by Dan Taylor
“You asked me if I’d like a vacation, and now you’re talking about enemies making contact. And it being a good thing. I thought I was supposed to just be ‘bonking secrets out of her’?”
“Yeah…about that.”
“That’s my line!”
“Oh don’t act so surprised, Jake. Didn’t it sound too good to be true?”
“Having to bed a woman named Bertha Handvinkle, whose favorite food is something called a donut burger? No, it didn’t sound too good to be true.”
“She’s kind of cute.”
“She’s the kind of girl who takes selfies with her phone way up in the air, so you can just see her face and cleavage. And when you go and meet her at Bar Coco, you think that she might have escaped from Sea World and had to be hosed down the whole time while she lay on her getaway eighteen-wheeler.”
“Did that happen…wait, don’t answer that. We’re getting off topic. How sexually attractive she is is irrelevant.”
“So I’m not just here to play the flute and have awkward sex. What am I here to do?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I sigh. “What do you know?”
“Not much more than you do. But it isn’t a surprise to me that someone’s watching you. That someone knew when you were arriving and what hotel you’re staying at.”
“And that someone has ordered food while he was waiting?”
“What?”
“The waiter just put down a plate in front of him. He must’ve got hungry while waiting for me.”
“This is going to be interesting.”
“I know!”
I wait to see what happens.
Then say, “I don’t believe it!”
“What’s happening?”
“The paper’s still in front of his face, and he’s begun eating with one hand, and is holding the paper with the other.”
“He must have reinforced the paper’s structure with wire.”
“These guys are good.”
“I thought the opposite, but never mind.”
“What should I do? Go over there and poke a finger through one of his holes, letting him know I’m onto him?”
“No. Let me think a moment.”
I take a sip of beer as I wait.
Then she says, “Have you brought an umbrella with you?”
23.
“AN UMBRELLA? I haven’t.”
“Damn.”
“Why, what did you want me to do?”
“There’s an old trick. You go out into a crowded street, walk at a brisk pace, then swap umbrellas with someone when you’re a good distance away. The tail follows the umbrella, and you make a quick getaway.”
“Gee, that sounds like a good plan, Gerry. Besides the fact that it’s not raining.”
“Don’t be a dick, Jake.”
“Okay, have you got any more of these tricks up your sleeve that don’t involve a) weather I’m not experiencing, b) a lightweight collapsible canopy I don’t possess, or c) clichéd stuff you only see in the movies?”
“A lightweight collapsible canopy? You sound like a Wikipedia page.”
“I just googled the definition of umbrella so I could be facetious.”
“We’re getting off track again. What’s he doing now?”
“Still eating. Still holding the newspaper.”
“Are there any distinguishing features we could use to find out who this guy is?”
“Yeah, he has a mole over his right nipple and a tattoo of an iron hammer on his butt.”
“Again, Jake, don’t be a dick.”
“He’s got a fricking newspaper in front of his face.”
“What about his legs or feet?”
I get down from my stool and tie my shoelaces, climb back up, and then say, “I’m pretty sure one of his legs is a prosthesis.”
“Wow, even by your standards…”
“I shit you not. One of his socks doesn’t look quite filled out.”
“Anything else?”
“He’s got those weird shoes on, the ones with the thick, flat sole. The ones that are supposed to be good for your knees.”
“Practical.”
“So, we’ve got a guy who wants to be mobile later in life and has a fake leg. Is this enough to go on?”
“No, but it means you could probably outrun the guy when it means finding another hotel.”
“But I won’t have a reservation.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“You forgot that I’ll be carting around a suitcase. That’ll slow me down.”
“Jake, you’re a genius!”
24.
“I AM?”
“No, but you gave me an idea.”
“What?”
“Leave your suitcase unattended and go to the bathroom.”
“To draw him out so I can get a good look at him?”
“Exactly. Hopefully he’s got some distinguishing features we can use to find out who he is and who he’s working for.”
“Okay, I’m going.”
I spot the bathroom, which is behind him. As I walk past, he spins towards me, tilts the paper up, so that I don’t get a look of his face. Again, these guys are good.
I go into the bathroom, then say to Gerry, “How long should I wait before trying to catch him taking it?”
“Your call.”
I wait a couple seconds, then go out there. “Damn.”
“What?”
“He hasn’t moved a muscle.”
“He probably knows it’s a trap.”
“Ya think?”
“Try again.”
I go back into the bathroom entrance. Wait thirty seconds this time, during which Gerry is silent. When I go out there, I don’t believe what I see.
25.
“HE’S TAKEN MY suitcase!”
Okay, so it wasn’t that surprising or dramatic.
Gerry says, “Is there any sign of him?”
“Not that I can see.”
A couple hotel guests spot me poking my head around the bathroom door, and are looking at me with quizzical expressions on their faces. I hold my hand up, reassuring them nothing untoward is going on.
“Wait a minute. My case is in a different place to where I thought it was.”
