when I, feet moving of their own accord, followed him again. “No no—” leading me back around, opening the front passenger door and giving me a little shove.
Drenched. Shivering. Nauseated. On the floor: pack of Stimorol gum. Road map: Frankfurt Offenbach Hanau.
Boris had circled around to the car, checking it out. Then, gingerly, he came back to the driver’s side—weaving a bit; trying not to step in blood—and sat behind the wheel and held it with both hands and took a deep breath.
“Okay,” he said, on a long exhale, talking to himself like a pilot about to take off on a mission. “Buckle up. You too. Brake lights working? Tail lights?” Patting his pockets, sliding up the seat, turning the heater up to High. “Plenty of gas—good. Heated seats too—will warm us up. We can’t be stopped,” he explained. “Because I cannot drive.”
All sorts of tiny noises: creak of seat leather, water ticking from my wet sleeve.
“Can’t drive?” I said, in the intense ringing silence.
“Well, I can.” Defensively. “I have. I—” starting up the car, backing out with his arm along the seat—“well, why do you think I have a driver? Am I this fancy? No. I do have—” upheld forefinger—“drunk-driving conviction.”
I closed my eyes to keep from seeing the slumped bloody mass as we drove past it.
“So, you see, if they stop me they will run me in and this is what we do not want to happen.” I could barely hear what he was saying over the fierce buzzing in my head. “You will have to help me out. Like—watch for street signs and keep me from driving in bus lanes. The cycle paths are red here, you are not supposed to drive on them either so help me watch for those too.”
On the Overtoom again, heading back into Amsterdam: Locksmith Sleutelkluis, Vacatures, Digitaal Printen, Haji Telecom, Onbeperkt Genieten, Arabic letters, lights streaking, it was like a nightmare, I was never going to get off this fucking road.
“God, I better slow down,” said Boris somberly. He looked glassy and wrecked. “Trajectcontrole. Help me watch for signs.”
Blood smear on my cuff. Big fat drops.
“Trajectcontrole. That means some machine tells the police you are speeding. They drive unmarked cars, a lot of them, and sometimes they will follow a while before they stop you although—we are lucky—not much traffic out this way tonight. Weekend, I guess, and holiday. This is not exactly Happy Christmas neighborhood out here if you get me. You understand what just happened, don’t you?” said Boris, heaving for breath and scrubbing his nose hard with a gasping sound.
“No.” Somebody else talking, not me.
“Well—Horst. Both those guys were Horst’s. Frits is maybe only person in Amsterdam he knew to call on such short notice but Martin—fuck.” He was speaking very fast and erratically, so fast he could barely get the words out, and his eyes were flat and staring. “Who even knew Martin was in town? You know how Horst and Martin met, don’t you?” he said, half-glancing at me. “Mental home! Fancy California mental home! ‘Hotel California,’ Horst used to call it! That was back when Horst’s family was still talking to him. Horst was in for rehab but Martin was in because he is really, truly nuts. Like, eyestabber kind of nuts. I have seen Martin do things I really do not like to talk about. I—”
“Your arm.” It was hurting him; I could see the tears glittering in his eyes.
Boris made a face. “Nyah. This is zero. This is nothing. Aah,” he said, lifting his elbow up so I could wrap the phone charger cable around his arm—I’d yanked it out, wrapped it twice above the wound, tied it tight as I could—“smart you. Good precaution. Thanks! Although, no need really. Just a graze—more bruised than anything, I think. Good this coat is so thick! Clean it out—some antibyotic and something for pain—I’ll be fine. I—” deep shuddering breath—“I need to find Gyuri and Cherry. I hope they went straight to Blake’s. Dima—Dima needs a heads-up too, about the mess in there. He will not be happy—there will be cops, big headache—but it will look random. There is nothing to tie him to this.”
Headlights sweeping past. Blood pounding in my ears. There weren’t many cars on the road but every one that passed made me flinch.
Boris moaned and dragged his palm across his face. He was saying something, very speedy and agitated. “What?”
