“Not in the near future, no.”
She got up again, put the wallet and the money clip in the pocket of her bomber jacket and turned off the lights, carefully limping back to the futon. Bram was still sitting up and she pulled him down, plucked the amulet from his fingers and tossed it on the stainless steel tray, where it clanked against the empty porcelain flask. Turning her back to him, Katla reached behind her and pulled his arm over her. Bram spooned against her back, his soft breath in the nape of her neck as he curled up against her. When his breathing ran soft and deep, Katla turned around in his embrace, kissed the soft valley of his axilla and lay against his body, listening to the calming sound of his heartbeat while she stared in the tenebrous darkness.
KWONG
Gene Zhang entered the slaughterhouse, stalking past the Blue Lanterns, who shied away from his brooding gaze. Only Lau and Nicky were not intimidated, but then, if they were, they’d be pretty useless to him.
Eric Kwong’s body was lying on the steel slab, still dressed in his suit and shirt, the hole in his throat stoppered with a bloody wad of skin, blood and broken cartilage. Gene looked at the dead man’s shirt, ripped open and missing the buttons.
“The amulet was taken,” Lau said. “So were his wallet and money clip.”
“What caused this?” Gene gestured at the bloody hole. “Doesn’t look like a knife.”
Nicky made a grabbing motion. “Somebody ripped out his Adam’s apple, squeezed it to a pulp and pushed it back in.”
“You mean, bare-handed?” Gene studied the hole in the throat. “Unreal. Some kind of martial art technique?”
“I doubt it, Vanguard.” Nicky gestured at the dead man. “The only thing that comes close to inflicting this kind of damage is koppojutsu, but I don’t think anybody teaches this stuff.”
Lau shook his head. “Most of the stuff taught in martial arts is nonsense.”
Zhang noticed Nicky throwing a sharp glance at his senior, but the junior Red Pole composed himself quickly and said, “Not only is it difficult to teach someone to do this, but you’d also need access to fresh corpses to practice.”
“So we’re dealing with a real threat here.”
Lau nodded gravely. “I’d say so. If someone can rip out a throat bare-handed, I don’t really want to see what they can do with a knife or a stick.” A small Derringer appeared in Lau’s fist. “This might stop them, but considering that Eric had his gun out already, I wouldn’t gamble on it.”
Gene nodded. “I’ve seen enough. I don’t want him going through customs like this.”
“We’ll have him cremated first. Who do you want to accompany the ashes back home?”
“Someone who can be missed. Deliver the ashes to my office, I’ll make the arrangements.”
Gene motioned for Lau to follow him and waited until they left the slaughterhouse. Lau offered him a cigarette and they both lit up.
“Kwong was a good soldier,” Lau said. “A good fighter too.”
“He was young and impetuous,” Gene said. “And too cocky to call for back-up. This could’ve been prevented, Lau.”
“I’ll have them patrol the harbour in teams.”
Gene took a long drag from his cigarette. “And the Sieltjes woman? You found her yet?”
“Unless it was a ruse, she lives somewhere in the Plantage or Kadijken area, but it’s a warren of little apartments and the area has multiple access points.” Lau shrugged. “The taxi driver wasn’t very helpful either. We should interrogate him more insistently.”
“I need her out of the picture. Permanently.”
“Bootz is co-operating, isn’t he?”
“Bootz wants to see the signed papers.”
“I told you, we can just put a knife on his wife’s throat.”
Gene shook his head. “He needs to comply voluntarily. If he thinks we’re legit, he’ll have to, but if he knows Sieltjes is still out and about, he can screw things up.”
“Why voluntarily? I mean, if we threaten him—”
“Boots is Sphinx Shipping. We can’t replace him without drawing suspicion. And we don’t want to spook him into an act of desperation, which is what you’ll get if you threaten a man’s family.” Gene shot the smouldering butt of his cigarette in the dark water of the canal. “Leave the strategy to me, Lau. Just find Sieltjes and get those papers signed.”
“I’ll do my best, Vanguard.”
Gene studied Lau and said, “Something else is troubling you?”
“Yes, but I don’t think you’ll want to hear it.”
“Tell me.”
Lau shot his cigarette in the canal too and said, “I know you don’t believe in the supernatural. I do. I consulted a psychic, who told me I was going to die before the new moon.”
“Lau—”
“No, let me finish, please. I asked her if it could be prevented, but to prevent it I would have to leave the Kau Hong. Leave my life behind and start with a clean slate.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
“No, Vanguard. I’m bound to the Kau Hong. Leaving would feel like a betrayal. I’m worried though, she mentioned a man in the mist getting robbed of his voice and his shield. And here we have Eric…”
Gene shook his head.
“Nicky was there,” Lau protested. “He’s a sceptic, like you, but he heard her premonition. I have a feeling we’re jinxed.”
“That could be the point. Getting us to doubt ourselves.” Gene put his hand on the Red Pole’s shoulder. “Maybe your psychic knew this was going to happen. And not by supernatural means.”
“You think she’s working with Eric’s killer?”
“If I make five predictions and make sure the first comes true, that would add credibility to the other four.”
“She has nothing to gain from stacking the deck, Vanguard.”
“You don’t pay her?”
“She didn’t want payment for this ominous prediction.”
Gene snorted. “Right. Well, maybe she was paid already to deliver you that line of crap.”
Lau was silent.
“Listen, my friend. Everyone has his weaknesses. Yours is your superstition. Your psychic, your cell phone phobia. And it’s out in the open, for everyone to see.”
“You think someone is fucking with my mind?”
“I don’t know, but that sounds more realistic than a psychic revelation.” Gene shrugged. “For all I know, your psychic might be working with the killer.”
Lau’s eyes went dark. Gene gave his shoulder a last squeeze and said, “Find Sieltjes and get me my papers.”
He walked away without looking back.
-o-
Nicky watched the Blue Lanterns put Eric in a body bag. They carried him out to the car, while Nicky opened a Tsingtao Green Beer, poured some of the spirulina-green liquid on the tiled floor to honour the dead, and drank the beer. Lau returned from outside and stood next to him, cloaked in silence.
“What did the Vanguard want, Elder Brother?”
“We have to find the Sieltjes woman. Put some pressure on the taxi driver.”
“You want to put Chen on it?”
“We need some foot patrols in that area. Have you circulated her picture?”
“It’s on every phone.” Nicky twirled his finger. “It would be on yours if you carried one.”
Lau smirked. “I don’t need her picture. I’d recognise that bitch anywhere.”
“Foot patrols, hmm. Is that the Vanguard’s idea?”
The older Red Pole narrowed his eyes. “Since when do you question the chain of command?”
“I don’t,” Nicky said. “It’s not my place to doubt my elders.”
“Just keep that in mind.”
“I do know that that particular area of Amsterdam is not exactly rife with Asians, so our men will stick out. I thought we had to keep a low profile.”
“So get some of the less obtrusive members and have them dress like tourists.”
Nicky drank the remai
nder of his Tsingtao. “That won’t make them less obtrusive.”
“I assume you have a better idea?”
“Sieltjes is probably gone to ground. We have to lure her out of wherever she’s hiding. Go after someone dear to her and force her to act. Like Bootz.”
Lau shook his head. “Bootz isn’t ‘dear to her’, he just manages the company. And the Vanguard doesn’t want anyone interfere with the status quo at Sphinx.”
Nicky tossed the bottle and said, “Then we’ll have to find someone else and put them into jeopardy.”
CANE
Anouk knew where Katla lived from Zeph, but he’d been vague on details. Binnenkadijken at Entrepôtdok, near the tunnel marked ‘Middelburg’ was not real specific. Anouk had checked over fifty name plates, but none of them featured names even remotely similar to Katla or Sieltjes.
This was useless. She’d have to figure out a way to get Zeph to divulge the apartment number. Maybe she could show the cane she’d made and tell him she wanted to surprise Katla with it, which wasn’t far from the truth. She went back down to her ATB bicycle and rode it along the Entrepôtdok to the Nijlpaardenbrug, switching gears to climb the steep bridge. She was about to descend to the Plantage Kerklaan when she heard the familiar sound of a one-cylinder engine.
