“I don’t know what to think about anybody anymore.”
Even my father, I almost added, and Litzi seemed to realize I’d held something back. She lowered her seat and again curled up on her side, this time facing away from me.
I drove on toward Prague, alone with my worries.
27
The morning brought sunlight and a better mood. With nothing on our schedule until nightfall, when I was due to meet Bruzek at his bookstore, we slept late and awoke refreshed.
I went down to the lobby for a copy of the local English-language daily, then ordered a room service breakfast while Litzi showered. We moved the tray next to the open window, Litzi in her robe and me in a T-shirt and jeans. Whatever tension had existed the night before, a mutual calm now prevailed, and neither of us wanted to spoil it.
Litzi’s phone beeped, and she smiled when she saw the message.
“From your father,” she said. “Some friend of his ran down that email address.”
I eagerly looked over her shoulder, but the news was disappointing. The messages from K-Fresh 62 had been routed via servers in Vienna and London from points unknown, and the identity was registered to a John Brown of New York, New York. An obvious fake who knew how to cover his tracks.
“So much for that lead,” I said, gloomy again.
Litzi smiled and took my hand.
“We should do something fun this afternoon,” she said. “Go off by ourselves somewhere, if only for a while.”
“With only the Mullet for company? I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
She dropped my hand.
“Sorry,” I said. “But I think we’re running out of safe havens.”
“No. You’re right. If we go anywhere, we should stay in a crowd.”
She shook open the newspaper and disappeared behind it. I poked at my eggs and toast while she ate her yogurt and fruit.
But the strong coffee was like a tonic, and as the caffeine kicked in it felt for a moment as if we were an old married couple, comfortably recuperating from a night on the town. Outside our window the eaves were still dripping from the storm, and we could hear pigeons in the gutter, fretting through the debris. Then Litzi set down her cup with a clatter of china.
“My God!” She dropped the paper onto our breakfast, staring at the page.
“What’s wrong?”
“Bruzek is dead. Killed in his store, just after closing time.”
She showed me the story.
“Murdered?”
“An accident, it says.” She continued reading. “A shelf of books in his office. It fell on him. A relative—probably Anton, but it doesn’t say—heard the crash and found him underneath, buried under all those books. Apparently the shelving struck his head. An ambulance was called, but it was too late.”
I read the story. Two columns of type on an inside page, with a mug shot of Bruzek that must have been taken at least twenty years ago.
“Patricide,” I mumbled in disbelief.
“What?”
“The books. He bumped into those shelves while we were talking, and they creaked and swayed like a big tree about to fall. But he told me not to worry. He said the books were his children, and would never harm him.”
“How awful. For Anton, too.”
“Do you think that …?”
“Don’t even say it. Maybe it really was an accident.”
I shook my head.
“It’s too much of a coincidence.”
She pushed away the newspaper. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
“I have brought you nothing but harm,” she said.
“Easy. It’s not your doing.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Of course not.”
Although it had crossed my mind that events had taken a decidedly dangerous turn almost from the moment Litzi and I had joined forces. I doubted she was to blame, but we did seem like an unlucky combination. Since our reunion at the Bräunerhof there had been two deaths, two close scrapes with the police, and a sighting of a stalker outside Valerie Humphries’s farmhouse, plus all these people who seemed to be following us.
But why?
“These things we’re tracking happened almost half a century ago,” I said. “And the Soviet Union is dead and gone. What could possibly make it worth killing for?”
“Reputations are at stake. That’s always worth something.”
“Lemaster’s? He wouldn’t give a shit. It’s not like they’d prosecute him after all this time. If anything, he’d get a sales bump from the publicity.”
“There are such things as friends. Maybe he’d lose his?”
“He lives way back in the woods of Maine and keeps to himself. He hasn’t given an interview in years. All those generals he talks to for his techno-thrillers would probably cut him off, but I doubt they’re his type anyway. He’s just using them, and to hear my father talk, that’s how he’s always operated.”
“He didn’t use you, did he? Quite the opposite.”
“I’m not so sure anymore. From what Valerie Humphries said, he might have said all that just to taunt his enemies. It’s got to be something bigger, something beyond him.”
A knock at the door made us jump.
“Yes?” I called out.
A muffled voice replied: “Extra towels, sir.”
Litzi got up to let him in.
“Don’t!” But she was already opening the door.
I sprang from my seat and backed toward the window as the man entered. His face was obscured behind a stack of folded towels. I fully expected a gun barrel to poke out from the pile at any moment. Instead, he grabbed two towels off the top of the pile, put them on the foot of the bed, and left, shutting the door behind him. By then I’d backed myself into a corner and looked like a fool.
“Are you all right?” Litzi asked.
“Blame Eric Ambler,” I said. “Background to Danger. There’s a scene where someone tries to kill a man, and they get into his room by bringing extra towels.”
She shook her head.
“Next you’ll think I’m acting like someone in a book, and I’m guessing I won’t like the comparison. The women in those novels don’t come off very well, do they? No one ever seems to trust them. Just like with us.”
I wanted to disagree, but couldn’t. And she was right about the books, or a lot of them, anyway. I recalled Folly’s string of faithless lovers, and Smiley’s adulterous Lady Ann. The few women who were reliable seemed to either die or disappear, or descend into drunkenness like Connie Sachs. But instead of addressing Litzi’s statement head-on, I chose the coward’s way out.
“It’s getting late,” I said. “I should take a shower. Then we’ll talk. Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out.”
She nodded, but looked glum. I took one of the fresh towels and turned on the taps. As the hot water streamed down my face, I decided that, uncomfortable or not, I needed to start asking Litzi some tougher questions. In return, I’d open up a bit more myself. It might be awkward for a while, but it would put our minds at ease.
I must have been in there for ten minutes, letting the steam flush out my anxiety, and when I turned off the water, the only sound was the drip of the nozzle. I dried off, wrapped the towel around my waist, and stepped into an empty room.
Litzi was gone.
So were her bag and her purse.
All that remained from her was a handwritten note on hotel stationery, which sat in the middle of the bed like a dispatch from my handler. Before even reading it I threw open the door to listen for footsteps on the stairs, but there was only silence.
I sat on the bed, feeling that I’d committed the biggest blunder in years. Then I read the note:
I know that you do not fully trust me, and you are right to be this way. I am not yet worthy of your trust. So do not look for me, not only because you will not find me, but because it will divert you from what you must do to complete your work. Someday I will explain everything, but for the moment this is the best I can
offer: “When she left him two years later in favour of a Cuban motor racing driver, she announced enigmatically that if she hadn’t left him then, she never could have done.”
Love,
Litzi
I recognized her signoff right away. It was from the opening pages of le Carré’s first novel, Call for the Dead, a devastating summation of Smiley’s faithless wife, Lady Ann Sercomb. I wondered where on earth Litzi had found it, which of course only made me wonder once again about what she really knew, and how much she’d been holding back. She was right about my mistrust. Yet somehow her worthiness now seemed less in doubt than ever, and I mourned her absence.
I called her cell phone, but there was no answer. I pictured her already seated on a train bound for Vienna, alone in an empty compartment with the sun in her eyes.
“Litzi” was all I could say, whispering her name like a blind man calling out for help. “Litzi.”
28
For someone who had essentially been living alone for the past fifteen years, I felt surprisingly off balance as I headed to Antikvariát Drebitko shortly after midday. The hardest thing to get used to was the silence: no answering voice, no second set 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 Antikvariát 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 café 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. 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. 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 pa
rt 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 to 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.
The Double Game Page 24