Shortly before three he walked down Vandam Street, heading toward the river. The newsboys thrust the headlines in his face. He looked up at the sky that opened up beyond the canyon of buildings.

Two men were standing next to the wooden bench. One of them was Ettinger. The other, a chubby younger agent who turned eagerly to face Josef, with alert eyes and moist lips. But Ettinger grabbed his arm to hold him back and whispered something to him.

They walked along the water, one on either side of him. The friendliness was gone. No more cigarettes either. Ettinger seemed to look at him differently now. As if Josef had been putting on an act, while in truth he had always been one step ahead of him.

“The number of dead has gone up to fifty by now. There’s something you’re not telling us, Joe. Start talking.”

“Maybe it’s got something to do with this Sebold?”

“It most definitely does not have anything to do with Sebold. You have to get more out of Max.”

He looked at Ettinger, shaken, tried to connect back to what it had been like before, them smoking and looking at the skyline together. A certain trust. An understanding. In Ettinger’s eyes there was nothing.

* * *

In December he followed the light, how it pushed its way into the room a bit later every morning, and how the twilight began a little earlier every evening, pressing down on the afternoon and shortening it. The trees had lost their leaves early. New York faded into an all-pervasive gray, into cold, into white clouds of vapor in front of his nose, shapes swelling and then collapsing in on themselves; he watched them when he stood with Ettinger. He concentrated on the fog of Ettinger’s breath, which mixed with cigarette smoke. Ever more often now he thought, Arrest me already, you asshole. This voice in his head, Arrest me, you asshole, and clouds of vapor; these meetings consisted of nothing else.

He now drove the delivery truck for Max. Ludwig had been arrested for shoplifting. He had slid some expensive cigars from their case at Macy’s and then pocketed them; Ettinger told him. Max still didn’t know why Ludwig had disappeared. Max, who by this point had improved his Morse code skills, sat with his mouth twisted up among the drink crates. Josef steered the truck through Brooklyn, keeping his eyes open for traffic cops. Ettinger let him know beforehand which routes were safe. Sometimes he noticed Ettinger in a car behind them. He knew that they listened in on Max’s transmissions.

Today, a leaden gray afternoon in Central Park, Ettinger arrived a few minutes late. He held a bag of roasted chestnuts in his hand, offering Josef some. To be polite, he fished one out. Josef almost thought he heard a hissing sound when he touched it—they were piping hot.

“The Hercules explosion was an accident, Joe.”