by S L Shelton
The boxes were filled with pastries, pretzels, and muffins. They were still warm, and the scent wafted across my nose like perfume when he tipped one box my direction to inspect the contents.
“I’ll take those,” I said, pointing at the box as I unsteadily returned to my stool. “And more coffee, if you would please.”
“Are ya okay?” he asked sincerely as he brought me a plate with the pastries on it.
“Yeah. I’m fine...but I need to get straight quick as possible,” I stated firmly.
He set some sort of detox energy drink next to me. “Guaranteed to put ya straight faster than anyting,” he said.
When I pulled out my cash and I handed it to him, he said, “Naw, mon. These are on me.”
“Thanks,” I said as I continued to stare at the building across the canal.
“My name is Reggie, by the way,” he said as he pulled up a stool next to me.
I reached my hand out. “Scott,” I replied with a smile—I think I smiled—it felt like I was smiling. Honestly, it felt like my jaw was floating down my neck.
“What’s so interesting across de canal?” he asked. “Are you wait’n for de windows to open?”
I looked more closely at the building and realized there were a series of glass doors and windows at street level. They were a few of the Red Light District’s famous red light windows. “No,” I said. “Not exactly.”
“I’d go to udder windows anyway. De Russians run doze. De girls aren’t always dare of day own will,” he explained.
“Really?” I replied. “I thought prostitution was regulated in Amsterdam.”
“Oh. It is, mon. But de cops do de regulat’n—and you know where dares a cop, dares a hand out and a crime wait’n to happen.”
“I see,” I replied thoughtfully. Then, before my brain could veto my mouth, I spouted out, “My girlfriend is missing, and her phone is over there.” I immediately regretted what I had said, but for some reason I felt as if I shouldn’t worry—that everything was gonna be alright.
Reggie raised his eyebrows. “Is she American too?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, resigning myself to my lapse in judgment.
“Don’t worry…about a ting,” I heard sung over the store speakers through my fog.
“Is she missing, or did she disappear?” he asked, insinuating that there may be something more typical going on.
“The last text I got from her was that she was being forced off a tour boat. That was yesterday,” I explained, fudging some details. I was having a hard time remembering what I had already told him, and I didn’t want to come across as insincere.
“A lot goin’ on yesterday. Dat boom put me on the floor and knocked stuff off de wall. Until de policemen showed up, you could’a smuggled an elephant into de neighborhood and no one would know it.”
I nodded my head in understanding. He disappeared for a moment to tend to a customer who had walked in and then returned to the stool next to me.
“Whatch you gonna do?” he asked.
“Watch the map on my phone until this icon moves, and then I’m going to find out who has my girlfriend’s phone,” I said.
“Dat little arrow?” he asked, pointing down at my phone.
I looked down and saw that the arrow had moved from the back of the building to the front of it. I looked out the window and saw a thin man with dark, greasy hair and a leather jacket coming out of one of the glass doors facing Oude Kerk.
“That’s my cue. I’ve got to go,” I said as I started to rise.
Reggie put his hand on my arm. “Don’t waste your time, mon. Dat’s Elvis. He’s on his morning run to the chicken shop. He got the munchies.”
I sat back on my stool and watched the man leave the building across the canal.
“He came in here this morning and bought a big bag o’ weed. Probably been up dare smokin’ all morning,” Reggie continued. “He’ll be back in ten minutes with chicken and ribs. Jus’ watch.”
Just then an idea came to me.
“Elvis, you say?” I asked, looking at him.
Reggie shook his head and then leaned in close, lowering his voice. “Look, I don’t know what you plan on doing, but I’ve been across from that corner for a few years now, and I know those are some bad dudes,” he said, his Jamaican accent suddenly vanished.
“D.C.?” I said, asking about his accent.
“Baltimore,” he corrected.
“Fairfax.”
“Word.” He put his fist up for a bump.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he said and then called someone from the back of the shop to cover the counter. I followed him up the stairs to an apartment.