“I said—this is a mess. I am still figuring it out.” Voice staccato and cracked. “Because this is what I am wondering now—maybe I am wrong, maybe I am paranoid—but maybe Horst knew all along? That Sascha took the picture? Only Sascha brought the picture out of Germany and tries to borrow money on it behind Horst’s back. And then when things go wrong—Sascha panics—who else could he call? of course, I am just thinking out loud, maybe Horst didn’t know Sascha took it, maybe he would never have known if Sascha hadn’t been so careless and dumb as to—Goddamn this fucking ring road,” said Boris suddenly. We had gotten off the Overtoom and were circling around. “Which is the direction I want? Turn on the Nav.”
“I—” fumbling around, incomprehensible words, menu I couldn’t read, Geheugen, Plaats, turning the dial, different menu, Gevarieerd, Achtergrond.
“Oh, hell. We will try this one. God, that was close,” said Boris, taking the turn a little too fast and sloppy. “You have some minerals, Potter. Frits—Frits was out of it, nodding practically, but Martin, my God. Then you—? Coming around so brave? Hurrah! I did not even think of you there. But there you were! Say you never handled a firearm before?”
“No.” Wet black streets.
“Well, let me tell you something that will maybe sound funny? But—is a compliment. You shoot like a girl. You know why is a compliment? Because,” said Boris, with a giddy, feverish slur in his voice, “in situation of threat, male who never fired weapon before and female who never fired weapon before? The female—so Bobo used to say—is much more likely to drop her mark. Most men? want to look tough, have seen too much movies, get too impatient and pop their shot off too fast—Shit,” said Boris suddenly, slamming on the brakes.
“What?”
“We don’t want this.”
“Don’t want what?”
“This street is closed.” Throwing the car in reverse. Backing down the street.
Construction. Fences with bulldozers behind them, empty buildings with blue plastic tarps in the windows. Stacks of piping, cement blocks, graffiti in Dutch.
“What are we going to do?” I said, in the paralyzed silence that followed, after we’d turned down a different street that seemed to have no streetlights at all.
“Well—no bridge here that we can cross. And that’s a dead end, so…”
“No, I mean what are we going to do.”
“About what?”
“I—” My teeth were chattering so hard I could barely get the words out. “Boris, we’re fucked.”
“No! We are not. Grozdan’s gun—” awkwardly he patted his coat pocket—“I’ll drop it in the canal. They can’t trace it back to me, if they can’t trace it back to him? And—nothing else to tie us. Because my gun? Clean. No serial. Even the car tires are new! I’ll get the car to Gyuri and he’ll change them tonight. Look here,” said Boris, when I didn’t answer, “don’t worry! We are safe! Shall I say it again? S-A-F-E” (spelling it out clumsily on four fingers).
Hitting a pothole, I flinched, unconsciously, a startle reaction, hands flying up to my face.
“And why, more than anything? Because we are old friends—because we trust each other. And because—oh God, there’s a cop, let me slow down.”
Staring at my shoes. Shoes shoes shoes. All I could think, when I’d put them on a few hours before I hadn’t killed anybody.
“Because—Potter, Potter, think about this. Listen for one moment please. What if I was a stranger—someone you did not know or trust? If you were driving from garage now with stranger? Then your life would be chained with a stranger’s forever. You would need to be very very careful with this person, long as you live.”
Cold hands, cold feet. Snackbar, Supermarkt, spotlit pyramids of fruit and candy, Verkoop Gestart!
“Your life—your freedom—resting on a stranger’s loyalty? In that case? Yes. Worry. Absolutely. You would be in very big trouble. But—no one knows of this thing but us. Not even Gyuri!”
Unable to speak, I shook my head vigorously at this, trying to catch my breath.
“Who? China Boy?” Boris made a disgusted noise. “Who’s he going to tell? He is underage and not here legally. He does not speak any proper language.”
“Boris”—leaning forward slightly; I felt like I was going to pass out—“he’s got the painting.”
“Ah.” Boris grimaced with pain. “That is gone, I’m afraid.”
“What?”
