“I don’t know what I want. I need to think. I’ve been trying to get some balance, and now I feel all wobbly again. There are so many things going on in my life that you don’t know about. That’s part of what makes it hard to think about you and me right now.”

“Tell me about the other things. You can trust me.”

“God, I’d love to. In a few days I hope it will be over. Then I’ll tell you everything, maybe. But right now I can’t. I’m overloaded. Any more weight on this truck and it’s going to break down.”

“Okay,” she said. “You’re probably right. We don’t need to try anymore. We need to do it, or not do it.”

We picked ourselves up off the grass and tucked ourselves back in, so that we didn’t look too obvious. I walked her the rest of the way to her house in Georgetown. When we reached the door, she kissed me on the lips, softly at first and then passionately.

“I love you,” she said.

For once, I let it lie there, rather than hitting it back. I kissed her, again, on the cheek. “I’ll call you next week,” I said. As I walked back to my apartment I had a strange thought. The reason she wanted me now was that she was afraid I didn’t want her. We were caught in the perpetual-motion machine of unhappiness. There were easier ways to be unhappy, it seemed to me.

At 6:30, Sunday night, my phone rang. It was Alessi, calling from Paris. He said the rendezvous with Bézy would take place the next morning in Boston. I should be on the 11:00 A.M. water shuttle from Logan Airport to downtown Boston. Someone would meet me at the Boston side. I should come alone. If anyone accompanied me, the meeting would be canceled. He said that Mr. Bézy was looking forward to meeting me. “He hopes it will be a fruitful discussion,” Alessi said.

Rubino’s family was just sitting down for dinner when I arrived. His daughter recognized me from before. “We’re eating now,” she said. Rubino took me out back, to his derelict garden. The tetherball was blowing in the breeze, clanging against the pole. Rubino punched it hard—too hard, I thought—wrapping it tight.

I told Rubino the details of my conversation with Alessi: Boston, the 11:00 A.M. water shuttle from Logan Airport, Bézy waiting on the other side. Rubino shook his head unhappily. “That gives them a lot of control,” he said. We hadn’t even started the operation yet, and he was already worrying. He went off to call someone at the FBI, so they could begin moving their people into place in Boston. “The bureau will get some boats,” he said when he returned. “That will help.”