Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) (17 page)

“Just tell Kourou you’re happy,” Katla said. “He needs to know if everything is fine.”

“Happy?” Kourou asked again. Anouk nodded. “I’m happy.”

The bird screeched and settled down. Katla went to the freezer and took out a bottle with greenish vodka. “Here.”

Anouk accepted a shot glass and drank half in one gulp. “That wasn’t road rage, was it?”

Katla looked at her with a twinkle in her eyes. “Let’s just say I was glad you were here to help me.”

Anouk could feel her cheeks flush, and not just from the alcohol. She drank the rest of the vodka, cleared her throat and said, “I made you something.”

“A sculpture?”

Anouk shook her head and fished in her backpack. Holding the dark metal handle, she allowed gravity to unfold the slender tungsten-cored cane, the five hinged bars clicking softly in place. The stud at the front of the handle popped out and she placed the rubber tip on the floor.
 

Katla’s eyes widened. “A cane?”

“It looks flimsy, but the rods are made of titanium alloy. It can support three or four times your weight. And the tungsten inner core is spring-loaded to make sure the hinges won’t work unless you press the stud.”

“This is beautiful.” Katla caressed the cane. “You made this just for me?”

“Better than that hospital cane you’ve been using, right?”

Katla poured herself another vodka and held out the bottle. “I don’t know how much longer I will need a cane, so I didn’t look for a real cane.”

“I thought so.” Anouk allowed Katla to top off her glass. “But you like this one, don’t you?”

“I love it.” Katla stepped closer and her blue eyes smiled. “Is this your first cane?”

“No, I made Bram’s telescopic cane. Designed and built it.”

“I thought those canes always telescoped.”

“Didn’t he show you his spare cane?” Anouk chugged down her vodka. “It’s made from hard plastic, a couple of hollow segments that are held together by an elastic string inside. To fold it you have to pull the segments apart and fold them like a tent stick, then tie them together with the wrist strap. Cumbersome things, too big to fit in an inside pocket.”

“Nobody figured out how to make them telescopic?”

“The main drawback with existing telescopic canes is that the segments might loosen from the tapping and slip into each other, shortening the cane, so they’re mainly used by older people to signal their blindness. Bram’s cane is a prototype. If it isn’t fully extended the stud in the handle won’t pop up. Like the safety lock of a knife. The cane cannot fold unless you press the stud.”

“That doesn’t sound too complicated.”

“It wasn’t complicated, just time-consuming. Finding the right material was a bitch. Fibreglass was too flexible, plastic too brittle, steel too heavy. Eventually I ended up with a composite of fibreglass, tungsten, thermoplastic and an epoxide resin that reduced the brittleness and protected the reflective coating.”

“So you think of putting them on the market after Bram trial-tested his?”

“I don’t think that prototype can be mass-produced without serious quality deterioration. And hand-built canes would become too expensive.” Anouk shrugged. “Besides, the majority of blind people wouldn’t part with their trusty harmonica canes. It’s like trading in your eyes.”

“For improved eyes,” Katla pointed out.
 

“It’s an emotional choice,” Anouk said. “Not a rational one.”

Katla rode her anonymous Burgman through the city, the GPS on the scooter’s handlebar tracking her progress as she made her way criss-cross through the Jordaan Quarter, found a spot to park briefly and marked it as intermediate waypoint. She continued her route out of the Jordaan Quarter and rode to the Spaarndammerdijk, following the road in the direction of the harbour. The road dipped under the railroad viaduct and turned into Transformatorweg.
 

Katla took the first opportunity to cut across the median strip, crossed Transformatorweg and headed up the small road that led to begraafplaats ‘Sint Barbara’. The cemetery was to her left, but she took a right and rode past community farm ‘Ons Genoegen’ and turned onto the dirt road that ran along the embankment that went between the ‘neighbourhood farm’ and the industrial complex to her right. Katla halted the Burgman, saved the tracklog on the GPS and switched it off. The dirt track led to a dead end of undeveloped wasteland. Because the ground was outside the municipality Westerpark, there were no plans for development yet. Right now, at dusk, it was dark, but later in the evening would be pitch black.
 