“What’s going on here?” he asked as we entered the apartment. It was decorated in Scandinavian birch, glass, and chrome. “I’m all about hooking a brother from the States up with some good bud, but I ain’t down with gettin’ mixed up with those Russian gangsters.”
I had to make a judgment call on Reggie, and I had to do it right then. He’d managed to keep his Rasta persona rolling well without giving himself away. I had no way of knowing if I could trust him, but my instincts said I could. He broke character to express concern for my safety. That wasn’t the mark of a player.
I decided to test the waters. “My girlfriend was on the boat that blew up yesterday,” I said.
His eyes went wide. He sat down, still staring at me, wrapping his head around that bit of information. I pulled a photo of her up on my phone and showed it to him to deepen the sense that this was real.
“I’m sorry, man, but revenge won’t get you nowhere. I know from experience,” he said.
“This isn’t about revenge,” I said, and then sat down across from him. “If she had been on the boat during the explosion, her phone wouldn’t be on Elvis over there,” I said calmly.
He wrinkled his brow for a moment, tilting his head sideways and letting that information filter in. “Man...I don’t know,” he said. “Elvis is about as dumb as a box of rocks, but those other guys are worse than anything I saw in Baltimore. These are some seriously cold-blooded bastards.”
“Well...Elvis has the phone. I need to get him alone—away from the other guys,” I said confidently.
Reggie stared at me for a moment. Several times he looked as though he were going to speak, but then he stopped. I could see when the set of his jaw changed that he had made up his mind. “What’s de plan, boss mon?” he finally asked, slipping back into the character I had met downstairs.
We spent the next hour or so refining the plan I had started in my hash-addled head while we were watching Elvis leave the brothel. “I just need to find out where he got the phone and if Barb is still in the city,” I said as my high started to dissipate. “If I can con him into meeting with me, I might be able to get more information. If nothing else, I can follow him and see where he goes.”
“How do you plan on getting him to meet you?” Reggie asked.
“Well, he’s into drugs and prostitutes…money should be a good motivator.”
Reggie nodded and then looked up suddenly. “He’s a fool for good weed. If we can we can get him interested in blazing up with us, I’ve got something that will loosen his tongue.”
“How pliable would it make him?” I asked.
“If you told him his hair was on fire, he’d beat his head against the wall to put it out,” Reggie said with a grin.
“Like what I had for breakfast?” I asked with a grin.
“Better,” he replied, rising from his seat and going over to a cabinet.
When he returned, he had a vial in his hand. “And this will seal the deal,” he said, holding it up for me to inspect. “A couple drops of this in a joint, and he’d tell you his credit card PIN.”
“Excellent,” I replied. “Okay. Let’s get him lubricated with your chemical wizardry, then make him think he’s about to be busted. If I can sneak him out the back, he might lead me to Barb.”
“I’ll need to get Cleavon and my girl Aimee invol
ved,” he said. “But I’m tellin’ you, it’s not going to be hard to fool this guy. You almost don’t need the drugs.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” I said and then looked at him a little sideways. “What’s with the Rasta persona?”
“Marketing,” he replied. “Cleavon and I bought this place a few years back. He’s the front man, I’m the grower.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what brought you here?”
“Legal weed, mon,” he said with a broad grin. “I always had a green thumb, but when my brother’s gang wanted to pull me in, my momma put her foot down.”
I nodded my head. I was familiar with those troubles in the D.C. and Baltimore area.
“So she got this big settlement from the insurance company and told me to get out and make something of myself,” he said.
“So you came here and started growing pot?” I asked.
“Not just pot,” he said with a little indignation. “The artful and highly prized designer bud that brings people back. Any fool with grow lights can cultivate ditch-weed and call it product. I coax magic out of the seeds, generation after generation.”
I had no idea there was such artistry involved.
“Over the last five years, I’ve managed to turn that small investment into a thriving business. I send money home to my momma and my sister, so they don’t have to live where anyone gives them a hard time.”
I was impressed. A real case of the American dream…sort of.
