CHAPTER 26It is said to be the biggest thing of its kind in the western world. More than seventy acres of narrow streets and narrower alleys and passageways cutting between crowded rows of attached shops. At last count the number of shops came to some three thousand.
Just beyond the Porte de Clignancourt, the vast maze of the Marché aux Puces sprawls between the seedy suburbs of Saint Ouen and Saint Denis. They still call it a flea market, but nobody can remember the last time even a flush American tourist bought anything there without flinching at the price before giving in to temptation.
I parked my car just outside it, under an off-ramp of the elevated expressway that follows the city limits around Paris. I got a flashlight and crowbar out of the storage compartment and the small Maus
