The Jazzman was filled with hippies ranging in age from late teens to early forties. A pungent, acrid odor hung in the air. and the tables were filled with wine bottles.
It was obvious why the little cafe had been chosen; Carter stuck out like a sore thumb. He guessed that whoever his contact was, she would also be «different» from the crowd.
Just inside the door, something resembling Vampira sat at a small table with an open cigar box in front of her.
Carter dropped a few bills into the box, moved on into the club, and found what looked to be the last empty table.
On the stage sat a gorilla with the face of a cherub, dangling a banjo in his paws. He wore greasy motorcycle boots, faded and patched blue jeans, and a wrinkled blue work shirt.
Mournful and unintelligible sounds came from between his lips as he listlessly strummed the banjo.
A lean blonde moved toward Carter. Her feet were bare, and her hair was a tawny tangle to her shoulders. She looked to be about sixteen.
Wine?"
"Scotch," Carter replied.
"We have only wine.
"I'll have wine… two glasses."
She disappeared with a sharp little wiggle and was back in less than a minute. She plopped the bottle on the table and shifted her weight to one hip.
"You want hashish too?"
Carter's nose wrinkled. Now he recognized the smell that had assaulted his nostrils when he had entered the club. Hashish was common, and legal, in Amsterdam.
"No."
"Five florin," she said, holding out her hand.
He gave her a five-florin note and some coins. She ambled away, and Carter poured a glass of the wine. It was awful, but at least he didn't grimace.
Carter didn't have long to wait. The mournful singer was just stepping down for a hash break when she came through the door. One roll around the room with her eyes and he was spotted.
She was short and compact beneath a big poncho and a pair of snug jeans. Her face was stark white, devoid of makeup, and her eyes were almost concealed beneath dark bangs.
Carter thought mat she would have fit right into the place if it hadn't been for her hands. They always tell the story, and these hands said the short creature in the poncho would never see forty again.
"May I join you?"
"Please do."
She sat as he poured wine into the second glass.
"Are you a tourist in Amsterdam?"
Carter shook his head. "I have business with a Mr. Oakhurst."
"And what are you called?"
"Jasmine."
The slight tenseness left the hand and arm holding the glass. She set it on the table and leaned forward.
"And…?"
"And the decibel level of chatter in this place is deafening. Could we go somewhere else?"
"One moment."
And men she was gone, into the darkness beyond the rear door of the cafe.
Carter guessed mat somewhere back there was a telephone. He lit a cigarette and waited.
She was back in less than two minutes. "Mr. Oakhurst is nearby."
Carter took her elbow to guide her through the crowd. He almost missed it, a quick but deft exchange between the woman and two of the rowdier men at the bar. Just as they passed, arm in arm, into the street, Carter saw the two men separate themselves from the rest of the crowd.
They were silent for two blocks before Carter spoke out of the side of his mouth. "We're being followed."
"I know. They belong to us."
"Trusting, aren't you?"
"No," she said, and smiled. "It is a very dangerous business. You, of all people, should know that."
At the canal, they turned and followed it for another few blocks. Suddenly she grasped his arm and halted.
"There, the fourth floor. Knock twice, wait, and knock twice again."
It was an old house of crumbling red brick turning gray from years. She made sure he understood which one, then faded from his side into the shadows.
Slowly, he ambled toward the entrance and climbed the steps. The front door opened into a small alcove. Beyond the second door was a hall and rotting stairs.
Carter covered the four flights of stairs three at a time and rapped sharply on the floor's only door. He waited ten seconds, then rapped again. An ear to the thin panel told him that someone was very carefully twisting the lock on the other side.
"Yes?" came a thin, reedy voice through a crack in the door.
"My name is Jasmine. I've come to see Mr. Oakhurst."
"Come in."
Carter stepped through the crack into pitch darkness.
"Stand right there, please."
The voice was behind him. The hands that patted him down came from in front.
"He is not armed."
The door closed behind him, and a bare bulb blinked on in the ceiling. The room was ratty, a table, a few chairs, and a cot its only furnishings.
The man before Carter was short and squat. His face was lined, and his skin was puckered beneath his neck as if he had once been much heavier but had shriveled. A Walther PPK was lolling easily in his right hand.
"You are Oakhurst?" Carter asked.
"I am Oakhurst."
Carter turned slowly.
He was tall and scarecrow thin. His face beneath a heavy growth of beard was gaunt, the cheeks hollow, the eyes sunken in dark pockets.
He looks strung out, Carter thought, or tubercular.
Carter knew it was the latter when the man moved to the table and immediately started hacking into a ready handkerchief he held in his right hand.
"I trust our last two exchanges met with your approval?" he managed to say between coughing spasms.
"Quite," Carter said, slipping into an opposite chair. The squat man, still playing with the Walther, moved to a window ledge and sat. "Except, of course, the vests on the first shipment were not of the quality you said, and you shorted me two crates of mortar shells on the second."
The man's thin lips creased into a smile, and Carter sighed inwardly, giving silent thanks to Garrett's analytical thinking.
"My apologies. I will make it up to you with a credit on these items."
He flattened a piece of paper and a map on the table.
"Now, shall we get down to business? The goods are currently in a warehouse in The Hague. They are still legit, with an end-use certificate for Caracas. We can ship by air or by sea, depending on your true destination."
Carter flipped the map around and traced his finger down the coast of Italy. "Here."
The man's eyes darted down and then back up to meet Carter's. Beneath his beard, the jawline tensed as his teeth clenched. "We can't consign at that distance and you know it."
"You will this time, "Carter replied in a flat, even voice. The squat man lifted his butt from the windowsill and steadied the Walther. "And tell your man to put that away or I will give him an enema with it."
The man took one step forward, and Oakhurst held up his hand. "I shall have to make a call. One moment."
He stood and moved through a curtain serving as a door into another room. Carter lit a cigarette and turned to the other man.
"Sit down."
He did, and slid the Walther into his belt.
It took almost a half hour before the bearded man returned to his chair.
"It can be done. A Libyan freighter, the Alamein, departs Marseille in two days' time. We will recrate there and ship as pottery."
"Can the exchange be made at sea?"
The man nodded and jotted on a pad. "These coordinates in five days. Midnight… sharp."
Carter memorized the coordinates and touched his lighter to the paper. When it was ashes, he stood.
"Now, the money."
Carter opened his shirt. From beneath it he withdrew a fat money belt and draped it across the table.
There is fifty thousand. The remainder when the exchange is made and I have all the goods."