“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 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