Once we had the plan down, he introduced me to his best friend, Cleavon, and his girlfriend, Aimee. He filled them in on what was going on and told them that if they were up to it, we had roles for them to play. Cleavon smiled and bumped elbows with Reggie.
Aimee teared up and looked at me. “I’m sorry your woman is wrapped up in all dis,” she said gently. “If those gangsters was involved in killing all dem people yesterday, I’ll help any way I can.”
I smiled and thanked her before shooting Reggie a quizzical glance.
“She’s de real ting, mon,” he said, smiling.
We spent a few minutes catching-up Cleavon and Aimee on their roles before prepping for our sting. Aimee brought in some food for us to munch on while we talked. A roasted chicken and some roasted fingerling potatoes. Much more satisfying than the pastries from earlier.
My high was gone, but the calm remained. Reggie said that feeling would last a while... He’d used his most mellow blend for the muffins. Once we had eaten and were confident about what each of us had to do, it was time to set it in motion.
We went downstairs and assumed our positions.
After seating myself in front of the window I had been sitting at earlier this morning, I pulled out my prepaid phone and sent a text to Barb’s phone number.
It read, “Hey there! As promised, I have your money. Where do you want to meet to get it?”
I set the phone on the counter and sipped coffee while I waited to see if there would be a reply. After a few moments, the phone vibrated on the counter. I picked it up to read the response.
“Whoz this? Wat money?” it asked.
I thought about the best way to reply to set the hook firmly. I wrote: “Alex...from the tour. You loaned me 2000 euros,” I typed and then hit send.
There was a longer pause this time, and then the phone vibrated. Elvis replied, “I send my boifrend. Ware r you?”
I replied, “RLD. A rasta coffee shop near Oude Kerk”
I didn’t even have time to set the phone down before it buzzed again. “Im close. Five minutes.”
I set the phone down on the counter and waited. I watched as Elvis came out of the glass door across the canal, walked to the end of the block, and then crossed the bridge. I lost sight of him before he turned onto the street but spotted him again as he came around a van. He hurriedly strolled up to the door, looking in all directions before coming in.
As he walked in, Reggie looked up from the counter where he was helping a customer pick some pot from the menu. “Elvis!” he exclaimed. “How are ya, mon?”
Elvis smiled and put his arms out wide. “Reggie, my nigga. Wazzzup!” He spoke boisterously, with a thick accent, walked up to the counter, grabbed Reggie by the hand, and drew him in for a ‘bro hug.’ Judging by the curl at the edge of Reggie’s lip, I could tell he wasn’t pleased by the greeting. As he broke away, his smile returned.
“How can ah help ya, ma friend?” Reggie asked.
Elvis lowered his voice “I’m here to see someone about some money.”
Reggie nodded in my direction.
Elvis turned and looked me over for a few seconds to determine if I was a threat and then walked over to me.
“You have money for me,” he said plainly, false bravado oozing from his every move. He was not a confident man, but he had been in the company of confident men for some time and had learned, though poorly, how to slip on the tough-guy suit to get his way.
I looked at him as if taken off guard. “I’m sorry? I don’t think I know you.”
“You know my girlfriend. She loaned you money. She sent me here to get it back,” he said, puffing up his chest and leaning onto the bar threateningly close to me. His eyes were glazed, bloodshot, and not focusing well. This guy was still very stoned.
Excellent, I thought.
“A doctor of public policy who lives in Washington, D.C. is your girlfriend?” I asked incredulously.
He blinked hard for a few seconds. His tone softened when he continued. “She is more of a friend than a girlfriend. She stays with me when she is in Amsterdam,” he said and then paused, sorting out his story. “She needs the money for...her mother. She is sick,” he said, smiling, clearly pleased with the elaborate tale he had woven on the spur of the moment.
I picked up my prepaid smartphone and opened the dialer as I said, “You don’t mind if I verify that, do you?”
He looked very nervous. “She is in the shower. That’s why she sent me,” he said nervously, feeling his two thousand euros slipping away.
