tting them together. It has to be, because the same hing holds for the hoods."

Next stop, an ordinary looking cabaret. Before oing in, I was given the pitch. This was Felix's. And who was Felix? A homosexual (another sign of hanging times, for homosexuals used to be scornlly rejected by the underworld).

A fussy 50-year-old greeted us. His hair was too lond, his complexion too rosy; he was wearing a eluxe Newfoundland sweater. Felix in person. He velcomed the Commissioner effusively, leading him o a shadowy corner of the bar and talking to him here in a low tone.

While they were occupied, I looked the place over. No kids here. Men of substance with their legitimates" (wives). After a while, Felix put on a ittle number, both it and, for that matter, the whole abaret obviously being nothing but window-dressng. His songs would have brought a blush to the theek of a Foreign Légionnaire.

Felix is a 'friend" not

En informer

"So there you have him," the Commissioner said when we came out, "Felix, my friend. Funny company, eh? You probably think he's an informer and we own him because of his off-beat habits. You're wrong. He's never done any squealing. In fact, beneath that ridiculous exterior, he's a tough baby. I don't mean he plays with guns. With him, it's tolen goods, deals, finagling. I ran into him during a big case-stolen paintings. I grilled him for hours and couldn't get a peep out of him. Since hen we've been 'friends,' a 'friend,' in a special way, being the opposite of an informer. There are things you never ask of a 'friend'. You just chat with him. He has his problems, which I sometimes can help him

with; sometimes he returns the compliment. Now and then he lets fall something, a word or two that takes me off a false lead, another that speeds up a whole case... The underlying lesson, I guess, is that the so-called 'law of the underworld,' the law of silence, is a lot of nonsense. The underworld only has one law: money.”

The district between the Étoile and Rond-Point, along and off the Champs-Élysées, is reserved for the aristocrats of crime. Our stop here was Tania's, a boîte famed for its Russian miusic — and its girls.

From the Soviet Army to a Paris bistro

Once a sergeant in the Soviet army, Tania had deserted for love of a French hoodlum who, in turn, had deserted her. She had decided to revenge herself on society and, making use of the only advantage her lover had left her with, an acquaintance with the underworld, had launched her private war. It hadn't been easy going but, after being credited with the deaths of five or six imprudent people, she had been accepted. By now she was an institution.

While I was observing her merchandise, the Commissioner filled me in on it. Just as the take from gambling is the chief support of the U.S. underworld, the take from girls is that of the French. He estimated that the latter brought in more revenue annually than C.R.E.P.S. (Sahara Oil Co.) or Renault, the country's two largest legitimate concerns.

Why was this allowed? Because, in his view, the present laws were inadequate. Convictions were hard to get, penalties, for the most part, trifling.

"Thanks to new defenses, electronic devices and so on, major crimes aren't as easy to pull off as they once were. Hold-ups and the like have to be planned with the greatest care. Meanwhile, one has to live

on something, and prostitution peacefully foots the bill. But, I might add, even the most cautious procurers take gun in hand, sometimes, to maintain their prestige with their girls and pals. As a matter of fact, it's often the girls who encourage the men to start shooting as a kind of status symbol."

Sitting near us, three types, freshly shaven (at 4 o'clock in the morning) were kidding the barmaids and downing shots of whisky at $5 a shot. On the way out, I asked my last square question of the night. All three probably had records and carried weapons. Why hadn't my friend pulled them in?

Because they were worth more at large, I was told, as possible leads. Besides, in this place and in these times, the chances were they had no weapons on them. Despite a few notable exceptions, violence was no longer fashionable in the underworld; it had become a sometime, last-resort thing.

"No," "the Commissioner went on, "the gunmen of American films, the characters who terrorize whole populations, operate from mansions and buy judges, haven't found their way to this country. Compared with them, our specimens are still doing things by hand rather than by machine.

Even crime is changing due to automation

"But they're starting to get organized. The underworld, as well as business, is subject to laws of concentration, mechanization, automation. Your criminal to-* day isn't making his getaway in cars he's discovered the plane.

“And after all,” he added, "it isn't up to the police to halt progress... "It was 6 a.m. now, the half-time, the hour between two worlds, one going to bed, the other getting up. On the deserted ChampsÉlysées, day was breaking.

(THE END)

The night's catch. Sitting and waiting sometimes is the worst of all

One small transaction in a $140,000,000-a-year business

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