“For good, maybe. I am sick over that—sick in my heart. Because, I hate to say it—Woo, Goo, what’s his name? After what he saw—? All he will think about is himself. Scared to death! People dead! Deportation! He does not want to be involved. Forget about the picture. He has no idea of its true value. And if he finds himself in any kind of fix with the cops? Rather than spend one day in jail even? All he will want is to get rid of it. So—” he shrugged woozily—“let’s hope he does get away, the little shit. Otherwise very good chance the ptitsa will end up thrown in canal—burned.”
Streetlights glinting off the hoods of parked cars. I felt disincarnate, cut loose from myself. How it would feel to be back in my body again I couldn’t imagine. We were back in the old city, cobblestone rattle, nocturne monochrome straight out of Aert van der Neer with the seventeenth century pressing close on either side and silver coins dancing on black canal water.
“Ach, this is closed,” groaned Boris, jerking to a stop again, backing up the car, “we must find another way.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“Yes—of course,” said Boris, with a sort of scary disconnected cheerfulness. “That’s your canal over there. The Herengracht.”
“Which canal?”
“Amsterdam is an easy city to get around,” Boris said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “In the old city all you have to do is follow the canals until—Oh, God, they closed this off too.”
Tonal gradations. Weirdly enlivened darks. The small ghostly moon above the bell gables was so tiny it looked like the moon of a different planet, hazed and occult, spooky clouds lit with just the barest tinge of blue and brown.
“Don’t worry, this happens all the time. They are always building something here. Big construction messes. All this—I think is for a new subway line or something. Everyone is annoyed by it. Many accusations of fraud, yah yah. Same in every city, no?” His voice was so blurry he sounded drunk. “Roadwork everywhere, politicians getting rich? That is why everyone rides a bike, it is quicker, only, I am sorry, I am not riding a bicycle anywhere one week before Christmas. Oh no—” narrow bridge, dead halt behind a line of cars—“are we moving?”
“I—” We were stopped on a pedestrian footbridge. Visible pink drops on the rain-splashed windows. People walking back and forth not a foot away.
“Get out of the car and look. Oh, hang on,” he said impatiently before I could pull myself together; throwing the car into Park, getting out himself. I saw his floodlit back in the headlights, formal and staged-looking amidst billows of exhaust.
“Van,” he said, throwing himself back in the car. Slamming the door. Taking a deep breath, bracing his arms out straight against the steering wheel.
“What is he doing?” Glancing side to side, panicked, half expecting some random pedestrian to notice the bloodstains, rush at the car, bang at the windows, throw open the door.
“How should I know? There are too many cars in this fucking city. Look,” said Boris—sweating and pale in the lurid tail lights of the car in front of us; more cars had pulled up behind, we were trapped—“who knows how long we will be here. We are only few blocks from your hotel. Better you should get out and walk.”
“I—” Was it the lights of the car in front of us that made the water drops on the windshield look quite so red?
He made an impatient flicking movement of the hand. “Potter, just go,” he said. “I don’t know what is going on with this van up here. I’m afraid the traffic police will show up. Better for us both if we are not together just now. Herengracht—you cannot miss it. The canals here run in circles, you know that, don’t you? Just go that way—” he pointed—“you will find it.”
“What about your arm?”
“It’s nothing! I’d take off my coat to show you except is too much trouble. Now go. I have to talk to Cherry.” Pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “I may have to leave town for a little while—”
“What?”
“—but if we don’t speak for a bit, don’t worry, I know where you are. Best if you don’t try to call me or get in touch. I’ll be back soon as I can. Everything will be okay. Go—clean up—scarf around the neck, up high—we will speak soon. Don’t look so pale and ill! Do you have anything on you? Do you need something?”
“What?”
Scrabbling in his pocket. “Here, take this.” Glassine envelope with a smeared stamp. “Not too much, it is very very pure. Size of a match head. No more. And when you wake up, it will not be quite so bad. Now, remember—” dialing his phone; I was very conscious of his heavy breathing—“keep your scarf high up at your neck and walk on the dark side of the street as much as you can. Go!” he shouted when still I sat there, so loudly that I saw a man on the pedestrian walk of the bridge turn to look. “Hurry up! Cherry,” he said, slumping back in his seat in visible relief and beginning to babble hoarsely in Ukrainian as I exited the car—feeling lurid and exposed in the ghastly wash of headlights from the stalled vehicles—and walked back over the bridge, the way we’d come. My last sight of him, he was talking on the phone with the window rolled down and leaning out, in extravagant clouds of auto fume, to see what was going on with the stalled van ahead.
xiv.
