Always factoring in the possibility of someone recording him, Wim, distrustful of everybody he speaks with, directs every conversation. He’ll only discuss subjects of his choice. He’ll determine the contents and course of the conversation, and block any other input. That’s what he does with us as well, expecting us to toe the line. If we don’t, he’ll get suspicious immediately.
Every contact we have is dominated by rules that are set in stone; that’s what we were taught, and that’s the way we’ve done it for thirty years. The system is so complicated that it’s almost impossible to get him to say anything incriminating about himself. I couldn’t start talking to him in a different way without arousing his suspicion.
His observations are razor sharp. I was afraid he’d notice I was recording our conversations from my behavior, that I couldn’t handle myself, that I would show an involuntary change despite my efforts. He would notice the smallest of changes and immediately attribute them to betrayal.
In his eyes, any deviation from your usual behavior shows you’re hiding something or talking to the police. Even a tiny change is suspicious. All it takes is one faulty question. Or choosing your words wrongly, mentioning names, or talking out loud instead of whispering.
Bringing up a random issue is a no-go as well. If I were to just start talking about Cor, for example, it would immediately raise a red flag. That subject is off-limits. Many issues he is sensitive to—ones that could incriminate him—cannot be discussed.
This significantly limited the chances of a substantively successful recording.
Then there were technicalities. He might frisk me to see if I was wired. Search me, even though he trusted me. According to Wim, “checking isn’t distrusting.” But he’ll distrust you the second you won’t let him search you.
I was certain he would beat me to death immediately if he discovered I was recording our conversations. He’d know why I did it right away, realize what we had discussed, and know I’d sided with the authorities. He wouldn’t take any risk and wouldn’t let me get away.
I asked Peter de Vries for advice. He’d worked with hidden cameras and microphones before. Because he knew Wim only talked while walking down the street, he supplied me with recording equipment to be worn inside of a coat, with the microphone wired through the sleeve and attached underneath the coat’s lapel.
I tried it at home. That didn’t go well. The recording device was so large that Wim wouldn’t even need to search me to find it. The wire and microphone were visible whenever I moved. It wouldn’t work. I needed to find equipment that was invisible, that could not be felt by him, and that allowed me to move freely and behave normally.
Extorting Sonja
AFTER HIS RELEASE IN 2012, WIM WORKED TO RESTORE HIS STANDING IN the criminal world, and by the end of the year, he was well on his way to regaining his previous dominance.
Using his remarkable charisma and boldness, he managed to turn his enemies back into friends. He assembled “gunmen” around him, past killers he thought he could trust.
The only thing he lacked was money.
He did have some, but not nearly as much as he was used to. He told us he’d once had forty million euros, but he’d left jail nearly penniless after the government recovered seventeen million euros from him—and he claimed former friends stole from him. In an attempt to generate some cash and “get back up,” he invested in cannabis plantations and the cocaine trade.
But he had other plans, too.
Shortly after his release, he appeared on Sonja’s doorstep. Instead of a sister, he saw two bags of money: Cor’s money, and money from the American film adaptation of the 1985 book The Kidnapping of Alfred Heineken by our friend Peter R. de Vries. Peter had written the book based on interviews with Cor, and arranged for royalties to be split between himself and Cor. The book had done very well, and in 2011 it was turned into a Dutch movie. Wim had sued to prevent the release of the film, but he lost. It was said that he also threatened the film’s director. Now there was an American remake in the works, and Wim was determined to either stop the production or get his hands on the profits. Sonja told him she didn’t have any of Cor’s money, but Wim didn’t believe her. According to him, Cor had had considerable capital, which she’d inherited, so she had money and it wasn’t hers to keep. It was his, for he bore the burden—making the gun gesture—and still risked prosecution. Why should she benefit?
Wim kept returning to Sonja’s doorstep, asking the same question: “Where’s the money?”
Her standard reply was “I don’t have any money.”
Early in 2013, though, when the press reported that Sonja had been sued for Cor’s inheritance and had finally settled for 1.2 million euros, Wim had found his proof. “If you settle for one point two million euros, you gotta be loaded.”
He concluded that there had to be money, and lots of it. Her denial only fired him up more. He wouldn’t be “bamboozled”; she was going to pay him “or else she’d see what happened” (making his usual gun gesture).
Wim’s extortion of Sonja had begun.
He started “sharing” with me how Sonja was a filthy whore and a selfish bitch.
“She’s saying she’s got nothing, but I don’t buy it. She’s a weasel, trying to keep everything for herself, but I’ll find her out, all right.”
That’s what he wanted to use me for, to get information and to pass on information, since he knew she trusted me and that I was always in touch with her. To get me to take on this role, I’d have to cross over from Camp Sonja to Camp Wim. First, he had to get me out of my own reality and to see the reality he was showing me.
Every day he’d bring his reality to my door, trying to brainwash me. He’d talk to me, sometimes three times in one day, telling me I needed to know “the truth” and see “what a weasel” she really was.
He’d supply the craziest kinds of evidence.
“As, they’re driving cars. Their closets are jam-packed with Gucci. Do you have any idea how expensive Gucci is?”
I knew how the cars had been paid for, and I only had to open Sonja’s closet to see just one fake Gucci belt and two fake Gucci sweaters in there, but that didn’t make any difference to him.
He applied the power of repetition, delivering the same message every day: “She’s got money, and it’s mine. She stole it from me.” When he thought I’d taken in his view of reality, he took the next step to successfully induct me into his camp. Now that I’d finally “seen” how Sonja had fooled him, I should know that he wasn’t her only victim; she abused me as well. “Assie, you should stop paying bills for her. She’s just using you. She’s using both of us, because she’s got money, all right.”
She was lying to him and lying to me.
“Why is she lying to you?” he asked, seemingly concerned for my well-being. “See what a filthy whore she is? She’s lying, even to you, who does everything for her!” Here he was, caring enough to warn me about her. Because he recognized it, he was getting played by her as well! We were both being played! The two of us were buddies. Connected. We had to turn against her together.
I didn’t react the way he wanted me to, though. I wouldn’t be dragged into his conspiracy against her, because I knew how it would end. In dealing with him, it was important to stay neutral as long as possible, not to be sucked into his strategy: creating a conflict for him to use as grounds for extortion, extortion he justified by her so-called stealing from him.
He’ll use such justifications to explain why someone should commit to him, because he won’t get his hands dirty on anything. He’ll send his troops forward. Common soldiers, cannon fodder.
He’ll get there when it’s time to haul in the loot.
It took some prevarication for me to stay neutral about Sonja while still making him feel that I was on his side. My neutrality annoyed him, and I was increasingly nervous that he might see where my loyalties really were. But choosing his side just like that wasn’t an option, either, since I’d be expos
ing myself to the risk of having to fix things for him that might prove disadvantageous to Sonja or myself.
I felt like a juggler trying to keep dozens of balls in the air. After making me listen to his complaints about Sonja and “his money,” he renewed his attack on Francis: she’d been “talking” about him. She’d told one of his girlfriends he’d had Cor “done,” and Sonja should pay for her indiscretion.
Eventually, he figured he couldn’t use Francis’s “talking” as a basis for extortion because it pointed too much toward the liquidation of Cor, and he was afraid he’d be prosecuted.
He moved on and found somebody else.
But that didn’t mean Sonja was safe. Wim would be back as soon as he found a new reason to harass her. And it didn’t take him long.
Richie
2013/2003
IN 1993, WHEN SONJA AND COR HAD A SON, COR WAS OVER THE MOON. He named his son after what he’d always wanted to be: rich. Richie was about two years old when he survived the first assassination attempt on his father. He was seven when Wim put a gun to his head to force me and Sonja to say where Cor was hiding so he could have him liquidated. He was nine years old when his father died.
After Cor’s death, Wim claimed the role of the father whose murder he had directed. He demanded that Cor’s family show him respect. Richie, who was suffering deeply over the loss of his dad, had to listen to Wim saying his father had actually been a “fat dog.” He had to endure Wim insulting, degrading, and belittling his father while boasting about how great he himself was. Wim took pleasure in having beaten the man in whose shadow he’d always lived.
Richie instinctively loathed the uncle who was destroying the memory of his father. He was too upset to pretend to like him, respect him, or obey him. And he was too young to see the danger.
Barely ten years old, he was cold and unemotional toward Wim. Already, Wim thought of him as a pain in the neck. “Who does the little shit think he is?” he’d snort. “Thinks he’s just like his dad? He’d better watch out, then. You know what I’ll do, right?”
Yes, we knew, but for his own safety we’d never told Richie it had been Wim who’d given the order for the murder of his father. On the contrary, we’d denied the countless allegations that were made in the media, fearing Richie would run his mouth and retribution would follow.
But Richie had never asked us about it, as if there was no need, because he had known all along. He went his own way, avoiding Wim. This bugged Wim the most.
While Wim was in prison for six years, Richie grew into the spitting image of his father, both in looks and in character. He and Cor have the same face. He has exactly the same build, demeanor, and, especially, sense of humor. He’s socially adept, a welcome guest wherever he goes. He turns life into a party, the way Cor used to and Wim never could because he can’t feel any zest for life.
Richie didn’t give a damn about his jailed uncle, even though Wim reminded him regularly that he was the notorious Willem Holleeder. Wim felt Richie didn’t “show him respect,” and it only added to his hatred for him.
Richie wasn’t in the least interested in criminality. He was a talented tennis player and exercised intensively, something we’d encouraged as a way to keep him away from crime.
We knew it was very likely that, at some point, Wim would seek an opportunity to start working on Richie, and with his remarks about not letting children grow up so they can’t take revenge in our minds, we worried about Richie’s well-being after Wim was released.
So when the opportunity arose for Richie to play tennis in the United States, we sent him there. Finally he was at a safe distance.
He left behind his pride and joy: his small car, a VW Polo. Now that Richie was in the States, Wim had his eye on the car.
It was nine p.m. when the doorbell rang. “Are you coming down?”
Of course I went.
A: “What’s up?”
W: “Well, Assie, actually, I’m getting fed up. I’ve got to get around on my bike. It’s raining, it’s cold, I can’t see, it’s really dangerous. But Sonja still has that kid’s car, just sitting there. Why shouldn’t I use it? Why doesn’t she just say I can use it? I can’t register a car in my name. Why hasn’t she given the car to me? They get to drive around in cars, and I have to be on the scooter in the cold? How did they pay for those cars, anyway?”
A: “But, Wim, you already have a car, don’t you? The one that’s registered to the garage in Haarlem?”
W: “So? What about it?”
A: “So can’t you drive that one? Then you won’t be cold, either.”
W: “No, Assie, that’s not how it works. She should have loaned that car to me! Isn’t that normal? We are family, right? It doesn’t matter whether I’ve got another car somewhere. She should have given the car to me right away.”
A: “Can’t you ask her to lend it to you?”
W: “No, Assie. Listen to me, Assie. I shouldn’t have to ask anything. She should have offered it to me. She knows the weather is bad and I have to ride the scooter through the cold and the rain, doesn’t she? Why couldn’t she just hand over the car to me? Drives cars herself while making me use the scooter? If I fall off that scooter, you’ll see what I’ll do to her. I’ll crush her jaw. I’ll knock the teeth out of her mouth. You know she’s got money, don’t you?”
The fact that he already had a car didn’t support his accusation of Sonja, so he left that part out entirely. It didn’t matter. An argument didn’t have to make sense; it just had to serve Wim’s goal: to find a cause for conflict that would justify his extortion of Sonja.
Richie’s compact car was merely a stepping-stone to the real issue: money.
Later that evening, I hurried over to Sonja’s to tell her, and I asked her if it might be better to just give the car to Wim so he wouldn’t use it as a reason to start with her.
Sonja wasn’t planning on lending him the car, though. “I don’t want him driving Richie’s car, As. He’s involved in drugs and shady business, and I don’t want Richie’s car tangled up in it. He meets his drug clients, and if the Justice Department sees Richie’s car, they’ll think he’s involved somehow, or they’ll seize the car and Rich won’t have one when he gets back. I just won’t do it.”
The following day, he was on my doorstep again.
W: “Assie, it’s a bloody shame! They’re cruising in their cars and I have to face the elements on a bike. They’ve got houses to live in. I can’t even register a house in my name. So, she’s got money. Why didn’t she tell me? You can’t have a house and cars if you don’t have money. She’s got money. But she’s not entitled to it. Who does she think she is?”
I tried to postpone Sonja’s doom for as long as I could. “How do you know you can’t borrow the car? You haven’t even asked her yet,” I kept telling him. “You’re mad at Sonja without even knowing whether she’ll let you borrow it.”
I knew he had no intention of asking her, for if she said yes, the matter would be solved and he’d have to come up with another reason for the conflict.
I pretended not to understand, and he realized he couldn’t get me to buy in to his line of reasoning without him actually asking Sonja the question.
Two days later, he was back.
W: “I asked her today to let me borrow that car. Just to see what she’d say. But she won’t give it to me. Filthy whore. She just won’t. Because she won’t have me driving it. Because the Justice Department would seize it. I don’t care about the fucking car—I can go by bike just as easily. I just wanted to see if she’d hand it over. But I’m not done with her yet. This is just the beginning. I’ll have that cute little car incinerated so the kid won’t have it, either. Nothing for me, nothing for him.”
A: “But if you just talk to her, I’m sure she’ll give you the car.”
W: “No, I’m done talking to her.”
A: “Then I’ll go tell her to give it to you.”
W: “No need. She’s no longer allowed to give that c
ar to me.”
He had no intention of solving the conflict. As long as there was conflict, something to blame her for, he could justify retaliating any way he wanted: through betrayal, manipulation, threats, extortion—and, eventually, murder. Sonja had pampered him his entire life. She’d shared a lifetime of joy and pain with him, been through everything with him. The aftermath of the Heineken kidnapping, traveling to Paris at least once, sometimes twice, a week, always doing his laundry and ironing, getting his groceries, cooking his dinner.
None of that mattered. It was all meaningless. Forty years of loyal service erased by what Sonja had “done to him.” From now on even the smallest bump in the road would be her fault. Everything he’d brought on himself was Sonja’s doing. Sonja was “a nail in his coffin,” so she had to pay up.
It was only natural, right?
Sonja had officially gone from friend to foe. This was the moment we’d all been dreading, and the reason we’d tried to comply with his demands as much as we could. From then on, he’d be at my door every day, displaying his theatrical indignation toward Sonja. The extortion had begun.
Sonja and I had to try to stay ahead of him for as long as we could, meanwhile gathering evidence against him so we might be able to reach our goal just in time: making him pay for Cor.
In one respect, there was an upside to this misery. This could be my chance to make his motive for killing Cor clear to the Justice Department. Why else did he feel entitled to the inheritance; why did he “bear the burden” while she “got the benefits”?
Judas Page 19