“You know, I don’t like you,” Clinton said.

“Good.” I looked out the window again. “What is he listening to?”

“If I find out, will you tell me something that happened in Miami?”

“Sure, why not?”

Clinton pulled out his phone and called Mitchell, asked what he was listening to, said that he didn’t need any help, just that he wanted to know what was on the radio. He hung up and looked at me.

“Well?” I asked.

“Patsy Cline. ‘Crazy.’”

“Really,” I said.

“That’s what he said. Your turn.”

“John Sill has a submarine,” I said, flatly.

“That’s something. What can you tell me about it?”

“It’s wet.”

“Does it figure into his plan?”

I leaned forward and he leaned forward to meet me. “What plan?”

“His scheme? Is he smuggling something into the country? Out of the country? You must know something.”

“Three questions. I’m sure he is. I’m sure he is. And that is necessarily true, if you are a Cartesian, which I am certain you are.” I stroked Trigo’s back. “How did you know I was in Miami? Wait, let me guess, you guys put a microchip just under my skin while I was unconscious, and you’re using global positioning to track my every move. Maybe in the back of my neck.”

“Nice. But no. We’re the government. We know where you are.”

“About the microchip, you wouldn’t tell me even if I was correct.”

Clinton shrugged.

I felt around the back of my neck and found nothing unusual.

“We know Sill is up to something. Just tell us what you know and all will be good in Mudville.”

“What?”

“Tell me what you know.”

“Nothing. I know nothing. I also know that Sill is up to nothing.”

“You’re telling me he’s not planning anything.”

“That’s not what I said. Listen this time. Sill is interested in nothing. He wants nothing. He plans to take nothing. He wants, rather needs, me because I know nothing.”

“Your colleague, Eigen Vector, what’s her part in this?” he asked.

The question bothered me. I felt him notice that it bothered me.

“Touch a nerve?”

“I don’t know why he wants her.”

“What can you tell me about her?”

“Only that she’s a brilliant topologist. That’s it.”

“You don’t care that she might be in trouble,” he stated as a question. “She’s down there in Miami still, isn’t she?”

I didn’t respond. I thought about Eigen, being treated the way she was being treated. And then I thought of Gloria, who might have flirted with me initially, but it now seemed unlikely, as our interactions, including her offer of sex, were all so mechanical.

“Professor Kitu?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I am worried about my friend.”

“Why is that?” he asked.

I looked at his face and imagined it as two-dimensional and so saw right through him. “You are a strange man,” I said.

Clinton stood. “All right, Professor. Just know that we’re everywhere.”

“I will rest comfortably knowing that,” I said.