‘Not the second time. Azevedo senior, your buddy, caught a second beef and did three years in a Tunisian prison for stealing and exporting antiquities. He just got out last month. Madalena was picked up soliciting and it must have scared her because after that she seems to have gone legit. In fact she became political. A green group. Also an anti-fascist group.’
I frowned but did not share with Delia my puzzlement that a girl who had skinhead friends should be Antifa. The bigger surprise was that Madalena had been on the game. Madalena, a corruption of Magdalene? A bit on the nose if she was hooking, wasn’t it?
Chante returned, bearing plates. The starter course turned out to be foie gras three ways. God only knew what that had cost me, I was relieved it was not yet truffle season. Good? Melt-in-your mouth, fall-to-your-knees-and-thank-God-for-inventing-geese-and-ducks good.
‘Not bad,’ I allowed.
‘Yes, almost edible,’ Delia said with a droll look to Chante who beamed.
‘When I was growing up in Bayonne I never realized how rare such things as foie gras and truffles are,’ Chante said. ‘My mother (muh-ZEHR) would serve them often.’
‘I thought there was a chance you had a mother,’ I snarked, ‘but it’s hard to imagine.’
‘Yes,’ Chante said, ‘I suppose it would be difficult for you to imagine unquestioning love.’
Delia covered her mouth to avoid laughing out loud.
With the foie gras Chante served small glasses of four puttonyos Tokaji, sweet but not cloying. By my rough calculation this meal was on-track to cost me five hundred euros.
‘My mother made grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell’s bean soup,’ I countered.
‘And was your home also a place of unquestioning love?’ Delia asked.
The question should not have caught me off-guard, but it did. It was not specific memories of events that flooded my unready mind, but rather the distillation of my childhood, the executive summary. Many, many people have had worse childhoods, far worse, but few grew up amid so much rootless chaos. I had never met my birth father, that sensible fellow had bailed out on my teenage mother. At age four I’d been adopted by my mother’s new husband, a soldier. We had moved a lot. I was the new kid in school every year, which would have been a problem for most people, but I welcomed it. It meant I could reinvent myself at each new school, leave behind enemies or too-cloying acquaintances, pop up in a new place with a whole new … Pretty much the way I still lived, come to think of it.
It took me too long to answer. So I forced a smile and said, ‘Not quite,’ and offered no follow-up.
Delia looked down, conscious of a gaffe.
Chante sensibly followed the lushness of the foie gras with the simplicity of perfectly grilled plaice filets set off by a pleasingly austere vinaigrette and garnished with leeks and potatoes.
The food was great, but Delia’s information was not sitting well with me. I had not asked Azevedo if he’d been in prison subsequent to our joint adventure, so he hadn’t lied about that except by omission. But it was a pretty big omission. That he had probably exaggerated Smit’s hardness and perhaps overstated his daughter’s innocence was almost to be expected. But none of it soothed my paranoia.
‘Anything on the Hangwoman?’ I asked.
Delia waited until she’d chewed a bit of fish and made appropriate noises to Chante. We were on to a new bottle, and it appeared I had purchased an excellent Château de Targé, Les Fresnettes, a surprisingly inexpensive Loire wine. Now I thought we might yet come in under five hundred.
‘You know, something useful,’ I prompted, ‘like a way to keep her from murdering me?’
‘No,’ Delia said.
‘Swell.’
‘Perhaps a break before dessert?’ Chante suggested.
It was the cue for Delia and me to squeeze out onto the narrow balcony and half-close the doors behind us to avoid incriminating my alleged assistant with more detail than necessary.
‘So?’ Delia asked without preliminaries. ‘What have you learned?’
‘My tour of the Rijks just confirmed what I already guessed: anyone with big enough balls can walk in and walk out with any painting they can carry.’
‘Big enough balls,’ Delia repeated dryly. ‘I can’t tell you how many times I heard that phrase coming up at Quantico and in the Bureau. The funny thing is that as organs go vaginas push out entire humans, while balls shrivel at the touch of cold water.’
‘Hey, I meant to ask: how big is the Jewish Lady with Loom, or whatever it’s called?’
