text: The Chief Inspector glared at the man across from him, a ridiculous caricature of a tourist, so perfectly nondescript that he was absurdly easy to describe. And then there was that sweater. For some reason he found it all insulting. “Where is she, Wally?” he snapped. “I haven’t gone by that name in a long time,” the man replied as he sipped some of the steaming liquid from his cup. He sat comfortably and spoke calmly, as though he had invited a squad of police men into his home for a chat. “But it is your name! No matter how you change it you cannot escape your past. Except, you don’t want to. Look at you, the same as ever. She! She is a master of disguise and escape. She eludes even the finest minds in the finest forces in all the world,” the Inspector turned. “But you dress like a buffoon and parade around the world in plain view. You clearly want to be found.” “If you say so, Chief Inspector.” The policeman wheeled back to his captive. “Then let me help you! I can free you from her influence, from her scorn and abuse. What could she possibly see in you except a stooge to leave behind. Just tell me where she is!” The man smiled warmly but did not speak. In the silence, the Chief Inspector heard a sound he had missed over his own ranting and the tumult of the festival crowd only a few blocks away. “A helicopter?” he cried in alarm. His eyes cast about the studio with ignited interest. A disheveled bed. A warm fire. A setting of tea and treats, with one cup in the man’s hands and another on the table, steam rising from the brim. “She’s here!” the Inspector cried. “On the roof! She’s getting away!” “If you hurry, you can still catch her!” The laughter in the man’s voice peeled at the Inspector’s composure as he and his men fumbled the window open and scrambled out into the night and up the fire escape. Too late. By the time they clamored onto the roof an ultralight helicopter was thumping away, a carmine figure propped on the strut, looking back at him. He ran to the edge and clung to it as he watched his quarry escape. For a moment, before the helicopter tipped out of sight, he thought he saw her wave. Biting back a cry of frustration he moved to turn away, but a bright movement on the street below drew his gaze. The man strode out of the entrance, a pack on his back overloaded with ludicrous camping gear in the middle of one of the world’s most urbane cities. “No one stayed to watch him?” he shouted. His men wore expressions of stunned apprehension. “Get after him! He can’t get far!” They surged down the fire escape and into the street. Up ahead, he spotted the tall man’s hat bobbing up and down in the crowd, where it then turned down an alley. “He’s heading for the festival!” The inspector pushed and shoved through the crowd until he finally reached the alley, but he spotted no sign of the man. In a rush, he cajoled his way past drunken cavorters, pissing homeless and rancid garbage and burst into the square. Exactly as he did, he was deafened by the sound of a great gong ringing not more than a few yards from him. Instantly, the air was filled with color. Within seconds the Inspector was covered with rainbow powder. Everyone in the square was gleefully pelting one another with chalk of every hue imaginable. In the crowded furor, no one, even the Inspector and his men, weren’t covered from head to boot. “Spread out and find him!” he barked, his heart already sinking. They would look, but somehow the Inspector knew the man would not be found. In an alley only a few dozen yards away the man once called Wally finished his business and zipped his pants. He checked the collar of his plain brown jacket, turned up to his cheeks against cold and prying eyes. His pack was nearby, propped between the building and a dingy garbage can, but he left it there as he turned and headed for the train station. He’d find another. His hat, though, was tucked into his pocket with the tassel hanging out. Visible, as something always was. Just in case she was watching.