The spy who bored me

The Report, May 28, 2001

I took fright when James Leigh began to cry. There I was, in the London, Ont., home of the spy who was hired/not hired by Stockwell "I met him/I didn't meet him" Day, when he announced he had something special he wanted to read. It was a "farewell letter." It occurred to me that male suicides often decide to take others out with them.
But I didn't snuff it, as Alex says in A Clockwork Orange, or I wouldn't be here to tell this tale, would I? I met James Leigh on May 1. He had called me at home a week earlier, three weeks after the Globe and Mail reported that he had met with Mr. Day at the behest of MPs Darrel Stinson and Myron Thompson and had been offered a $6,500-a-month contract to investigate Jean Chretien. Mr. Day first confirmed he had met Mr. Leigh but then insisted there was no contract and that he had only said he had met him because the Globe had said so. What limited confidence remained in Mr. Day's leadership promptly collapsed.
I don't know how James Leigh (not his real name) got my number or why he wanted to talk to me. He knew nothing about me but did know that my magazine was connected to Ted Byfield. He said he had attended St. John's School, which Ted Byfield founded. He wanted to speak to Ted. I said I'd try. Ted wasn't available. How about Link Byfield, he asked.
It is generally accepted that Mr. Leigh had given the Alliance two top-secret documents on Chinese organized crime in Canada, including the notorious Project Sidewinder report. He told Link Byfield he had more. He could prove that the Alliance was spying on party dissidents. Mr. Leigh had told Maclean's he had proof he had indeed met Mr. Day. If either of these claims could be substantiated, I would need a mantelpiece to display my trophies. I arranged a trip to London.
I arrived at 9 p.m. Mr. Leigh has been linked to motorcycle gangs, and Maclean's reported bodyguards. I never saw any. An Oriental woman with no English led me to the basement. Mr. Leigh, about six-foot-four and 300 pounds, was supine on a loveseat, a hotpot balanced on his chest, resting atop a titanic potbelly. He wore a dark blue sweatshirt, tan shorts, athletic socks and an Indian Motorcycle cap. He didn't get up and continued to shovel food into his mouth. Then he began to choke. The fit lasted, intermittently, for five minutes. I looked around. White walls, white carpeting, track lighting. Two notebook computers, two cell phones, a remote e-mail device. A Sony WEGA TV, DVD player and speakers. Action-adventure DVDs, including the box set of that paranoia classic, Alien.
James Leigh is one heavy breather. The LED on my voice-activated recorder flickered as the air entered and departed his nose and mouth. "Did you meet Stockwell Day?" I asked. "Did I meet Stockwell Day?" he responded. Oh boy, here we go. Mostly he wanted to ask me questions such as:
"Was Jesus black?"
[Bemusement.] "I don't think so. Jesus was a Jew, and Jews aren't black."
"Jew is a religion, not a race." What the Southern Baptists and the KKK don't understand, etc., etc.
"Are people afraid to die?"
"I think people are afraid to die."
"No, people aren't afraid to die. They're afraid of not having lived."
I realized with horror that I was in the presence of what the British call a "saloon-bar Napoleon," a would-be polymath who won't let you escape until you've imbibed all his "theories"—only once, if you're lucky. I was not lucky.
The pub bore act alternated with bouts of acute Attention Deficit Disorder. "Are you tired? How did you get here? You weren't a St. John's boy, were you? What's Link Byfield's position? What's your position? What's your favourite movie? Do you like naked women?" [Consternation.] I replied, "Uh, yeah. But not right now."
"Have you ever been to Asia? One night in Bangkok will change your life."
Occasionally, he communicated a subtle menace. "You've got to mellow out," he demanded. "You're a really tough guy to deal with. You're not really friendly, are you?" I'm not a mellow person at the best of times, and this was definitely not the best of times. I had travelled 3,000 miles to listen to some guy who told his wife that I'm a "reporter from the Vancouver Gay News," asked me for a job and how to spell "bankruptcy," referred to me as "Ted" or "Ken" or "asshole," fiddled with his e-mail and his cell phones—and answered all my questions with questions.
I scraped together his résumé: Canadian-born, ran away from home at 13, never graduated from high school, went to the U.S., then Fiji, then Australia, where he claims he was recruited by American intelligence. Undercover work in Tonga, Korea and China. Fluent in five languages, been to 65 countries.