Delia pulled out her phone, swiped around a bit and said, ‘Sixteen inches by thirteen and three-quarter inches. But bigger with the frame.’
‘OK, call it what, twenty-two-ish by maybe eighteen?’
‘Close enough.’
‘Easily carried. You’d need a forklift to get The Night Watch out of there, but something the size of a seat cushion? Isaac could have hired any random street punk; he didn’t need the Ontario Crew. At least not for the snatch.’
‘USP One doesn’t know that.’
‘Of course not, he’s clearly a crazy old fuck. Fifty million? That’s madness. That’s a man who has lost all track of the value of money.’ I drew out a cigar, cut it, popped it between my teeth. ‘Do you mind?’
‘No, as always, I enjoy your rancid carcinogens.’
‘Good,’ I said and fired my cigar torch. I saw her eyes glitter and focus a bit too long on the glowing cherry. I laughed. ‘I never noticed before: you’re an ex-smoker.’
‘Three years,’ Delia said through gritted teeth.
So, just to be insolent and show that she wasn’t the boss of me, I blew smoke her way. I’m mature like that.
‘You’re telling me that anyone can steal the painting during regular hours,’ Delia said, not deigning to admit irritation.
‘Hell, any hours. Pop a window and in and out. Literally all you’d need is a ladder and a crowbar. I mean, I’m sure the Ontario Crew filled Isaac’s oxygen-deprived brain with Tom Cruise and George Clooney movie caper bullshit, lasers and silenced machine guns and black boxes that magically open locks, and whatnot, but it’s a ladder and crowbar job.’
‘So? How are you going to stop it happening?’
I puffed. And I did not answer.
‘You’re a sphinx suddenly?’
‘Delia, back when we first met, you drew some lines. There was the law, and you were sworn to uphold it. You made that very clear.’ Also you made it quite clear you were never going to sleep with me. That part I kept to myself.
‘And?’ Now the irritation came out. ‘Don’t smirk, just tell me what you’re thinking.’
‘OK. What I am thinking, Delia, is that you can’t know what I’m thinking.’
It was her turn at the long silence. I didn’t interrupt it. Delia desperately wanted to know what I was planning, but she also knew that if I said she shouldn’t know, well, she shouldn’t know. Couldn’t know, not without perhaps making herself an accessory.
At last she shook her head in disgust. ‘Fuck you, David.’
‘So … you’re calling this off?’
‘No, I’m just saying fuck you. Just tell me whether you can stop the Ontario Crew from stealing the painting. Yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘And can you do it without incriminating USP One?’
‘Yes.’
I puffed. She bit her lip, which is about as conflicted and unsure as I’ve ever seen her. But then Delia’s gaze shifted and she focused with a degree of intensity on the street below. She saw me noticing and without moving her lips said, ‘Don’t look. It’s your friend. The Hangwoman.’
TEN
I knew the lay of the land and Delia did not, so I made the call.
‘You go first. Out through the door of this apartment, into the stairwell. Go down one landing you’ll see a door to a separate stairs leading down into the back of the gift shop. They might still be open, it’s not quite eight and tourist shops keep late
hours.’
‘Got it. Then what?’
‘You’ll exit out onto Reguliersbreestraat. Go left. You’ll see a Subway – the sandwich place, not an actual subway. One more left, down that alley and it brings you back to Amstel. I’ll give you a couple of minutes and then follow. When she spots me she’ll either make a run at me or bolt, but if she bolts she’ll most likely be coming your way.’ I looked at my phone. ‘Seven forty-seven. I’ll go at seven fifty-one.’
Delia nodded and with a quick smile to Chante she left.
‘Why is she leaving? Did you offend her?’ Chante demanded.
‘Quiet, harpy, we’re catching bad guys. In fact … go out onto the balcony.’ Then seeing stubborn recalcitrance, I added, ‘It’s for Delia.’
I hugged the wall out of sight as Chante stepped out.
‘OK, see down there a young woman in a blue hoodie?’
‘I see a striped hoodie.’