“So he hasn’t taken it?”
“No.”
I go fully out of the bathroom, take my stool again, and look around. “He’s gone.”
“Well you fucked that up.”
“I did exactly what you said.”
“Exactly.”
“Come again?”
“You should’ve been able to think for yourself in that situation.”
“I’m not even sure what the situation was.”
“That situation was us being a step closer to finding out what happened to Cole Baxter, and who were the people he got involved with.”
“So all we know is that he was checking out some Russian facility. You and Andre were telling the truth about that?”
“Right.”
26.
Somewhere in Antarctica…
“WHAT TOOK YOU so long, American?” Dmitry asks as Cole Baxter comes back into the observation station.
“The vodka got the better of me. And I already told you, I’m Canadian.”
Dmitry doesn’t respond, just looks at Cole with devious little slits for eyes. Then says, “You should rest a little. I’ll take the first shift.”
Despite his better judgment, Cole does. He intends to just rest his eyes a little, get his mind around this German-in-the-septic-tank situation.
Gerry sent him out here, with the understanding that he find out what the station was for. Told him it could just be a weather observation station, or a place where the Russians are searching for their slice of the estimated 200 billion barrels of oil buried under the ice here. But his discovery has laid waste to those theories.
Unless Dmitry here’s just a nut, and that he’d come back and maybe found the German taking a d
ump in the septic tank or caught him “choking his one-eyed trouser sausage.”
Before he knows it, he’s asleep, a dumb grin on his face as he dreams of his darling Bertha, the woman who got him his foot in the door.
When he wakes, Dmitry is sitting in his stool, snoring, head lolled back, a drop of drool hanging from his chin.
He climbs out of the bottom bunk as carefully as he can and goes up to Dmitry. He claps in front of his face a few times. Dmitry doesn’t stir. So he pinches one of his earlobes, digs his nail into it, ensuring he doesn’t leave a mark. Still Dmitry doesn’t stir.
Now for the acid test. Cole licks his finger and gives him a wet willy, getting right in there.
Still, Dmitry doesn’t stir, just wafts Cole’s finger away as though it were a fly.
Now’s his opportunity.
He wheels Dmitry out of the way and starts searching. Strewn on Dmitry’s section of the workstation are various snacks: the chili-coated peanuts he watched him eat earlier, chocolate-covered pretzels, and some Russian snack, which are branded by what looks to be an anorexic bear holding a wooden spoon, from which drips honey. He pulls one out, sniffs it, and can’t decide what type of meat it is.
He searches high and low, but doesn’t find anything that informs him of the purpose of the station.
But then he gets an idea. He turns towards the bed, looks at the dark crevice formed between the mattress and the frame of the bed that is the top bunk. Dmitry’s bunk. The one he was secretive about.
And not just because of his vodka, Cole thinks.
27.
Oslo…
IT’S TOO HOT to stay in the Three Bells Hotel. No, literally. I don’t know if the thermostat’s broken, or if this is what they consider room temperature in this part of the world, but I can’t stay here.
I reiterate it to Gerry. “It’s too hot to stay here.”
“I know. Cancel the reservation and find one a good distance away.”
I think about lugging my suitcase around a city I don’t know, and say, “Or maybe I can take off this woolen sweater I’ve got on?”
“What? Are we talking about the same thing, the tail?”
“I was just fucking with you. Of course I was talking about the tail. Have they improved?”
“Have what improved?”
“My jokes?”
“Oh, that was a joke?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s your answer.”
“I’m confused.”
She pauses. “No, your jokes haven’t improved. It’s like your mom quit writing them and you asked Dan Aykroyd to write them instead.”
“Ouch!”
“Now go and find another hotel. Pretty please—”
“With fucking sprinkles on top?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
I finish my beer and then head out. I try googling a few, using an online map to try and find my way, but I head down a main street, and after about five minutes, find that I headed in completely the wrong direction.
Someone should really invent a GPS app that uses the phone’s built-in orientation sensor to ensure the map is orientated to the user’s direction of travel—such as the Pro GPS Lite available to download for both Android and iPhone. That would’ve been great.
I put my phone away and wander around, then go into the first hotel I spot. Which happens to be one that looks the classiest, is a stone’s throw from what looks like a bar I would like to patronize, and just so happens to have scores of blond-haired, slim Norwegian ladies walking past, having just come out of a fashion boutique a block away.
I strut up to the reception desk, and there’s an impossibly tall Norwegian woman, with angular striking features, manning the fort.
I say, “I don’t suppose you have rooms available?”
She greets me, then turns her attention to a computer and starts clicking away at a mouse as I look at her cleavage.
She says, “Size?”
She catches me unawares. “Huh?”
“What size would you like?”
“The size that you have is fine.”
She looks confused.
“Room…size of room, you meant. Any.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Double or single?”
“It’s got to be double, hasn’t it?”
I laugh and she follows suit, only diplomatically, of course. Dan Aykroyd, eat your shit jokes out.
