The Vespa buzzed away, followed so closely by a minibus that the scooter might have been acting as an escort vehicle. The van was unmarked—but not the man in the passenger seat. The butterfly bandage bridging his nose was a dead giveaway. His ponytail swished against the window and I knew I was looking at my favorite television cameraman.
I jumped back and pressed myself against the door behind me.
Both Ponytail and the driver were staring at the other side of the street. As I watched, the driver pulled into a loading zone in front of the ship chandlery. He shut off the engine and the lights. And then both men disappeared from view, into the back of the van. Perfectly positioned to film anyone going into or out of The 21 Club.
Somebody had tipped off the press that Casey Collins was planning to visit Sándor Biczó.
11
I scanned the sidewalks in both directions. A leftover hippie type lingered near a vendor’s cart. Was he taking too long to eat those Belgian fries? Might he be a cop, under cover? My gaze went back to the BMW. Maybe the men inside were a pair of FBI agents.
I stayed in that doorway for another five minutes. The BMW left. The hippie stumbled past, eyes glazed from whatever he’d drunk before he stopped to dine on potatoes. The crowd shifted, eddied, changed faces. Only me, my tail, and the news van remained stationary.
No police types were here yet. But one of the press people would call the cops as soon as I was spotted. Filming my arrest had to be their goal. If I was careful, I could slip past the van and into the bar. But it was likely UNN had someone waiting inside. Their man would be interested in any strange woman coming through the door. Asking for the Hungarian would be like holding up a sign with my name on it. And if Biczó was there, I couldn’t stick around and talk with him.
I pulled my jacket tighter. The sheepskin collar was coarse against the back of my neck. My shoulders drew back; my arms moved away from my sides. I shoved at the jacket sleeves, pushing them higher up my arms. Felt my biceps harden. I spread my feet wider. My rib cage expanded as I inhaled. And then, under my breath, I muttered the Flemish curse I’d heard over the roar of the Vespa.
I could handle it. What was the response time for the Antwerp police force? Had to be at least three minutes. So get in and get out in under three minutes. Tight. But workable.
I stuffed my gloves into a pocket, pulled out pencil and paper. I scrawled a brief note, one I hoped would convince Biczó to keep a date with me tomorrow noon. Then I covered my new hairdo with a soiled knitted cap of mustard-colored wool, faded so that it was only a shade darker than the pale circle of my face.
I joined a group of merchant seamen rolling down the sidewalk and used them as a shield as I crossed to the other side of the street. The Chechen picked me up right away and followed. I edged in front of the men admiring the black girl and opened the heavy wooden door beneath the neon sign.
A hallway cut six feet straight back to a second door. It opened into a rectangular room, maybe thirty feet wide and as deep, the expanse of polished floor tiled in black-and-white squares. An oval bar stood in the center, stemware dangling from a wooden rack above it, a slender bartender wiping the ebony top. Scattered across the checkerboard floor were settees and armchairs upholstered in red imitation leather. I ignored the men lounging on the furniture and headed straight for the bar.
The brown eyes of the undersized bartender were almost black, as shiny as the hair slicked tight to his head. With his white shirt and black bow tie, he looked as though he’d been hired to match the decor. He gave me an inquiring glance and asked a question. His Slavic accent twisted the words into something that sounded like no language I knew.
Cool air touched the back of my head. The door behind me had opened. In the mirror above the bar I saw the reflection of the man following me. His expression was confused, as though he’d wandered too far out of his league. He edged over to an empty settee and sat.
The mirror showed movement down the bar to my right. A head turning my way. The newsie? Figure yes and move fast.
My glance went back to the bartender. He was watching the man who’d entered after me. The bartender’s face was frozen into a questioning look, still waiting for an answer to his garbled what’ll-you-have.
I leaned across the bar and said softly, “I have a message for Sándor Biczó.”
The bartender looked as if he hadn’t heard what I’d said. His right hand was sliding slowly back toward his edge of the bar.
