ON THE MORNING of the deadline, I was waiting in the BMW near Sara D. Roosevelt Park, about ten blocks from the Mott Street apartment, watching the readout on the iPhone. I’d been there since following Accinelli to his office as always, and so far he hadn’t moved. It was past eleven now, and I was beginning to think I might have to contact Hilger and tell him I needed more time. And then, just like that, the little light that represented Accinelli’s car on the phone started moving. Come on, I thought. Come this way. A little afternoon delight.

I watched as he headed west on the LIE, then the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. When I saw him approaching the Williamsburg Bridge, I was sure.

I affixed the little side-view mirror to the shades I had on and stepped out of the car. Almost every inch of me was covered in something: thermal underwear, work boots, the wool turtleneck sweater, the peacoat, the balaclava, the neoprene gloves. I put the chain over my neck, secured the bike helmet over the balaclava, and set the box of styrofoam peanuts on the ground. I took the bike out of the trunk, propped it against the car, and looked around. There were a couple of pickup basketball games going on at the park. Construction on a nearby street. No one was paying me any attention. I waited for a break in the traffic, for the intermittent clusters of passing pedestrians to thin, and then picked up the box by a plastic strap across its top and walked the bike away from the car. The box was large and awkward, but with only styrofoam peanuts inside, it weighed almost nothing. I had stripped off all the labeling; the box was now bare, and there was no way to tell what was inside it.

Two blocks from the car, I got on the bike and rode it one-handed to Mott, just another bike messenger in eclectic cold-weather gear, a heavy chain across my chest, peddling an old bicycle I’d painted ugly like all the messengers do so no one would want to steal it. I rolled slowly down the street, checking the hot spots, finding nothing out of place. Like the last time I was here, daylight mirrored the exterior of the glass door, making the apartment corridor invisible from the sidewalk. The call box in front of the apartment was once again festooned with notices from deliverymen, and I nodded, satisfied to have one less thing to worry about.

I leaned the bike against the wall of the apartment building, to the left of the door, the side that would open when Accinelli unlocked it. I set the box down and arranged the chain around the bicycle frame but didn’t actually lock it. I wouldn’t have cared if someone stole the bike right then, and I certainly didn’t want to have to waste time unlocking it when this was done. I just needed something to look busy with for the few minutes I waited for Accinelli.

I faced north on Mott, expecting him to arrive from the south side as he had before. The little side-view mirror gave me an excellent view of the street to my rear. From Accinelli’s standpoint, it would seem that my back was to him, that I was paying him no attention at all.

A minute later, I saw him turn the corner from Prince, heading toward me on my side of the street, gradually growing larger in the side view. A hot rush of adrenaline spread out from my gut and my heart started kicking. I glanced ahead and saw no problems.

I watched him come closer in the mirror. A charcoal suit today, and a yellow tie. His keys came out, like last time. Ten yards. Five. Three.

Just as he hit the bottom of the stairs, I straightened and picked up the box, struggling with it, exaggerating its heft and awkwardness. I turned toward him. He was at the top of the stairs now. I started up behind him. He put the key in the door and turned it. I was one step below him now. He pushed the door open.

“Can you hold that for me for a sec?” I asked, stepping across the threshold and thereby not giving him much of a choice.

I saw a second’s uncertainty ripple across his expression. Letting a stranger into a New York apartment building is a no-no. But with the outfit, the helmet, the box, I looked legit. And it would have been impolite to not even hold the door, to leave me standing outside in the cold with that heavy, awkward parcel. I knew that somewhere, deep in his instincts, he was wondering why the bike messenger didn’t just buzz the apartment of whoever the big box was for. But because more than anything else he wanted to end this transaction quickly, to get inside and be on his way with the least fuss possible, he would tell himself that surely I would have, could have, buzzed the apartment, but just happened to see him there, opening the door, and hoped he would be kind enough to help me…

“Sure,” he said, stepping to the right and holding the door as I passed him.

“Appreciate it,” I said, looking ahead over the box. A straight, plaster-walled corridor, empty. The only danger of interruption, someone coming down the elevator or in from the street. But at a little before noon, the middle of the workday, and with only thirty units in the building, the risk was small, and in any event unavoidable.

I set the box down next to the wall on my left with a grunt, leaving only a narrow space for Accinelli to get by me on the other side. I stood there as though catching my breath, ready for him to squeeze past.

Sudden, sickening doubt hammered me in the gut. A series of thoughts shot through my mind in preconscious shorthand, laser sharp and klaxon loud, the entire message delivered and received in a millisecond:

The whole thing’s a setup. There’s no mistress. Accinelli’s on the payroll. They staged it so you would follow him here, where he could take you out.

I spun counterclockwise to face him, my hands up, so sure I would be facing a gun or knife that as I came about and saw something in his fist, I didn’t stop, I just slapped it aside with my left hand. At the instant I made contact and the object broke loose to my left, I saw what it had been: his keys, and no more than that. Oh, shit.

The keys flew through the air. Accinelli’s head tracked them as they bounced off the corridor wall and hit the floor, his mouth wide open in surprise.

Oh, shit, I thought again. My paranoia had finally taken me over the edge. The setup had been so perfect-he’d been a half-second away from stepping past me, unconcernedly giving me his back. Now his expression was hardening, his arms coming up, his body blading to the left, the old soldier’s instincts kicking in, readying him to fight.

I wasn’t worried about whether I could handle him; I knew I could. But if I’d lost the element of surprise, if he fought me, there was no way it was going to look natural.

Decades of experience and underlying instinct took over. I stepped back and in a high voice said, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I thought…I thought you had a knife. Oh, my God, another flashback, I can’t believe this. I was mugged once, and…I’m so sorry.”

He looked at me, confused and incredulous. No doubt part of his mind was still screaming that I was a threat, but if I were, why had I stepped back instead of pressing the attack? And my manner now was passive, even submissive in the abjectness of my tone and my apologies. Before he had a chance to put it all together, I said, “Here, let me just pick those up for you. I’m so sorry.”

“No!” he said, his hands still up, palms forward. “No, it’s fine. I’ll get them myself.” He turned and took a step toward where the keys had landed.

“No, really,” I said, moving with him, the words tumbling out in urgent cadences. “I feel so bad. I can’t believe this happened to me again. It’s so embarrassing. The hospital told me with the medications it wouldn’t, and it’s been three months since the last one so why would I expect a problem? But I guess I should have…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said, now thoroughly convinced I was insane, and no doubt wanting more than ever just to be away from me.