Turning around on the dirt track wasn’t easy, the rutted tracks were filled with mud and the rest was slippery wet grass, but the scooter was powerful enough to spin in the mud. She puttered back onto the road and rode the Burgman to the cemetery. After she parked her scooter on the sidewalk and stowed her helmet and gloves in the top case, Katla took her fedora and pulled it low over her eyes. Begraafplaats Sint Barbara was in an isolated area of Westerpark, but because the cemetery was visited regularly it was easy to reach with public transport. Katla walked down the road back to the Transformatorweg, sat down on the bench at the bus stop and removed the motorcycle cradle from the GPS. She fished the car cradle from the bag and fixed the car cable to the GPS, then put it in her bag as the bus arrived to take her back into the city.

-o-

Almost ten at night. Katla sat at the window of Italian restaurant San Giovanni, watching the taxi rank at the Stopera on the other side of the road and waiting for taxi 234 to arrive. Thooft had to be approached by now by the Chinese, or he wouldn’t be contacted. She could’ve called him, but she wasn’t as attuned as Bram to reading intonation and inflection—she’d rather watch the micro-expressions on his face to see if he’d betrayed her.

The waiter came by and snatched up her used espresso cup, raising an enquiring eyebrow to check if she wanted to order anything else. Just then taxi 234 pulled up at the rank. Katla left a generous tip and buttoned her black trench coat up high against the rain. With her fedora pulled low over her eyes, she stepped into the shade by the MacBike and watched a black Lexus head up to the Blauwbrug, make a U-turn and drive back, passing at a distance of five meters from where she stood before turning into the Turfsteeg. The tinted windows didn’t give any clue to the occupants or their ethnicity, but it seemed to be too much of a coincidence.
 

She crossed the road to the taxi rank and got into taxi 234.
 

Laurens Thooft half turned as she got in the passenger seat.
 

“Whereto—”

“Hi Laurens.”

“Hey. I thought you’d call. They left me a business card with—”

“Better start driving, Laurens.” Katla pointed at the nose of the Lexus at the Nieuwe Amstelstraat. “They’re staking out the taxi rank. I guess they’re looking for you.”

“For you,” Thooft replied as he put the Mercedes in gear. “Where do you want to go?”

Katla planted the GPS on his dashboard. “Just follow the directions.”

“I think—”

“Drive, Laurens.” She pointed at the Munt. “We have to shake them off first, then go to a quiet spot where we can talk.”

As the Mercedes sped away in the direction of the Munt, Katla looked through the rear window and saw the Lexus four cars behind. To be that close, they’d crossed the tram lane illegally. Thooft headed toward Dam Square and rode the taxi lanes where the Lexus couldn’t follow, then sped down Rozengracht and followed the GPS directions into the heart of the Jordaan quarter.

He halted the car at the waypoint. “We can talk here. They can’t follow me here.”

“No?” Katla opened her door. “Get out of the car.”

Thooft got out and she limped to the rear bumper. “Check around the corner. I think you will see the black Lexus waiting. Don’t let them see you.”

While he went to check on their pursuit, Katla inspected the rear of the Mercedes with her flash light. The tracker would’ve been placed at the harbour, when Thooft had been inside the taxi, so the rear bumper made the most sense, out of sight of the rearview mirrors.

The tracker was a flat square the size of a cigarette pack, stuck with industrial strength double sided tape to the inside of the rear bumper. Katla had just pried it loose as Thooft came walking back. He was about to speak when she showed him the tracker.

“They can follow you at a distance. Get in, we will drive on.”

Katla held the tracker in her lap, wiping it clean of any fingerprints. They halted at a traffic light and she rolled down her window. A truck rumbled up and she reached out and stuck the tracker to the truck. The light turned green and they turned left while the truck went straight ahead.

“Follow the GPS.” Katla pointed at the display. “It will take us to a quiet spot where we can talk.”

-o-

Thooft halted the taxi at the beginning of the dirt track. “I just washed my car.”

Katla put a fifty euro bill on the dashboard. “Have it washed again.”

He peered into the darkness. “This is not a four-wheel drive.”

“You won’t get stuck, Laurens. Trust me. Drive on.”

He looked at her speculatively. “There is nobody here.”

“That’s the idea. If I didn’t get all the trackers, they’ll stop at the edge of the dirt track and wonder where you went. Now drive on slowly. You can turn up ahead.”

