The question Bézy had put to me was not really a choice. My ambitions lay in a different direction from what he proposed. If I’d seen more clearly what lay ahead, I might have made a different choice, but I don’t think so. Even the most grievous sinner, facing excommunication, doesn’t wish for the certainty of damnation.

I knew I should call someone at the Mirror, to warn them of what was coming. There was a telephone in my room, but it was undoubtedly monitored. I should go outside to make any calls. After a few more minutes lying in bed, making sure I knew my own mind, I got up. I needed to get organized. I found a guidebook with detailed maps of Montreal and the province of Quebec. I studied them for a few minutes and then tore them from the book and put them in my pocket. The hotel was on Rue Sherbrooke, the main street of the old Montreal neighborhood known as the Golden Square Mile. Just east of the hotel was the campus of McGill University. Surely there would be public telephones there.

I opened the door of my room and peered down the hall; the guard immediately began whispering into his walkie-talkie. He followed me to the elevator and rode down with me in silence. In the lobby, two other men picked me up. I didn’t have to use any of Frank’s tricks to discover them; they simply fell in behind me.

I walked out the front door of the hotel, onto Rue Sherbrooke and turned right toward McGill. It was a pleasant May evening; the streets and sidewalks were filling as Montrealers made their way to the downtown clubs and restaurants. After several blocks I came to the great stone gates of the university. The watchers stayed close as I entered a telephone booth; one of them stood at the door, as if he were waiting to use the phone next.

My first thought was to call George Dirk. The man outside the booth watched me dial Dirk’s home and punch in my credit-card number. I opened the phone-booth door and asked him to leave, but he just moved closer, so he could hear better.

Dirk’s wife answered the phone. She said George had gone to New York that afternoon. He was hoping to see the publisher of the Mirror the next day. She didn’t know where he was staying in New York. Was there any message, if he called in later that night? “Just say Eric called, and that George should tell Mr. Sellinger everything he knows,” I said. “Tell him that Sellinger isn’t the problem.”