sixteen Fedoras, and all fourteen Bonds with their beautiful jacket illustrations by Richard Chopping. He also grabbed up the first five books in Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm series-another man of action, and far worthier than the spoofy film portrayal by Dean Martin-and all four books in Adam Diment’s series featuring Philip McAlpine, a groovy Austin Powers prototype.
The more cerebral spies whom we now think of as the genre’s exemplars didn’t start showing up until ‘61, with Le Carre’s Smiley, and at first even he was more concerned with solving murders than digging out moles. Then, in ‘62, Len Deighton gave us something darker and more genuine to chew on with The Ipcress File, with its anonymous hero (a spy who didn’t acquire the Harry Palmer name until the books went to Hollywood). The following year Le Carre published The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, which made even Graham Greene gush, and afterward things were never the same.
Lemaster’s arrival at the end of the sixties led an American charge joined by Charles McCarry, Robert Littell, and even the political pundit William F. Buckley Jr. (I refused to read his Blackford Oakes spy novels after coming across two pedantic groaners in the first three paragraphs: “Johnny got orotund when he was tight” and “At Yale, mere registrars don’t summon students thus peremptorily.”)
The early seventies ushered in a golden age of Lemaster and Le Carre, plus Deighton and Adam Hall with his knotty string of Quiller novels. By the eighties, even some of the genre’s older hands were returning-Graham Greene, Ted Allbeury, Helen MacInnes, and E. Howard Hunt, the ex-CIA man notorious for his role in the Watergate scandal. Dad has seven Hunt novels dating back to 1942, and they’re not bad. Richard Helms used to give copies to friends back when he ran the Agency.
At the height of the Cold War, publishers were churning out so many spy novels that it was hard for collectors to keep pace. There was a spin-off from a comic strip (Modesty Blaise, by Peter O’Donnell), a quasi-spoof by an established literary author (Tremor of Intent, by Anthony Burgess, of A Clockwork Orange fame), and even a few Russian titles with KGB heroes by the Soviet writer Yulian Semyonov. Finally, William Hood, the aforementioned Angleton deputy, joined the fray with the novel that Litzi and I had just seen a page of, Spy Wednesday. His second novel, Cry Spy, published a few months after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, was the last non-Lemaster title my dad collected. The following year I gave him a signed copy of Le Carre’s The Secret Pilgrim, but he handed it right back and told me he was off the stuff for good. Soon afterward I did the same.
“Bill?” My dad called out through the haze. “Are you drifting away from me?”
“Sorry. Must be the wine. And the jet lag, of course.” But now I had a question for him. “Why did Lemaster never use Lothar?”
“For him half the fun was hunting down the titles. Of course that only piqued Lothar’s curiosity. Whenever I’d bump into him in some far-flung bookstall he’d always ask if I knew what Ed was up to.”
I noted the use of Lemaster’s nickname, the first time Dad had showed such familiarity.
“How well did you know Lemaster?”
“Mostly as a fellow book hound. And not as well as I thought, apparently.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s the kind of person you warm up to right away. Witty, engaging. Seems to open up in a hurry. Makes you feel like part of his inner circle. But after a while, you realize that’s as close as you’re going to get. Sort of like those old book clubs that used to lure you in with those great offers-any four for a dollar! — then, boom, no more freebies. Full price only.”
“Was it for professional reasons?”
“Not completely. But I’ve never known for sure. He was an enigma that way, and I’ve never heard differently from anyone else.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“He was doing secret work, son. His movements, his whereabouts, his contacts. All that, even the little things, had to be kept under wraps, even after he’d quit. He made that very clear to me.”
“But you knew. Why do you think he trusted you? You weren’t even in the Agency. Whatever happened to ‘Trust No One’?”
“Life. Life is what always happens to ‘Trust No One.’ “
A curious comment, and there was probably more behind it than Dad wanted to tell me. I could live with that. He had already been far more generous than I’d expected.
Now it was my turn to give. Not everything, of course. If he could hold some items in reserve, so could I, especially since what I had to say wasn’t going to be easy for either of us. I poured a shot of Johnnie Walker, swallowed, and waited for the little explosion of heat to reach the bottom of my throat.
Then I delivered the news.
11
“There was a name on the parcel I picked up today,” I said. “Dewey.”
For a moment I thought Dad was going to choke. His knuckles whitened on the glass.
“Why are you ambushing me with this so late in the day, and when I’m half in the bag? What’s your game, son?”
“Easy, Dad. Christoph said it was the name on your parcels, too. So I’m curious.”
“Christoph never should have told you that. I suppose I deserve it for telling you to ask that damn fool question about the Agency.”
“So who was he?”
“Dewey was a name without a face, presumably a code name for the next link in the chain. As soon as I dropped off the parcel I’d go to a phone booth-a different one every time-and dial a number that was on the sales receipt. Someone would pick up but would never say a word. I’d announce that Dewey’s package had arrived, and hang up. Were those your instructions?”
“No.” I hedged my answer, or maybe “lied” would be the better word. “I’m awaiting further instructions, which I’ll receive tomorrow.”
Dad frowned skeptically. He swallowed more whisky.
“You need to give up this ridiculous assignment, son. The sooner the better. Obviously someone means to do Ed harm, and by picking you as the agent of destruction they’re using you against me as well, and probably putting us both in harm’s way.”
“Against you? How so? Toward what end?”
“Whoever is behind this knows things that it would be in your best interest not to find out.”
“Meaning there’s still something you’re not telling me.”
“It’s for your protection. Always has been. Here you go stirring up old coals, trying to start a fire when you have no idea who’d get burned, just like you stirred things up back in eighty-four with that story on Ed, and look where that led. Do you think he was the only one whose career was damaged?”
“Did something happen to you?”
“I’m talking about you! Do you really believe you’d be slaving for those bootlicks at Ealing Wharton if you hadn’t set certain forces in motion?”
Never before had he spoken so harshly about my job. It stung, even though I shared his opinion. I must have reacted as if I’d taken a punch, because he quickly moved to make amends.
“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I know you’re not there by choice. Alimony, child support, it couldn’t have been easy.” He looked at his glass, as if the whisky might be to blame. “These are things I shouldn’t be saying.”
“What are you saying? You know why my career ran off the rails. It had nothing to do with the Lemaster story.”
Belgrade, that was why. The city where I lost my mom in ‘59 became the city where I lost my profession in ‘92. It was the year I finally landed a posting as a foreign correspondent, only to be denied a work visa by the Yugoslav government, which prompted the Post to recall me. Temporarily, they said, but things never worked out, and for me it was the beginning of the end. There was more to it than that, of course-newsroom politics, declining budgets, a marriage already strained by conflicting agendas. But in the “for want of a nail” category of small events
