Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) (27 page)

Chang took the box with darts from his pocket, passed over the tranquillisers and selected a tiny silver dart with three barbed titanium prongs. The silver dart’s hollow body featured a small GPS tracker. He opened the breech of the cane, put the GPS dart inside, closed the breech and twisted the handle to arm the dart gun.
 

At Hotel Pulitzer, the girl crossed the bridge over the Keizersgracht canal, and walked down the north sidewalk of the Hartenstraat. Chang entered the Hartenstraat as well, but stayed on the opposite sidewalk. Halfway down the street, she halted in front of The Gamekeeper, and seemed to study her surroundings in the reflection of the plate glass window display. Either that or she had developed an intense interest in board games. Chang studied the menu of Japanese restaurant Kagetsu and watched the girl disappear into the coffee shop next to The Gamekeeper.

Screaming Beans seemed to be a lunchroom, not one of the ubiquitous coffee shops that sold marihuana. Instead of a cannabis leaf in the window, the display featured a gleaming coffeemaker. Tables and chairs were set out on the narrow sidewalk under the black canopy, despite the nasty weather. A dark grey Burgman scooter was parked on the sidewalk, blocking the empty chairs and causing pedestrians to step into the road to pass.

Chang shook his head.
 

Without any regard for the lack of space, the locals had this annoying habit to park bicycles and mopeds criss-cross on the narrow sidewalks intended for pedestrians. Even with over half a million bicycles, Amsterdam was nothing compared to the nine million bicycles in Beijing, yet not a single one of Beijing’s twenty million inhabitants would dare to block the sidewalk like the Amsterdam locals tended to do. The Dutch sense of entitlement was astounding. No wonder Amsterdam had these little brown posts everywhere. If they hadn’t, the locals would probably park their cars on the sidewalks. He looked up and down the street, but the Hartenstraat didn’t have any Amsterdammertjes either.

Chang went to the door of Kagetsu, but the restaurant would open at noon. He looked at his watch and walked into the antiquarian bookshop next door, where he took up position by the window, leafing through a book at random while he looked at the entrance of Screaming Beans. The bookseller was conversing with a customer, so Chang could pretend to shop for books without explanation. He put down the book and sampled another book, hoping that whatever business the girl had at Screaming Beans wouldn’t take too long.

-o-

Sitting in the back of Screaming Beans, Katla connected a USB cable to her MacBook and held out her hand for Bianca’s smartphone. Bianca looked a bit confused. “I can sent the pictures from my phone to your phone.”

Katla shook her head. “My phone can’t receive pictures.”

“You have a snazzy MacBook, but you don’t have an iPhone?”

“I don’t like smartphones. However, you could’ve mailed me the pictures, there was no need for you to come here in person.”

“But Bram said—”

Katla shook her head. “These people could’ve followed you.”

“They were gone. And I checked behind me.” Bianca handed over her Samsung. “It has a mini-USB port.”

“Most smartphones do.” Katla connected the smartphone to the laptop and downloaded the pictures. “Hey, these are great pictures.”

“I didn’t capture everything.” Bianca pointed at the laptop screen. “Bram stabbed this guy with a fork.”

Katla patted Bram’s arm. “Way to go, honey!”

Bram didn’t crack a smile. “I was scared shitless.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Bianca said. “I thought that martial art stuff was crap, but you were awesome. Plus I earned two hundred euro for a mess I cleaned up in five minutes.”

“Yes, everybody’s happy. Now, who are they?”

Katla zoomed in on their faces. “Don’t know them. Bram, you said they called you on the phone?”

“The guy who sat across from me, he called me several times.” He handed his phone and the battery to Katla. “His number must be in my telephone.”

“I think so,” Bianca said. “The old guy asked me to tell you to contact him.”

“Does he know you’re his sister?” Katla assembled the cell phone, switched to airplane mode to make sure it wouldn’t transmit its whereabouts, and scrolled through the menu. “Did he use Bram’s name?”

“No,” Bianca said. “And I told him I didn’t know the names of all my customers. He wanted to know if Bram was a regular, but I told him he was an occasional customer who wasn’t likely to come back after being attacked. I acted angry at the mess they made, so he wouldn’t ask me more questions. Didn’t look like a bad person though.”

