An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam

by Michael Grant

  She pronounced it Ridge-ex-museum, which made me obscurely happy.

  Now my mood brightened, not because I had achieved success, I wasn’t going to know that for twelve hours. But the second phase had well and truly begun and there was absolutely nothing for me to do.

  The bookstore manager popped in to tell us that it was time, and that we had a surprisingly large crowd waiting for us.

  And, oh, did we ever.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  There’s not a lot of showbiz in book panels and signings. The very best you’re going to get is an introduction. That’s it. No triumphal music playing us on or off.

  The stage was a towering six inches high with five stools crammed into too little space. There was a moderator and I’m sure she had a name but I hadn’t managed to remember it, being somewhat distracted by the fact that I was either pulling off the heist of the decade (if not century) or embarrassing myself spectacularly en route to many years in tiny rooms without windows and an en suite right next to the cot. Also a roommate.

  The moderator sat at the far end. Then came the star of the evening, Polly Addison Theriault, then me, then George with Jennifer Choo bringing up the rear. We all had individual bottles of water but we were sharing a mike.

  Facing us, or being faced by us, depending, were about fifty folding chairs containing approximately fifty rear ends. And there were standees. This was good, it’s depressing when the crowd is three old ladies and a homeless guy talking to the voices in his head. More than fifty people? That was pretty good, even if only eight of them were there for me.

  But it’s not just about numbers. It’s also about the quality of attendees and I absolutely did not love the fact that there was not one, but two faces in that audience that I did not want to see.

  Willy Pete was now dressed in the kind of mid-range dad clothes military guys think of as civvies. He was standing at the back, fixing me with a white-hot glare. There was another guy, too, one of the muscular fellows who’d been with Willy when he’d confronted me on the bridge, the Lisp. They stood apart but were clearly together.

  ‘Helloooooo, book lovers,’ the moderator crooned into the over-amplified mike. ‘Waterstones Amsterdam is pleased and honored to be able to bring four brilliant mystery writers together. I’m going to start off with a few questions and then we’ll throw it open to all of you to ask your own questions. Then we’ll have a signing right there at that table.’

  The table was your standard folding leg object with four chairs and four name tags. Willy Pete was leaning against said table. He reached over and took the folded paper reading David Mitre and crumpled it in his fist.

  I almost laughed, because as tough-guy moves went it was pitiful. Which is not to say I wasn’t scared. I was. I was facing two guys who could jointly or severally kill me.

  We started with the inevitable ‘tell us briefly about your work’ question which Jennifer and George filibustered. Polly was brief, which made me hate her slightly less. And I did my usual sardonic, faux-modest routine and about halfway through that Willy and his sidekick left. I wondered why. Had they just showed up to glare balefully for three minutes? Had they spotted someone else in the crowd, say, law enforcement unfamiliar to me?

  Whatever the reason, I welcomed it. My sphincter was already tight enough, thank you very much, without a pair of thugs giving me the death stare.

  ‘Tell us about what inspires you, David.’

  ‘I don’t really think in terms of inspiration,’ I said. ‘For me it’s my job, a job I love, but there’s nothing mystical involved.’

  Then we did the literary role models question. I hate this, it forces me to kiss Lee Child’s ring, which in turn forces me to throw subtle shade on Lee by mentioning Raymond Chandler. Because Child may be mystery writing’s current Thor but Chandler is Odin, the all-father, the occupant of the throne to which we all must bend a knee. Some people memorize poetry, I memorize Chandler.

  There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks.

  Meek little wives feel the edge … How the hell do you write better than that? You don’t, that’s how, and all of us in the business of trying to do so know it.

  ‘My question is for Mr Mitre. Mr Mitre, are you married?’

  Sometimes my female fans flirt a bit. It comes with the territory, though not for poor George.

  ‘I am not married,’ I said with a greasy smile, tossing off a quick joke. ‘Who would have me?’

  There followed the usual back and forth, mostly involving Polly Addison Theriault, with occasional nods to Jennifer Choo and me. George was growing restless and resentful.

  At this point in the evening I either had bank accounts filling up with bitcoin, or the whole charade had collapsed. I couldn’t check, I only had one phone on me at the moment and it had a specific, limited purpose.

  We reached the end at last and were to head to the signing table. I settled in with my Sharpie, ready to mumble my humble thanks to all who had spent the eighteen euros to buy my book. I wasn’t even looking up when I was handed a book and a horribly familiar voice said, ‘Autograph it for Martin Sarip, please.’

  Ah.

  Fuck.

  OK, it was time for this.

  ‘Happy to,’ I said.

  ‘I need some of your time.’

  ‘I won’t be more than another twenty minutes.’

  ‘Now,’ said the lieutenant who was without his usual shadow.

  ‘But the people in line …’ I waved a hand at them.

  ‘Now.’

  He put steel into that, so I pushed back and in a loud voice, said, ‘Folks, I’m sorry but it seems the Koninklijke Marechaussee needs to consult with me.’ I offered the next person in line an apologetic shrug along with an expression that suggested I was a sort of Hercule Poirot and Sarip was the hapless Inspector Japp. Duty called, and all that.

  We went back to the green room and shooed away two store employees who were opening boxes and stacking fresh books.

  ‘Your phone,’ Sarip snapped, holding out his hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your mobile. Give it to me.’

  I’m not sure I’ve said this explicitly, but I have a problem with being told what to do. I suppose that’s obvious, really. So I didn’t answer. I also didn’t give him my phone. I just met his gaze and without intending it – well, OK, intending it, but I shouldn’t have – I smirked. After I’d left his insistent hand hanging in mid-air for a good ten seconds, I said, ‘Is that the law in the Netherlands? Any cop can just walk up to an innocent person and demand his phone?’

  Sarip was not happy about that. He looked very much like a guy who might just try to snatch my phone away from me but for the fact that I was bigger than he was. He literally ground his teeth. ‘If you have committed no crime then you should have nothing to fear.’

  ‘Aside from trusting you not to violate my privacy?’ I sighed. I could resist further, I could probably demand a lawyer from the embassy. I could do those things, but since I wanted Sarip to have my phone, had in fact counted on him asking for my phone, I did the generous, innocent thing. ‘I will voluntarily hand you my phone – I’ll even unlock it for you – if you first explain why you want it.’

  Sarip was coldly furious. And maybe if we’d been in a nice, quiet cinderblock-walled interview room he might have smacked me around a bit. Maybe. He was mad enough to, and I knew why he was mad; his cop gut was telling him that the Hangwoman incident, the skinhead beating and the murder of poor Ian were all connected to the theft of the Vermeer. And since he knew for a fact that two of those incidents involved me … He was worried that he’d had the perpetrator in his sights for days and had nevertheless failed to stop me. That wouldn’t look good on his quarterly pe
rformance review. He answered me but in a tone full of gravel and malice.

  ‘There’s been a painting stolen from the Rijksmuseum.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Polly Whatsername was showing us a bizarre video just before we went out. Huh. OK, but what’s that have to do with me?’

  ‘That is the question,’ Sarip answered. ‘If I could access your mobile we could quickly eliminate you by checking your GPS data.’

  ‘Really? Hmmm,’ I said. ‘OK.’

  In that moment Sarip realized what my phone would give him. He would find no messages, no emails, no texts and if he checked my browser history he would conclude that I seldom used the internet. The phone, an Android, was just a few days old and sure, that in itself would be suspicious, but what it would not be is evidence against me.

  When Sarip got the phone back to his in-house geeks, those geeks would turn up very few indications that the phone had moved – I’d only had so much time to set this up – except for today. And today’s GPS record would show me nowhere near the Rijksmuseum at the time of the heist.

