“I’m on the road about sixty percent of the time, I mean, I can understand how her attention might wander,” the gray-haired man said. “But I can’t fight off somebody I don’t know, you understand? And she won’t admit that anything’s going on. I see she’s got these little gifts, and she says she bought them herself. But I know better. These aren’t the sort of things you buy for yourself. These are the kinds of things a guy buys a woman, and I know, because I have. Hey, I’m not saying I’m perfect or anything. But we need to clear the air, my wife and I, and I really mean both of us. Look, I can’t believe I’m even doing what I’m doing. I’m not that kind of a guy, trust me.”

The courier shook his head sympathetically and then glanced at his watch. “You know, I meant what I said about criminal and civil prosecution. They spell that out when you join up, a dozen ways. You sign all kinds of contracts and if you’re found in violation, they’ll fry your ass.”

The wealthy cuckold was all dignity and caution. “They never will. I’m not asking you to divert anything, I’m not asking you to do anything wrong. All I’m asking is to see copies of the invoice slips. Not to have them, to see them. And if I learn something, if it’s the guy I think it is, nobody will ever know how. But I’m begging you, you’ve got to give Márta and me a chance. And this is the only way.”

The courier nodded briskly. “I’m going to get behind on my rounds if I don’t get a move on. How about you meet me at the atrium of the Sony Building, Fifty-fifth and Madison, in four hours?”

“You’re doing the right thing, my friend,” the man told him with fervor. He made no reference to the two thousand dollars he had “tipped” the courier; that would have been beneath the dignity of them both.

At the Sony atrium, hours later, sitting on a metal chair near a poured-concrete fountain, he was finally able to page through the invoices. He had been, he saw, too optimistic: the deliveries lacked a sender’s address, being marked only with a code of origination that indicated the general location of pickup. He persevered all the same, looking for a pattern. There were dozens of packages that arrived from all the expected locations, cities corresponding to the major Liberty Foundation branch offices. Yet there were also a handful of packages that were sent to Márta Lang from a location that corresponded to nothing at all. Why was Caslon Couriers making regular pickups from a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains?