Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) (4 page)

Listening to the nasty weather outside, Bram felt ambivalent about playing in the warm loft. He used to play outside year round, his only criteria a spot out of the wind so his fingers wouldn’t get too cold. Deep winter he’d play under the awning stretching the old part of the Raadhuisstraat, wearing fingerless woollen gloves, flight case at his feet, open to receive. Suffering the blues for small change. Not this winter, though. Since he refused payment for helping her with her homicidal enterprise, Katla slipped money in his pockets to show her appreciation. Not enough to refuse, but enough to keep him off the streets in foul weather. He’d become a fair-weather street musician, the kind he used to scorn for lack of dedication.

The next track started and Bram waited out the piano intro, which segued into a jazz tune borrowed from Hank Mobley’s
Workout
album, a melody consisting almost entirely of B Flat, D Flat and E Flat. The bass would hit two bars and leave two for Bram to fill. He was about midway into the piece when Katla’s macaw Kourou started barking downstairs. Used to the more raucous interruptions from the average drunken barroom crowd, Bram played on, repeating the theme before moving into another improvisation.

As if her presence downstairs permeated the air in the loft, his thoughts turned to Katla. Bram lowered his saxophone, while the recording played on. Although he had a fairly accurate picture furnished by Zeph’s descriptions, in his mind Katla appeared like an old Egyptian goddess, a creature with a human body and the head of a wolf. That image came most often when he’d lie in her arms and listen to her talk about her work, her cool detached voice so incongruous with her warm embrace, the hands caressing his skin capable of snapping the bones underneath.

He turned to the CD player and found the stop button.
 

“Are you finished?” her soft voice spoke from the stairwell.

“No.” Bram capped the mouthpiece to protect the reed, unhooked the saxophone and placed it on the stand near the wall. “But you’re home, so I might as well stop.”
 

The pungent smell of sewage assaulted his nose as Katla came near. “Did you crawl through a drain?”

“No, a river.” Katla touched his nose. “Why don’t you make me an espresso while I jump in the shower.”

-o-

Moving carefully to prevent piping-hot coffee from spewing on his hands, Bram held the tiny cup under the twin spouts of the espresso machine. Due to the sound of the machine he couldn’t hear if the cup was almost full, so he measured by weight. Of course, he could count off the seconds the machine was gurgling, but the grind of the coffee influenced the speed at which the cup filled. He could hear the bathroom door and carefully carried the espresso to the coffee table in front of the couch.

Katla bounded into the living room. “Just what I needed. A shower and coffee.”

“You took the thermos with coffee I made you, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but nothing beats a fresh brew.”

Beeps sounded as she switched on her cell phones. Part of her professional paranoia—Katla rarely walked around with an active cell phone, claiming she could be triangulated. Just as she carried her bank cards in a special wallet that prevented scanners from reading the RFID chips. One of the cell phones gave the harsh beep of a missed call. Katla slurped her espresso and played the message on the speaker, some guy called Vermeer requesting to be called back.
 

When the message was over Bram tilted his head. “New assignment?”

“No, it’s my Sphinx phone.” Her voice was pensive. “Never get calls from Pascal.”

“He sounds arrogant. Is he a friend of yours?”

“Not exactly, no. Why do you ask?”

He hesitated, then said, “I don’t like his voice.”

“I didn’t hire him for his voice.”

“Who is he?”

“Sphinx’s accountant. Come to think of it, I didn’t hire him. Emil hired him.”

“I’d get rid of him,” Bram said. “His voice oozed deceit.”

“Oozed?” Katla sniggered. “You once told me you couldn’t give a character analysis based on a few minutes of conversation. This was a twenty-second Voicemail message.”

“Character analysis, no. But I can tell if someone is dishonest.”

“I check the books every month, Bram. Pascal isn’t stealing. At least not overtly.”

“He sounds like a sycophant.”

“He is a sycophant.” Buttons clicked softly as Katla dialled his number. “You want to listen in?”

“Sure.”

A recorded message came on, a husky female voice announcing, “You’ve reached Vermeer Financial Services. At the moment no-one is available to take your call. Please leave a message after the beep.”