  It took every bit of my maturity, not something I have in surplus, not to laugh in Sarip’s face, the poor bastard. He’d just insisted on, and I had reluctantly turned over, exculpatory evidence. The Netherlands tries criminal cases before a three-judge panel, harder to bamboozle than a jury, but nevertheless, my phone, the phone taken from me by Sarip, the phone he’d insisted on, would show me in one place and the Rijksmuseum in another.

  ‘Where were you from four to six p.m.?’ Sarip snapped.

  I shrugged. ‘Dude, seriously? You seriously think I stole a painting? Me?’ I shook my head and laughed at the transparent folly of it all. ‘Look, I wandered around town, I wasn’t taking notes. I mean, check the phone, it will be more specific.’

  At that point, having signed so few books that it had only darkened his mood, George came in, stopped, stared at the two police, picked up the bag he’d left in the green room, and stalked off.

  ‘Where’s your better half this evening, Lieutenant? The lovely sergeant?’

  ‘Under the weather,’ he said.

  Polly and Jennifer entered, laughing like old school friends. They eyeballed Sarip and me, but didn’t ask questions. What they did instead was watch the second broadcast. Same recorded message, same threat, same demand.

  ‘It’s on again, the thing about the painting,’ Polly said. Sarip watched me for my reaction.

  ‘See? There you go, Lieutenant. Unless you think I can be in two places at once.’

  Sarip, who looked set to spontaneously combust, stabbed an angry finger at me and said, ‘Do not leave Amsterdam,’ and stormed off, accidentally knocking a pile of books over.

  I called after him, ‘What, ever?’

  Because while it’s never smart to tweak a cop, it is fun.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I don’t think I’ve ever been more frustrated than I was as I left Waterstones at about nine p.m. I had built and let loose upon the world a brilliant plan which, at that very moment, was either working or not. And I could not find out. There was an excellent chance that Sarip had eyes on me – possibly the eyes of his missing partner – and if I was seen whipping out a phone that would drastically diminish the exculpatory power of the phone I’d had Madalena take on a tour around Amsterdam and handed to Sarip.

  I could go back to my apartment and there I could check, but there were two problems with that. One was that there might be all manner of active electronic snooping aimed at my place. And two, Delia might be there and I wasn’t ready to deal with her. It was entirely possible that she might yell at me.

  So I walked over to the Singel and followed it north, hung a left on Blauwburgwal and crossed to the Arendsnest, a sardine tin of a brown bar, and after some jostling found a few bare inches free. I usually avoid the brown bars because they represent a sort of sacred space for locals in a city devoted to tourists. But I was pretty sure I’d be leaving Amsterdam soon and not at all sure I’d ever be able to return. I was feeling pre-nostalgic.

  The Arendsnest was about as narrow as a bike lane, wonderfully shiny with bottles and mirrors and stacked glasses and knick-knacks. Behind the bar loomed a chalkboard beer menu listing nothing but Dutch artisanal beers. I craved whiskey, but the job was not yet done and I might yet have another encounter with Lieutenant Sarip. I ordered a Seabeggar rye pale ale on the grounds that I’d never had a rye beer and started to run through the plan again, obsessively searching for holes.

  I tried a couple other beers as well in the course of killing a couple of hours. I watched the fourth broadcast on a stranger’s phone, looking over his shoulder. The theft of the Vermeer was definitely a topic of conversation, though in this bar, at this moment, people were speaking Dutch so I gleaned no new data.

  Just before midnight I left, swaying a little perhaps, but sober enough. Six hours in. The halfway point. A light rain fell through a clinging mist leaving the brick sidewalk slick. The mist turned lights dim and starry and deepened the darkness of the Herrengracht canal, which was on my left, as I walked south toward what passed for home. Between me and the canal was the narrow one-way street and a long line of parked cars, all angled in and facing the canal. Wherever there wasn’t a parked car there was a cluster of chained bikes. Elm trees dripped and rustled fitfully in a downright cold breeze that somehow penetrated to the bone without clearing the mist away.

  Half a block down the street I saw a woman leaning against a parked orange VW Polo and talking on her phone. She was turned in my direction and I had the impression that she reacted to seeing me. Nothing dramatic, just a sort of subtle pushing away from leaning on the car.

