“I really don’t want to say. This whole thing makes me sick. It disgusts me.”

“Come on, Arthur. Tell me. I need to know.”

“Okay. You asked, so I’ll tell you. Bézy threatened you.”

I felt a sudden, sharp chill. “Me? What can he do to me?”

“Aw, a bunch of crap. You don’t want to hear it. It will just upset you.”

“Yes, I do. What did he say?”

“He said you were working for the CIA. He had a list of stuff, going back to Paris. A whole bunch of things. I didn’t even listen. He said if I didn’t write the article, he would do everything he could to hurt you and the Mirror by making it all public.”

“Oh, Jesus,” I said. I stopped for a moment to get my bearings. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him to fuck off! I said it was outrageous bullshit, that you were one of the best young reporters in America, and they could say whatever they wanted, because nobody would believe it. I told him if they tried anything like that, you’d sue them for libel, and I’d testify for you and describe everything Bézy had said to me. Everything. That seemed to shut him up. What an asshole, thinking he could pull a stunt like that.”

I didn’t respond. So many different thoughts were firing at once in my mind, I couldn’t follow any single one through to its conclusion. I thought about Ed Weiss, Rupert Cohen, Tom Rubino, Arthur Bowman—each holding a tether attached to me at a different point. And I was standing on a dusty street in Beijing, pulling them all toward something very messy.

“What an asshole, right?” Bowman repeated. He wanted some confirmation, some signal that his ordering of the world was correct. He was waiting for me to answer. I knew I had to tell him something.

“I don’t work for the CIA, Arthur.”

“Of course not, for Chrissakes! The whole thing is outrageous.” He wanted to leave it there, but I hadn’t quite finished.

“I’ve talked to them, sometimes. I met with their people before this trip.”

“So what? I’ve talked to them plenty, too, over the years.” He looked carefully at me. I think he must have seen on my face the same thing I’d seen on his, that night at Mrs. Parsons’s. I was afraid. His own expression changed. He looked perplexed at first, then gentle, almost paternal. “Is there anything you need to tell me, Eric, about what you’re doing here?”

I tried to think, but all I heard in my mind was the roar of the traffic. “No,” I said.