An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam

by Michael Grant

  The Cave Rock Bar is on a block with a bakery (closed at that hour), a schnitzel-themed restaurant and not one but two coffee shops of the Amsterdam variety. All three had outdoor seating but the restaurant was shutting down, so I went into the adjacent coffee shop, bought an eighth and some papers, ordered an orange juice – coffee shops are not allowed to sell alcohol – plopped down at a tiny empty table on the chilly street and idly chopped my purchase up with the edge of a metal American Express card. I edged my chair sideways a little and had an excellent line of sight to the below-grade entrance of the Cave. There would be at least one other exit, but in theory at least, Smit wouldn’t take a less-convenient way out unless he thought he was being followed, and he wasn’t. Yet.

  I sat and did not smoke the weed I’d bought, but did drink three orange juices and was then faced with a desperate need to pee, which could result in losing Smit if he chose that two minutes or so to leave. So I went back over to the Cave, spotted Smit chatting disinterestedly with some girl who was clearly not Madalena, did the necessary, and re-emerged just in time to see Smit heading for the door.

  I followed him from the door of the Cave Rock Bar all the way to where he’d chained a bike to a rack, twenty feet away. A bike. Not a motorcycle for this wannabe Hell’s Angel, a grubby Amsterdam bike.

  He rode off and I watched him, helpless. But fate lent a hand in the form of another bike whose chain lock had not quite caught. I stripped away the unlocked lock and for the first time in probably thirty years swung a leg over a bike seat and saw that I was observed. The observer in question was a thirty-ish hippie-looking dude, replete with rainbow-striped Peruvian poncho, torn jeans and sandals despite the intermittently wet weather. He was too young to have been anywhere near Haight-Ashbury and I had a thrilling moment of fear suspecting he was an undercover cop. But he also had a rather gruesome tattoo up the left side of his neck, a dragon that looked as if its artist had been in the throes of a delirium tremens shakes. Undercover cops do not typically have lurid, poorly done tattoos.

  I pulled out my wallet and held a twenty-euro note out to him. ‘You’re not seeing me,’ I said and smiled conspiratorially.

  He took the money but said nothing. He had clean hands. Clean fingernails even. That stuck out to me, that and the blond hair that had not been professionally barbered in the last few weeks but had been at one time. Again, absent the tat I’d have made him for a cop.

  ‘Oh, you can have this, too.’ I tossed him the eighth of an ounce I’d bought at the coffee shop. He caught it in mid-flight, nodded, did not smile and turned away.

  Amsterdam bikes are Dutch modesty squared. I am convinced that in the entire city of 847,000 bicycles – that’s not a made-up number – there are not three bikes with a street value over thirty bucks. It was almost not stealing to take this bike, certainly no more than petty theft. The challenge was that while I had all kinds of tradecraft when it came to tailing someone on foot or in a car, I had no idea at all how to tail someone on a bike. But I had seen the Dutch way of bike riding and did my best to mimic it: I sat tall and straight and looked rigidly ahead with an expression of smug belligerence on my face. Bike riders in Amsterdam do not wear special outfits, no spandex, no helmets, just the armor of righteousness, so it was not unusual that a grown man wearing business casual should be biking along at one in the morning. Stranger, perhaps, was a man wearing a Hell’s Angels (Antwerp) jacket on what was definitely a girl’s bike.

  I was able to ride reasonably well as it turned out, helped by the fact that I was sober. My biggest problem was avoiding outpacing and catching up to Smit, because he was in no hurry and not overly devoted to straight lines. We were heading south by east along bike paths that sometimes ran beside large, multi-lane boulevards and in other places ran past patches of woods.

  I googled as I rode, checking out the landscape ahead. We were almost certainly headed for the Bijlmermeer (Bale-mer-meer) district, which I had never before visited. It was a landscape of big, modern buildings, bigger sports stadiums, and what the Brits would call council housing and Americans would call subsidized housing. Bijlmermeer looked like the boxes that dainty central Amsterdam had been packed in. It was an intimidating place, especially at night, with vast open spaces and closed big box stores, parking lots with a single random car, a cross between an industrial park, a community college campus and a working-class ghetto.

