For someone who had essentially been living alone for the past fifteen years, I felt surprisingly off balance as I headed to Antikvariat Drebitko shortly after midday. The hardest thing to get used to was the silence: no answering voice, no second step of footsteps marching in rhythm with mine. I missed her companionable warmth at my side.
There were trade-offs, of course. In the void of Litzi’s absence I felt more observant, more alert, although for the moment it hardly seemed worth it.
The door of the bookstore was locked shut. A red “Closed” sign was posted in the window next to a handwritten notice in Czech, which presumably said something about a death in the family. A well-wisher had left a small bouquet of roses on the doorstep.
I looked up toward the windows on the second floor, but there was no sign of movement. I knocked anyway, hoping Anton might be around, but after a minute or two it was clear there wasn’t going to be an answer.
It was time to leave Prague. The only question was whether to move on to Budapest as planned or quit this fool’s errand of retracing a forty-year-old trail of evidence. By returning to Vienna I might be able to make things right with Litzi. Seen in that light, it was a choice between flesh-and-blood friendship and a pulp-and-dust spy hunt.
Then I considered those roses on the doorstep, already wilting in the midday sun. And it struck me again, as it had that morning, that if people were still dying over these supposedly stale leads, then there must be something alarmingly fresh and potent about them. I remained undecided as I set out for my hotel to pack, but by the time I’d stopped by the desk to pay my bill, I was leaning toward Budapest.
I opened the door of my room to find Lothar Heinemann waiting for me. He was seated in a chair by the window, appearing out of nowhere like a disheveled old elf. His cane was propped against the wall, and he had already helped himself to a tiny bottle from the minibar-a Scotch, maybe the last one in Prague now that the Tartan Army had skipped town.
I paused in the doorway. If I was going to run, now was the time. But who runs from elves? For all my indignation at Lothar’s uninvited entry, his presence felt benign. So I shut the door behind me, and without uttering a word I headed for the minibar to pour myself a bourbon, neat. I sat facing him from the foot of the bed. When he seemed satisfied that I had nothing to say, he spoke.
“Three things you should know right away, Mr. Bill Cage. Item one, someone else besides me watched you go into Antikvariat Drebitko yesterday, and after closing hours he returned, whereupon he entered the store by unconventional means, through a window in the rear courtyard. While it’s still entirely possibly those bookshelves fell accidentally-they were damn well going to one of these days-I wouldn’t bank on it, and I don’t think the police will, either. Meaning you should probably leave town as soon as it’s convenient.”
“Who was it? Who did you see?”
“Item two. The man I saw, a rather large American with dreadfully styled hair, is at this very moment seated in a cafe directly across the street from your hotel, where he has just arrived along with a rather meaty Russian with some mileage on him, a fellow whose face and reputation-unsavory, believe me-I recall from many years ago.”
“They’re together?”
“Colleagues, by all appearances. In this matter, anyway. So if you do plan on leaving this establishment anytime soon, I’d advise you to exit through the back.”
“But why would-?”
Lothar raised his hand like a traffic cop, cutting me off.
“Item three. You’re better off without her.”
“Oh, so now you’re giving personal advice?”
“Under the circumstances, it seemed advisable.”
“Well, now that I finally have you somewhere you can’t run out on me, there are two more items you can add to your list. Four: Whatever happened to that novel of yours that was never published? Five: What the hell were you doing forty years ago when you went and scared the bejeezus out of Karel Vitova’s father? Were you full-time KGB, or just doing errands for them on the side?”
Lothar laughed so hard that he wheezed. He swallowed some Scotch to tamp down a cough.
“Oh, my. You’re still not adding things up to the right sums, are you? Even after all these days on the job. Which is one of the reasons I’m here. To help straighten you out.”
“Imagine my relief.”
“So you wish to know the details of my brief literary career?”
“Assuming that’s what my handler meant by telling me, ‘Find his work.’ Also assuming you were the model for Heinz Klarmann in A Lesson in Tradecraft. ”
Lothar smiled broadly and knocked back the last of the Scotch.
“Ed Lemaster’s little tribute to me. He got a very nice dinner out of it one weekend in Tangier. Plus one hell of a deal on a rare first edition of Conrad’s The Secret Agent, which I’d found in an absolute shithole of an Oxfam store in deepest, darkest Cornwall. Sold it to him for probably half of what I could’ve gotten from someone like your father. For that alone he should’ve put me in five more novels. But I can tell by the impatient look on your face that you’re not interested in hearing about my greatest hits as a book scout.”
