It was more of a seduction than a recruitment.

Not that Art was hard to seduce.

They have a nose for guys like me, Art thought later. The lost, the lonely, the bicultural misfits with a foot in two worlds and a place in neither. And you were perfect for them-smart, street-tough, ambitious. You looked white but you fought brown. All you needed was the polish, and they gave you that.

Then came the small errands: “Arturo, there’s a Bolivian professor visiting. Could you escort him around the city?” A few more of those, then, “Arturo, what does Dr. Echeverria like to do in his leisure time? Does he drink? Does he like the girls? No? Perhaps the boys?” Then, “Arturo, if Professor Mendez wanted some marijuana, could you get it for him?” “Arturo, could you tell me who our distinguished poet friend is speaking to on the telephone?” “Arturo, this is a listening device. If you could perhaps insinuate it into his room…”

Art did it all without blinking, and did it all well.

They handed him his diploma and a ticket to Langley practically at the same time. Explaining this to Althie was an interesting exercise. “I can sort of tell you, but I can’t really,” was about the best he could manage. She wasn’t stupid; she got it.

“Boxing,” she told him, “is the perfect metaphor for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“The art of keeping things out,” she said. “You’re so skilled at it. Nothing touches you.”

That’s not true, Art thought. You touch me.

They got married a few weeks before he shipped out to Vietnam. He’d write her long, passionate letters that never included anything about what he actually did. He was changed when he got home, she thought; of course he was, why wouldn’t he be? But the insularity that had always been there was intensified. He could suddenly put oceans of emotional distance between them and deny that he was doing it. Then he would revert to being that sweet, intensely affectionate man with whom she had fallen in love.