Katla waited for the beep. “Katherine Sieltjes returning your call, Pascal. I’m—”

Abruptly the receiver lifted at the other end. “Ms. Sieltjes? Hang on.”

A hollow thunk as Vermeer put the receiver on the desk. The hum and echo on the line disappeared as he switched off his answering machine. The receiver picked up again. “Thank you for returning my call, Ms. Sieltjes.”

“No trouble, Pascal. Is there a problem?”

“On the contrary, an unexpected windfall.” Vermeer paused for dramatic effect. Bram put his hand on Katla’s shoulder and held a finger to his lips. Her hand patted his in confirmation. Vermeer cleared his throat and resumed, “Cott and Sons are having an auction. You know, the shipbuilders in Scotland?” Katla gave an affirmative murmur and Vermeer continued, “Cott built two vessels for a company that went bankrupt. They’re auctioned off for bottom prices. One is a freighter not unlike the Gizeh. With a bit of luck we could buy it for two-thirds of the regular price. Maybe even half. With Sphinx’s current financial status and future prospects, that investment would turn profitable in less than two years. I’d like to meet this evening at Sphinx, so we can talk things through.”

Bram signalled ‘slow down’ with his hand.

“What’s the hurry?” Katla asked. “Can’t this wait till tomorrow?”

“The auction starts tomorrow at ten and bidders have to be there in person. Your signature has to be on the letter of authority or our representative cannot deal over there.”

Bram put his hand on her shoulder and drew his hand across his throat.

“I’ll call you back, Pascal.” Katla broke the connection. “What do you think, Bram?”

“What does Vermeer stand to gain in this deal? Does he have stock in Sphinx?”

“Five percent,” Katla replied. “Non-voting. Pascal might get a commission on this deal. Not from us, but from the seller.”

“How long would it take, this appointment?”

“An hour, maybe two. I’d take a taxi, I don’t feel like driving.”

“How is your leg?” Bram slipped his hand under her robe. The bullet that tore up her leg had been removed by one of his friends, but the removal had left a nasty scar. As soon as she’d been able, Katla had booked a flight to London, where a discreet surgeon repaired the damage as well as he could and glued the suture shut. According to Katla, the scar now resembled the silvery trail of a fat snail.
 

He stroked the scar softly. “Are you sure you didn’t exert yourself?”

“I may have. A little. But I couldn’t walk around with my cane. I’d be too easy to remember.”

“You still limp. That doesn’t attract attention?”

“I can walk straight for at least a hundred meters, before I have to rest. It hurts, but—”

“A hundred meters?” He shook his head. “Katla—”

She put her finger on his lips. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not overexerting myself.”

“You don’t think maybe it was a little too soon to start working again?”

Katla sighed. “Maybe you don’t want me to work again?”

“I’m just worried. Prescott told you it’d be months before you’d be able to—”

“It’s been months, Bram.”

“Fine.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Call the sycophant and tell him you’ll be at the meeting. I want to hear his reaction.”

“You think there’s something fishy?”

“Just call him.”

The speaker emitted a series of beeps as the phone redialled Vermeer’s number.
 

The sycophant picked up before his machine could kick in. “Vermeer Financial Services.”

“Sieltjes, Pascal. You wanted the meeting at the office?”

“Yes, please. At ten, if possible?”

“Who’ll be there? Emil?”

A slight hesitation. “Mr. Bootz will be there, and maybe his representative if he doesn’t attend the auction in person. It won’t take long, Ms. Sieltjes. I promise.”

Bram patted her shoulder and nodded.

“I’ll be there, Pascal.”

“Thank you very much, Ms. Sie—”

Katla broke the connection. “And?”

“For someone with five percent non-voting stock he sounds relieved and pretty grateful. His commission on this deal must be astronomical.”

“You think the deal is crooked somehow?”

“He hesitated before he confirmed Bootz’ attendance.”

She put her hand on his chest. “You don’t think Emil will be there?”

“I don’t know, Katla. Too many incongruities. I’d be wary, but you should trust your instincts.” He caressed the low curve of her back. “You can handle yourself.”

Katla snuggled up to him. “We have some time to kill.”

“I forgot. Killing makes you horny, doesn’t it?”

“Your concern makes me horny.” Katla pulled him to the bedroom by his belt buckle. “I need some of your loving before my dangerous meeting with my accountant.”

