I assured Mr. Contreras I wouldn’t go to the park alone: Mitch and Peppy were happy to be my guardians. I did my stretches, then tested my legs with a modest run. I stuck my Smith & Wesson in a fanny pack. It bounced uncomfortably against my abdomen as I jogged, but the bruise in my side was still too tender for me to carry a shoulder holster.

I could only manage three very slow miles, but I was happy to be in motion again. While I jogged, I kept the dogs closely leashed, much to their annoyance. They kept tugging at me, testing the muscles in my side. I turned around frequently to see who was coming up on me, but we did a little circuit of the harbor where the cops had found Lucian Frenada without anyone trying to shove me off the rocks.

On the way back to the car I called Morrell from a pay phone. I started to ask him about the LifeStory report, but he cut me short.

“You’re calling from a pay phone, but I’m on my home phone. I don’t think you can take any chances with these people. There’s a coffee shop two blocks north of where we ate last night. East side of the road. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Cops and robbers,” I muttered to the dogs. “Or paranoids and orderlies. This is ludicrous.”

Yesterday I’d accused Alex–Sandy of getting a Hollywood scriptwriter to devise the plot to frame me with cocaine in my office, but today I felt I was acting out a B movie myself, playing at spies, with a guy so nuts he wouldn’t use his first name. I drove up to Edgewater and cadged a container of water for the dogs while I waited for Morrell. When he arrived, he looked more worried than wild, but who knows what face paranoia turns to the world. I asked if this charade was really necessary.

“You’re the one who called me last night worried about eavesdroppers. As to whether it’s necessary—that’s the misery of this kind of situation. You don’t know if you’re being watched or making it up. The psychological toll rises so high that you almost welcome a chance to give in, just to have the uncertainty end. Which is why it’s important that teammates keep each other’s morale up.”

I felt chastened and took the manila envelope he was carrying with a mumbled thanks. “I know I came to you first, but it seems nuts to be playing James Bond in my own hometown.”

He bent over to greet the dogs, who were whining for attention. “That’s quite a collection of bruises you’ve got. They from your jump on Saturday?”