  On the plus side the openness of the terrain allowed me to keep falling back gradually, while still maintaining visual contact. I took an opportunity to veer off, to disappear from any rearward glance, race around an electronics store and follow Smit on a parallel track. I was learning the bike thing.

  Finally, after half an hour, Smit slowed and dismounted before a gate in a chain-link fence which ran between a three-story red-brick apartment building on one side, and an eight-floor building that I guessed was also apartments and which accommodated at street level a tailor, a lawyer’s office and a tattoo parlor. The fence that connected the two buildings protected a short, dead-end street that had been made into a closed courtyard.

  Facing this fence from across the street was a wide greenway with well-spaced trees, where I was able to dismount behind a trunk and watch without being seen. Smit unlocked the gate, pushed his bike through and locked the gate behind him.

  I flitted from tree to tree like Elmer Fudd sneaking up on Daffy Duck but could not get close without stepping out into plain view beneath street lights. But I was able to see in which backyard he parked his bike and that gave me the location of his apartment, five doors down. I walked around the back of the building and looked up at Smit’s residence. Facing the street was a door, metal frame but with curtained glass panels. A tall window stood beside the door on one side, standard double window to the other side. Turning my gaze upward I saw that each townhouse was three floors, with the top floors having two windows per level, one of which had a waist-high iron railing as if it was a balcony. It was not. But I guessed that the windows with the iron railings could be opened while the others could not.

  There was a light in the top-floor window and the curtains were not drawn completely, but at this angle I could see nothing but the ceiling light fixture in that top-floor room.

  I returned to my borrowed bike, feeling pleased that I now had Smit’s location. Tomorrow or the next day I would return better prepared to mount surveillance, discover whether Madalena was in the townhouse, and ask her why she was upsetting her poor father.

  I was not very worried about Milan Smit as I pedaled away. In my experience real threats almost never ride bikes. I made it almost half a block before a little Nissan hatchback went roaring past, skidded to a screeching stop just ahead, and disgorged three men.

  They did not look happy to see me.

  EIGHT

  ‘Good evening,’ I said politely as I mounted my bike.

  ‘Not for you,’ said a fellow who looked like he’d been a frog, kissed by a princess, and had the transition to human stopped halfway.

  Grunted laughter from the men.

  Like all humans, indeed like all animals who’ve been at some time in their evolution subject to predation, I have a fight or flight instinct. Mine is weighted heavily in favor of flight. This was not a time to argue against that predisposition.

  Three of them. One of me.

  Their turf, not mine.

  Car vs. bicycle.

  No, there was nothing encouraging in this scenario. Then I noticed the clubs hanging by the sides of two of the men and electric fear shot right up my spine. I twisted my bike around, stood on the pedal and began to flee at a speed best described as leisurely. I was doing a good, oh, three miles an hour when Toad Man plowed into me from the side and knocked me over.

  I hit the pavement hard but rolled away and managed to avoid the first swung club, which hit the pavement too near my head.

  ‘Hey, what the fuck?’ I yelled. Because thugs faced with an interesting question will stop beating on you in order to
…

  Wham!

  Right on the crown of my head. Sweet Jesus it hurt! Like I’d bitten down hard on a live power line. My eyes rolled around in their sockets causing the world to look as if it were being shot by a jittery handheld camera. There was a fire alarm in my ears.

  A blow hit my right shoulder. I was trying to stand, managed to get up onto all fours and took a boot toe in the solar plexus, which was the end of any fight coming from me. I collapsed face down, wrapped my hands as well as I could over the back of my head, and just lay there being beaten. I didn’t count the blows, ten, twenty?

  I lost consciousness, blank, then drifted part of the way back to reality, noting hands in my pockets, a hand reaching inside my jacket and some angry talk followed by another few blows and the next thing I knew I was in a bed with starched sheets and an IV needle in the back of my hand.

