Part 7 (1/2)

”What did you do,” I said, ”follow Big Nose?”

”Sort of. I spotted him when he come out looking around and I figured he was checking if this was a setup. So I slipped in the hallway there and hid in the shadows back under the stairwell. You know how hard we is to spot in the dark.”

”Unless you smile,” I said. ”And if we keeps our eyes closed.” We were having breakfast in the hotel. Pastry and cold cuts and b.u.t.ter and cheese buffet style. ”Anyway,” Hawk said, ”he come slipping back in and when he open the door I come right in back of him.” Hawk drank some coffee. ”Who the one we lost with Kathie?” he said. ”Name's Paul, little guy, very tough. He's a lot heavier article than we been dealing with before. He's a real revolutionary, I think. Of one sort or another.”

”Palestinian?”

”I don't think so,” I said. ”Right wing. Wants to save Africa from the Communists and the Nigras.”

”South African? Rhodesian?”

”I don't think so. I mean he may be in that now, but he spoke a language more like Spanish. Maybe Portuguese.”

”Angola,” Hawk said. I shrugged. ”I don't know. Just said he was anticommunist and pro-white. You probably didn't do much to change his att.i.tude.” Hawk grinned. ”He got a big job. I hear there's quite some number of Nigras in Africa. He going to have to do a powerful heap of saving.”

”Yeah. He may be dippy, but he's no pancake. He's trouble.” Hawk's face was bright and hard. He grinned again. ”So are we, babe,” he said. ”True,” I said. ”What's the program now?” Hawk said. ”I don't know. I gotta think.”

”Okay, while you thinking, why don't we stroll down to Tivoli and walk around. I heard about Tivoli all my life. I want to see it. ”

”Yeah,” I said. ”Me too.” I paid the bill and we went out. Tivoli was nice. Lots of greenery and not too much plastic. We ate lunch on the terrace of one of the restaurants. There wasn't a great deal for adults to do but watch the kids, and quite frequently the kids' moms, as they went here and there on the pleasant walks among the attractive buildings. It was fun to be there, but it was more a matter of presence, of s.p.a.ce allotted to pleasure and thoughtfully done, that made it a pleasure. The lunch was ordinary. ”Ain't Coney Island,” Hawk said. ”Ain't the Four Seasons either,” I said. I was trying to chew a piece of tough veal and it made me grumpy. ”You thought enough yet?” Hawk said. I nodded, still working on the veal. ”Should of had fish,” Hawk said. ”Hate fish,” I said. ”Right now we are up a fjord without an oar, as we Danes say. Kathie sure as h.e.l.l isn't going to go back to her apartment. We've lost her and we've lost Paul.” I took out my pocket notebook. ”What I have got is an address in Amsterdam and one in Montreal that I took off her pa.s.sports. I also have an address in Amsterdam that was the return address on a letter she got, and kept. The addresses are the same.”

”Sounds like Amsterdam,” Hawk said. He sipped some champagne and watched a young blond woman with very tight shorts and a halter top stroll by. ”Too bad, Copenhagen looks good.”

”Amsterdam's better,” I said. ”You'll like it.” Hawk shrugged. I dug out some English pounds and gave them to Hawk. ”You better get some new clothes. While you do that I'll set us up to Amsterdam. You can probably change the money to kroner at the railroad station. It's right across the street.”

”I change it at the hotel, babe. Thought I might leave the shotgun home while I trying on clothes. Three folks got done in with a shotgun yesterday. I just as leave not explain to the Danish fuzz about what we doing.” Hawk left. I paid the bill and headed out the front exit of Tivoli Gardens. Across the street was the huge red brick Copenhagen railroad station. I went across the street and went in. I had nothing to do there but it was everything a European railroad station ought to be and I wanted to walk around in it. It was high ceilinged and arcane with an enormous barrel-arched central waiting room full of restaurants and shops, baggage rooms, backpacker kids and a babble of foreign tongues. Trains were leaving on various tracks for Paris and Rome, for Munich and Belgrade. And the station was alive with excitement, with coming and going. I loved it. I walked around for nearly an hour by myself, soaking it up. Thinking about Europe in the nineteenth century when it had peaked. The station was thick with life. Ah Suze, I thought, you should have been here, you should have seen this. Then I went back to the hotel and had the hall porter book us a flight to Amsterdam in the morning.

17.

The KLM 727 came sweeping in low over Holland at about nine-thirty-five in the morning. I'd been there before and I liked it. It felt familiar and easy as I looked down at the flat green land patterned with ca.n.a.ls. We were drinking awful coffee handed out by a KLM stewardess with hairy armpits. ”Don't care for the armpit,” Hawk murmured. ”Can't say I do myself,” I said. ”You know what it reminds me of?”

”Yes.” Hawk laughed. ”Thought you would, babe. You think old Kathie gonna be in Amsterdam?”

”h.e.l.l, I don't know. It was the best I could do. Better bet than Montreal. It's closer and I got the same address from two different sources. Or she could have stayed in Denmark or. gone to Pakistan. All we can do is look.”

”You the boss. You keep paying me, I keep looking. Where we staying?”

”The Marriott, it's up near the Rijksmuseum. If it's slow I'll take you over and show you the Rembrandts.”