“You can never tell,” Katla said. “Psychopaths can look deceptively human.”

“Anyway, he paid me two hundred euro for damages and asked me to ask Bram to contact him on the number in his cell phone.” Bianca turned to her brother. “I don’t know what he wants, but he’s obviously affluent.”

“Bram doesn’t need the money.” Katla copied the phone number, purged the memory bank and disassembled the phone. “I’d stay away from them, Bianca. If you see them again, wait until they’re out of sight and call me, okay?”

Bram walked away to the counter to get sugar for his tea, and Bianca whispered, “You don’t think my brother is overreacting?”

“Bram doesn’t get distracted by appearances, like we do. I tend to trust his judgement.”

Bianca shrugged. “I don’t see the harm in calling him and asking him what he wants.”

“I’ll call on him,” Katla said. “Don’t worry.”

Bianca checked her watch. “Listen, I’m heading back. Lunch is my busiest time.”

Katla got up and kissed her on both cheeks. “Thanks for coming over. And heed my advice, okay?”

“You seem a bit paranoid.”

“To be paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.” Katla signalled to the boy behind the counter. “Give Bianca a kilo of your Full Blend Bocca beans.”

“What’s wrong with my own beans? I never receive complaints.”

“Maybe,” Katla said. “But how many compliments do you get?”

Bianca rolled her eyes, but Katla knew she wasn’t going to pass on a free bag of coffee beans.

Chang glanced up from his book as the door of Screaming Beans opened. The girl from the luncheonette left with a large silver bag under her arm. The yellow label featured a drinking negro and the legend ‘Bocca Coffee’.

“
Gau
,” Chang cursed under his breath. All this trouble just for following someone who was getting coffee. He watched the girl saunter jauntily back in the direction of the Berenstraat. He left the antiquarian bookstore and limped in the opposite direction, toward the Dam Square. This day was just filled with rotten luck. Chang halted at the middle of the bridge over the Herengracht. Finding a spot between the parked bicycles, he leant his hands on the worn green iron railing and gazed morosely out over the canal, the raindrops making intersecting circles in the tranquil surface of the murky water. In the distance, a canal cruise boat appeared from under a bridge. The ‘rondvaartboot’ had a sleek glass-topped design, flat and wide for shallow waters and cruising under the low arches of the bridges. In the summer, dozens of these boats cruised the canals every hour, but in the late autumn, when the tourist season was mostly over, the cruise boats numbered maybe a dozen per day. Chang looked through the glass roof of the boat as it passed underneath the bridge he was standing on. The boat was half empty, but the few passengers seemed to enjoy floating through rainy Amsterdam.

Chang heard the purring of a scooter and glanced into the Hartenstraat, where the Burgman bopped off the sidewalk. The passenger was taller than the rider, and although his head was covered with a helmet, Chang recognised Scruffy by his clothes and that battered saxophone case that almost shattered his knee. The Burgman headed in his direction. He turned back to the canal immediately to ready the cane.
 

The Burgman passed behind him.
 

Chang turned as the scooter went into the Gasthuismolensteeg, aimed the cane at the flight case and fired. The city noise drowned the soft popping sound of the dart gun. Unlike shooting a scoped rifle, Chang couldn’t tell with absolute certainty whether he hit his target or the scooter. Nothing tinkled onto the bricks, so he had hit something. The barbed titanium prongs could easily pierce metal and rarely failed to attach the dart to whatever he fired at, whether it was a car or a boat or an airplane. Neither the rider nor the pillion reacted to the dart and the Burgman rode on, turning the corner and disappearing from sight.
 

Whistling softly under his breath, Chang walked in the direction the scooter had taken. Halfway down the Gasthuismolensteeg, he entered sandwich shop ’t Kuyltje, a regular workman’s eatery, and ordered a ‘Broodje Oude Leidse Kaas’ and a cup of tea. Sitting room was sparse, but one of the Dutchmen noticed his cane and offered him his stool by the window. His knee still hurt from banging into the blind man’s flight case, so Chang gracefully accepted the offer and sat down, watching cyclists in rain gear race over the slick bricks while he texted Ah Sung where to pick him up.