  I had a raging thirst and turned my head to look for water. How to describe the stab of pain in my head? Like someone had it clamped in a giant vise? Like someone had broken a glass bottle inside my skull? Both of those things at once. Nausea rose in a tidal wave and I rolled onto my side and retched, producing nothing but a trickle of spittle from my empty stomach.

  My eyes hurt and closing them didn’t help. My back and buttocks and thighs hurt. My arms hurt. I hurt everywhere, but after a few minutes at least the nausea passed and I pried open one eye to take in my surroundings. I was in a hospital bed in a room with five other beds, some concealed by drawn curtains, some empty, two with patients I could see, a white-haired old man and a woman who had to be a hundred years old and looked like a plucked turkey.

  I had a plastic bracelet with a bar code. To my left was a steel table and yes, hallelujah, there was a carafe of water and a plastic cup. Reaching for the carafe was amazingly unpleasant, pain plus nausea, and only my desperate thirst gave me strength to persist. I drank a cup of water and immediately felt my stomach rebel. I was afraid I’d lose it all, but was able to keep it down, probably because the water was immediately absorbed. I was a wrung-out sponge.

  I knew what had happened to me, my memory had not been affected: I’d taken a serious beating. But I recalled thinking even as it was going on and on and on, that it had not been a beating meant to cripple or kill. They’d searched me, so presumably my wallet and phone were gone which meant I’d need to cancel all my credit cards, get a new license … damned thieves.

  A nurse in dark blue uniform and a cheerful floral pattern hijab saw me gulping, came right over and took the carafe from me. ‘I will get you ice chips if you are thirsty.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said in a husky, Alec Baldwin voice.

  ‘Are you having discomfort?’

  ‘No, but I’m having a hell of a lot of pain.’

  That earned a tolerant nurse smile. ‘I will inform the doctor that you are awake.’

  I was awake but not sure for how long, as a bone-deep weariness moved like liquefied lead in my veins, sapping my energy, forcing my eyelids to half-mast. A doctor arrived with surprising promptness, a sturdy woman in late middle age, with pursed lips, white hair and the kind of authority that comes with the medical diploma.

  ‘I am Doctor Visser, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Like I got beat up.’

  No smile. ‘You suffered a great deal of bruising but, surprisingly, no broken bones and we see no evidence of serious concussion, though if you develop headaches, dizziness, blurred vision or a ringing in your ears you should immediately tell your doctor. Fortunately it seems in your case that a policeman was able to intervene before more serious damage was done.’ She pulled a pen from her pocket and held it in front of me. ‘With just your eyes, follow the end of my pen.’

  I did that. I also had my blood pressure taken and lights flashed in my eyes and a stethoscope pressed here and there. I lay there in my flimsy hospital gown as Dr Visser pulled sheets aside to show me some angry-looking bruises, then I gave some blood to the lab, and took some ibuprofen.

  The doctor took off and the nurse came back to tell me that I had a visitor. I was hoping for Delia, what I got was Chante. She drew the curtain around my bed.

  ‘Delia asked me to come,’ Chante said.

  ‘Kind of her.’

  ‘She asked me to discover your condition.’

  ‘My condition is that my entire body is one big bruise. Fortunately my innate cowardice caused me to cover my head as I was weeping into the pavement, so my head and face weren’t bashed in. Though there’s an impressive bump under my hair.’

  ‘I see you have all your limbs.’

  Impossible not to hear a small note of disappointment. Impossible as well not to ask myself the question: how did Delia know I was in the hospital?

  ‘Yes, I can still count to four on my limbs,’ I said peevishly. ‘I have all my fingers, too. I am operating in base ten.’

  Chante unslung her backpack. ‘I have … Delia sent … some things.’ She pulled out a pair of socks, underpants, a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. Then a brand-new laptop and a phone, along with the appropriate chargers. ‘Delia says they are clean.’

  That was not a reference to the clothing. Delia was making nice, offering me ‘clean’ tech to play with.

  Clean tech. From an FBI agent. I mean, I like Delia, but no.

  ‘And this, but she says you must use common sense.’ She glanced over her shoulder – silly given that we were surrounded by beige curtains – and slipped me a flask.

