Josef didn’t return Schmuederrich’s smile.

“What?” asked Schmuederrich. “What else do you want?”

“To quit. I’m not working for Germany.”

And then Schmuederrich said things that merged with a sudden droning in Josef’s ears, a droning as if through gauze, and later, back on 86th Street, he remembered some of them, things like Now, pull yourself together, you chump, you idiot, you pipsqueak, or else I’ll send a few guys round to see you and remind you who calls the shots around here.

When Max and Ludwig rang the doorbell the next day at the appointed time, he just didn’t open the door. They knocked. “It’s us, Josef. Open up.” He heard them talking to each other. Princess barked.

He left the apartment that night feeling triumphant, his mind on Thoreau. The next thing he knew, Princess’s damp breath was above him, her panting and her tongue, and there were faces all around him, lined up against the sky. Two men helped him to his feet and accompanied him up the stairs to his door.

“Thanks,” he mumbled and tried to close the door behind him. Then one of them pushed past him into the living room and checked over his equipment, whistling appreciatively. The other came in after him, jumped up on the coffee table, and checked the ceiling lamp. The first checked the wall sockets, the other started pulling out drawers, then they both got down on their knees and checked under the rug. Finally the second man said, “From now on no more funny business.” He said it in German. The dog whimpered, and when they were gone she jumped into the chair where Ludwig always sat, working on the encryption and nurturing his buzz.

He slept for a long time. He dreamed he had spiders on his hands, and he woke up when his hands started trying to shake the spiders off.

He dragged himself out of bed, his body leaden. He fed the dog and cooled his chin with a wet shirt. He put some coffee on, took the milk out of the refrigerator, and could tell from the way it moved around inside the carton—more shifting than sloshing—that it had gone bad. He poured it down the drain and washed the clotted white clumps away with water from the faucet.

His chin was mildly swollen. He felt the skin—no, it didn’t seem like anything was broken. He knew what a broken bone felt like. He knew it from having had a father who beat him enough to make it last. Every time, when it was over, his mother had said cheerily, “Now, that’ll be good for a week at least.”