”Hot dawg,” Hawk said. The seat belt sign went on, the plane settled another notch down and ten minutes later we were on the ground. Schiphol Airport was s.h.i.+ny and gla.s.sy and new like the airport in Copenhagen. We got a bus into the Amsterdam railroad station, which wasn't bad but didn't match up to Copenhagen, and a cab from the station to the Marriott Hotel. The Marriott was part of the American chain, a big new hotel, modern and color-coordinated and filled with the continental charm of a Mobil Station. Hawk and I shared a room on the eighth floor. No point to concealing our relations.h.i.+p. If we found Kathie or Paul, they'd seen Hawk and would be looking over their shoulder for him again. After we unpacked we strolled out to find the address on Kathie's pa.s.sport. Much of Amsterdam was built in the seventeenth century, and the houses along the ca.n.a.ls looked like a Vermeer painting. The streets that separated the houses from the ca.n.a.ls were cobbled and there were trees. We followed Leidsestraat toward the Dam Square, crossing the concentric ca.n.a.ls as we went: Prinsengracht, Keisersgracht, Heerengracht. The water was dirty green, but it didn't seem to matter much. What cars there were were small and un.o.btrusive. There were bicycles and a lot of walkers. Boats, often gla.s.s-topped tour boats, cruised by on the ca.n.a.ls. A lot of the walkers were kids with long hair and jeans and backpacks who gave no hint of nationality and very little of gender. Back when people used to speak that way, Amsterdam was said to be the hippie capital of Europe. Hawk was watching everything. Walking soundlessly, apparently self-absorbed, as if listening to some inward music. I noticed people gave way to him as he walked, instinctively, without thought. The Leidsestraat was shopping district. The shops were good-looking and the clothes contemporary. There was Delftware and imitation Delftware in some quant.i.ty. There were cheese shops, and bookstores and restaurants, and a couple of wonderful-looking delicatessens with whole hams and roast geese and baskets of currants in the windows. On the square near the Mint Tower there was a herring stand. ”Try that, Hawk,” I said. ”You're into fish.”

”Raw?”

”Yeah. Last time I was here people raved about them.”

”Why don't you try one then?”

”I hate fish.” Hawk bought a raw herring from the stand. The woman at the stand cut it up, sprinkled it with raw onions and handed it to him. Hawk tried a bite. He smiled. ”Not bad,” he said. ”Ain't chitlins, but it ain't bad.”

”Hawk,” I said, ”I bet you don't know what a G.o.dd.a.m.ned chitlin is.”

”Ah spec dat's right, bawse. I was raised on moon pies and Kool-Aid, mostly. It's called ghetto soul.” Hawk ate the rest of the herring. We bore left past the herring stand and turned down the Kalverstraat. It was a pedestrian street, no cars, devoted to shops. ”It's like Harvard Square,” Hawk said. ”Yeah, a lot of stores that sell Levi's and Frye boots and peasant blouses. What the h.e.l.l you doing in Harvard Square?”

”Used to shack up with a Harvard lady,” Hawk said. ”Very smart.”

”Student?”

”No, man, I'm no chicken tapper. She was a professor. Told me I had a elemental power that turned her on. Haw.”

”How'd you get along with her seeing-eye dog?”

”s.h.i.+t, man. She could see. She thought I was gorgeous. Called me her savage, man. Said Adam musta looked like me.”

”Jesus, Hawk, I'm going to puke on your shoe in a minute. ”

”Yeah, I know. It was awful. We didn't last long. She too weird for me. Surely could screw though. Strong pelvis, you know, man, strong.”

”Yeah,” I said, ”me too. I think this is the place.” We were at an open-front bookstore. There were books and periodicals in racks and on tables out front and rows of them inside. Many of the books were in English. A sign on the wall said THREE HOT s.e.x SHOWS EVERY HOUR, and an arrow pointed toward the back of the store. In back was another sign that said the same thing with an arrow pointing downstairs. ”What kind of books they sell here?” Hawk said. There were all kinds, books by Faulkner and Thomas Mann, books in English and books in French, books in Dutch. There was Shakespeare and Gore Vidal and a collection of bondage magazines with nude women on the cover so enc.u.mbered in chains, ropes, gags and leather restraints that it was hard to see them. You could buy Hustler, Time, Paris Match, Punch, and Gay Love. It was one of the things about Amsterdam that I never got over. At home you found a place that sold bondage p.o.r.n sequestered in the Combat Zone and specializing. Here the bookstore with the THREE HOT s.e.x SHOWS EVERY HOUR was between a jewelry store and a bake shop. And it also sold the work of Saul Bellow and Jorge Luis Borges. Hawk said, ”You figure Kathie lives here, we could look on a shelf under K.”

”Maybe upstairs,” I said. ”This is the address.”

”Yeah,” Hawk said. ”There's a door.” It was just to the right of the bookstore, half obscured by the awning. ”Think she in there?”

”I know how we find out.” Hawk grinned. ”Yeah. We watch. You want to take the first s.h.i.+ft while I make sure she not down there among the hot s.e.x films?”

”I didn't figure you for a looker, Hawk. I figured you for a doer.”

”Maybe pick up a trick or two. Man's never too old to learn a little. n.o.body's perfect.”

”Yeah.”

”We gonna go round the clock on this, babe?”

”No. Just daytime.”

”That's good. Twelve on, twelve off ain't no fish fry.”

”This time out it'll be harder. If she's in there she knows us both, and she's going to be very edgy.”

”Also,” Hawk said, ”we camp out here long enough a Dutch cop going to come along and ask us what we doing.”

”If they're any good.”

”Yeah.”

”We'll circulate,” I said. ”I'll stay up there by the dress shop for a half hour, then I'll stroll down to the place that sells broodjes and you stroll up to the dress shop. And we'll rotate that way every half hour or so.”