THE SUBSEQUENT HOUR, OR hours, of wandering the canal rings hunting for my hotel were as miserable as any in my life, which is saying something. The temperature had plunged, my hair was wet, my clothes were soaked, my teeth were chattering with cold; the streets were just dark enough that they all looked alike and yet not nearly dark enough to be roaming around in clothes bloodied from a man I’d just killed. Down the black streets I walked, fast, with oddly confident-sounding heel taps, feeling as uneasy and conspicuous as a dreamer wandering naked in a nightmare, staying out of the streetlights and trying hard to reassure myself, with dwindling success, that my inside-out coat looked perfectly normal, nothing unusual about it at all. There were pedestrians on the street, but not many. Afraid of being recognized, I’d removed my glasses since I knew from experience that my glasses were my most distinctive feature—what people noticed first, what people remembered—and though this was unhelpful in terms of finding my way it also gave me an irrational sense of safety and concealment: illegible street signs and fogged streetlamp coronas floating up isolated out of the dark, blurred car lights and holiday tracers, a feeling of being viewed by pursuers with an out-of-focus lens.
What had happened was: I’d overshot my hotel by a couple of blocks. Moreover: I was not used to European hotels where you had to ring to get in after a certain hour, and when at last I splashed up sneezing and bonechilled to find the glass door locked, I stood for some indefinite time rattling the handle like a zombie, back and forth, back and forth, with a rhythmic, locked-in, metronome dumbness, too stupefied with cold to understand why I couldn’t get in. Dismally, through the glass, I gazed through the lobby at the sleek, black desk: empty.
Then—hurrying from the back, startled eyebrows—neat dark-haired man in dark suit. There was an awful flash where his eyes met mine and I realized how I must look, and then he was looking away, fumbling with the key.
“Sorry, sir, we lock the door after eleven,” he said. Still averting his eyes. “It’s for the safety of the customers.”
“I got caught in the rain.”
“Of course, sir.” He was—I realized—staring at the cuff of my shirt, splatted with a browned blood drop the size of a quarter. “We have umbrellas at the desk should you require them.”
“Thanks.” Then, nonsensically: “I spilled chocolate sauce on myself.”
“Sorry to hear that, sir. We’ll be happy to try to get it out in the laundry if you like.”
“That’d be great.” Couldn’t he smell it on me, the blood? In the heated lobby I reeked of it, rust and salt. “My favorite shirt too. Profiteroles.” Shut up, shut up. “Delicious though.”
“Happy to hear it sir. We’ll be happy to book you a table at a restaurant tomorrow night if you like.”
“Thanks.” Blood in my mouth, the smell and taste of it everywhere, I could only hope he couldn’t smell it quite so strongly as me. “That’d be great.”
“Sir?” he said as I was starting off to the elevator.
“Sorry?”
“I believe you need your key?” Moving behind the desk, selecting a key from a pigeonhole. “Twenty-seven, is it?”
“Right,” I said, at once thankful he’d told me my room number and alarmed that he’d known it so readily, off the top of his head.
“Good night sir. Enjoy your stay.”
Two different elevators. Endless hallway, carpeted in red. Coming in, I threw on all the lights—desk lamp, bed lamp, chandelier blazing; shrugged my coat on the floor, and headed straight for the shower, unbuttoning my bloodied shirt as I went, stumbling like Frankenstein’s monster before pitchforks. I wadded the sticky mess of cloth and threw it into the bottom of the bathtub and turned on the water as hard and hot as it would go, rivulets of pink streaming beneath my feet, scrubbing myself with the lily scented bath gel until I smelled like a funeral wreath and my skin was on fire.
