Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) (22 page)

“I don’t know,” the spectre mused. “You don’t seem to be the type to remember.”

“I have a marker, in my pocket. You can write it in marker.”

The spectre shifted its gaze from the ceiling back to his face and sweat broke out all over his body as Bernie tried to avoid the unblinking stare. “That doesn’t sound like fun at all.”

Hard fingers grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm on his back, mashing his face against the elevator wall.

“Please, God, don’t cut me.”

“Hold still or I’ll press your carotid artery. Turn you into a drooling vegetable.”
 

Bernie could feel the knife on his skin, the cold metal, and tears streaked down his cheeks. Not even Lau made him cry. The spectre hummed under its breath as the knife marked his skin with four letters. When finished, the spectre released him. Bernie turned around, cradling his arm. The arm seemed to glow with the pain, but the skin was dry. Four letters stood out from the skin in fiery red welts, but the skin was unbroken.

A cruel mocking glitter shone in the cold blue eyes and Bernie felt rage clog up his throat. The spectre tilted its head quizzically and jammed the thumb into the bruise on his collarbone. The excruciating pain that flared up burned his rage to cinders and left the terror. The pain eased up and Bernie opened his eyes with a shuddering sob. The spectre didn’t look at him, but at its own hand, flexing the fingers as if it had cramp from squeezing. The cold hoarse voice was bored, as if this was all routine.

“Your evasiveness is boring me. I want clarity. Truthful answers. I know when you lie, and I’ll increase your pain tenfold. Is that clear?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s clear.”

“Who’s your boss?”

He hesitated and the spectre cracked him across the face with the back of its open hand. Like a rag doll, Bernie banged against the other wall of the elevator and collapsed in a heap on the floor. The spectre jammed the sole of its shoe against his cheek and hissed, “That was an easy question. Your hesitation was a prelude to a lie.”

“No,” Bernie said. “It’s Lau. His name is Lau.”

“Lau is a lackey,” the spectre interrupted and jammed the sole harder against his cheek, rubbing his face against the dirty floor. Bernie shivered and pleaded, “Please, I told you the truth. I get my orders from Lau.”

“How convenient.” The sole lifted from his cheek and the spectre kneeled on his chest, waving the blade in front of his eyes. “And who does Lau get his orders from?”

Bernie cringed and moaned, “I don’t know.”

The spectre grabbed Bernie by his hair and slammed his head against the floor, grit jumping up and landing on his face. The tip of the blade hooked into the corner of his mouth. “You want me to rip your mouth for a smile from ear to ear?”

“Zhang.” He flinched under the inhuman glare. “Gene Zhang.”

The cold blue eyes went dead again. The blade was retracted again and the blunt side tapped his cheekbone right under his eye. Tears oozed over his cheeks. “I swear I’m telling you the truth.”
 

The spectre floated up and the pressure on his chest diminished. Bernie slumped to the floor. With its hand on the emergency brake, the spectre shoved the sunglasses in his direction with the tip of its shoe. The empty blue eyes watched with indifference as Bernie fumbled the sunglasses back on his nose and crept to a standing position.
 

“Show Zhang your arm.” The spectre flicked the switch and lowered its malevolent gaze to Bernie’s damp crotch. “And get the fuck out of my city. If I ever see you again, you’ll wish the sperm that made you ran down your mother’s leg.”

Bernie nodded dully as the elevator jerked and continued its descent. At the ground floor the spectre strode out of the elevator without looking back and disappeared in the crowded hall.

Diu
!

The spectre still had his gun.

-o-

Katla turned a corner and entered the lavatory. Empty. She entered an empty stall, put down the seat cover and put down the H&K and her knife before she pulled the burqa over her head. She took her folded cane from the sack slung across her back, let gravity unfold the titanium bars and placed the cane in the corner of the stall. The disguise went into the sack, with the gun on top. The knife went back into the shoulder holster.
 

She limped out of the stall to the mirror and ran her fingers through her hair, flattened by the disguise. From her inside pocket Katla took a pair of yellow sunglasses that changed the shape of her face. She limped from the lavatory and noticed the Chinese thug moving slowly toward the exit. He didn’t pass through the revolving door, but took the elevator down to the garage.