She clicks away, types something. “I have a number available. Any other preferences?”
I stutter, “Smoking…hot.” I slap my forehead theatrically. “Non-smoking, and not too hot like that hotel a couple blocks down.”
Her lack of typing tells me they’re all non-smoking and that there’s a thermostat in each room. “Any other preferences?”
I turn around, point directly behind me, at the street I was on. “Overlooking that street.”
“Okaayyy…”
I get my keycard, take the elevator up to the room—sharing it with a bow tie-wearing businessman who’s itching for it to reach his floor posthaste as he grips his briefcase.
When I get inside, I put down my suitcase and rush over to the window. It’s a helluva view, if you’re one part of a retired couple, on the verge of a stroke, and care about fine-looking architecture and culture and stuff.
I must remember to buy a pair of binoculars tomorrow.
I start googling ‘binoculars shops in Oslo,’ but I’m interrupted by that pain in my chest again. I feel extra panicked this time, with me being in a foreign country, and all. I ride it out by running around my room, attempting to burp, which isn’t successful.
Is it my imagination or are these things getting worse?
28.
APART FROM THE heartburn/angina thing flaring up, my first evening in Oslo is uneventful. I’m going to skip over that part.
As is the next day. I sleep in, find out that Norwegian hotels don’t have proper sausages in their breakfast buffets (in favor of chipolatas—if I do manage to score in Oslo, the lucky lady is going to get one hell of a surprise!), and then go sightseeing. I wear my orange wayfarers and a bright-blue Hawaiian shirt so that I don’t look like a tourist.
There’s not much else I can do before I make contact with the target…listen to me, I sound just like a proper spy.
Oh, but I do manage to find binoculars.
There was no sign of the tail during this time.
I turn up at Freidkin’s Jazz Rendezvous late—just by five minutes—assuming that’s what most people in the biz do.
A barman, doubling up as the stage manager, glances at me and my flute case from behind the bar and rushes up to me. “Are you Kent Smoothwaters?”
“Right on, man.”
“What?”
“Yes, I am he.”
“Say again.”
“I’m the dude, man.”
He looks at me, confused.
“I’m Kent Smoothwaters, yes.”
“You’re late.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” I flick the flute case. “I had a bit of trouble tuning this bad boy.”
He gives a minute shake of the head. Then says, “Go get set up and acquainted with the band. You’re on in ten.”
He runs back behind the bar.
I feel lost stood in the middle of the jazz bar. I look around for Bertha, or anyone who might look like her, but only find trendy, young Norwegians sipping glasses of wine and craft beers.
I go up to the stage and introduce myself to the rest of the band. There’s a drummer, a double bassist, a guitar player wearing a flat cap, with Dazed and Confused eyes, and a keyboard player. On the latter’s fingers are a dozen or so warts, which I can’t keep my eyes off. I manage to avoid shaking his hand by running off to the bar to order beers for everyone, to “wet my whistle” before I do my magic. Yeah, I’ve kind of decided to ignore that whole not-drinking thing.
I take five minutes to get warmed up, which comprises of downing my beer for
Dutch courage and managing to produce a few flutelike sounds from my instrument. Enough to hopefully pass as a competent jazz flutist to the still-absent Bertha.
Before I know it, the lights dim, and I’m standing in front of a microphone, flute in hands, a spotlight focused on me.
From behind me, I hear, “What do you want to play first, Kent?”
I turn around. “Give me standard jazz mid-tempo backing 4/4 in G major,” which Herb told me to suggest.
Each band member looks at each other, then shrugs.
The rhythm section starts up. First the double bassist, then drummer, guitarist, and finally the wart-fingered keyboardist.
After about eight bars of trying to “feel” my way into the music, I start blowing and randomly pressing keys. I grimace as I hear the discordance between what I’m playing and what the rest of the band’s playing. But I persevere.
And what do you know, the crowd seems to be showing their appreciation. At least a couple members, who bop their heads as they get into the groove. A couple more members notice their appreciation and follow suit. This spreads around the bar until they’re all nodding their heads in unison to the double bassist’s beat.
I’m enjoying this, but I see no sign of Bertha. My lips get tired, so I stop playing, then spin around and point at the keyboardist, indicating to him to “take it away,” which he does after looking a little surprised and pissed that I put him on the spot.
But he wings it, his fingers hopping expertly over the keys, playing a nice little funky solo or whatever.
I take a few sips of beer as I scan the crowd. There’s still no sign of her.
Until the door opens, and the most magnificent woman I’ve ever seen walks through the door. The picture Andre provided for me must be a good six months old, as the puppy fat she was carrying has melted away to reveal the type of body that’s not Silicon Valley perfect, but the type of body you notice is possessed by your high school friend’s mom when you visit his house for the first time and she’s suggestively drinking a glass of chardonnay before dinner.
And she’s wearing a figure-hugging classy red dress.
This jars me into action.