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crocs. As for food, there is no shortage of rats, nor of sewage workers who have learned caution after all manner of misadventure. In the past, they would fall roasted into our hands. Ready to eat. Henceforth they are almost nonexistent. Thus the joy we feel when luck is on our side and we run into one: lucky us! As far as nutritional value, rats were the same as a sewage worker’s foot, but as far as flavor goes, excuse the thought, whether booted or barefoot, the foot of a sewage worker surpasses a rat.
    On the surface, everyone is worried. Algernon finally apprised of the situation, responsible in the eyes of the law for whatever damage Palafox has done, resolves to lead the hunt himself. He is given help in lifting the heavy cast-iron lid, he puts two feet on the rungs of the ladder, he’s going down. Sadarnac (still out of breath from having sprinted) hands him a shrimp net that Algernon accepts since, after all, in the absence of a more suitable net, perhaps this will somehow suffice. Our eyes never adjust to the dark, Algernon gropes around. Sometimes he sinks into the muddy water all the way to his belt. The stink is horrible, but this you adjust quickly to, you just don’t think about it, you think about other things, an opportunity for introspection, for self-examination, where am I in this life? The ambitious young man I once was, would he be ashamed to see me now? Would he blush with shame or pride? At sixty, Algernon Buffoon, honorary ambassador, widower because father, esteemed author of the Guide to Collecting Ancient Pottery and many other scientific works, searches through the sewers brandishing a shrimp net in search of a butterfly. This net is the one false note in Algernon’s otherwise brilliant destiny. A delicate wing marks his cheek, Palafox flutters around him, ungraspable, brushes his lip, then disappears like smoke from a cigarette. Algernon beats the walls, beats the water, captures a few rats, thinks its Palafox he’s gotten each time, his beveled teeth, his stiff tail, but then he realizes that Palafox is dancing just over there, right over here, there, you can’t miss him - Algernon decked out with his shrimp net might force us to adjust the rather stern image we’ve had of him up until now. Now, mumbling, he retraces his steps. Feeling his way in the dark, he parts the velvet drapes, smoothes out endless heads of hair, pets soft fleece, digs through deep bodies, the blind man invents all he touches, Afghan hounds brush against him, rug sellers pester him. Algernon sometimes sinks all the way to his belt in the blue water of the lagoon. An unknown woman leaning on her balcony throws him a silk ladder, he can already make out her smiling face, her white arms extending toward him, two square red hands that grip his armpits. Sadarnac has already brought heavier things up from the bottom, this wouldn’t be Palafox alone in his brimming pot, he lifts Algernon effortlessly and leaves him on the shore.
    His dorsal flipper cuts the waves, Palafox won’t be spending his life here. After having watered the city and suburbs, the sewers service the surrounding countryside, eventually pouring their worn waters into a stream (murmurs of protest). Sooner or later, Palafox will get there. We will be there to pick him up.

    Except for Chancelade and Fontechevade in reserve - at this very moment, if everything goes as planned, they are razing enemy churches and burning enemy cottages - no one is missing. We are all here, crouching together around the bank, rather perplexed. Five short fingers tipped with terrible claws, there is no question the print was left by Palafox. He beat us. His trail disappears into the undergrowth. You’d have to be crazy to look for him. It would be like looking for lice in the proverbial haystack. Better just to wait. Patience, Palafox will make a mistake eventually. Hunger will make him careless, will make him show himself, even if we are not unaware that he can live for