“Why was your novel never published? And when you’ve answered that, maybe you can tell me why the man in the mullet has joined forces with the Hammerhead.”
“No idea on the latter, although it’s an excellent question. As for the former…” He slapped his hands on his knees and stood, more sprightly than I would have thought possible. “Let’s discuss it over lunch. There’s far too much to talk about for us to remain in this cramped old room. And you need to leave before the police come around, so grab your bag and drop the key on the bed. On your way out maybe you should mention to the front desk that you’re heading back to Vienna, for the benefit of all those people who will be stopping by to ask. Then, after lunch, I’ll get you started on a more roundabout route for Budapest.”
“How do you know I’m going to Budapest?”
“We’ll get to that. So what do you say?”
I said yes. How could I not? Then I packed, and followed his advice by mentioning to the desk clerk that I was catching the next train to Vienna. I exited the hotel in the back to find Lothar waiting in the alley, looking like a beggar as he leaned on his cane.
“Sausages and beer?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“I know just the place. Ed used it once, in London’s Own. Or maybe it was Requiem for a Spy. He killed a man there. Novelistically, I mean.”
“It was Requiem. The waiter who got a fork through the eye.”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“Was it based on anything Ed ever did?”
“Lord, no! Ed is many things, quite a few of them disagreeable, but he has never been a killer except on paper. Nowadays, of course, he has no compunction about wiping out entire villages of destitute Muslims.”
“He’s playing to the “red-meat crowd.”
“Angleton would’ve seen that as further evidence of his innocence.”
“So you know about all that?”
“Know about it? I was part of it. Why else would a simple old book scout take such an interest in your movements?” Lothar checked our flanks as we emerged onto a narrow lane at the end of the alley. He seemed so skittish that I wondered if he’d already spotted somebody.
“It’s probably best if we dispense with any further shoptalk until we’ve reached our destination. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Not that Lothar stopped talking. He remarked on just about everything in passing, from the increased number of Czech women wearing high boots and miniskirts-he heartily approved-to the proliferation of Franz Kafka kitsch in the local souvenir shops, which he scorned as hucksterism trying to look intellectual.
He stayed constantly alert, however-head swiveling, eyes in motion. He even refrained from tapping his cane, as if to maintain radio silence. A circuitous route led us a beer joint where we descended to the cellar and took a table by a rear doorway onto a basement-level alley.
No sooner had we sat down and ordered-sausages, sharp mustard, and a pitcher of pils-than Lothar pulled out a small round silver case, unscrewed the lid, and dabbed a pinkie inside. It emerged with a frosting of white powder, which he snorted into each nostril. He briefly shut his eyes as his cheeks flushed. Then he smiled and put away the case. My astonishment must have been obvious.
“You disapprove?”
“Dad told me you’d cleaned up your act.”
“Oh, I have. Smack was my downfall, and I’m off it forever. This is strictly for mood maintenance. Controlled doses, twice a day. No worse than a daily arthritis drug, or the little blue pill. Speaking of addictions, how’d you let her get away so easily?”
His mention of Litzi made me drain off half a glass of beer.
“Well?” he prompted. “Was it something you said?”
“More like something I didn’t say. When I came out of the shower, she was gone.”
“Just as well. She was on to you before I was.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Remember when we met? That bakery around the corner from Kurzmann’s?”
“Yes.” I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like this.
“I told you then that a fine-looking woman was on your tail.”
So he had. I’d assumed he meant the woman from Georgetown, whom I’d since forgotten all about.
“It was Litzi?”
He nodded, then frowned sympathetically. The beer sloshed coldly in my stomach as I considered the implications. But why should I believe Lothar? Maybe he was trying to mislead me.
“Bullshit.”
“Call and find out for yourself.”
“I’ve tried. She’s not answering.”
“I don’t mean her mobile. Phone her office. Ask where she is, and how long it’s been in the works. I did, just the other day. The answer was illuminating.”
I wasn’t ready for more bad news, but a creeping sense of dread told me it was unavoidable, so I retrieved her business card from my wallet and punched in the number for the Austrian National Library. Lothar polished off his first pint as he watched, then licked the foam from his upper lip.
A man answered on the fourth ring.
“Litzi Strauss, please.”
“She is away on annual leave.”
That didn’t sound very much like the last-minute getaway she’d described to me.
“When will she return?”
“Two weeks more from Monday.”
“Oh. Well, this is an old friend from the States. I’d, uh, heard she’d been called away on short notice, and I was concerned for her.”
