“Oh, this is too much,” Van der Heuvel said, laughing, a terrible laugh because there was actual humor in it. He found me amusing. “He is psychopathic. Don't you understand this man at all? He's delusional. He's narcissistic, and most of all he lies. Henri was never in Iraq. He has no forger other than himself. Understand something, Mr. Hawkins. Henri is glorifying himself to you, inventing a better life story. You're like a small dog being pulled along -”
“Hey!” I said, slapping the table, jumping to my feet. “Don't screw with me. I came here to find Henri. I don't care about you or Horst Werner or Raphael dos Santos or the rest of you sick, pathetic motherfuckers. If you can't help me, I have no choice but to go to the police and give them everything.”
Van der Heuvel laughed again and told me to calm down, take a seat. I was rocked to my core. Had Van der Heuvel just answered the question of why Henri wanted to write the book? To glorify his life story?
“The Dutchman” opened his laptop, said, “I got an e-mail from Henri two days ago. The first one he ever sent to me directly. He wanted to sell me a video. I think I just saw it for free. You say you have no interest in us?”
“I don't care about you at all. I just want Henri. He's threatened my life and my family.”
“Maybe this will help your detective work.”
Van der Heuvel ran his fingers over the keyboard of his laptop as he talked, saying, “Henri Benoit, as he calls himself, was a juvenile monster. Thirty years ago, when he was six years old, he strangled his infant sister in her crib.”
The shock showed on my face as Van der Heuvel nodded, smiling, tapping ashes into a tray, assuring me that this was true.
“Cute little boy. Fat cheeks. Big eyes. He murdered a baby. He was diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorder, very rare that a child would have all the hallmarks. He was sent to a psychiatric facility, the Clinic du Lac in Geneva.”
“This is documented?”
“Yes, indeed. I did the research when I first met him. According to the chief psychiatrist, a Dr. Carl Obst, the child learned a lot during his twelve years in the crazy house. How to mimic people, of course. He picked up several languages and learned a trade. He became a printer.”
Was Van der Heuvel telling me the truth? If so, it explained how Henri could become anyone, forge documents, slip through the cracks at will.
“After he was released at age eighteen, our boy got busy with casual murders and robberies. He stole a Ferrari, anyway. Whatever else, I don't know. But when he met Gina four years ago, he didn't have to dine on scraps anymore.”
Van der Heuvel told me that Gina “fancied Henri,” that he opened up to her, told her how he liked his sex and that he had committed acts of extreme violence. And he said he wanted to make a lot of money.
“It was Gina's idea to have Henri provide entertainment for our little group and Horst went along with this plan for our sex monkey.”
“This is where you came in.”
“Ah. Yes. Gina introduced us.”
“Henri said you sat in a corner and watched.”
Van der Heuvel looked at me as though I was an exotic bug and he hadn't decided whether to smash me or put me under glass.
“Another lie, Hawkins. He took it up the ass and squealed like a girl. But this is what you should know because it is the truth. We didn't make Henri who he is. We only fed him.”
Chapter 118
Van Der Heuvel's fingers flew across the keyboard again. He said, “And now, a quick look, for your eyes only. I'll show you how the young man developed.”
Delight brightened his face as he turned the screen toward me.
A collection of single frames taken from videos of women who'd been tied up, tortured, decapitated, flickered across the computer screen.
I could hardly absorb what I was seeing as Van der Heuvel flashed through the pictures, smoking his cigarette, providing blithe commentary for a slide show of absolute and, until now, unimaginable horror.
I felt light-headed. I was starting to feel that Van der Heuvel and Henri were the same person. I hated them equally. I wanted to kill Van der Heuvel, the worthless shit, and I thought I could even get away with it.
But I needed him to lead me to Henri.
“At first I didn't know that the murders were real,” he was saying, “but when Henri began to cut off heads, then, of course, I knew.? In the last year, he began writing his own scripts. Getting a little too drunk with attention. Getting too greedy.
“He was dangerous. And he knew me and Gina, so there was no easy way to end it.”
Van der Heuvel exhaled a plume of smoke and went on.
“Last week, Gina planned to either pay Henri off or make him disappear. Obviously, she misjudged him. She never told me how she contacted him, so once again, this is the truth, Mr. Hawkins, I have no idea where Henri is. None at all.”
“Horst Werner signs Henri's paychecks, doesn't he?” I said. “Tell me how to find Werner.”
Van der Heuvel stubbed out his cigarette. His delight was gone. He spoke to me with dead seriousness, emphasizing every word.
“Mr. Hawkins, Horst Werner is the last person you ever want to meet. In your case in particular. He will not like Henri's book. Take my meaning. Don't let it out of your hands. Scrub your computer. Burn your tapes. Never mention the Alliance or its members to anyone. This advice is worth your life.”
It was too late to scrub my hard drive. I'd sent my transcripts of the Henri interviews and the outline of the book to Zagami in New York. The transcripts had been photocopied and passed around to editors and Raven-Wofford's outside law firm. The names of the Alliance members were all over the manuscript. I had planned to change the names, as I'd promised Henri, in the final draft.
I bulled ahead. “If Werner helps me, I'll help him.”
“You have the brain of a brick, Hawkins. Listen to what I'm telling you. Listen. Horst Werner is a powerful man with long arms and steel fists. He can find you wherever you are. Do you hear me, Hawkins? Don't be afraid of Henri, our little windup toy.
“Be afraid of Horst Werner.”
Chapter 119
Van Der Heuvel abruptly called our meeting to an end, dismissed me, saying that he had a flight to catch.
My skull felt like a pressure cooker about to blow. The threat against me had been doubled, a war on two fronts: If I didn't write the book, Henri would kill me. If I did write the book, Werner would kill me.
I still had to find Henri, and now I had to stop Van der Heuvel from telling Horst Werner about Henri's book, and about me.
I dug Henri's Ruger out of my computer case and aimed it at the Dutchman. My voice was hoarse from the stress of unexpressed fear and fury when I said, “You remember I said I didn't care about you and the Alliance? I've changed my mind. I care a lot.”
Van der Heuvel looked at me with scorn.
“Mr. Hawkins, if you shoot me, you will be in a prison for the rest of your life. Henri will still be alive and living in luxury somewhere in the world.”
“Take off your coat,” I said, hefting the gun in my hand. “And everything else.”
“What is the point of this, Hawkins?”
“I like to watch,” I said. “Now shut up. Take off all your clothes. The shirt, the shoes, the pants, every stitch you have on.”
“You are really a fool,” he said, obeying me. “What have you got on me? Some pornography on my computer? This is Amsterdam. We are not prudes like your citizens of the United States. You can't tie me to any of it. Did you see me in any of those videos? I don't think so.”
I stood with the gun clasped in both my hands, leveled at Van der Heuvel, and when he was naked, I told him to grab the wall. Then I whacked him on the back of his head with the gun butt, the same treatment Henri had given me.