He felt dizzy, and his mouth was dry. He spoke haltingly; every word could be a mistake. He talked about the meeting at the Old Heidelberg. He named names: Schmuederrich, Dr. Ritter, Dörsam, Duquesne, Max, Ludwig. He wasn’t sure if Ettinger’s nodding with the mention of each name meant that they were already known to them. Ettinger didn’t write anything down. He just looked at him. Then he put out his cigarette and said, “Max was trained in Germany. He was tasked with recruiting junior agents in New York. You’re probably one of them.”

“You know more than I do,” said Josef.

“That we’re not sure of. You can speak openly with me. Tell me what you know. What are they up to?”

Josef took a drag on his cigarette. Now he felt angry. “I was fired last year. I’ve got nothing to do with them now.”

“And what about the radio that you just built?”

Lauren had told them about the radio?

“I took the radio so it wouldn’t do any harm. I was going to destroy it. But then I couldn’t”—he hesitated and said quietly—bring myself to.”

Ettinger laughed. “Oh, is that so? You’re working against the Nazis? So why does your girlfriend go and report you to us?”

“It was a misunderstanding.”

Ettinger hesitated a moment, then he shook a new cigarette out of his pack. “Is the radio functional?”

“No. It’s missing a quarz. They’re hard to come by these days, as you know.”

“Take the quarz from your own radio. Get the device working so that it can transmit and receive, and then hand it over to the Germans.”

“Why should I do that?”

Ettinger stood up and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Wait here.”

The noise from the street came in from the open window. He stared at the tips of his shoes. He wasn’t going to take advantage of the opportunity to look around the room undisturbed, maybe even look at Ettinger’s notes. The ash on his cigarette grew ever longer. He couldn’t move, couldn’t bend over to reach the ashtray.

Ettinger came back with a young woman who brought a tray into the room. She poured him a cup of coffee and asked how he took it. He said milk, he said sugar, as if he were sitting in a café; meanwhile his life was at stake here. When they were alone again, Ettinger took a deep breath.

“Why don’t you tell me what information you sent last year.”

Although he felt nauseated, he took a sip of coffee, which immediately made the nausea even worse.

“I don’t know. They were just columns of numbers.”

“You never asked?”

“They told me it was all information that was available in American trade magazines and newspapers.”