“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 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. HHe 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 Braunerhof 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.
“I suppose 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 you like 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, or 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 Le Carre’s first novel, Call for the Dead, a devastating summation of Smiley’s adulterous 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.