The crane rolled along the quay, the empty twenty-foot container hanging from the hook looking like a morsel in the long beak of a heron.
 

Chen leant over Nicky’s shoulder. “Pity about the rain, Sai-Lo.”

Nicky glanced at his face. “What for, Younger Brother?”

“It’s a nice view.”

Even for an industrial landscape the Amsterdam harbour didn’t qualify as a nice view. Drab buildings on a drab quay with grey water darkened by oil sludge. Saturday evening and the harbour was deserted except for their crew, huddled in dark windbreakers, trying to shield from the stinging rain.

“Maybe for a Joy Division fan,” Nicky replied, halting the crane near the bow of the ocean freighter berthed at the quay. “On the verge of following the singer into suicidal bliss.”

“Joy Division?”

“Harbingers of New Wave. Stale music in factory halls.”

“I know what you mean,” Chen replied. “Didn’t know you were a fan.”

“I’m not. That’s why I don’t think much of this view.”

In the parking lot in front of the two-story office building the small crew watched the container swing over the warehouses. The opening rotated towards the quay and Nicky slowed the hook’s rotation to prevent the four chains from twisting together. When the container was suspended over the alley between the warehouses and the office building, he pushed the lever to turn the hook again. The container rotated slowly, but when he tried to lower the metal husk to the ground, it kept rotating and grazed the top of the warehouses. He drew the container up again, sticky sweat coating his armpits as it kept rotating, and he cursed silently.

Chen shook his head. “The opening has to be—”

Nicky held up his hand to motion him into silence, waited until the container stopped its rotation and drew another lever to turn the hook the other direction. As the container drew parallel with the small alley between the offices and the warehouses, Nicky lowered the big metal box a little too abruptly, the empty metal husk hitting the concrete with a dull clang.

“It should hug the wall.” Chen pointed down. “The open doors shouldn’t protrude past the warehouses.”

“This crane is not equipped for transporting containers, Chen. And I’m not a professional crane driver. I need some help to move the thing.”

“Can’t you drag it along the ground?”

“No, I can’t. I told you before, the best way to put that container there would be by forklift truck, not by crane. Except the space doesn’t allow for the forklift truck to back out, unless you move those stacks.”

“Okay. How do we work this?”

“Get four men to turn the container into position. Make sure no-one steps between the container and the wall, or it’ll crush him.”

Chen grabbed the two-way radio, but Nicky halted him. “Go down there and explain what needs to be done.”

Chen nodded and lifted the hatch in the floor of the cabin. Nicky watched him clamber down the iron rungs to the quay. He closed the hatch, lit up a cigarette, and gazed out over the harbour.

From this height, the forklift truck riding around the dark terrain between the warehouses looked like a tiny Huayi miniature, the bright lights illuminating its way. Stacks of timber blocked the terrain, except for a path down the middle. A funnel, straight to the container, where flashlight beams moved like fingers over the ground.

Through his binoculars Nicky watched a couple of men tie ropes through the four lower corners so they could rotate the container without getting too close.

The two-way radio crackled. “Lift.”

He drew back the middle handle and the container shuddered on the cable.

“Stop,” Chen spoke through the two-way radio. “Forward, slow.”

With four men hanging onto the ropes to keep the container in position, moving the metal husk next to the wall was a piece of cake. Holding the binoculars in his free hand Nicky watched them open the doors and check the distance. The forklift truck backed into a slot opposite the open container and turned off its lights, ready to shove Sieltjes’ car into the container.

Nicky opened a window, pitched his cigarette into the darkness and followed its descent to the quay. No sparks, the quay was too wet. He tilted the face of his watch to the moon shining into the cabin.

Eight forty-seven.

At least an hour to go, but Lau would want him to stay in the cabin. He poured himself a mug of coffee from his thermos and fingered the paperback novel. The moon illuminated the cabin well enough to allow him to see the controls, not enough to read by. And turning on the cabin light would be like a beacon to the harbour patrol.

Digging deeper, Nicky fished out his PSP game console and checked the battery. Maybe it’d last long enough to pass the hour. With his feet up on the console and the coffee balanced in his crotch he played Mortal Kombat, waiting for the call from the quay.