting to split it up.

A couple of police cars roared up to the curb right next to us. Cops jumped from the cars—three from one and two from the other—all holding cans of pepper spray. They shouted through their turtlenecks, crossing the street, brandishing their cans.

The shouting didn't work.

The cops sent the spray downward, into the brawl. Within a few breaths, the youths flew apart. Then the cops stood back to back and sprayed in opposite directions. Each group of youths went back the way it came, except for one kid who held his ground and yelled at a cop. The cop gave him a shove and the kid shoved back. The cop blasted at his face; the kid fell and crawled away.

I started to sneeze. Jerome kept trying to clear his throat. It wasn't that bad, but it was bad enough that we had to get out of there, away from the mist.

After a couple of blocks and 17 sneezes—I counted—we caught a cab.

"So what was it we were saying before that madness?" Jerome asked me.

"I don't know," I said. And I was about to say something about how hungry I was—I was really hungry—and ask Jerome where I might find some food so early on a Sunday, but then I remembered the bag of croissants in my hotel room, so I didn't say anything.

THERE'LL BE NO EVIDENCE

OF BACKGAMHON*

• ? •

AND BESIDES BACCARAT. IT WILL

HAVE PUNTO BANCO,

• ?•^¦4 •

WHICH MIGHT BE CONSIDERED A

• 9- •» •

KIND OF BACCARAT.

A couple of police cars roared up to the curb right next to us. Cops jumped from the cars—three from one and two from the other—all hold­ing cans of pepper spray.