I grabbed his right wrist with my left hand and yanked, pulling him off-balance. He had to slap his left hand on the bar to keep from hitting the counter with his nose. His face was so close I could see the delicate fringe of eyelashes along his lower lids. I leaned closer and breathed out, “Please,” while with my right hand I pressed a five-hundred-franc note into the hand I’d captured. “Please,” I said. “Don’t ring for anyone.”
He pushed himself upright, and his fingers tightened around the money. His carpal bones felt as thin and brittle as those of a bird. I released his wrist and slid my note toward him. “Give my message to Mr. Biczó.”
He covered the scrap of paper with his left hand. His expression was unreadable as his right hand slid back, again automatically reaching beneath the bar. Calling the in-house thugs? Maybe they liked to screen Mr. Biczó’s visitors.
I sensed movement to my right as the newsie got off his bar stool.
I turned and sprinted for the exit. From behind me came the slap of two pairs of shoe soles running over tile. The bartender yelled in Russian, staccato instructions. I heard the soft thud of bodies colliding. A curse in Arabic. A shrill “Sumbitch!” shrieked in a New Jersey accent. The all-purpose “Fuck your mother” in Russian. Sounds of blows against flesh. Scuffling shoes. Then I was through the exterior door.
I plunged across the crowded sidewalk and into the street. I tugged at my cap, pulling it lower on my forehead as I dodged around a bicycle. I was facing the news van. The rear door popped open. Ponytail yelled, “It’s her!” He jumped to the ground and raised the camcorder to his shoulder.
A second man leaped out, holding a walkie-talkie. “She’s here,” he shouted into it. “She’s right here.”
A third man leaned out the driver’s window. “Shut those damn doors,” he ordered Ponytail. The van’s engine roared. Its headlights came on and it reversed a foot.
Behind me, I felt a blast of warm air and heard an eruption of male voices.
I charged in front of the van and down an alley beside the ship chandlery. I heard more shouting behind me, running feet, the van’s motor revving. As its headlights lit the passageway, I reached the other end. I shot to my left down a narrow backstreet and around a corner into open space. I avoided a cluster of drunken sailors, cut past an imposing church and fled into another set of streets containing a jumble of architectural styles.
I paused at the corner of a broad avenue. My breath was ragged, my side ached and I was soaked with sweat. Across the avenue was a strip of tree-lined park, the barren branches stretching toward a gloomy castle. The forbidding battlements reminded me of the Kronborg fortress. Of that awful moment in Denmark when I had tried to accept that Stefan was dead.
I turned toward the sound of a straining engine. The news van was creeping toward me, Ponytail hanging out the passenger window.
I put my head down and ran directly at the van, and then past it up the street. I dodged to my right when I saw the marked police car bearing down on me. I shoved upstream through a crowd of office workers rank with tobacco and aftershave. I slowed at Grote Markt, trying to blend into the crowd. Silvius Brabo towered above me, the statue greenish gray in the dusky light, arm raised to throw the severed hand of the giant Druoon Antigoon into the Scheldt. I knew it wasn’t likely that “Antwerp” was derived from the Flemish hand werpen, hand throw. But with all my heart I wanted to believe the legend, that one truehearted fighter could dismember an enormous oppressor, liberate an entire town.
I yanked the yellow cap
off my head, stuffed it into my jacket pocket and dropped both into a nearby waste bin. Then I strolled away as though Brabo had pointed the direction.
The crowds thickened, heading toward the Central Station, and I used them as cover and buffer. I moved briskly, taking streets at random, careful to head in every direction but back to Bert’s. I passed Rubens’s workshop, the Bourla Theater, other landmarks I didn’t know, couldn’t recognize, couldn’t name. After a half hour, I was out of the crowds and I couldn’t spot anyone behind me.
Still, I continued my zigzag maneuvers for another hour, circling northward, checking every intersection before I entered it, proceeding with the same breathless caution I’d exercised in the driver’s seat of my father’s Mustang.