-o-

Katla halted the Burgman scooter by the basement steps. Bram dismounted and removed his helmet.
 

“I don’t know whether you’re safe here,” Katla said. “At the very least you need a new cell phone.”

“Or maybe a pager,” Bram said. “Your pager can’t be traced, can it?”

“No, but a pager has a screen that shows the message. I’d have to check if there is a talking pager or a Braille version.” She stored Bram’s helmet in her top case. “They know what you look like though. You better not attract attention by playing music in the street.”

“I’m not an idiot, Katla. I have a studio gig in less than a month.”

“Did Zeph arrange the gig? Perhaps you should stay with him, for the time being. If they know your habits, they might know about your basement.” Katla looked at his battered flight case and noticed something she hadn’t seen before. “Did you put a knob on your flight case?”

“A knob?”

“Hand me your flight case,” Katla said. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

A tiny metal cylinder was stuck to the surface of the case, with dark metal prongs embedded in the hard polyurethane shell. Bram reached out for his case, but Katla stayed his hand.

“Do you have another case for your saxophone?”

“What is wrong?”

“Looks like someone fixed a transmitter to your case. Like a beacon?”

“You want to take my case somewhere and see who follows?”

She nodded, then caught herself and said, “That’s right. You need this case mainly for playing in the street, right?”

“I have the original case, sure.” He ducked into the basement and came out with a square case not unlike a suitcase. “It’s less rugged, but I can use it temporarily.”

They transferred the saxophone to the other case and Katla stored his flight case under the Burgman’s buddy seat. “I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can, but you might want to consider changing your routine for a while. Until we get those people off your back.”

“I think I’m safe here,” Bram said. “I don’t think these people want to mess with Tetsuo.”

“If they know where you live, they can always watch until you leave and grab you. I don’t think they’ll underestimate you again.”

“And you, what will you do?”

“Don’t worry about me,” Katla said. “Just avoid your sister’s luncheonette and your regular haunts for the moment.”

-o-

The SUV with Kau Hong members was still parked at Kadijksplein, but Katla was pretty confident that the Burgman didn’t attract any undue attention. She checked her rearview mirrors before she keyed the remote that opened the electric gate to the underground garage below the Entrepôtdok building complex.

There was a chance that whoever had tagged Bram’s saxophone case also noted the plate of her Burgman, so Katla changed the plates. She didn’t have to change any other characteristics, all Burgman scooters looked more or less the same. She checked the Burgman for similar beacons, but the scooter was free of transmitters.

She took the empty flight case from the storage under the buddy seat and put her helmet inside, then slipped out of the garage and made her way to the quay. As she walked she checked the flight case for labels and found a small engraved plaque with ‘Bram Merleyn’ next to the handle. She took her Leatherman from her pocket, selected the screwdriver and pried the plaque loose, damaging the case a little, but gluing it back on afterward would cover the damage again. She slipped the name plaque in her pocket and strolled down the brightly coloured Nijlpaardenbrug.

Between the outdoor parking of the Artis zoo and the Entrepôtdok canal was a small strip of wasteland where people lived in improvised shelters and ragtag houseboats, with an unlit and unpaved access road solely used by the locals who lived there. Even dog walkers shunned the area. Katla walked the muddy road, the slippery ruts trying to unbalance her. She walked halfway down the path and hid the flight case with the transmitter in the bushes near a houseboat. She followed the path to the end, where she could cross an old single track railway bridge back to Entrepôtdok. She walked along the quay back to the tunnels that led to her apartment, taking care to double back twice to make sure she wasn’t followed.

As she unlocked her apartment, Kourou started imitating the barking of a ferocious dog, then bobbed up and down on his stand to attract her attention. Katla left the lights off and moved to the balcony, from where she had an excellent view of the other side of the canal and the hiding place of the flight case.

She mounted her telescope on its tripod and aimed it at the hiding place of the flight case, then played with Kourou, while keeping half an eye on her target. The macaw was pleased with her attention, and with the tasty morsels she fed him.

Her pager vibrated and she checked the screen. An unfamiliar cell phone number filled the screen. She never called anyone back from her apartment, and she didn’t want to leave now and miss someone picking up the flight case. She switched off the vibrating and resumed her surveillance of the flight case.