becoming a liability, and he knew it.
“It’s gonna be okay, Piet. Chill.” And I carefully pushed the gun so that it was aimed at the van’s floorboards and not my body.
He let me.
“You don’t want to tell your boss about the day going bad,” I said.
“Shut the hell up and let’s go have a beer. At that Rode Prins.”
56
WE STEPPED INTO DE RODE PRINS. It wasn’t too busy; a group of young men sat at the biggest table, laughing, drinking beer, talking sports. A woman sat by herself, sipping lager, studying a guidebook to the city. In the back, a group of Scottish tourists downed beers in the corner and munched on plates of cheese, sausage, and fried lumps of something mysterious; an older man in a nice suit sat at the far end of the bar with a small glass of jenever, reading a newspaper. I could love the Rode Prins because it truly was a quiet neighborhood bar. From the wall, the red-splattered prince looked down on us all.
No sign of Mila. Henrik stood behind the bar and I gave him the slightest of nods.
“Some guy’s looking for you,” Henrik said.
I raised a thumb toward Piet. “My friend. He found me.”
Henrik nodded. Piet ordered two Heinekens for us; we sat at the opposite end of the bar from the man in the suit.
Dilemma, I thought, as Henrik brought us our beers. Piet seemed calmer. He needed me, badly. He was on my turf now, and I could beat him senseless, haul his sorry ass upstairs and question him hard for the location of the gang. And then I would probably kill him, since I could hardly hand him to the police while I still had work to do. But right now, with an infiltration and an attack on his resources, Edward might scramble, run to distant corners, and take Yasmin Zaid with him. I needed Piet alive, and I needed him as camouflage.
“Not a good day for you,” I said in a low whisper.
Piet sipped at his beer. He should have been running straight back to his boss Edward. But no one likes to be the bearer of bad news.
I began my slow squeeze. “I can see the mess you’ve landed in. You’ve got your regular business here. Maybe Nic helps you forge documents on his computer. You make most of your money from the women, moving them from eastern Europe to here. And you got hired for a truly big job, with this Edward dude. You broke out of your comfort zone, having to get goods to America.”
He glanced at me.
“Why do you think I left Prague all of a sudden? Man, I’ve been there.” I shook my head, sipped at the beer. I had killed two men less than an hour ago and now I sat in a bar, drinking. They’d never feel the cool comfort of beer in their mouths again. Fine. They’d made their choices. If I hadn’t killed them, innocents would have died. I wasn’t going to dwell on what I’d done. I wasn’t proud of it, either; it was what it was. But it was important that Piet think I was as awful as he was. My hand didn’t shake as I picked up the beer glass. It stayed steady.
“Edward isn’t going to take this news well, is he?”
“No.”
“And he doesn’t fire people.”
“No.”
“What is he like?”
Piet considered. “Very smart but he’s a dick. He’s English. He mentioned once he used to act, on the stage, I don’t know where, maybe in some backwater. Expert forger—I think he might have worked in intelligence once. He’s good at getting people to follow him. Talks like he was raised around money. He throws money around, too.”
“How do you know so much? He should keep his mouth shut.”
“Edward likes to be the most important man in the room. That often involves bragging.”
Time to play. “You might have to fire him.”
“Fire him?”
“You know, some clients interfere with profitability. That’s what happened in Prague. I fired clients who tried to screw me over.”
He laughed. “And now you’re running.”
“No, I’m laying low. It was best that if I didn’t want to be fired from this good, sweet world that I relocate for a bit.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know how a guy like Edward works. He’s got critical goods he needs moved. They want to use our networks, our connections, because they need us. But if the job goes wrong, they don’t hesitate to kill us.” I