Robert Ludlum calls!

        Robert Ludlum calls Stan

Yep..out of the blue late, really late one night Ludlum calls on the regular call in line and my board operator startles me with the news

“Robert Ludlum is on line one”

  I press the button and say...

“Is this THE REAL Robert Ludlum???”

“It is, Stanley, indeed the real Robert Ludlum”.  

“I wanted you to know that Jason Bourne is retired and alive and well...and last I heard selling hotdogs in a push cart somewhere!”

Ludlum went on to say he was listening in Naples, Florida in his high rise condo on the beach....but the station that came in best was in Birmingham  (WAPI) their big signal shooting over the gulf into Florida.  He also said he had tried to call the night before but couldn’t get through.  
        "I remember calling you myself on the Larry King Show and joking about keeping Naples a secret."
         "It's not much of a secret anymore!"

As it was about 4:15AM I ask what he was doing up at that hour and he said this is when I write. 

“I can get things done because the damn telephone isn’t ringing!”

“I used to go to bed with a bottle of scotch at this hour.”

The first Matt Damon-Bourne flick (The Bourne Identity)was made in 2002 and his call to me was sometime in the mid 90’s so I doubt he had any idea of the “lease” on life Jason Bourne was going to get because of Matt Damon.  

I ask him what his latest novel was and he said “Road To Gandolfo”...but added that’s not why he was calling.

Then he told me he enjoyed the show complimented me on it and rang off.

Several months later I received a copy of his book nicely inscribed.

So says THE Robert Ludlum...a fan!

 

stanmajor@aol.com