Halting on the bridge, she spotted Katla riding past on her battered XT225, part of her hospital cane sticking from her backpack. Anouk turned her bicycle around and rode back down to the Entrepôtdok, when another motorcycle came roaring from the left and she had to clamp on the brakes and hang a quick right onto the quayside terrace of café-restaurant Bloem to avoid being hit. A matte-black motorcycle with two people on it passed her so close she could feel the wind of its passage. The passenger turned his head in her direction, his mirrored visor hiding his face. The motorcycle roared ahead and halted with slipping tires at the tunnel Katla had just entered with her XT. The passenger jumped off and ran into the tunnel, while the rider parked the motorcycle along the quay.
Something wasn’t right.
Anouk used the bicycle path next to Bloem and turned right on the Laagte Kadijk to get to the other side of the tunnel Middelburg. She leant her ATB against the wall and inched closer, peeking through a hole in the wall into the tunnel. She saw the XT parked near the other entrance, and the motorcycle passenger standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs leading up. A moment later the rider joined him and she heard clicking sounds as something grew from their hands. With a knot in her belly, Anouk watched them climb the stairs.
A hand grabbed her from behind and another hand clamped over her mouth before she could cry out.
“Anouk,” Katla whispered in her ear. “Don’t make a sound.”
The hands released her and she turned. Katla smiled at her. “Can you ride my motorcycle?”
“I rode XTs in Thailand.”
Katla shrugged out of her motorcycle jacket, and held it open. “Put this on.”
Anouk slipped her arms in the warm jacket and Katla embraced her from behind, zipping up the jacket while she whispered, “I want you to start my motorcycle.”
“There are two—”
“I know.” Katla handed her the backpack with the cane sticking out, and picked her helmet up from the ground. “Don’t worry about them.”
Anouk put the helmet on, swung the pack on her back, and strolled down the tunnel to the XT. She straddled the motorcycle, put the key in the ignition, and pressed the starter button. Nothing happened. She looked at the other end of the tunnel and threw up her hands.
Katla made grabbing motions with her left hand.
The clutch, of course.
Anouk grabbed the clutch and pressed the starter button. The XT chugged to life.
Running footsteps came down the stairs and one of the motorcyclists stormed into the tunnel. He turned to her and Anouk looked at him while she adjusted the helmet’s chinstrap. He walked slowly past her, his left hand behind his back. He moved out of the tunnel and flipped open a cell phone. Still astride the XT, Anouk pretended to get a phone call herself, switched off the motorcycle and removed Katla’s helmet, while she dug out her phone. The second motorcyclist came down the stairs, studying her just like the first one had, and followed his comrade, while Anouk pretended to talk on her phone.
The heavy motorcycle started up and rode off, and Katla limped into the tunnel, moving past Anouk to look out at the quay.
“That was excellent, Anouk! You’re a true thespian.”
When she turned around, Anouk handed her the helmet. “What was that about?”
Katla shrugged. “I must have pissed them off. It happens.”
“They were armed,” Anouk said. “Looked like telescopic batons.”
“Road rage,” Katla said. “Some people have poor impulse control.”
Katla opened a wooden door opposite the stairs and pushed the XT inside. “Get your bicycle.”
Anouk fetched her ATB and followed Katla into the underground parking. Katla put her XT in a row of motorcycles and scooters and said, “You can chain your bike to one of the rings in the wall.”
Anouk locked her bike and followed Katla, who limped to the other end of the parking and went through another door, exiting in another tunnel, a mirror to the tunnel they just left. They climbed the stairs to a courtyard and Katla limped the other way again. Anouk followed her on her roundabout route. Katla entered a stairwell and went up to the top floor.
“Don’t pay attention to the barking,” she said. “My macaw thinks he’s a pitbull.”
Anouk followed Katla inside.
“Lock the door behind you.”
Katla jammed the hospital cane in an umbrella stand and kicked off her shoes. While she limped away in the direction of the barking macaw, Anouk turned the knob under the door handle and walked the narrow corridor past two doors and a niche with a flight of stairs leading up to an attic. The living room was dominated by a huge parrot stand, where a macaw was busy showing off for Katla. The bird fixed his gaze on Anouk and said, “Happy?”