“No, no. Her vacation has been scheduled for quite some time. Would you care to leave a message?”
“No, thank you.”
I set down the phone. Scheduled for quite some time. My handler must have arranged for her employment well in advance. If he had security connections, I suppose she would’ve been easy enough to find, and, as Dad had mentioned, she was probably still listed in some embassy file. For anyone who knew my background, she would have been the perfect choice for keeping tabs on my movements. No wonder I’d only had to deliver information once, by dropping off the photo negatives at a dead drop. Litzi had kept him abreast of everything else. The moment I started shutting her out, she quit. I should’ve heeded my earlier doubts. Instead, I’d kept on making a fool of myself. Maybe fifty-three was the age when, despite all your best efforts at maintenance and perseverance, everything began to crumble. Your knees, your waistline, your judgment. And now my optimism. If I’d hoped this enterprise would offer some payback for my previous mistakes, then the check had just bounced.
“Stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself. We’ve got a pitcher to finish. While you’re at it, take the battery out of your cell phone, and next time you’re out and about, buy a disposable one with a virgin SIM card. Your handler’s tools are obsolete, and so are yours, including that silly webcam. That means every other interested party in this affair has the jump on you. And, believe me, they’re out there, with encryption software, signal tracing, data mining, and satellite imagery. All you’ve got is a lot of quaint tricks from every novel you ever read as a boy. If you’re going to keep doing this, then you’d better start playing by newer rules than your handler’s.”
“I just hope my handler’s working for the right side. Sometimes I think he might even be working for Moscow.”
“Now that’s a laugh. Don’t worry, he’s American to the core.”
“How do you know so much about him?”
“Because he was my handler, too, once upon a time.”
I almost choked in midswallow. Lothar watched me wipe the beer from my chin while the news sank in.
“The Agency hired you?”
“It was a contract job. To track down this courier network Ed had supposedly engineered. A renegade transaction from start to finish. That’s why your movements intrigued me from the start, and why I’ve been following you ever since. I want to know why history is repeating itself. The same deliveries. The same contacts. The same old people doing the same old things they used to do, except now there’s no one left at the end of the line to receive all those messages that were once handled with such exquisite care.”
“No Dewey, you mean?”
“No Dewey, and no super-paranoid Jim Angleton hovering over everything like a malign cloud, although I’d wager his ghost is watching us with great perturbation.”
“Who is he, then?”
“Our handler?”
I nodded. He laughed.
“That’s the sort of information that must be earned. And you’re a long way from earning it.”
“You said you were here to straighten me out.”
“To a point. I want to help you, but not the jackass who’s running you. So for the moment I’m taking baby steps and watching your back. When I’m able to, of course. I still have my own affairs to attend to.”
“I guess this is how you know I’ll be heading to Budapest next.”
“Antikvarium Szondi. Except it’s no longer on Corvin Square. Try the row of bookshops along Museum Boulevard. I tracked you there once, when you were just a boy.”
“Me?”
It was an odd sensation, imagining a much younger Lothar shadowing a much younger me along mysterious streets that had gone fuzzy in my memory. It stirred an odd lightness in the hollow of my chest. Then skepticism took over.
“My father said he never used me for Dewey deliveries.”
“Never knowingly. In that sense he’s telling you the truth.”
“How would he not know?”
“The name Dewey wouldn’t even come up, although I think it’s the only code name the Agency ever got wind of, and Lemaster wouldn’t have made the request. Your dad probably thought he was doing a favor for the bookseller, or for some other friend. By the time this network was operating at its peak, people were doing things on Ed Lemaster’s behalf without the slightest clue of who they were assisting. That was the beauty of it. Even your friend Karel’s father made a delivery once.”
“Source Fishwife. Is that why you spoke to him?”
“Posing as a security policeman, of course. I think he was convinced I was with the Russians. Even with my German accent, in those days all you had to say to a Czech was ‘secret police’ and they would tell you anything. At one point Ed’s network got so busy that I even asked poor old Bruzek to begin keeping a ledger of related transactions. Not directly, of course, that would’ve blown my cover. So I chose a cutout, who in turn paid a certain young boy whom I had selected in advance to make the phone call, repeating my message word for word.”
Lothar smiled as he watched that sink in.
“So you used me, too.”
“How could I resist? You were an absolute star of a courier. Reliable, punctual, rain or shine. And tireless on the cobbles, like Zatopek. Over in Buda once you scampered up that steep hill by the tramway so fast that it damn near killed me. But of course I had vices then. And I was smoking, a pack a day.”
