He smiled. “On the other hand, maybe there’s something I’m just not seeing. I’m not a lawyer, after all. I’d have asked my dad for his advice, but I don’t want him dragged into this . . . But I did draft a long email to this outfit in London that deals with complaints against the press. I haven’t sent it yet because I don’t want to spread the story around, even to them, if I don’t have to. But I thought it wouldn’t hurt to drop their name to Sauer, so I emailed saying I was going to ask Ipso—that’s their name; Independent Press something or other—what they thought about my writing this riposte, and that I’d get back to him.”

“Good move,” I said.

“Well, it did seem to rattle him.”

Sauer’s reply offered a minor concession: after further consultation with “Legal,” he’d asked Julia to take out the sentence about lying naked underneath Marco on the hotel bed, and she’d agreed. “Less explicit that way,” Sauer wrote, “and we hope you feel that makes it acceptable. Planning to go to press end of month so you have another three plus weeks. Very hopeful you’ll send us something to accompany this lighthearted but important article. Think it over!”

There’d been a few more rounds of brinkmanship since then, but that was more or less where things stood that weekend. No commitment from Marco to write a response; no further concessions from Sauer except for an attempt at financial enticement (“fee could be negotiable if that helps”) to which Marco hadn’t deigned to respond; and a clock apparently ticking.