to do her job well and be patted on the back for it. She was my equal, and someone who challenged me. I knew if I married one of the girls I’d dated back in college I’d be bored before the first child was born, and I didn’t want to turn into the cliché Agency man with a woman or two on the side.
And she was Russian! How I loved her Russianness, although she claimed to be even more American than I. Eating homemade pelmeni in their quaint basement apartment; Mama—which she insisted I call her from day one—poking fun at my patrician Russian accent every chance she could get; I loved it all.
But when she pulled away, I’m ashamed to say I even tailed her home once or twice—to see if she was meeting another man. She wasn’t. But still.
So yeah, it was good to get away, and I was happy my destination was London. I loved the city: Noël Coward at the Café de Paris, rain jackets, rain bonnets, rain boots, Teddy boys, Teddy girls. Of course, I also loved the literature. I wished I could stay a week and visit the house where H. G. Wells died or the pub where C. S. Lewis had pints with Tolkien. But if all went according to plan, I’d get the job done in one night and be on a plane back to the States the following morning.
* * *
—
The friend I was meeting, code name Chaucer, wasn’t really a friend. I knew him, yes, and our lives had crossed over the subject of books several times. He was of medium height and medium build, and unremarkable in the ways we spooks strove to be. The one exception was his teeth: so white and straight you’d think he’d grown up in Scarsdale, not Liverpool. He could also switch accents to suit his company: posh among the posh, working-class among the working-class, Irish if speaking to a redhead. People found him charming, but I could only stand him for an hour or so.
Chaucer was twenty minutes late to our meeting at the George Inn. Making me wait, I was sure, was some sort of MI6 psych shit. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d arrived early and been watching me from a distance as I entered the pub, that he’d checked his pocket watch—definitely a pocket watch—and waited twenty minutes before entering. They were always pulling petty stuff like that and were quick to remind us lowly Americans at every opportunity that the Brits had hundreds of years over us in perfecting the craft. As Chaucer would say, he’d been in the game since I was in diapers.
Rumor had it that MI6 had acquired Zhivago in its original Russian when a plane carrying Feltrinelli was grounded in Malta after a sham emergency landing. Word was, officers posing as airport employees escorted Feltrinelli off the plane while another officer photographed the manuscript. I didn’t know if it was true, but it sure made a hell of a story.
I sat at the two-top under the head of a glass-eyed stag and downed two Irish whiskeys—my own psych move, I guess. The barman plunked down my fish and chips and mushy peas just as Chaucer stepped in from the rain, the collar of his black overcoat pushed up to his ears. He took off his hat and shook it, wetting the two French tourists sitting next to the door. He bowed in apology, then lumbered over to my table. I noticed he’d gained a little weight since the last time I’d seen him.
He noticed me looking him up and down. “You look thin,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He held up his left hand. “Married now.”
“That explains it.”
“That infamous dry Yank wit. How I’ve missed it.” He took a seat. “Heard you’re engaged yourself.”
“Not quite yet, but I’ll drink to it anyway.” I raised my glass and downed my whiskey.
“Want another glass of that Irish swill?” Before I could reply, he got up and went to the bar. He brought back two pints and handed me one. “They no longer carry Bushmills,” he said. “You know, Dickens used to frequent this place.” He reached for a soggy chip on my plate and pointed at the other end of the pub with it. “That was his spot. Wrote about it, even. Bleak House.”
“I think I read that somewhere.”
“Of course you did. What’s that motto you Americans have? Be prepared?”