On the day Delilah was due to arrive, I checked out of Le Meridien and did some shopping in preparation for my transition from anonymous salaryman to the more cosmopolitan persona I think of as the real me. I bought pants, shirts, and a navy cashmere blazer at Aramis in Eixample; underwear, socks, and a few accessories at Furest on the Plaça de Catalunya; shoes at Casas in La Ribera; and a leather carrying bag to put it all in at Loewe, on the ground floor of the magnificent Casa Lleó Morera building on the Passeig de Gràcia. I paid cash for everything. When I was done, I found a restroom and changed into some of the new clothes, then caught a cab to the Hotel La Florida, where Delilah had made a reservation.

The ride from the city center took about twenty minutes, much of it up the winding road to the top of Mount Tibidabo. I had already reconnoitered the hotel and environs, of course, during my exploration of the city, but the approach was every bit as impressive the second time around. In the late afternoon sunlight, as the cab zigged and zagged its way up the steep mountain road, the city and all its possibilities appeared below me, then disappeared, then came tantalizingly back. And then vanished once again.

When the cab reached the entrance to the hotel, seven stories of taupe-painted plaster and balconied windows overlooking Barcelona and the Mediterranean beyond, a bellhop opened the door and welcomed me. I paid the driver, looked around, and got out. I had no particular reason to think Delilah or her people wanted me dead – if I had, I never would have agreed to meet her here – but still, I stood for a moment as the cab drove away, checking likely ambush positions. There weren't many. Exclusive properties like La Florida aren't welcoming to people who seem to be waiting around without a good reason. The hotels assume the lurker is a paparazzo waiting to shoot a celebrity with a camera, not a killer possessed of rather more lethal means and intent, but the result is the same: inhospitable terrain, which today would work in my favor.