The Once and Future Spy Read Free Page B

paper protected by a transparent folder. Wanamaker handed the folder across the desk to the
     Admiral.
    Peering through the lower part of his trifocals, Toothacher studied the printout. “Rods,” he read out loud. Then, “Hair triggers.”
     Then, “Wedges.”
    Wanamaker felt better than he had in days. He was glad he had sent for his mentor. He was sure the Admiral wouldn’t disappoint
     him. Like Mao Tse Tung, the Admiral understood that a journey of a thousand miles began with a single step.
    Reading the four words on the printout in the transparent folder had been that first step.

4

    T he Weeder, as usual, kept most of himself up his sleeve. “A bit of this, a bit of that,” he replied. His face corkscrewed
     into a sheepish grin; having to be coy about what he did for a living made him uncomfortable. He discovered sediment at the
     bottom of his wineglass and shook his head in annoyance. He had no respect for wines that voyaged badly; also for people.
     The thought crossed his mind that he was voyaging badly, but what could he say? That he prospected in currents of conversation
     for nuggets of treason? His physicist friend would laugh if he didn’t believe him and leave if he did.
    “You haven’t changed,” the physicist, whose name was Ethan Early, said. “Remember that American History professor who gave
     you an A because you knew more than you said, and me a C because I said more than I knew?” The physicist snickered pleasantly.
     “Why don’t you try telling the truth for once, Silas. The whole truth, nothing but.”
    “Whose truth?” the Weeder asked. “Which truth?”
    Nodding appreciatively, Early plunged on. “The word out on you is you don’t work for the State Department at all. A lot of
     your former classmates, me included, think you’re some sort of spook.” He leaned over the table; the southernmost handpainted
     sunflower on his silk tie slipped into his bowl of fettucini, but the Weeder didn’t say anything. “Own up, Silas. Do you carry
     cyanide pills and falsepassports?” Early asked eagerly. “Do you dot your
i
‘s with microdots and post your letters in dead drops? Are you armed?”
    “I
am
armed,” the Weeder said, “with a sense of humor. Which is what protects me from friends like you.” More coyness; another
     sheepish grin.
    At the next booth an elderly man raised his voice in frustration. “Admit it,” he whined. “Admit you slept with him.”
    The elderly woman sitting across from him pleaded, “Oh, God, you’re not going to dredge up something that happened forty-two
     years ago.”
    “Did you, yes or no, sleep with him?”
    “That was spilled milk, which you’re not supposed to cry over,” the woman complained. She was silent for a moment. Then she
     blurted out, “Sometimes I wish you’d die!”
    “I’m trying,” the old man retorted. And he emitted a high-pitched whistle that reminded the Weeder, sitting with his back
     to the two old people in the next booth, of steam seeping from a grudgingly open valve in his SoHo loft.
    The physicist leaned toward the Weeder. “What is your position on spilled milk?” he whispered.
    “If a historian isn’t interested in spilled milk, who is?” the Weeder said. “It’s the amniotic fluid of history.”
    “But do you cry over it, Silas, that’s the question?”
    “It is an article of faith with me that spilled milk is definitely something to cry over,” the Weeder assured his friend.
     He thought: If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be walking back the cat on Nate.
    “There is hope for you yet,” Early remarked.
    They were contemplating layered Italian desserts when the Weeder finally got around to steering the conversation onto physics.
     “And what frontiers are you pushing back these days?” he casually asked Early.
    “I am, believe it or not, counting hydrogen atoms,” the physicist replied.
    The waiter, passing, called, “So, everything all right?”
    “Your food is eatable,”