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before returning to his new acquisition: a vintage red and chrome Alfa Romeo Giulietta coupé, which he had haggled for with an old collector in Mazargues, a few days after coming out of hospital.
    Ten minutes later, he found his legendary car where he had left it in traverse de la Cascade and, not for the first time, had to admit to himself that he was suffering from lapses of memory.
    Reversing dangerously, he crossed traverse de la Cascade and turned onto Corniche Kennedy. The traffic was getting heavier, in fits and starts in some places and total gridlock in others. Most of theMarseillais who worked in the middle of town went home to the southern suburbs by way of the Corniche.
    The Giulietta was heating up. The Baron clenched his jaws, and kept an eye on the dashboard thermometer. His nerves were as taut as steel cables, no doubt because of going on the wagon. Since his accident, alcohol affected him physically as never before, hacking away at his nerve endings.
    In the distance, at the far side of the harbor, the day’s last ray of sunlight crossed the grayness hanging over Ile Maïre. It came like a sign from the elements: it was there, years before, that he had first kissed Marie, his ex-wife. Now and then, on days of nostalgia, he would stand in front of Maïre to count the waves. For some time the island’s tip had been his navel, the center of his existence, but now he was not so sure. He needed a new center.
    At the end of the Corniche, he drove around the statue of David and left the calm of the sea behind him. The long traces of the cars’ brake lights drenched the view of Le Prado in blood red and created the impression that they were rising up to the hills of Saint-Loup. He slipped a C.D. into his walkman and put on his headphones: Mozart, or Boche music, as Jean-Louis Maistre used to say, who preferred the full and brassy melodies of the Italian masters.
    â€œI’m the bird-catcher,
Ever joyful, hooray!
I’m known as a bird-catcher
By the young and old in all the land.”
    Mme. Steinert’s face settled in his mind, the sheerest fact, above the traffic jams, with its perfectly oval shape, straight nose and azure eyes that could pierce sheet metal.
    Isabelle Mercier.
    The real world up to its tricks again.
    A cop at the end of his tether.
    Dark thoughts his constant visitors.
    A slight prickling made his brows crease. Another migraine. He chased away the images of the two women.
    â€œI’m known as a bird-catcher
By the young and old in all the land.
If I wanted girls, I’d trap them by the dozen!”
    He headed toward Rabateau, overtaking the entire rank of cars that seemed glued to the tarmac, before driving into the industrial estates around La Capelette.
    â€œIf all the girls were mine,
I’d barter them for sugar,
And all my sugar I would give
To the one I liked best.”
    In front of the half-demolished old sulfur plant, he avoided the mattresses and wrecked washing machines on the paving stones. Then he lowered the window to feel the air on his face; there was still that same electric smell as when he had been a boy, when he used to bring girls to these dead streets to fondle them, while his friends were at home groaning over Euclidean geometry.
    When he got home, the Baron drew the curtains across the French window overlooking the gardens of the Résidence Paul Verlaine. Night was falling; the orange light of streetlamps spilling out across the gray and black bark of a tall sea pine.
    Jean-Louis Maistre rang the doorbell. De Palma could not remember having invited him round.
    â€œSorry, Le Gros, my brains are jelly at the moment.”
    â€œNo matter,” Maistre said, sitting down on a chair. “Any news of your medal?”
    â€œNo, why?”
    â€œBecause it’s supposed to be soon.”
    â€œI couldn’t care less …”
    â€œCome on, don’t play the romantic cop. A bit of recognition never did anyone any