  I unscrewed the lid and inhaled. Hello, Scotland my old friend. I took a test swig. God was that welcome. Hospitals would be so much less depressing if they served cocktails.

  ‘Thanks, Chante.’

  ‘Do not thank me,’ she said, looking down as if embarrassed.

  She left. I took another swig, slipped the flask under my pillow and fell asleep and from there into a lurid and disturbing dream.

  My subconscious mind remembered details forgotten by the cleverer bits of my brain, for in the dream I saw an Amsterdam cop in bicycle gear standing over me and talking into a radio. And I noted that the clubs my attackers had used were cut-down wooden baseball bats – better than full-sized bats for concealment, better for rapid swings, worse for inflicting serious injury. I saw the arriving ambulance only as a vague cloud of dancing lights, a hallucinogenic cross between Smarties and popcorn.

  And an interesting detail. A tattoo on one guy’s arm, the letters BBET surrounded by death’s heads and a symbol that was not quite a swastika but was meant to evoke one.

  When I woke next the privacy curtain was open and night had come. I’d been in the hospital for twenty-four hours and asleep for all but about two of those. I felt around and with deep relief found that my flask remained undiscovered. I took a judicious swallow and looked at what were now three sleeping people, my fellow patients, one snoring so loudly I thought the noise was some kind of malfunctioning machine.

  Eerie light came from bedside monitors constantly checking blood pressure, pulse, respiration and oxygen saturation – primitive Dutch medical tech. In the US a hospital monitor would also have shown the state of your health insurance, your bank balance and your credit rating.

  White light came from the nurse’s station just beyond the open double doors of my ward and I saw blue-clad medical folk carrying compact iPad-like objects which I assume they use for playing Call of Duty. Then I bent down – oh, so very painful – and lifted the laptop Chante had brought. I considered using it to look up BBET – the tattoo – but decided against it. The laptop might be cleanish, but I had to consider the strong possibility that Delia had loaded some spyware. So, for her benefit I spent the next twenty minutes searching out the very best fetish porn websites. Enjoy my browser history, Delia!

  By the way: wow. There are people into some very odd stuff.

  I felt positively paralyzed without secure access to the internet, but I have certain skills, and a certain insouciance regarding petty crimes, and I had noticed that Captain Snores over there had a smart phon
e by his bed. I decided to borrow it.

  This turned out to be much harder than I’d anticipated. Swinging my legs off the bed? Not good. Very much not good. Standing up? Well, in my misspent youth when I would frequently combine various intoxicants I used to suffer from head rush. This was like that but with a nausea undertow added in for kicks. When blood had returned to my head and my fortunately empty stomach had quieted, I gamely advanced toward my target at a speed that would have embarrassed an arthritic ninety-year-old stroke victim. I doubt this is accurate but my subjective sense was that it took me most of an hour to cover thirty feet. A single human step requires many more muscles than one might think unless a beating has made one acutely aware of every single muscle cell.

  I reached snorer’s phone. Password, thumbprint or facial recognition? Facial. Swell. Snorer’s face was aimed away from me, which meant walking all the way around his bed, a good eight, ten steps. I reached snorer’s face, got the phone positioned and … the son of a bitch rolled over.

  So. I did some more pain managing and some more sotto voce cursing and this time got the phone looking at his face. It opened obediently and I typed BBET into the browser.

  Behavior Based Ergonomic Therapy.

  Yeah, not that. I added the word ‘Dutch’. And got beets. As in the vegetable.

  I added quotation marks around BBET and added Dutch plus the word slogan. And we had it. BBET: Bloed, Bodem, Eer en Trouw. Which translated as Blood, Soil, Honor and Faith.

  Great. Just absolutely great. Fucking white power skinheads.

  Tangential Nazis.

  This did not rise quite to threat level of, say, a Chechen gang, or some former mark recognizing me on the street and screeching like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it was not good, not good at all.

  I hobbled back to my bed and considered the next crisis. A cop had apparently saved me from a worse beating, which meant that cops would be by in the morning to question me. Which was the greater danger: attracting attention by escaping the hospital against medical advice? Or risking a second conversation with Amsterdam cops?