I peeked out. ‘No, that’s just some hippie burnout. In the blue! In the blue! That is Hangwoman. Be subtle!’
‘A Frenchwoman is to be instructed in subtlety by an American?’ She rolled her eyes, but she complied. ‘I see her.’
‘Good. Get your phone ready because we’ll want video. But not until I am—’
‘She’s leaving.’
‘What?’
‘She is walking toward the Muntplein.’
‘Fuck!’ I raced from the room, pounded down the stairs and burst onto the street in time to see the blue hoodie a hundred yards off. I hurried after her while fumbling with my phone, trying to text a warning of a change in plans to Delia. Then I dropped my phone, bent to pick it up, breathed in relief that it was not shattered and had to break into a trot to keep up as Hangwoman was hurrying not down Reguliersbreestraat but along the Singel.
Across the river was the flower market but this side of the river was closed-up store fronts along a pedestrian and bike way.
She turned, saw me and broke into a run. So did I. I wasn’t tailing, I was chasing, no concealment required. I’m not the action-hero type, we’ve established that, but despite the fact that this woman had tried twice to kill me, she was still a woman and I was bigger than she was by a good fifty pounds, so I wasn’t too worried.
She ran but I had longer legs. I caught her, grabbed her by the back of her hoodie and spun her into a shallow store entrance alcove just a few yards from a café with a few tables out on the street.
‘Let me alone!’
She struggled, flailing, and managed to land a noticeable kick to my shin, but I caught her arms and pushed her into shadows and looked her right in her furious face, our eyes inches apart.
‘Why in the fuck are you trying to kill me, you goddamn lunatic?’ I demanded.
‘Let me go! Let me go!’
‘Like hell, I will! Why are you trying to kill me?’
She went limp, stopped fighting, and said, ‘You must not think is personal, is for money only. Housing is very expensive.’
Wait, I was being targeted for murder so she could make her rent?
‘Money? Someone’s paying you to try and kill me? Who?’ Then I made a mistake. I spotted a cop biking by on the other side of the canal and I lowered my voice. ‘Who is paying you?’
She noticed that. Like I said, she wasn’t dumb enough to be doing what she was doing. (Though, I suppose the same could be said about me.) I saw it in her eyes, the dawning realization that I was not going to call Five-0. She waited a few seconds till the policeman was well out of range and yelled, ‘Let me go! Let me go! I am attack! Help me!’
She had started squirming again and got one hand free to land a weak smack to the side of my head.
‘Let you go, hell!’ I yelled, but the thing was, what was I supposed to do with her? I’d caught her, now what?
I did not have long to ponder that conundrum when I heard, ‘Oi! Leave the lady be!’
A large, middle-aged man wearing an England jersey, red with three heraldic blue lions, followed by a smaller, younger guy wearing shorts despite the damp chill between rain showers, were coming from the café.
‘She’s trying to kill me!’ I explained.
This would have been much more credible if I were not six inches taller than she, and male.
‘Is this man bothering you, missus?’ the soccer fan asked.
‘He is hurt me!’ she cried.
‘Not to worry yourself, missus. And you, you best bugger off before I kick your teeth in for you.’
This was addressed to me. To me! The clear victim. Well, clear to me, at least. But I still had her wrists in my big man hands.
It didn’t look good.
I tried the patient approach. ‘Gentlemen, I know you’re just trying to be chivalrous but—’
‘He want rape me!’
‘Oh, fuck you, you murdering—’ I began.
And that’s when soccer fan number one placed his knuckles against the side of my head at high velocity. I saw stars. I staggered. I released my grip and weaved back and forth like a drunk as the Hangbitch ripped away, paused to spit at me, and took off down the street without so much as a polite thank-you to the meddling knights of the round table.
The one part of me that Milan Smit’s skinhead pals had not bashed was now bashed, but fortunately the England fan had put brain-scrambling but not concussion-level force behind the blow.
Delia arrived a few seconds later as the two Englishmen were berating me with advice like, ‘That’s not how you treat a lady,’ and, ‘Go sleep it off, ya fooking pervert.’
