“How can you expect me to take care of you if you don’t take care of me? Is this the Dutch way? Is this the Turkish way?”
“I am not Turkish,” he said slowly, as though simultaneously thinking about the matter at hand. “I’m Greek.”
I heard a ruckus behind me and then the sound of footsteps clattering toward my office. A man arrived in a huff from the inside of the building. He looked like the Turk’s younger cousin. He said something in Dutch that included the words “panic button” in English. The Turk replied sharply, his protégé gave him some lip in return, and the Turk barked what sounded like a final order at him. The younger bodyguard lowered his head and disappeared from my office the same way he’d arrived.
I checked my watch. It was midnight. The mystery lover might be arriving any second.
“What did this man look like?” the Turk said.
“He was in his mid-twenties. Tall, thin, blonde hair and blue eyes. He was American. Can you believe that? From Los Angeles.”
“Really.” The Turk sounded as though I’d just whetted his appetite for combat. “Did you see which way he went?’
“To the right. When he first came in he said he was making a pit stop before going to the Bulldog Café.”
“Cannabis,” the Turk said with disgust. “But there are several Bulldog Cafes.”
“Then why are you still here?”
The Turk muttered something under his breath, started to leave, and then turned back and devoured me with a final look. “Don’t close before you see me tonight.” His words sounded way too much like an order for my liking, but he took off before I could say anything.
Just as the Turk vanished out of sight, a young man stopped near my door. His eyes met mine. I knew right away this was my mark. I knew it because he was wearing a hoodie. No one in Amsterdam wore a hoodie. It was a silly disguise, the kind that made one stand out even more. I also knew he was the one because he was so gorgeous. Raised cheekbones, skin so smooth a woman might be afraid to touch it, and aquamarine eyes that mesmerized and weakened the knees.
A sinking feeling washed over me. I’d blown it. If I’d been in the office, standing five feet back from the window in the semi-darkness, he wouldn’t have seen me clearly. He wouldn’t have realized I wasn’t his girl until he came inside and saw me in person. But I wasn’t in my office, I was in the doorway three feet away from him.
His eyes widened, his lips parted. He took a step back—
“Wait,” I said.
But he didn’t wait.
He turned and hurried away.
CHAPTER 3
I took off my high-heels and sunglasses and tossed them onto the chair. I grabbed the sweatshirt I’d brought, zipped it up to my neck, and slipped into my flat shoes. Then I slammed the door shut and took off after the mystery lover. All I needed was ten seconds of face-time to explain to him that I was his friend, not his enemy. That I wanted to solve the murder of his beloved, not cause him any additional despair.
I had no time to change into pants. I knew I was about to make a spectacle of myself and I didn’t relish the prospect. I cherished stealth and anonymity. I loathed the thought of drawing attention to myself in any way, especially given I was a guest in a foreign country. My suitcase didn’t contain blue jeans when I travelled abroad. Europe was a classier place than America and I packed accordingly. Now, here I was hustling across the Oudekerkplein in a bikini bottom. I didn’t resemble the prototypical American tourist in shorts and tank top. I made that get-up look civilized.
And yet I didn’t hesitate. The pin-prick of embarrassment was just that. I’d snuck my cousin out of Chernobyl and into New York via Siberia. I’d stared down the cops on the Trans Siberian Railway by posing as a journalist, cajoled a cemetery caretaker to unearth a grave in Ukraine, and convinced a billionaire to fly me around the world by pretending to not want his help. A woman’s will could propel her to act outside of social norms to achieve her goals. The prerequisite to harnessing that will was the willingness to risk failure.
My flats had thin soles. As a result, the cobblestones threw off my balance. I had trouble walking a straight line. I suspected I looked drunk. A few jaws dropped. Some pedestrians moved to the side to make way for me. Men loitering near bars craned their necks for a better view. I ignored them.
The secret lover marched purposefully but didn’t run. He didn’t want to attract attention to himself, I thought. Smart boy. All eyes were focused on me instead of him. I was determined to catch-up to him with a walking pace honed on New York City sidewalks. Running would only make me stand out even more. I’d rarely failed to catch up to anyone along Madison Avenue. I didn’t see any reason I wouldn’t do so now.
“Wait,” I said. “I’m a friend. I want to help you. I want to help Iskra.”
Iskra was the name of the deceased girl. I shouted at her mystery lover from behind but he either didn’t hear me or wasn’t interested in what I had to say. He simply kept walking like a robot programmed to stay ahead of me.
I followed him right onto Warmoesstraat, still twenty paces back. I passed a corner store specializing in whips and chains, and an illuminated houseboat on the canal where two couples were enjoying dinner. A bicycle wrapped in white lights sparkled in the picture window of a luxury row house beyond them.
We’d walked a city block and I’d gained no ground at all. The mystery lover had long legs and could move. Damned if he didn’t have longer legs and wasn’t fitter than I was. In half a block he would reach the outer border of De Wallen. There was simply no way I could leave De Wallen in my current state of dress.
I began to jog. My feet stung and I wished I were wearing trainers. I repeated my plea for him to stop and that I was his friend.
He didn’t respond. He reached the border of De Wallen, turned right onto a side street, and disappeared.
I ran.
When I reached the corner I saw him climbing into the back of a small SUV. I didn’t recognize the vehicle. From my viewpoint, I could see a short vertical post in the middle of the road directly in front of the vehicle’s bumper with a vivid red light. I could also see that the mystery lover was seated in the back of the SUV, but only the driver was seated in front. The front passenger seat was empty. The SUV’s break lights shone red. Any second the driver would switch into reverse and come barreling toward me, I thought.
I hugged the buildings along the right sidewalk and raced toward the vehicle. I was ten strides away. Five strides… I read the lettering on the back of the SUV. It was a Porsche Macan Turbo… Three strides away… I caught a glimpse of the license plate—
The brake lights dimmed. The engine whirred. The sound of God’s vacuum cleaner filled the air. The SUV surged forward, turned left, and disappeared.
I took my final three strides and stood over the cap of the small vertical post. It had sunken into the ground. Its light was green now.
My chest heaved as I swore to myself. A light sheen of sweat covered my forehead. I felt completely naked and embarrassed. I turned and began to jog back toward Warmoesstraat. I was technically half a block beyond De Wallen. I hoped one of the residents along the canal or in the houseboat hadn’t seen me and been offended.
A siren wailed. It was a European police siren, a long squeeze of the horn followed by a short one. It was more measured than the frenetic American version. Under other circumstances, I might have enjoyed the sound and the moment. But these weren’t other circumstances.
A white hatchback with diagonal blue and red stripes across the doorway pulled up to the corner in front of me. I’d never imagined my undoing in Amsterdam would come via a vehicle painted red, white and blue. Two cops dressed in fluorescent yellow vests and white uniforms stepped out of the car. A third cop pulled up on a bicycle. He wore a sidearm like the other two and a puffed-up olive bomber jacket that looked like a Gore-Tex model designed for Arctic discothèques.