Museum District
Vincent slips his arm around Mila’s bare shoulder and pulls her close. “So many stars,” he whispers. “And so many more, so far away we can’t even see them. Thousands of planets, millions of light-years away. It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?”
Mila doesn’t reply. Not with words, anyway. She leans into him, kisses his neck, brushes his cheek with her lips, moves on to his ear, her hot tongue exploring its contours.
He groans with pleasure.
The two of them have been a couple for almost half a year. They met at the Escape, a nightclub on the Rembrandtplein, and their click was instant and overpowering. One of Vincent’s old buddies has a tattoo on his left bicep of a heart with an arrow through it, and that’s how Vincent feels, like there’s an arrow piercing his heart. Sometimes he has to stop himself from checking his chest to make sure he isn’t actually bleeding.
Everything changed for Vincent when he and Mila got together. For years, he’d been a hard-core party animal, and animal was the operative word: drunk with his pals every weekend, a steady diet of fights and vandalism and anonymous sex, anything for a laugh. His life was a carnival, illuminated by flashing neon, its soundtrack a pulsing heavy-metal beat. Hard to believe it was only last year that he, Roy, Marco, and Tommy had practically torn Greece apart during an alcohol- and drug-fueled summer trip to the islands. Jesus, you choked down the right cocktail of stimulants, you could party hearty for a week without sleep.
Now, tonight, Vincent gazes lovingly at his beautiful Mila. She looks awesome in a short leather skirt and low-cut tank top.
“Mmmm, don’t,” he murmurs. “You know that makes me crazy.”
There isn’t a hint of a breeze, nor a cloud in the sky, and he’s aware that the sultry summer evening only adds to the hunger he feels for her. He slides his left hand beneath Mila’s skirt and caresses the soft inside of her thigh, sneaking his fingers higher to brush the warm, moist cotton of her underwear. It’s absolutely silent in this dark corner of the Vondelpark. Now and then a bicycle whispers past in the distance, but this narrow side trail is completely deserted except for the two of them.
The very instant he has that thought, a runner in a fluorescent green shirt huffs by, but Mila doesn’t seem to notice the intrusion. Perhaps her eyes are closed. Here on this wooden bench... could they? No, you never knew who might appear out of nowhere, even at one a.m., like that jogger. The park used to be known as a meat market for gay guys on the make. Maybe it still is.
Mila licks his ear again. She sucks the lobe into her mouth and nibbles it gently. “You taste so good,” she breathes. He feels the faintest pressure of her teeth. “I could eat you up.”
His fingertips slip inside the elastic of her panties, and just as she bites down on his earlobe his cell phone rings.
“Ow!” he cries.
“Oh no,” says Mila, “did I hurt you?”
Vincent fumbles for his phone. On its screen he sees the word Senior.
“Crap, it’s my dad, I better take it.”
Mila wriggles a few inches away on the bench and straightens her skirt, as if she’s concerned her boyfriend’s father might see her.
“What’s up?” Vincent says.
There is a moment of silence at the other end of the line. Then he hears his dad’s cigarette-hoarsened voice bark, “You make your deliveries?”
Always checking up on him, like he’s a little baby, has to be watched every minute. Doesn’t the old man trust him? And anyway, what’s he doing up at this hour? Once you turn fifty, you’re supposed to be in bed by midnight, for Christ’s sake.
“Muntplein and Koningsplein are done,” Vincent says. “I’ll do Museumplein in the morning.”
“You were supposed to hit all three of them tonight.”
“What difference does it make? I’ll be there before they open tomorrow.”
“That’s not our agreement,” his father says. “First you promise me you’ll do it tonight, now you say tomorrow morning. I don’t nag you, next thing I know it’s afternoon and it’s still not done. We’ve been through this before, son.”
“Not for six months, we haven’t!”
It’s true that Vincent has messed up in the past. Before Mila, he broke pretty much every promise he ever made to the old man. But that was then. He’s a different guy now. Responsible. No more crazy parties, no drunken orgies, no pills, he hardly even drinks booze anymore, just a few beers when they go out to dinner. Mila has shown him he can live a better life. He has to behave himself, if he doesn’t want to go back to being a total loser.
And his dad’s business is a gold mine: kiosks on three squares in the heart of Amsterdam, perfectly placed to serve drinks and snacks to the city’s hordes of tourists. Someday, when Daddy Dearest lies down for the big sleep — and given the two packs of Camels a day the old man inhales, it will probably come sooner than later — the whole enterprise will belong to him, and he’ll live off the proceeds for the rest of his life... if he doesn’t screw it all up.
“I want that last delivery made tonight,” Vincent Senior grumbles. “You hear me, boy?”
“I...” He sees that Mila is eying him with concern. He presses the phone to his chest and explains what’s going on.
“Do what he tells you,” she says. “I understand.”
She understands. For the first time in his life, Vincent has found someone who actually understands.
When he puts the phone back to his ear, his father is still talking. “Sure, Dad, whatever you say,” he interrupts. “I’m on my way to Museumplein right now.”
The Museum Square is a ghost town at this hour — all that’s missing is a lonely tumbleweed blowing across the broad grassy area bordered by the Rijksmuseum to the northeast, the van Gogh and Stedelijk museums to the north, and the Concertgebouw to the southwest. The tourists are tucked away in their hotels, or hunched over glasses of beer in the brown cafés on and around the Leidseplein, or roaming the Red-Light District in search of excitement, adventure, action. But there is nothing for them here. The museums and the city’s concert hall are all long shuttered for the night. The occasional car engine rumbles from the Paulus Potterstraat, a knot of locals chatters as they glide along the Hobbemastraat behind the Rijks on their black bicycles, homeward bound, and then silence again descends... before being irrevocably broken by the arrival of three boisterous young men, twentysomethings, dressed almost identically in T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. Two of the three sport shaggy haircuts, the third has shaved his head.
“Whaddaya wanna do, Tommy?” says the bald one, whose name is Roy. There is a tattoo of a heart and an arrow on his left arm.
“Marco,” says Tommy, “that cunt told you where the party is, right?”
“Yeah, lemme think. It’s around here somewhere.”
“Not in there.” Tommy waves at the looming bulk of the national museum, the Rijks. “You guys ever been inside that dump?”
“On a field trip once,” bald Roy shrugs. “I tried to ditch it, but they dragged me along. About a million stupid old paintings and whatever. Almost as boring as dinner with my folks.”
“That shit’s worth millions, though.”
“I wonder anybody ever broke in there? You got any idea, Marco?”
Marco shakes his head. He gazes thoughtfully at the gigantic building, scratches his armpit, and shrugs.
“Man,” says Roy, “I’m wasted. Let’s get a cab.”
“You see a cab around here?”
“Anyway, where we going? Why don’t you call her, Marco? You got her number back at the Jimmy Hoo, right?”