_still_ don't know. They called me this evening, and said when they
got around to the motel to question you, you'd skipped out. They also
said that Massachusetts car was stolen. And there were a couple of
other things they'd picked up that they wouldn't tell me, but they've
got half the National Guard and all the Boy Scouts out after you by
now. They wanted me to tell them anything I could think of that might
help them find this place. I couldn't think of anything while I was
talking to them. Right afterwards, I remembered plenty of
things--which roads you were familiar with, and what you'd seen before
and what you hadn't, stuff like that, so--"

"So you--?"

"So I came out myself. I wanted to find you first. Listen, babe, I
love you. Maybe I'm a sucker, and maybe I'm nuts, and maybe
I-don't-know-what. But I figured maybe I could find out more, and
easier on you, than they could. And honey, it better be good, because
I don't think I've got what it would take to turn you in, and now I've
found you--"

He let it go there, but that was plenty. He was willing to listen. He
wanted to believe in me, because he wanted me. And finding me in the
house I'd described, where I'd said it was, had him half-convinced.
But I still had to explain those Massachusetts plates. And I couldn't.

I was psychologically incapable of telling him another lie, now, when
I knew I would never see him again, that this was the last time I
could ever possibly be close to him in any way. I couldn't estrange
myself by lying.

* * * * *

And I was _also_ psychologically incapable--I found out--of telling
the truth. They'd seen to that.

It was the first time I'd ever hated them. The first time, I suppose,
that I fully realized my position with them.

I could not tell the truth, and I would not tell a lie; all I could do
was explain this, and hope he would believe me. I could explain, too,
that I was no spy, no enemy; that those who had prevented me from
telling what I wanted to tell were no menace to his government or his
people.

He believed me.

It was just that simple. He believed me, because I suppose he knew,
without knowing how he knew it, that it was truth. Humans are not
incapable of communication; they are simply unaware of it.

I told him, also, that they were coming for me, that I had called
them, and--regretfully--that he had better leave before they came.

"You said they weren't enemies or crimi