  It was nothing, I told myself, just a woman getting home late, or maybe about to take the drive of shame after a tryst. But I hadn’t survived as a fugitive by ignoring the little warning bells tinkling in the back of my brain.

  I mimed forgetting something, patted my pockets, and turned around, instinct telling me to walk away. Then, behind me, I heard the door of the Polo open, then slam shut. And a second or two later, the engine came alive with a diesel rattle.

  I turned my head, still affecting a casual lack of concern and the Polo was creeping down the street in my direction, headlights blinding. Wrong way on a one-way street. But slow. Not looking to run me down, more like the driver was following me.

  Then, ahead of me, an unmarked white-paneled van turned off Blauwburgwal and came toward me, creeping as cautiously as the Polo. I was between a van and a VW, a Mitre sandwich. Too late to turn back now, I kept walking, very casual, seemingly unaware, toward the panel van. The van continued closing the distance as did the Polo, the two vehicles no more than ten car lengths apart now.

  I heard the sound of the van’s transmission shifting gears and the engine revved. It lurched forward, came right at me and would run me over in about two seconds … except for the fact that Amsterdam canal houses are all slightly elevated with front doors reached by anywhere from three to eight or nine steps. I danced nimbly aside and took seven steps in two leaps. I tripped at the top and stumbled into the black iron railing. The van screeched to a halt just beside me, the Polo screeched to its own halt just twenty feet away to the south.

  I saw the van’s sliding door open. At that moment what I expected was half a dozen guys in black tactical gear to pile out, grab me and force me into the van. I mean, that’s the way it works in the movies. And what the Ontario Crew, the CIA and the Dutch cops all had in common was that none of them wanted me dead. Yet.

  No one wanted me dead … except the man who had tumbled from the driver’s seat into the back, snatched up a shotgun and leveled the thing at me. It was a double-barrel shotgun, side-by-side, old school. A hunting weapon presumably.

  At six feet you have to really try to miss a target with a shotgun and I’d have taken a whole bunch of buckshot onboard had Hangbrother, the Naked Nazi, not been in such a hurry to grab his gun that he neglected to take the van out of gear. The van rolled,
Hangbrother pulled the trigger, there was a catastrophically loud explosion that echoed and reverberated, lengthening a half-second explosion into a three-second-long blast, which annihilated the window and shredded the curtains of whichever unlucky person lived at number 98.

  The van rolled on and crashed into the Polo, not enough to do much damage, but enough that the van’s engine shuddered and died. Hangbrother scrabbled to get himself back into firing position. I let loose a terrified whinny and vaulted the railing and only when I was airborne did I see that I would fall into a well leading to a basement door, a fall that was guaranteed to break an ankle at very least. I executed a graceless half-pirouette and managed to land one foot on a low planter and the other foot on a concrete post which was some pretty impressive acrobatics, except that I was now turned away from the shotgun and I knew I had to jump again and right the fuck then, so I tried to reverse my pirouette, caught my foot on the planter and fell hard onto the brick sidewalk as a second shotgun blast blew out the windows of number 96.

  At this point no one within a square block could possibly still be asleep unless they were passed out, but no one was quick enough or perhaps foolish enough to open their windows and yell for quiet.

  I twisted a bit, fell face down, rolled, then slithered up out of the well and scooted like an alligator under the van.

  Hangwoman yelled something furious in a foreign language that probably translated to, ‘He’s under the van! Drive over him!’

  There was not a lot of clearance under the van, and by not a lot I mean that my behind was pressed against a hot muffler. I heard the transmission being shoved into gear and I heard the engine respond and the vehicle jumped forward just as I slithered through to the other side. The rear tire caught just the very tip of my left foot which caused me to leave a shoe behind. The second time I’d lost a shoe in Amsterdam, thanks to these crazy bastards.

  I jumped to my feet and found myself making eye contact via the wing mirror with Hangbrother.