entitled "The Story of a Panic," in 1904, in the new Independent Review.

Yesterday I read an article about the "20 Rules for Blogging" and realized I had broken nearly all of them.  And yet now even as my hands tremble over the keys I can only trust in the power of this process to calm me, and these words to help heal, and in you, Faithful Reader, to understand.  And, okay, if I can manage it according to the Rules, I should be brief and pleasant as well.  I'll try.

The look of innocence.  Detail, publicity still, Match Point, Woody Allen, 2005

First of all, I can now vouch for the fact that the Ford Crown Victoria is not only the preferred vehicle for police transportation, but also used "unmarked" for official detective business and "undercover" work as well.  Luckily, the District Attorney's office was visiting a neighbor down the street with whom they had some kind of ongoing  misunderstanding.  Which I learned when I went down to suggest they move their cars, and upon closer inspection began (rather impulsively, I realize now) to plead for my life.  I confess, a bevy of burly men dressed in black rain jackets with badges and bulges where guns must be will make a heart race -- innocent or not.

What happened next was, after calming down and being reassured by one of the (as it turned out) very nice men that I had done nothing wrong and no one was going to hurt me, I decided on having a chat with Didier, who had arrived just as I was being helped to my feet by the kind detective and was declining his thoughtful offer of further medical attention. 

As you know Didier is currently staying in town while he finds either himself or gainful employment, whichever comes first.  Once safely upstairs again I wanted to make sure no burly men in Crown Vics were lying in wait in his future, and I must tell you that nothing he said allayed my fears.  Nor could it, since he almost immediately lapsed into a French that -- despite my obsessive viewing of TinTin videos and Jacques Demy films -- is nearly incomprehensible to me and I should think to anyone but a highly trained native speaker.  Frequent trips to Montreal enable me to say with some authority that Didier's accent is not Quebecois, since his profanity includes none of the blasphemous use of sacred articles (Tabernacle, Host) of which the French-Canadians are so fond, being a country of Catholics not yet as lapsed and jaded as their European cousins (the words thus still retaining the power to shock and to emphasize orgasms); however, when defensive Didier speaks in a kind of slurred and elongated but extremely rapid dialect which to my ear approaches the Marseilles accent of a sailor I knew once who --

"STOP," I commanded, of both his talking and my thinking. 

He did so, but only to draw breath.  I had no time to lose.

"Tell me you are not taking any drugs," I said rapidly (with the sudden vision of poor Britney being hauled off looped and giggly after purportedly downing a cocktail called Purple Monster -- vodka, RedBull and Nyquil).  "REPETEZ," I directed in a genuine panic.  "Je. Ne. Suis. Pas. Taking. Les Drugs."

Amending my suggested phrasing, he acquiesced.

"Et Je Ne Suis Un Acheteur Ni Un Vendeur des Drugs."  At this he cocked his head to one side and scratched himself in an adorable gesture that nearly swayed me from my resolve to get to the truth.  "Buyer or Seller," I repeated gruffly, translating and struggling to hold my ground.

"Jamais," he replied, which I took to mean "Never have I been un acheteur or vendeur and never do I partake of  this white-trash Purple Monster."
 
"C'es vrais," he added, tipping his head down and looking up from beneath a forest of dark lashes, so that I was about to sigh an immense sigh of relief, as you can imagine, Dear Reader, when the phone rang.

I picked up without even looking at the caller I.D.  Not that it would have mattered.

"This is Agnes," said the young voice.  "Although you may remember me as Pam.  Or not.  In any case I'm downstairs and I need to come up."

As I cast about in memory trying to place the voice and the name I must admit I neglected to wonder how she'd managed to slip past security and the concierge. 

"To speak to Didier," she continued, as if in answer to a question I had not yet formulated.

"I know he's up there," she said, anticipating my lie, and yet before I could protest, what she uttered next made my blood run cold. 

"He is in SO much trouble."

To be continued.