Katla went outside through the revolving door and crossed the street to the Oosterpark gate. The exit of the parking garage was at ’s-Gravesandeplein. She straddled a black Ducati Multistrada she’d borrowed from the dealer for a day and took up a position that allowed her to see the driver of any car leaving the garage, folded her cane and stowed it inside her jacket.

A black Lexus SUV came up the ramp to street level. They didn’t have much imagination in their choice of vehicles. Katla waited until the Lexus turned left and headed in the direction of Wibautstraat before she turned the Ducati around and took up pursuit.

-o-

Nicky glanced up at the door of the restaurant when it opened, his hand on his nine millimeter, as usual when someone entered outside opening hours. Bernie entered, holding his arms crossed in front of him and opening the door with his elbows. Nicky nudged Lau, as Bernie approached them on trembling legs. Lau glanced up briefly, but turned his attention back to his sudoku puzzle.

Nicky studied Bernie’s disheveled appearance. “What the fuck happened to you?”

Bernie swallowed. “I met Eric’s killer.”

That got Lau’s attention. His lizard gaze flitted over Bernie’s face and dropped to the hands he cradled to his chest, before he turned to Nicky. “Upstairs.”

Nicky got up, grabbed Bernie by the back of his jacket and pushed him through the kitchen, where the cook and his helpers skittered out of their path. Pushing against his back, Nicky forced Bernie to climb the steep stairs. Bernie had to use his wrists to support himself, angling his broken fingers to the inside to protect them.

When they reached the landing, Lau slipped past them and knocked on the door. The lock clicked and Zhang told them to come in. Bernie seemed to shrink under Zhang’s intimidating gaze. He told them about the spectre and showed his arm, the letters LOKI scratched in his skin.

Lau studied the welts up close. “Did you come straight from the hospital?”

“Why do you ask?”

Lau took Bernie’s hand and pressed his thumb on his index finger, grinding the broken bones together. Bernie cried out and Nicky cuffed him around the head. “Don’t make so much noise, you wimp. These welt are at least an hour old. The OLVG is less than fifteen minutes away. Where did you go?”

“Home,” Bernie cried. “Please, please. I went home to change.”

“Let me get this straight,” Lau said, tapping his thumb on the fracture. “You have two broken fingers, but you give priority to changing your clothes?”

“I pissed myself, okay?”

Lau shook his head. “Get this piece of shit to a hospital, Nicky. And make up a story.”

Nicky cuffed him around the head again. “Get up.”

Bernie went ahead. Nicky followed him down the stairs again. “You’re such an idiot, Bernie. Seriously, if Zhang wasn’t your uncle, I wouldn’t be taking you to a hospital.”

In the car Bernie had difficulty putting his seatbelt on, but Nicky just waited, impatiently tapping the steering wheel. When he finally managed, wincing with the pain, Nicky pulled away and took the IJ-tunnel to the A10 ring road.

Bernie mumbled something and Nicky turned down the radio. “What did you say?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Bernie said. “You wouldn’t have done any better.”

“Against a man in a dress? Christ, you’re pathetic.”

“Burqa. Not a dress. And this guy was like a ghost.”

“You didn’t even try to pistol-whip the motherfucker. You just bend over so he could stick his hand up your ass and make you his sock puppet.”
 

Bernie leant back his head. “Fuck you, Nicky.”

Without taking his eyes from the road, Nicky backhanded him in the face. The way you slapped a woman. Bernie started crying like one, gulping his air, his breathing jagged. “I thought I was going to die,” he wailed. “Don’t you get that? The fucker jammed his fucking thumb in my neck and threatened to turn me into a vegetable.”

“Yes, I get that, you fucking fag,” Nicky hissed. “Now stop the goddamn wailing and man the fuck up, before I take you into the woods and put a bullet in the back of your head.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Bernie hissed. “My uncle—”

“Your uncle would be glad to see the last of your mongrel ass. He curses your mother every day for fucking a
Gwai Lo
and disgracing his family. Your mother blackmailed him into giving you a chance to show your worth.”

Bernie sat up as if stung. “Liar.”

Nicky grabbed his left ear and twisted it. “Don’t you ever call me a liar, you two-faced son of a whore. Shut up and think up a story for the hospital. And it better not be something that gets back to us.”