I tried again. "I don't care what the Alliance says," I said. "Did you meet Stockwell Day?"
"The Alliance has got me by the balls. They'll say I'm a liar whatever I say."
"Do you have proof you met with Stockwell Day?"
"No." Finally, a direct answer.
Mr. Leigh believes there is a conspiracy to destroy Stockwell Day. Has he proof? No. Was the Alliance spying on its own dissidents? Yes. Proof? No. He claims he was given Sidewinder by a reporter. He says this same reporter fabricated a document for him to pass on, but he refused. Who's the reporter? "That's the 60-million-dollar question." Was it (here I drop the name of a certain national reporter) M? "I'm not telling." He suggests that he forged the Business Development Bank documents that embarrassed the National Post and says he knows who the fourth investor in Mr. Chretien's hotel is.
We do know that Mr. Leigh was visited earlier by Canadian Alliance co-president Ken Kalopsis and that an angry e-mail exchange between Mr. Kalopsis and House Leader John Reynolds was leaked to the Globe. Mr. Leigh claims he chucked a cell phone at Mr. Kalopsis and evicted him and a party lawyer because the Alliance reneged on a promise to give him and his family new identities. Mr. Leigh claims that the rumour, reported on Pierre Bourque's Web site, of a spy posing as a janitor working in the Alliance offices in the House of Commons is true. I am dubious, because I had to explain to him who Pierre Bourque is.
He tells me a top-secret fax was stolen from Mr. Stinson's office that morning and that the Alliance was agog. He then reads the fax, which is the aforementioned suicide note. Excerpts: "Everyone screams out for fair. That's not fair. Or they weren't fair to me. Exactly who wrote the book on fair and where do I buy a copy? I can't find it in my local library and it's not sold at Chapters..." How very much like the letter Humbert Humbert makes Clare Quilty read in Stanley Kubrick's movie of Lolita: "It's getting a bit repetitious, isn't it?"
Then the phone rings again. It's Darrel Stinson! Or a man claiming to be Darrel Stinson. Mr. Leigh is still negotiating for a job! Then he puts me on the phone with Mr. Stinson, ordering me not to reveal my identity. It sure sounds like Darrel Stinson (I called him after I returned to Vancouver, but he did not return my call). I find myself explaining again who Pierre Bourque is. Mr. Leigh says this is off the record. I agree, reminding myself silently that agreements made under duress are void.
All he cares about, Mr. Leigh tells me, are his "babies." He says he is prepared to go to China and give himself up; otherwise, a triad hit squad will kill his family. I reflect that I know this man's real name, his wife's name, his address and his phone number—and this didn't take much investigation. If I know, the triads can surely find out. But there is a card on his desk, with various Chinese names and the number of an Air Canada flight to Hong Kong. He insists I see his 10-month-old child. His wife demurs, but we trudge up three flights of stairs, to a bedroom where his wife and her mother are cowering. On the bed is the baby. It is 11:30 p.m. In another room sits his wide-awake six-year-old son. We trudge downstairs. Mr. Leigh is crying again. I ask him to call me a cab. "You're a cab," he says. Oh boy. I try to remember the way out. I think I could outrun him.
He asks me if I know Ted Byfield's home number. I lie. He calls directory assistance. He reaches Ted and reminisces about old times at St. John's. He asks Ted for a job and then puts me on the phone. I consider asking Ted to call the police. Ted says goodbye, and Mr. Leigh offers me a lift to my hotel. "Do you mind riding in a Mercedes?" he asks. I tell the truth. It's a Mercedes SUV. On the way out, he makes sure to show off his two new sundecks. On the way back, he asks me if I like him. I lie. He asks me if I got everything I needed. I lie. He asks me if he is not the weirdest man I have ever met. I tell him it depends on what he means by weird. He lets me out at the hotel entrance at midnight.......
I go to the bar to get something to eat. The Blue Jays are playing in Oakland. They tie the game in the top of the 9th, then Alex Gonzalez hits a solo shot in the 10th to win it. So my day isn’t completely wasted.
Kevin Michael Grace, 6.54 a.m., February 26, 2003