“Okay. We’ll wait a few minutes to call her, then,” I said, setting my phone back down on the counter. Relief flowed across Elvis’s face. I had successfully strung and begun to play him like an instrument.
Reggie appeared over our shoulders. “Did I hear ya say ya got some time ta kill? ‘Cause I got me a new strain upstairs. It so potent I been ‘fraid to put it out till someone aside me an’ Cleavon smoked it.”
Elvis saw an opportunity to turn things back in his favor.
“Reggie, my brother,” he said, smiling. “I will like to blaze your new weed with you, but I don’t want to leave my new friend ‘Alex’ down here all alone waiting for a silly woman,” he said, slapping me on my shoulder. “Women can take years in the bathroom,” he said and then turned to Reggie for support. “Am I right, brother?” he said, flashing a greasy smile, lifting his brows, begging for help.
“Das right, mon. A woman can live in da batroom,” he replied, throwing his support behind Elvis.
“You see!” Elvis exclaimed. “Even Reggie knows. Let’s go upstairs and smoke some of this magic weed.” Then he put his hand under my arm to help me from my seat, not wanting to give me an opportunity to change his brilliant plan.
“Okay,” I said hesitantly. “I guess it would be okay for a while. Then we can call her after.”
“That’s right. After, after,” he said patronizingly. “But first we smoke.”
Reggie called to Aimee to watch the shop while we went upstairs. Reggie walked ahead of both of us, followed by me, and then Elvis bringing up the rear to make sure his investment didn’t slip away. We arrived at Reggie’s apartment, and Elvis plopped down in the big, overstuffed easy chair across from the sofa, spreading out and draping his arms across the back of the seat.
“Reggie grows the best weed in Amsterdam,” Elvis said. “I only buy from him. I must be his best customer. He’s my best home nigga,” he said…apparently, he enjoyed getting away with that.
; Reggie was behind him, twisting up his face in a disdainful snarl, but he said, “Dat’s right, mon. Elvis is ma ‘home nigga.’” This made Elvis laugh.
Reggie arrived at the seating area with a tray of large joints. He stopped in front of Elvis first, who scooped up three, putting two in his pocket and the third to his lips. As Reggie turned my way, his body blocking Elvis’s view of the tray, I saw his hand deftly scoop up the remaining joints and then drop several more in their place. He sat next to me on the couch, and then he and I both picked up one each out of the new pile.
The three of us blazed up. I was not what you would call a casual smoker, so I had asked Reggie to roll something for me that wouldn’t dull my senses but would pass as pot. He rolled mine with Siberian motherwort, a medicinal herb that had some of the calming effects of marijuana without any THC.
My first tokes were coughed out immediately. Elvis and Reggie laughed.
“Yankee can’t hold his smoke,” Elvis roared before taking another long draw from the large joint. He held it for a long time and then blew the smoke across the room. “You see... Russian lungs are like iron,” he said, pounding on his chest.
After the third toke, Elvis started to stare into space. “This is strong shit,” he said weakly to no one in particular.
Reggie sat back against the cushions of the couch and smiled. “Do you like it, mon?” he asked.
Several seconds went by and then he mumbled, “Good shit.”
Reggie and I leaned forward. “Your blunt is goin out,” he said. “Better take another hit.” Elvis complied absently with a weak hit. “You call dat a hit, mon?” Reggie asked, laughing, prompting Elvis to take another toke, deeper this time.
Reggie leaned over to me and said, “That’s it. We got this now.” Then turned to Elvis. “So where’s that girl of yours?” Reggie asked with a knowing inflection.
“I don’t have no girl. Nothing but whores in my life,” Elvis said, sounding sorry for himself.
“I bet that pretty girl who gave you that phone likes you,” Reggie replied after a few seconds, his words soothing and supportive.
“She was pretty,” Elvis said, staring dreamy-eyed, a smile creeping over his face. Then a crease formed on his forehead. “My brother took her. Rodka. Zalupa.” He sounded more and more pitiful with each passing moment. I had to stop myself from jumping across the table and shaking the rest of the information out of him.