“I’m so relieved you gave up your vices. What made the Agency desperate enough to hire a drugged-out book scout?”
“They were less desperate than you think. I’d trained for the game once, which I’m sure they knew. I just never made it through finishing school.”
“The Farm?”
Lothar shook his head.
“MI6. They needed Germans in those days, especially Berliners. So they took me up to Hamburg and taught me all kinds of tricks, plus a lot of hocus-pocus. As someone smarter than me once said, they crammed two weeks of intense training into three months of crashing boredom.
“And, let’s face it, landing a top-notch book scout was a plus for them. They were already pretty sure this courier network was being run through a string of antiquarian shops and sellers, which meant I was equipped with the perfect contacts and the perfect cover. On both sides of the Iron Curtain. And I was already acquainted with Ed and his literary shopping habits.”
“Then why does our handler have me retracing your steps?”
“Because I never filed my report. Not the final one, anyway, the one with the best stuff. I was deep into smack by then, and not the most reliable fellow about dead drops and deadlines. So, at some point after I’d been AWOL for a week or two, he’d had enough. Traveled clear across the Atlantic to fire me, then demanded to see all my work. I told him to fuck off and vowed he’d never get a single line out of me unless I was paid in full, plus a bonus-my habit was quite expensive by then-and, well, he answered in kind. He must have thought I was bluffing.”
“But you weren’t?”
“Not in the least. But by the time he realized that, his grand inquisitor, Jim Angleton, had been sacked and Lemaster was a bestselling author on his way out the door. So everything sort of faded into the background. Until now, for whatever reason, when our dear handler seems to be giving it one last go and has anointed you as the new Lothar. From what I’ve seen of your work, I can’t imagine why.”
“Join the club. Neither can I.”
“You’re cheap. That’s one thing. That fake Russian he had following you ought to tell you something about his limited resources. I suppose he also appreciates that you know the books inside out. Otherwise you’re completely unqualified, meaning he’s desperate.”
“Well, if you really want to improve my job performance, just brief me on what you found out.”
“Why? So you can give him everything, free of charge? Besides”-and here he smiled coyly-“all that information is readily available in painstaking detail. You need only read it.”
He let me consider that for a second. After another swallow of beer, I had it.
“Your novel. You put everything into your novel.”
“It seemed like the best way to bring it to life. If he wouldn’t pay me, then I’d give it to the world, which could reimburse me copy by copy. I found a small press in Frankfurt that was very eager to publish. A shitty advance, but hopes were high.”
“What happened?”
“What do you think? Some asshole in Langley got wind of it before the ink was dry on the galleys. Even in the early seventies it wasn’t all that hard for the Occupation Powers to quash something like that if they deemed it sufficiently dangerous. They even broke into my apartment. Took every copy of my manuscript, and of course back then there were no CD-ROMs or memory sticks.”
“But you said there were galleys.”
“Very good. You do pay attention.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-five. As I said, it was a small press. They only printed enough for a select cadre of German dailies and magazines, but the copies had all been mailed out the day before the order came down, so my publisher sent out a recall notice.”
“Were they all returned?”
“Twenty-four were. But in Heidelberg some enterprising subeditor with a habit worse than mine had already sold it to a secondhand dealer, along with a boxful of other publisher freebies. He was so pharmaceutically addled that he couldn’t remember who’d paid him. And by then, of course, the Agency’s single best source on how to track down obscure book titles- the one person who might have found it-was persona non grata.”
“You.”
“Of course.”
“So you still have it?”
“Absolutely not. I knew my apartment would be the first place they’d look, and the one place they’d keep looking, year after year, or until they got tired of rifling through my shelves and pulling up floorboards. I decided it would be far safer in its original location. Or, rather, the location where it ended up, a few harmless transactions later.”
“You bought it back, then resold it to some more obscure vendor.”
“I made special arrangements, let’s put it that way. Sometimes it’s safest to hide in plain sight.”
“Well, that’s a big help.”
He shrugged, unmoved.
“It’s not somewhere you’ve never been, I will say that.”
“Seeing as how my dad must have dragged me into a zillion bookstores all over Europe, I’m not sure that’s a big help.”
“Then you’ll have to think like a book scout, that is, like a spy. Or, at least, like the only kind of spy that seems to appeal to you and me-the old-fashioned kind. Low-tech and low to the ground, surviving on his wits. And I promise you this. If you do find it, come to me first, and I’ll tell you his name.”
“My handler’s?”
“ Our handler’s. Then you’ll know why you should never hand him the information.”
