“Fear. I will answer that what built Venice was fear. That’s why they constructed that magnificent city on a swampy island in the midst of a lagoon. Because they were so afraid of the barbarians on the land, who were ravaging all the other settlements on the Lombardy plain. So when I answer ‘Fear,’ you’ll know it’s me.”

The Belmont Kitchen was a cozy, brick-walled café in one of Washington’s few genuinely multiracial neighborhoods. It was the sort of place where people still wore berets and talked about jazz musicians. Rupert was sitting at a table in the back. The fuzzy black sweater was gone. He was wearing a blue denim work shirt and a red striped tie that looked as if it had come from Brooks Brothers. He was smoking a Camel cigarette. Since our last meeting he had grown a goatee. Otherwise, he was unchanged.

“So,” I said tentatively, trying to play my role as dictated, “what built Venice?”

“Beats the shit out of me.” He shook his head in wonder. “You reporters take everything so seriously.”

We sat down, and he called over the waitress. He looked like such a goofball, I half expected him to take out a bong and light up. But he asked for a vodka martini and insisted that I have one, too.

“You dressed up for the occasion,” I said, pointing to his tie. The first time we met, he had worn that loopy black sweater and the black leather jacket. That wasn’t the only difference in our interaction. Before, I had been the needy one; now, it was him.

“I’m trying to look like a journalist. What do you think?”

“You certainly don’t look like a spy.”

“Shhh!” said Cohen. He was looking past me to the door. A couple had just entered the restaurant—a black man with a knit cap covering a long coil of dreadlocks and a white woman who looked vaguely like Joni Mitchell. He stared at them curiously and then shook his head.

“You know what I like about this neighborhood?” he said. “It’s so easy to spot surveillance. At the end of my field tradecraft course we had an exercise in D.C. to practice our surveillance detection runs. The test was whether you could identify the FBI team that had been assigned to follow you. But they had one rule. You weren’t allowed to go north of Dupont Circle into Adams-Morgan. They figured that anyone from the bureau would stick out like an Eskimo in Brazil.”

The martinis arrived, along with a basket of pretzel sticks. I raised my glass in Rupert’s direction. “To successful detection of surveillance,” I said.