The Double Game by Dan Fesperman

assignments, I never knowingly did anything for the Agency beyond a little consular paperwork—cleaning up a few passports, doling out visas for some of their émigrés, that sort of thing.”
    Well, that was one youthful illusion shattered, provided he was telling the truth. Then he had a question for me
    “This package Christoph gave you—did you open it? Because that’s certainly something I never did.”
    “Never?”
    “Why risk finding out something that could get me in trouble? What if I’d been hauled in for questioning by some foreign government? I might’ve lost my job, or worse. Was I curious? Sure, but never tempted. And I believe I asked you a question.”
    “Yes, I opened it. I took it down the street to a little Konditorei and sat in the back. It was nothing special. A German translation of London’s Own. Fourth printing of the paperback edition, unsigned.”
    I withheld the part about “Dewey” and the enclosed message. If he offered more maybe I’d reciprocate.
    “Right after I opened it I was accosted by this strange old troll who must have followed me from Kurzmann’s. His name was Lothar, and he sent you his regards.”
    Dad surprised me by smiling broadly.
    “The one and only? German fellow, looked like he might have just pulled an all-nighter with Mick and the Stones?”
    “With a cane that he taps like a telegraph.”
    “Complete affectation, but he’s entitled. Lothar Heinemann is a legend. Book scout extraordinaire.”
    “Book scout?”
    “How do you think I tracked down half my collection?” He waved an arm toward his shelves. “Some of the choicest finds were his. Ask Lothar to find a needle in a haystack and he’ll be back inside a week with five to choose from, plus a sewing box. He’s a genius. The problem is finding him. And, frankly, keeping him sober.”
    “Booze?”
    “Worse. Although I hear he’s been clean for years. Used to be very popular with Agency people. Ran off the rails for a while in the early seventies, but by then he was out of my price range. Too many other people wanted the same kind of stuff.”
    “Agency people collect spy novels?”
    “God, yes. At least half a dozen, to hear Lothar tell it, but I could never get him to spill any names. Lothar was always pretty cagey about who he was scouting for. But I do know one collector who never hired him. Edwin Lemaster.”
    “ He was a collector?”
    Dad gave me a smug look that suggested I should’ve know all along.
    “That’s how we became friends, since you’ve always wanted to know. Talking about books. I was a little surprised he didn’t bring it up back in eighty-four.”
    Finally.
    “So where did you meet? And what year?”
    “Oh, it must have been the late fifties. But I didn’t get to know him all that well until later, around sixty-seven. He’d just started writing Knee Knockers when we ran into each other at a bookstore in Budapest. He wasn’t comfortable telling the Agency about his little writing project, understandably, so I became a sounding board for his ideas—the plot, the characters. He loved the genre as much as I did, and wanted to be a part of it. I remember the day well. It was at Béla Szondi’s old store on Corvin Square.”
    “Didn’t you send me there once to pick up a package? Wrapped in butcher paper, even?”
    “I’m sure it was more than once.”
    So I was right.
    “Those were Agency errands?”
    “Lord, no. Do you really think I’d have dispatched my ten-year-old on a mission for the CIA?”
    A second illusion now lay in ruins, albeit one I’d concocted only that morning. Obviously my childhood hadn’t been as exciting as I thought, and I could only smile at my overactive imagination. It was the fault of those books on his shelves. Gazing up at them now, I easily recalled the way they’d once fired my youthful fantasies.
    I knew the vital statistics of his collection by heart: 218 novels by 47 authors. Eighteen had worked for intelligence agencies, six