slowly reaching into his pocket. I tensed but I didn’t pull a gun yet. Gregor pulled out a package of garlic lozenges. He slid one between his thin lips.
A test. I wasn’t here to kill him. I was here either to offer a deal or get information. He’d provided the setup for the smuggling route for the fake uranium, but, since it was never smuggled, the Company had decided to leave him alone, in play, to be useful again. But he’d moved to Amsterdam for what I guessed was a fresh start. Amsterdam had better smuggling routes, and more of them, tied back to the massive port in Rotterdam.
“How do you like Amsterdam?” I said.
“Lovely. The Dutch are very pleasant people.” He sucked hard on the lozenge, drawing out every bit of the garlic’s restorative powers. “They have an excellent health-care system.”
I gestured at the small shop, brimming with inventory. “Business looks good.”
He shrugged. “Watches are a leftover from an analog world. Books, records, movies, everything goes digital.” He sniffled, clicked his tongue. “But analog watches, people still like them. They are both necessity and luxury. We must always know what time it is and we must look good doing it.” He cleared his throat, wiped at his lip with the back of his hand. “How may I help you?” Like I was here to look at his Rolexes.
You don’t ever answer a question when asked. At least, a man like the one I was pretending to be wouldn’t. Instead I invaded his privacy. I peeked inside the bags. Party stuff, for a kid, a girl. Napkins, plates, wrapped candies. “A party?”
“I married a woman here four months ago. I have a stepdaughter. My life is… calmer. I don’t think I can be of help to you, Samson. I am no longer connected.”
“You have a website for your little watch business, Gregor. You probably do a lot of international trade here—ordering from Switzerland for inventory, and shipping goods all over Europe. Great front for smuggling.”
“Get out. I don’t know what you mean.” A touch of panic bruised his voice.
“Oh, I can get out. I could head straight to the Czech embassy and tell them that one of their wayward sons has set up business in this nice country and maybe, if they don’t want to be embarrassed by whatever idiot scheme you’re up to these days, they should keep a careful eye on you. Look very carefully at your books, at your shipping manifests, see where your customers are.”
“I don’t smuggle no more. I am legit now.”
“Hard to make a living with used watches.”
I opened up my wallet. Pulled out and inspected an impressive wad of euros, courtesy of Mila. Everyone has a price.
Gregor looked at the thickness of the wad and stopped ordering me out.
“I need to find someone, Gregor.” I pulled a photo from my pocket. It was a print of the scarred man from the video of Yasmin at the Centraal Station. “Now. I need to know if you’ve seen this man.” I handed him the photo.
Gregor didn’t push it back right away and say don’t know him. That would have been too obvious a lie. He inspected him the way he might peer at damaged gearwork, a narrow pianist’s finger tracing the circle of the man’s face. Finally he said, “I don’t know this man.”
“Think. I don’t want your stepdaughter’s birthday present to be finding out that her shiny new dad used to be a smuggler. Or still is.”
“She wouldn’t mind me being gone. She acts like she’s allergic to me.” But Gregor studied the picture again. “I don’t know him. But this man I know.”
“Who?”
He looked at me. I peeled off a couple of bills and slid them onto the counter.
“Him. The big man with the dye job. Behind the first guy you pointed at.”
I looked at the picture. A few feet behind the scarred man was a big, broad-shouldered man with dyed white hair. He looked as though he might have Asian ancestry, mixed with European.
“Him I know,” Gregor said. The edge of the photo trembled ever so slightly as he tucked it back into my hand. Watchmaker hands don’t tremble.
“Do they owe you money?” he asked, and that was his second mistake. He wanted to know why I was looking for the blond. So he could tell the blond about it.
“Who is he, Gregor?”
“Uh, I have to think about his name.” He backed away, toward the gear table.