“Just tell Kourou you’re happy,” Katla said. “He needs to know if everything is fine.”
“Happy?” Kourou asked again. Anouk nodded. “I’m happy.”
The bird screeched and settled down. Katla went to the freezer and took out a bottle with greenish vodka. “Here.”
Anouk accepted a shot glass and drank half in one gulp. “That wasn’t road rage, was it?”
Katla looked at her with a twinkle in her eyes. “Let’s just say I was glad you were here to help me.”
Anouk could feel her cheeks flush, and not just from the alcohol. She drank the rest of the vodka, cleared her throat and said, “I made you something.”
“A sculpture?”
Anouk shook her head and fished in her backpack. Holding the dark metal handle, she allowed gravity to unfold the slender tungsten-cored cane, the five hinged bars clicking softly in place. The stud at the front of the handle popped out and she placed the rubber tip on the floor.
Katla’s eyes widened. “A cane?”
“It looks flimsy, but the rods are made of titanium alloy. It can support three or four times your weight. And the tungsten inner core is spring-loaded to make sure the hinges won’t work unless you press the stud.”
“This is beautiful.” Katla caressed the cane. “You made this just for me?”
“Better than that hospital cane you’ve been using, right?”
Katla poured herself another vodka and held out the bottle. “I don’t know how much longer I will need a cane, so I didn’t look for a real cane.”
“I thought so.” Anouk allowed Katla to top off her glass. “But you like this one, don’t you?”
“I love it.” Katla stepped closer and her blue eyes smiled. “Is this your first cane?”
“No, I made Bram’s telescopic cane. Designed and built it.”
“I thought those canes always telescoped.”
“Didn’t he show you his spare cane?” Anouk chug
ged down her vodka. “It’s made from hard plastic, a couple of hollow segments that are held together by an elastic string inside. To fold it you have to pull the segments apart and fold them like a tent stick, then tie them together with the wrist strap. Cumbersome things, too big to fit in an inside pocket.”
“Nobody figured out how to make them telescopic?”
“The main drawback with existing telescopic canes is that the segments might loosen from the tapping and slip into each other, shortening the cane, so they’re mainly used by older people to signal their blindness. Bram’s cane is a prototype. If it isn’t fully extended the stud in the handle won’t pop up. Like the safety lock of a knife. The cane cannot fold unless you press the stud.”
“That doesn’t sound too complicated.”
“It wasn’t complicated, just time-consuming. Finding the right material was a bitch. Fibreglass was too flexible, plastic too brittle, steel too heavy. Eventually I ended up with a composite of fibreglass, tungsten, thermoplastic and an epoxide resin that reduced the brittleness and protected the reflective coating.”
“So you think of putting them on the market after Bram trial-tested his?”
“I don’t think that prototype can be mass-produced without serious quality deterioration. And hand-built canes would become too expensive.” Anouk shrugged. “Besides, the majority of blind people wouldn’t part with their trusty harmonica canes. It’s like trading in your eyes.”
“For improved eyes,” Katla pointed out.
“It’s an emotional choice,” Anouk said. “Not a rational one.”
TAXI
Katla rode her anonymous Burgman through the city, the GPS on the scooter’s handlebar tracking her progress as she made her way criss-cross through the Jordaan Quarter, found a spot to park briefly and marked it as intermediate waypoint. She continued her route out of the Jordaan Quarter and rode to the Spaarndammerdijk, following the road in the direction of the harbour. The road dipped under the railroad viaduct and turned into Transformatorweg.
Katla took the first opportunity to cut across the median strip, crossed Transformatorweg and headed up the small road that led to begraafplaats ‘Sint Barbara’. The cemetery was to her left, but she took a right and rode past community farm ‘Ons Genoegen’ and turned onto the dirt road that ran along the embankment that went between the ‘neighbourhood farm’ and the industrial complex to her right. Katla halted the Burgman, saved the tracklog on the GPS and switched it off. The dirt track led to a dead end of undeveloped wasteland. Because the ground was outside the municipality Westerpark, there were no plans for development yet. Right now, at dusk, it was dark, but later in the evening would be pitch black.
Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) Page 13