I had the Café Ebertus in view by seven o’clock. I slipped into a pathway between two buildings a half block away. The evening sky was black, thick clouds hiding the moon. The temperature was only a few degrees above freezing and my breath was white in front of my face. The bricks around me were filmed with mist and smelled of diesel exhaust. I hunched into my sweater and kept my eyes on the street in front of Bert’s.
The tan Ford had disappeared from the drawbridge. By seven-thirty, all the other parked cars were also gone from the roadway. The two remaining in the lot beside Willemdok had been there the night before—not new arrivals. A half-dozen men exited from the café between seven-thirty and eight. All were pale-skinned and dressed like workingmen. After eight, nobody went in or out. Traffic on the street was sparse by then, only a pair of nondescript sedans puttering by without showing any interest in the area.
The pursuit, the escape, the pumping rush of all that had kept me warm. Till now. The contrast made it worse. The cold from the frozen stones slowly penetrated my boot soles. My toes lost all feeling. The sweat-soaked wool sweater was clammy against my torso. But my hands and face were the worst, the damp frigidity penetrating beneath the skin, into the flesh. I blew on my hands, but my breath felt cold. I shoved them into my armpits, yet even that didn’t warm them.
Five minutes past nine o’clock, I came out of my hiding place and slipped into Bert’s building through the kitchen door. Bert was there, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, hands in a sudsy pan of dishwater. He finished rinsing a beer glass, then headed for the front, drying his hands on his pants as he went. I heard the dead bolt slam home. Then the interior lights in front went off.
He shuffled back through the curtain.
“You usually close about now?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrows. “You expecting somebody to stop by?”
“I sure didn’t invite anyone,” I said. “But I can’t guarantee they won’t be coming around. Better if you stick to your usual pattern.”
“Closing after supper is my usual pattern,” he said. “I make my money off the lunch crowd. Only stay open later when I want the company.” He went back to the sink. Glassware clinked together. “And tonight I’m not interested in finding out who might walk in.”
“That Ford’s gone.” The kitchen was warm and steamy and smelled of dish soap. My fingers itched as they started to thaw. “So what are you worried about?”
Bert turned to look at me. “Somebody’s still interested in you. I saw them set up, or I’d have trouble picking them out myself. Very professional.”
“Who?”
“More camel drivers.”
I ran my hand over my scalp and asked, “Nobody else?”
Bert’s gaze was sharper. “You are expecting more visitors.”
“I ran into some people downtown I didn’t expect to find there.”
“Who?”
“Press.”
“Waiting for you?”
I shrugged. “Waiting right in front of the place I was headed for.”
“Like they knew.” He sounded disgusted. “I told the major to be careful with her.”
I asked, “Erika?”
“Of course Erika. Anyone else know where you were headed?”
“Only her.”
He was still holding a soapy glass. It splashed back into the sink. “I can’t figure why the major brought her into this. What reason’s she got for helping him? She could be rolling around in a bin of diamonds.”
“Diamonds?”
“Her father’s one of the biggest traders on Hoveniersstraat. That’s enough for me. I spent half my life sweating in the Congo. And why? So those bastards could get rich off the diamonds.” He chewed on his lower lip, shook his head. “She’s got a game of her own going.”
I rubbed the heel of my hand across my forehead. “I don’t know. If Erika wanted to blow my cover, it would’ve been quicker to give the news team this address. She couldn’t be certain she’d get the same result by tipping them off to look for me downtown.”
He grunted. “Really piss off the major, she blows this setup. No, she stays on the right side of him.”
“But if we know she leaked the info—”
“We know.” He reached above his head and pulled a bottle off the top shelf. “But the major won’t believe it.” He unscrewed the cap and splashed geneva into a still-damp glass.
“But why—”
“I haven’t figured that one out yet.” He poured the liquid down his throat, then tipped up the bottle again. “But I will.”
