“You didn’t pull the gun.” I’d missed wherever he was carrying. It must have been strapped on his lower leg. Nowhere had I seen a broken drape in his shirt or his jacket.
“No, you seemed to eliminate the need to do so.”
I didn’t say anything and I drank, slowly, the rest of my beer. He wasn’t very smart, to be a poor fighter and not produce the gun when threatened by an angry group. There was only one reason he might have hesitated: he did not want the attention. He wanted to stay below notice, and pulling a gun even in a rough bar would result in unwanted interest.
Silence is my most powerful weapon. Most people literally cannot sit in silence with another human being around, especially in a cafe over drinks. We consider it odd.
The quiet bothered Nic. “So. If you might be interested in bodyguard work, I might be able to get you a job.”
“I don’t have a Dutch work permit,” I said. “I lost the paperwork.”
“You wouldn’t need a permit. My clients are, um, very discreet.”
“Um, like pimps? I don’t beat up on hookers.”
“Oh, no. Much more high-class.” He lowered his voice. “But one of the perks is, you know, girls.”
I kept my face still. “I think I ought to get a beer for each guy I downed.” I hoisted the glass. “You owe me two more.”
A smile inched across his face, slowed, faded back to the solemn frown. “All right.” He was a busy man, he gave off an air of impatience, but he liked what he’d seen in the bar fight-he had to know I’d acquitted myself far better than he had-and he’d decided not to walk away from me. Not yet. He gestured at the waitress for another round, sans the jenever.
“Where in Canada are you from?” I knew all this would be checked tomorrow.
“Toronto.”
“I know it well.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Did you ever eat at the Rosedale Diner on Parker Street?”
“It’s on Yonge Street. Best hamburger in town.” I could smell a test.
“Your parents?”
“Dead.” I shrugged. “They left me a little money to see the world.”
“Which high school did you go to?”
“St. Michael’s College School. Then to McGill. Studied history, barely passed. But enough to get into Canadian Forces Officer Candidate School.” My legend as Peter Samson, Canadian scofflaw, had been built by the Company. Nic wasn’t going to be able to dent it. I was Peter Samson, from birth until now, and there were school records and credit histories and a Canadian military record to support me.
Unless the Company had wiped out that identity. In which case, no records on Peter Samson would exist.
“You know Amsterdam?” Nic asked me.
I took another long drag of beer and stifled a belch. “Pardon. Not well. I know Prague and Warsaw and Budapest better.”
“You’ve spent a lot of time in eastern Europe.”
“That’s where the more interesting work opportunities are.”
“Such as?”
“Such as stuff I really shouldn’t tell a stranger,” I said, with a kidder’s laugh, and he laughed, too.
“No, really,” he said after an awkward silence. “You put a man through a window for me, Sam. We’re friends now.”
“Protecting stuff. I guess it’s like protecting people. I just made sure the stuff got to where it was supposed to be.”
That was a kind and subtle description of smuggling, but if Piet was a smuggler like Gregor suggested, then I might be more interesting as a potential employee. Or at least I might get an interview. I just had to get close enough to scout them out, kill them all except the high-ranking one-which I assumed was Piet-and force him to lead me to the scarred man.
Simple.
Subtle worked on Nic. He lit a cigarette, sipped at his beer.
“Like to where?”
“Mostly to North America.” Getting a secret shipment to there was Piet’s goal, I hoped. And I wondered, from the Turk’s words, if maybe he’d arranged illicit passage to the States, and now the arrangement had gone sour.
“I might be able to offer you a job, but I need to speak with the client.”
“Your client’s not this Piet guy who doesn’t pay, is he?”
“Piet pays. Those dumbass Turks need to learn patience.”
I made a noise in my throat, shrugged. “Look, I’m good at getting stuff to the States, protecting it, making sure nobody screws with it. If that sounds good to you, fine. If not, thanks for the floor show.” It was critical I not look too eager.
Nic waited a few seconds and then said, “I think I can use you. The pay is excellent. Two thousand euros a week, in cash.”
“Well, I’m running low on beer money. So yeah, I guess, maybe.” I ran my finger in a circle along the beer smudge on the table. “How do I get in touch with you?”
“You got a cell?”
“Yeah.”
He pushed a napkin toward me. “Write it down.”
I did. I didn’t put my name on it. “Decide quick,” I said with a shrug. “I get bored, I might move on.”
He tucked the napkin into his pocket. “All right.”
“Question,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You pulled a gun on me after I helped you. You’re kind of a jerk.”
He cracked a smile. “I have to be. I wanted to be sure you didn’t really come after me next. You told the Turks Piet owed you money. You might have fought them just to get at me.”
“Yeah, I don’t know your Piet. I said that just to get them to shut up,” I said. “Didn’t work.”
“The fists worked well enough. All right, Sam.” He tossed more euros on the table. “Treat yourself to more blows on the head, or get yourself dinner. You did me a favor tonight and I think we can do business together.”
“Okay. You got my number.”
He got up and left. I had my back to the wall and I watched him go out of the door and across the long flat stretch of Dam Square, under the Nationaal Monument.
I stepped out into the night and caught sight of Nic at a distant corner. He was heading south, in the direction of the Prinsengracht. It was full dark now, and I hung back in the shadows as he crossed a street and a bridge. I followed. If he turned he might see me, but no, he was back on his electronic nipple-the cell phone- talking.
I followed, but not too close. A car stopped, picked him up. He got in and the car roared off then turned toward Singel, a major street that made a large U-shape through Amsterdam.
I looked around for a cab. None.
I just started walking the direction he’d gone. You never know what you might see. And home-the Rode Prins-was the same direction.
Thirty seconds later a small blue sedan pulled up next to me. The passenger door opened. Mila. “Get in, dummy.”
“You were watching me?”
She roared away from the curb before I even had the door shut. “You could have screwed up, gotten captured. I would have had to kill you. Can’t have you talking about us.”
It was hard to know with her if she was serious. “If he’d grabbed me you would have killed me instead of