“So, two people are dead, and you’re making a game out of it, too?”
“You’ve read the books. When has it not been a game? And when have the stakes ever been anything other than life or death?”
“Tell that to Bruzek’s nephew, Anton.”
“Poor old Bruzek. A greedy bastard, but he didn’t deserve that. Got a little careless in his old age, I suppose.”
“Then why haven’t they killed me? God knows I’ve been careless at times.”
“At times? Don’t flatter yourself. They don’t want to kill you. Not yet. Because they want you to succeed. They’re after the same thing you are, and they’re hoping you’ll lead them to it. Finding it is what will put you in mortal danger. Unless of course you lead them to something in the meantime that will allow them to figure it out for themselves. Then you’ll be equally disposable.”
“How will I know what that is?”
“You won’t. Which reminds me, you still haven’t removed the battery from your phone.”
I pulled the phone from my pocket and grudgingly popped out the battery.
“Here’s something else I don’t understand,” I said. “Why does this all have to be so damn complicated? The clues, the step-by-step instructions. Why can’t my handler-our handler-just tell me what he knows and what he wants me to find out?”
“Oh, c’mon. That’s the nature of the business. To hoard information and only dole it out on a need-to-know basis. To keep your operatives in the dark for as long as possible, if only to limit your own vulnerability. I always used to laugh whenever some stupid book critic complained about how byzantine Ed’s plots are, or whined that they had to peel away the meaning layer by layer, like an onion. If they only knew. The real thing is twice as complicated. And the layers? More like those fragile ones on a Greek pastry. The instant you try peeling one away, it crumbles in your fingers, until eventually you’re left with nothing.”
“That’s the way I feel about Lemaster sometimes, like he’s crumbling away to nothing. The more I find out about what he did, the less I learn about him.”
“You and everyone who knew him. For Ed, the best part of every relationship was the courtship. He enjoyed luring people into his orbit, and he had all the necessary tools-intelligence, wit, charm. Warmth, to a point. But his real knack was for knowing which piece of himself to put forth for your initial inspection. With your father it was his fascination with books. With me, our brand of Continental politics, the way we saw the world. But it was like he had a built-in thermostat, set to switch off whenever a friendship warmed to a certain level. You’d realize all of a sudden that he’d gone cold on you, even though he was still taking everything you had to offer.”
“Sounds like part of his tradecraft.”
“Possibly. But I think it came naturally. Maybe it’s the only way he knows how to be.”
“What piece did he give you? You said politics.”
“I was going through my ‘Don’t trust America’ phase, and Ed played right along, even though he knew I was aware of what he did for a living. He wasn’t too thrilled with what his country was becoming. The longer he stayed overseas, the more he became a European.”
“That sounds more like my dad than somebody who’d write those flag-wavers he’s been churning out lately.”
“Nobody was more surprised than me when Ed moved back across the water. And those recent novels?” Lothar shook his head.
“You think he does it to steal their secrets?”
“Possibly. Or maybe it’s just how he entertains himself now. Gain their trust, find out how they live, work, and play, then write them as caricatures while making a bundle into the bargain.”
The remark reminded me of what Lemaster had told me about the appeal of being a double agent-”to just walk through the looking glass and find out how they really lived on the other side, well, isn’t that the secret dream of every spy?”
Had that been more than just a motivation for spying-his blueprint for life, perhaps? I was silent for a moment. So was Lothar. Then he downed the last of his beer, licked his lips, and leaned across the table.
“Down to business. Now that you’re no longer carrying a homing beacon in your pocket, here’s how I would like you to proceed to the train station. After the way you’ve been blundering about, maybe a sudden burst of old-style tradecraft will actually catch them by surprise. If so, it might buy you a day or two without pursuit. With luck, that’s all you’ll need.”
He proceeded to outline a complicated sequence of tram rides, switched taxis, and brisk walks through crowded stores that would eventually take me to the train station. Then he checked his watch.
“You can still make the three-seventeen.” He handed me the plainest business card I’ve ever seen. No name, no title, no address. Just a number for a cell phone, written across the middle.
“To be used only in an emergency,” he said. “Ask for Heinz.”
“As in Klarmann.”
“Good. You’re not completely hopeless.”
He put a few crown notes on the table, then picked up his cane and stood to leave.
“Your life as a more polished operative, of the sort that might once have made Richard Folly proud, begins now,” he said.
I gathered up my bag, checked the bill to make sure he had left enough for both of us, then turned to say good-bye. But Lothar, who had been playing at this far longer than I, was already gone.