I’d be figuring, too. I waved aside Bert’s offer of geneva. I had to deal with my other problem. Tomorrow I hoped to meet with Biczó. I didn’t want anyone else tagging along. I’d need Bert’s help to evade the pros who were watching me. I thought over my options while he emptied a second glass and filled another. As he sipped geneva, I explained my difficulty. He said he had a way to take care of it. I stayed for a few minutes longer, waiting as he finished his drink. The light in his blue eyes slowly dimmed, as though the geneva had woven itself into a curtain between him and the world. I helped myself to some fruit from the counter, said good night and went upstairs.
I slept heavily, deadened by fatigue and enmeshed in circular, convoluted dreams. Nightmare chases through the streets of Antwerp, chases that didn’t end. I was being pursued by men without faces. And then I was chasing Others. Stefan, looking back over his shoulder at me, then running faster to get away. Once, my father holding hands with my mother, both laughing through a game of tag where I was always “it.” Cold, tired and running, on and on.
I woke up when daylight came through the window at eight o’clock in the morning. I breakfasted on an apple, then settled myself at the window. At ten o’clock, the Flandria company crew drifted in and began setting up for the luncheon cruise through the harbor.
A caterer’s truck arrived and unloaded hotel-size pans onto the red-and-white tour boat. Musicians were next, burly men in short pants hauling huge instrument cases. At ten-thirty, a man I didn’t know strolled out of the Café Ebertus, wiping his mouth as if he’d enjoyed a morning beer. He opened the ticket booth and went inside, taking his time about setting up for the passengers who were starting to arrive.
At five minutes before eleven, a black Mercedes rolled up beside Willemdok. The man who emerged from the rear door was about five-eleven, his hair graying at the temples. The description fit the man for whom I waited. The shoes were the clincher. As well polished as his car, they were a pointed-toe Italian design that shouted out a price of five hundred dollars per pair. Or maybe per shoe. Nobody in the arms trade had to wear Hush Puppies.
The Mercedes drove off and Sándor Biczó stepped briskly up the gangplank and onto the boat.
A shrill warning blast came from the horn.
I headed for the door.
12
I dashed outside. Bert’s early customer now manned the ticket booth. Bert had prepared him and he waved me on to the gangplank. A dockworker in blue overalls gave me the once-over, then looked quickly away when I met his eyes. As soon as I stepped onto the deck from the gangplank, he began unhitching it from the boat.
The vessel lurched. I staggered and gripped the railing as we moved toward
the center of the canal. The water-level restaurant was crowded with holiday feasters, the crush in front of the bar three-deep, fists waving currency in the air, the noise of conversation and laughter as thick as the visible cloud of cigarette smoke. Then a pair of accordions wheezed, and oompah music boiled out over the human din.
I climbed the exterior stairway to the next level. Tables and chairs were arranged on the open-air deck, but so far I was the only one interested in outdoor seating. The glass-enclosed booth for the tour guide perched above me. Empty now, as no one below could have heard his lecture. This touring party was interested in exotic food and drink—not in collecting facts about the port of Antwerp. I stood at the railing, facing the Café Ebertus. A man in an expensive topcoat walked casually past the ticket booth, moving slowly enough to read all of the information posted there. The group that had me under surveillance now was too professional to storm after me when I left the café. They’d missed their chance to follow me on board. They would be trying to figure out how best to pick me up again. Sándor Biczó’s attendance would heighten their interest. With luck—lots of luck—this move would draw attention away from Stefan and the man he could meet with only tonight.
The sea breeze was cool against my cheek and I tasted salt on my lips. On shore, the worker in blue coveralls was coiling rope. My boat cruised past the raised drawbridge, out of Willemdok and through Kattendijkdok into the busier section of the port. On the starboard side, beyond a warehouse marked “FIAT,” I spotted a freighter flying the Polish flag and unloading coal into a sooty pile. Past the coal was a fruit wharf, covered by bins filled with bananas. A Vespa with two riders buzzed out from behind the bins and along the waterside roadway, briefly keeping pace with the tour boat. Then the scooter disappeared into a clutch of agricultural combines parked haphazardly in the next lot.
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