Serafina

What I really wanted to be when I grew up was a spy.

Not a James Bond type (I’ve never had the haircut for it). And certainly not an actual spy–mired forever in government paperwork and politics with only brief intermissions where my life would be in terrible danger from enemies I never saw. No, I wanted to be a Cold War spy of the John LeCarre school, just some dowdy, plump little George Smiley clone, walking into and out of hostile territories like the world’s least objectionable traveling plumbing fixtures salesman.

I love LeCarre’s books and read them obsessively. And when I was a restaurant critic (closest this ex-cook, partially reformed fun-hog and total security risk was ever going to get to the covert world) , I used Smiley’s tradecraft as my model for how to carry out my day-to-day business affairs–learning fast and early how useful multiple fake identities could be, how a phony business card could open many doors, how to manage penetration agents in enemy territory, broker information and tail someone for days without them ever being the wiser.

It was fun. Most of the time, it was harmless. Sometimes it was not. And though I have been out in the overt world now for some time, I still remember a few tricks–which was how I ended up stalking this poor couple through the streets of Philadelphia this afternoon as they talked booze and restaurants, loving the fact that they knew, well…everything. Or almost everything, anyhow.

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