The shirt was a loss: brown stains scalloped and splotched at the throat long after the water ran clean. Leaving it to soak in the tub, I turned to the scarf and then the jacket—smeared with blood, though too dark to show it—and then, turning it right side out, as gingerly as I could (why had I worn the camel’s-hair to the party? why not the navy?) the coat. One lapel was not so bad and the other very bad. The wine-dark splash carried a blatting animation that threw me back into the energy of the shot all over again: the kick, the burst, trajectory of droplets. I stuffed it under the tap in the sink and poured shampoo on it and scrubbed and scrubbed with a shoebrush from the closet; and after the shampoo was gone, and the bath gel too, I rubbed bar soap on the spot and scrubbed some more, like some hopeless servant in a fairy tale doomed to complete an impossible task before dawn, or die. At last, hands trembling from fatigue, I turned to my toothbrush and toothpaste straight from the tube—which, oddly enough, worked better than anything I’d tried, but still didn’t do the job.
Finally I gave it up for useless, and hung the coat to drip in the bathtub: sodden ghost of Mr. Pavlikovsky. I’d taken care to keep blood off the towels; with toilet paper, which I compulsively wadded and flushed every few moments, I mopped up, laboriously, the rusty smears and drips on the tile. Taking my toothbrush to the grout. Clinical whiteness. Mirrored walls glittering. Multiple reflecting solitudes. Long after the last tinge of pink was gone, I kept going—rinsing and re-washing the hand towels I’d sullied, which still had a suspicious flush—and then, so tired I was reeling, got in the shower with water so hot I could barely stand it and scrubbed myself down all over again, head to toe, grinding the bar of soap in my hair and weeping at the suds that ran into my eyes.
xv.
I WAS AWAKENED, AT some indeterminate hour, by a bell buzzing loudly at my door which made me leap up as if I’d been scalded. The sheets were tangled and drenched with sweat and the blackout shades were down so I had no idea what time it was or even if it was day or night. I was still half asleep. Throwing on my robe, cracking the door on the chain I said: “Boris?”
Moist-faced, uniformed woman. “Laundry, sir.”
“Sorry?”
“Front desk, sir. They said you asked for laundry pickup this morning.”
“Er—” I glanced down at the doorknob. How, after everything, could I have neglected to put out the Do Not Disturb sign? “Hang on.”
From my case I retrieved the shirt I’d worn to Anne’s party—the one Boris said wasn’t good enough for Grozdan’s. “Here,” I said, passing it to her through the door and then: “Wait.”
Suit jacket. Scarf. Both black. Did I dare? They were wrecked-looking and wet to the touch but when I switched on the desk lamp and examined them minutely—specs on, with my Hobie-trained eye, nose inches from the cloth—no blood to be seen. With a piece of white tissue, I dabbed in several places to see if it came away pink. It did—but only the faintest bit.
She was still waiting and in a way it was a relief, having to hurry: quick decision, no hesitating. From the pockets I retrieved my wallet, the damp-but-amazingly-intact Oxycontin which I’d slipped into my pocket before the de Larmessin party (Did I ever think I’d be grateful for that hard time-release matrix? No) and Boris’s fat glassine envelope before handing suit and scarf over as well.
Closing the door, I was suffused with relief. But not thirty seconds later a murmur of worry crept in, worry which rose to a shrieking crescendo in moments. Snap judgment. Insane. What had I been thinking?
I lay down. I got up. I lay back down and tried to go to sleep. Then I sat up in bed and in a dreamlike rush, unable to help myself, found myself dialing the front desk.
“Yes Mr. Decker, how can I help you?”
“Er—” squeezing my eyes shut tight; why had I paid for the room with a credit card? “I was just wondering—I just sent a suit out to be dry cleaned, and I wonder if it’s still on premises?”
“Sorry?”
“Do you send the laundry out to be done? Or is it done on site?”
“We send it out, sir. The company we use is very reliable.”
“Is there any way you could see if it’s gone out yet? I just realized that I need it for an event tonight.”
“I’ll just check sir. Hang on.”
Hopelessly, I waited, staring at the bag of heroin on the nightstand, which