Shaking his head Thooft switched on his high beams and drove the Mercedes onto the dirt track, turning the taxi around where the track widened. He turned off the engine and the lights and they were enveloped in almost total darkness.

“They approached me the morning after.” Laurens switched on the interior light and fished a business card from his glove compartment. “Gave me this.”

Katla reached up and switched off the interior light. She took off her safety belt and sat sideways on the passenger seat, her legs pulled under her. She took the business card and held it down between the seats, illuminating it with a shielded flashlight. After memorising the information she tossed the card on the dashboard. “Did you tell them about KNSM Laan?”

“Of course. He swallowed it straight away.”

“What else did he want to know?” Katla asked. “Did he ask you if you stopped at Artis?”

Thooft shook his head. “No, he asked if I went straight back to the rank and I told him I had.”

“That was a mistake,” Katla said. “They put that GPS tracker on your taxi at the harbour, so they knew you stopped at Artis. You should’ve told him you picked up a fare there.”

“But you didn’t want them to know you lived in that area.”

“Where did you go after you dropped me off?”

“Back to the rank,” he said and gave her an embarrassed smile. “I know I was supposed to stop at a few more spots, but I got a call that there was a fare waiting at the rank…”

“So you went back to the rank, picked up another fare. Where did you go?”

“The fare had gone with another taxi, so I stayed at the rank.”

Katla nodded. “You gave them limited options where you dropped me off, Laurens. And by omitting Artis from the conversation you posted a neon sign on my head…”

“Ah, jeez. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Katla put a hand on his arm. “Not your fault, could happen to anybody. You have to be ready for when they come back, though. Maybe get yourself a gun.”

“I have a gun.” Thooft reached under his seat. “It’s just a—”

Using his downward motion, Katla grabbed his neck and slammed his head into the steering wheel, while her free hand drew her tactical folder. The tanto blade snicked out and locked in place. Leaning on his back with her full weight, Katla slipped her knife hand around his neck. Plunging the knife into the carotid artery on the left side of his throat, she twisted the blade in the wound, both to bleed him as quickly as possible and to thwart knife identification.
 

Thooft grunted and tried to rear up, but Katla braced her left hand on the steering wheel and ripped the blade from the wound. The taxi driver coughed and shuddered under her, while warm liquid soaked her hand and arm.

“I’m sorry, Laurens.” He made a high keening noise, like a wounded animal, but Katla could feel his death spasms. “They’re staking you out, you’re a liability.”

When Thooft stopped shuddering, Katla slowly disengaged herself. Her right arm was coated with blood. She took the bottle of water and the towel from her backpack, poured water over the knife and her hand, ignoring the bloody sleeve of the trench coat. After she cleaned her hand as well as she could, Katla closed the tactical folder and rolled the blade in the stained towel, put the messy bundle in her backpack and took out two oversized sneakers. The interior light came on as she opened the door. She switched it off, slipped her shoes into the sneakers, and stepped out into the muddy track.

She noticed Thooft’s wallet in the driver side door and fished it out, emptying the contents in her backpack. The Chinese business card was still on the dashboard, but Katla took the card and wedged it in the taxi driver’s mouth. She put the fifty euro bill and the GPS back in her pack and got out of the Mercedes.

The mud sucked at the oversized sneakers as she trudged back to the road. The Mercedes taxi was just a dark blob in the distance. It would be found in the morning, probably. She walked to her Burgman scooter parked at the cemetery, stamping to dislodge as much mud as possible from the sneakers.

Astride her Burgman, Katla took off the muddy sneakers, put them in a plastic bag inside her backpack for later disposal. The scooter started at the first crank of the starter and she rode away, back to the city. Back to Bram, to warm the chill in her heart.

-o-

At two o’ clock in the morning, Bram sat cross-legged on his futon bed in the dark unlit basement of the Japanese club,
Jutta Hipp with Zoot Sims
playing on his record player. Over the jazz music Bram could hear Katla snoring behind him.

Katla been taciturn and distant when she arrived shortly after eleven, not interested in conversation, but undressing in silence and washing her hands for a long time, while she told him about killing Thooft. Told him how she wished she could’ve explained to the taxi driver that the Kau Hong would grow frustrated from their inability to find her. How the Kau Hong would seek out the taxi driver and torture him for every scrap of information before they’d end his life. Not that there’d be much solace in the knowledge. Either way, he’d end up dead.