He released the reddening ear and focused on driving. Bernie shut up and stared out the window. They drove through the Coentunnel and entered the busiest stretch of motorway in the Netherlands, the A10 West. Congested to the point of gridlock, the A10 West took southbound commuters towards Schiphol and the Hague. The first part, right after the tunnel, was two lanes, with heavy construction in the middle where a fly-over was being constructed. The gridlock began where the two lanes became three lanes, just past Sloterdijk Station, where the office towers dispensed commuters into the traffic artery. Nicky wasn’t in a hurry, so he rode the left lane patiently, ambling along in second gear, feathering the clutch.

Motorcycles rumbled past, weaving through the lanes of stuck cars. A motorcyclist paused on the Lexus passenger side and knocked on the window, pointing at the rear of the car. Nicky hit a switch and the passenger window whispered down. The motorcyclist pushed up his mirrored visor. Under the helmet he wore a balaclava, showing only his twinkling blue eyes as he tossed a gun with something strapped to the barrel into Bernie’s lap.

“From Loki!”
 

Bernie yelped, bucked in his seat, and the package rolled from his lap onto the floor.
 

Loud hissing filled the car. In one movement Nicky undid his seatbelt, opened his door and rolled out of the Lexus. A muffled bang sounded and Bernie screamed as smoke billowed from the open window and door of the Lexus. Cars stopped and honked as Nicky landed on all fours, scraping his hands on the wet asphalt while the Lexus moved a few feet and stalled. He scrambled to the concrete divider and got to his feet, vaulted the railing and dropped between the barriers. With his hand on the butt of his nine millimeter, Nicky looked back at his car, but the smoke pouring out of the Lexus obscured his view. The motorcyclist was gone, as expected. He vaulted the second barrier, landing on the opposite carriageway next to the gridlocked northbound traffic and managed to cross three lanes and two exit lanes unscathed to the shoulder. He ran along the shoulder down the off-ramp of exit S103 and came out on the Haarlemmerweg where he quickly went into side streets, keeping an eye out for motorcycles as he fished his cell phone from his pocket.

Zhang answered on the second ring and Nicky told him what had happened. In the distance he heard sirens, and a few minutes later the sound of a helicopter circling overhead. When he was finished, Zhang was silent, then said, “What colour was the smoke?”

“Thick and white,” Nicky said. “Probably a flash-bang or teargas, but I didn’t stick around. It wasn’t a lethal attack, I think, although I have no idea how Bernie is doing.”

“You did well. Any information on the motorcyclist?”

“A pro, that’s all I can say. And obviously linked to Loki, as I said.”

“Lau will pick you up. What’s the plate number of the Lexus?”

Nicky gave him the number and Zhang said, “I’ll have Feng hack the system and report it stolen.”

“What about Bernie?”

“We’ll deal with that when it comes up. This Loki is becoming a regular nuisance. We’ll talk later.”

Less than an hour later they were gathered at Gene Zhang’s office. Lau, Nicky, Zhang himself and the Cho Hai. Ri Lang was tall and taciturn, but when he spoke people paid attention. An important quality in a mediator.

“I think Sieltjes hired Loki to disrupt our plans,” Nicky said. “I don’t think this has to do with the competition.”

“I think you’re right, but I need to be sure.”

“The motorcyclist was not Chinese, his eyes were blue. And Bernie’s attacker in the hospital had blue eyes too.”

Lau lit another cigarette and said, “Same person?”

“I have no idea. Blue eyes are pretty common here.”

“He is putting us in the spotlight,” Zhang said. “The police interviewed me on that dead taxi driver already.”

“No man is an island,” Ri said. “But to stop Loki, we need to find out what he is.”

“A killer.” Lau shrugged. “Obviously.”

Ri looked at Lau. “He killed Eric and Thooft, but not Bernie. So obviously there’s more to him than just killing.”

“So what do you think?” Zhang leant back in his chair. “What is Loki?”

“He’s sending us a message,” Nicky said. “Loki can get to us, anywhere.”

“We need to understand his motivation,” Ri spoke softly. “Did Sieltjes hire Loki? If so, was his loyalty bought with money or is there another principle involved?”

“Principle?” Lau said. “Can you be a little less vague?”

Ri sighed. “Love, power, fun. If Loki is involved for financial gain, he might be swayed by money, but if he’s in love with this Sieltjes woman, he won’t be swayed. So his motivation is important in dictating our counter strategy.”

“How do we figure out his motivation?”

“Why did he kill Thooft?” Zhang said. “To protect Sieltjes. And to leave our business card to implicate us.”