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.
29
I hadn’t been to Budapest since I was eleven. My three years there were like a mirage, quivering on the horizon of that long-ago era before girlfriends, running, and the imaginary worlds within Dad’s books.
It was the one European home that initially felt foreign to me, probably because we moved there from Washington. To a kid fresh out America the city was old and oppressive, smelling of coal smoke and cabbage. The cars were clunky. The boys wore boxy shorts and bad haircuts. Television flickered with unfamiliar faces speaking a harsh new tongue, and none seemed half as welcoming as Jackie Gleason or even Ed Sullivan.
In my only memory from our first week, I am wearing a cherished coonskin cap straight out of Disney. Dad and I are waiting for a tram when a foul odor blows up from the street, and I wrinkle my nose in disgust.
“The sewers,” Dad explains. “They’re very old here.”
As I grew familiar with these gusts of ill wind in city after city, I came to regard them as the labored breath of Europe’s past, struggling up from its mass grave beneath the streets. When I told this to my father, years later, he turned pensive.
“Budapest cast a shadow over you before we even got there. You were born in Vienna the week the Red Army rolled into Hungary. Our embassy was the main listening post, and everyone was devastated. We’d egged the poor bastards on, then none of us lifted a finger to help. That’s when it finally sank in that, in Europe at least, all the fighting from then on was going to be done by spies and propagandists.”
And, as I know now, Budapest was where I began my career as a courier for Edwin Lemaster. My unwitting father saw those errands as a chance for me to earn pocket money while building up family goodwill at stores where he loved to browse. I wondered if they’d still be happy to see me.
The train stopped briefly in Vienna on its arc toward Budapest. I toyed with hopping off to look for Litzi, and took out my cheap new cell phone to call her before deciding against it. I played peek-a-boo awhile with a toddler in the next row, smiling as he squealed in delight. His beautiful Earth Mother mom took great joy in him, and I was glad Litzi had been spared this scene of maternal bliss. I missed her, then was angry with her. I again took out my phone, this time to call David. But by then we were deep in farm country and the signal failed.
After reaching Budapest well after dark, I caught a subway to the stop nearest Antikvarium Szondi and found a room in a small hotel. No one seemed to be following me yet, and to maintain my new advantage I holed up for the rest of the night, eating next door and retiring early. In the morning, after a cold breakfast and a pot of coffee, I set out for the bookstore. I arrived just as an older man who seemed to be the proprietor was cranking down the awning.
“Mr. Szondi?” I said, without even a clue as to whether he spoke English.
“Bela or Ferenc?”
“Whoever’s in charge.”
“Neither. Ferenc was until he became too ill. Bela took over a few years ago, but he sold the store to me last month. I am sorry if you have been inconvenienced.”
He folded away the crank handle, then squinted into the sun to observe me better.
“I am Andris Laszlo. And your name, sir?”
“Bill Cage. I’ve come over from the States.”
A look of mild concern flitted across his features.
“I was not expecting you so soon, although I suppose nothing should surprise me after what has been happening lately.”
“You were expecting me?”
He looked up and down the sidewalk, then back at me.
“Please come inside. I have something for you.”
He went behind the register and reached beneath it for a small parcel, book-sized, wrapped in butcher paper. Just like the good old days, although this fellow didn’t seem familiar with his role. There was no writing on the outside except the price, which was about the same as I’d paid in Vienna once you converted it to forints.
“It’s the way old Ferenc used to wrap everything,” Laszlo said. He seemed to be watching me closely. “They stopped using paper like that years ago.”