‘I’ll take charge of him,’ Delia told them in her authoritative FBI voice, and seeing a tall black woman must have confused them because they promptly let me go and headed back to the café, having done their good deed for the day.
‘That went well,’ Delia said.
‘I think he loosened a tooth!’
‘And the Hangperson got away.’
‘I noticed that.’
‘You should have followed her at a distance and texted me.’
‘Oh? Is that what the FBI manual says?’ I was not ready to be rational. My shin hurt and my cheek hurt and my head was still not properly seated atop my neck.
I marched away, not toward the apartment but toward a tavern down the street that was warmly lit and cozy. They had both the sound system and a TV (the inevitable soccer, of course) playing, the digital noise adding to the international murmur. They didn’t have much in the way of decent whiskey, so I ordered a beer and a double shot of Jack Daniel’s, neat, which I poured straight down my throat.
‘I’ll have a sparkling water, and a lime if you have it,’ Delia told the bartender. Then, to me, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Have you noticed how every time you show up I end up taking a beating?’
‘Coincidence,’ she said, not batting an eye. ‘Seriously, are you all right?’ She leaned closer to get a look at my jaw. She smelled of soap, sandalwood and Chante’s oysters.
‘I’m not great, Delia,’ I admitted angrily. ‘Hangcreature is under contract. Someone is paying to have me killed. There is a contract out on me!’
Delia blinked. ‘She told you that?’
‘Like it was an excuse. Like I’d say, “Oh, all right then.” It seems the rent is too damn high, so she has to take contracts.’
‘Who would spend money to kill you?’ She placed the emphasis on ‘you’, realized that sounded bad and repeated the sentence emphasizing the ‘who.’
I covered my face with my hands and tried to settle but I was rattled. The crazy woman was not giving up. She was still intent on murdering me, and the third time might be the charm.
Delia was less emotional. ‘Who gives a contract to an amateur?’ she said and frowned. She sipped water. I gulped whiskey. Then I ordered another. Big, tough ex-criminals aren’t supposed to admit they’re scared, but I was. The near-lynching hadn’t quite done it. The poisoning hadn’t quite done it. The idiocy of those attempts had waylaid my fear into contempt. But a
contract? Now the fear came.
A contract? On me?
My hand trembled as I raised the second shot. Someone serious was seriously trying to kill me, albeit by employing an imbecile, but sooner or later a motivated buyer would find a competent killer.
‘This is no longer funny,’ I grated, and downed the whiskey.
‘Cui bono, that’s the question.’
‘I asked her that,’ I snapped. ‘I asked cui bono, you crazy bitch? And she said I don’t speak Latin, asshole.’
‘Another?’ the bartender asked, nodding at my empty shot glass.
‘No,’ Delia answered for me.
‘Great, now you’re my mother.’
‘Enough, David, enough. You’re upset, I get it. So, take some deep breaths. You’re alive and aside from that punch … Bartender? Do you suppose we could get some ice wrapped in a towel?’
I touched the side of my face and felt a cheek larger than it normally was, and tender. Like some chivalrous Englishman had socked me.
I was distracted then by a man entering the bar. A man who did not see me or Delia despite our being just about the first thing any new arrival would see. Probably just a guy looking for someone specific … but no, he wasn’t. Still, I wouldn’t have paid him another second’s attention were it not for the fact that I was morally certain he was wearing a wig. A shoulder-length, dark wig. And a turtleneck sweater, something I’d not seen in years. Did they still make turtlenecks?
‘You need to focus, David. It is not possible that you’re being targeted by someone who you don’t even have a connection with.’
‘And yet,’ I snapped. Then, in a more defeated tone, as the whiskey dampened my outrage, ‘I don’t have a clue. Really. I’m not being coy, Delia, I just don’t know. Who would want me dead enough to pay the world’s least competent hitwoman?’
‘If this were a regular investigation I’d have someone taking statements from the people at the café, including the man who sucker-punched you.’ The ice arrived and Delia pressed it against my jaw. ‘Hold that in place.’
I felt the door open bringing a welcome gust of fresh, cold air. Then Chante was with us.
‘I followed her,’ Chante said without preamble.
An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam Page 10
