U.S. Male (13 page)

Oskar shifted. “I usually made my runs at the end of
the day, when the office was empty. One day I arrived earlier than usual. I put the groceries in the kitchen and started to deliver a box of printer paper to the office. There is a back passage there from the kitchen. I was by the door to the office when I heard loud voices. There is a peephole in the door and I looked.”

He stared down into his beer, swirling the glass around. “Silverhielm was in the room along with some of his men. One very tall and blond. His eyes are flat, you understand? They were holding a man in a chair with his leg propped on another chair. And then Silverhielm said to the blond man ‘Show him, Markus, why he should not have held back from me.’ And Markus used a club to break his knee into small pieces.”

Joss drew a breath in through her nose. Bax didn’t move.

“That was the day I quit.” Abruptly, Oskar looked up at them. “These are the men you are dealing with, do you understand? They are not to be trifled with.”

“Neither am I,” Bax said quietly, holding Oskar’s gaze.

A second passed, then two. “I believe you,” Oskar said finally. “So you are determined, it seems. How can I help you?”

“We need to know the layout of the house.”

“Very well. Hand me a napkin.” With a pen, Oskar began to sketch on the soft paper. “I can mark the charts to show you the way across the archipelago. You will require perhaps forty-five minutes to get there.”

“And you can help me rent a boat?”

“I will supply you with my own. She is very fast.” He pointed to the sketch with his pen. “The coastline of the island is curved, with a little inlet here. That is where the dock is, to one side of the house. A line of rocks stops the waves. What is the word?”

“A breakwater?”

“Yes. There are other rocks, maybe thirty meters out. Watch for the buoys. They mark the channel.”

Bax nodded.

“The island is rock that rises steeply. From the dock, you must climb stairs to reach the level of the house.”

“Can you see the house from the dock?”

“Only the roof. At the top of the stairs, a stone path leads to the house. It passes the main entrance here,” he drew an
X
on the side nearest the dock, “and continues to a yard on the side away from the sea. The generator shed stands behind the main house. A door, here, goes to the kitchen.”

“How far?”

“From the dock? A hundred and fifty meters, maybe more. Behind the house is grass down to where the rocks fall away to sea, you understand? And that side of the house, all windows.”

“How about the inside?”

“I know only the kitchen and the office.” He sketched them in. “The office faces the ocean. All windows on one side.”

Bax nodded. “We’ll need the boat on Friday during the day and Saturday evening, both. And can you mark charts for me to get out to the island?”

“Yes. Be careful. Silverhielm has a racing boat he uses to travel to the island. Do not think you can outrun him.” Oskar tapped his fingers restlessly on the table. “I cannot take you out on Friday. I have work, you understand. In the daylight, you should be okay. The archipelago looks very different at night, though. I can pilot you Saturday, if you choose.”

“Would you go back there?” Joss asked him.

“If it might ensure your safety, yes. They have no reason to be suspicious of me.”

“Think about it. If you have not changed your mind Saturday, we would appreciate it,” said Bax.

Oskar looked at them soberly. “Be careful. I do not want to see you dead, my friends.”

J
OSS THRUST
a handful of kroner to the cab driver and got out, checking her watch as she walked into the SAS terminal. Her flight was in less than an hour, which was pushing it as far as the timing went. Then again, she was flying without luggage within the European Union and they’d bought her ticket online the night before. All she had to do was get a boarding pass and go to the gate.

Whoever was following her—and she assumed someone was—wouldn’t know what flight she was on, couldn’t tell without following her to the gate. To pass security, they’d need a ticket of their own. The line for purchasing new tickets was satisfyingly long, Joss noted as she walked to the check-in kiosk. Even if they were smart and bought the ticket by phone, she’d still be through the security gates before they could turn it all around.

All in all, a job well done, she congratulated herself as the kiosk printed out her boarding pass. She might be an amateur, but she was learning to ditch tails with the best of them. Now all she had to do was track down her forger.

“H
ELLO
?”

Joss stood in the Amsterdam airport, watching a trio of KLM stewardesses walk briskly by with their wheeled bags. “Is Mr. Kant there?”

There was a short silence. “Where are you?” A man spoke in heavily accented English.

“The airport.”

“Good. Make your way to a tavern named Polder. Be there at one. Sit at the bar. Someone will contact you.”

She tried to guess his age, but it was impossible to tell from the clipped sentences. He was not old, not young. Just a man.

“Who should I look for?” she asked. “Is there a name?”

“Do not worry. We know you already.”

“But I—”

He disconnected with a click.

The whole venture might have been risky but rather than being nervous, she was actually fairly calm. Better than calm. They were finally doing something besides watching and waiting. It was exhilarating, finally taking action. So what if it was risky walking into a meeting with total strangers, wearing a money belt stuffed with a small fortune? She could take care of herself. She had the self-defense moves that Bax had taught her and a squared-off steel rod about the size of a felt tip pen that could be used for a variety of interesting purposes. More than that, she had painfully earned street smarts that had gotten her out of more than one pickle in the past.

She was going to make it work, Joss vowed. No matter what.

B
AX RAN
. He ran across Gamla Stan, through Stortorget square, past the Nobel museum without noticing. He crossed the bridge to Slussen on Södermalm and fought off the memory of standing at the Katarinahissen with Joss their first day in Stockholm. She was in Amsterdam, out of his reach, out of his ability to protect.

To have gone with her would only have brought atten
tion to them both, attention they couldn’t afford. He hadn’t liked it a bit, but he’d had to let her go. Now she was there and there was nothing he could do but wait for her to return.

And so he ran.

He’d always thought best when moving. Something about working his body pitilessly let him focus more completely on the task at hand. And the task currently at hand was getting the one-penny Mauritius back from Silverhielm.

Today, though, running didn’t help. It just sent his thoughts moving in circles. They had entrée to Silverhielm’s home, they had bait in the form of the Blue Mauritius. They had his trust, to a certain measure, or Markus wouldn’t be recruiting Bax. The problem was getting the one-penny Mauritius out of the safe and into their hands. It would take the forgeries, inspiration and a fair amount of luck.

Inspiration, would come eventually. Luck, Bax could make. The forgeries were the big question, which brought him back to Joss.

She was resourceful, he reminded himself. The impromptu self-defense lesson he’d given her had taught him that. She knew enough dirty tricks that she had at least a fighting chance if anything funny started coming down. She’d promised to have her cell phone at hand. There was little more she could do to be prepared, nothing more that he could do save be with her, and this time he couldn’t. He had to trust that she could manage the situation and come safely away with the goods.

This was what came of working with a partner, you were forced to trust them. The familiar thought came to him but oddly, he didn’t feel much conviction in the sentiment. If he thought about it, what bothered him wasn’t
so much that he was trusting Joss to get the forgeries instead of doing it himself, or that he was working with a partner. What bothered him was that he didn’t know if she was okay.

Which was natural, he told himself as he moved onto the ring road that encircled most of Södermalm. She was his client and, for now, his lover. Deeper involvement than that was out of the question, though. He wasn’t built for anything serious, he’d learned that the hard way. Of course, he was concerned about Joss, and he’d be concerned until he’d closed the case and gotten paid.

But when that was done, so were they.

T
HE BAR
wasn’t pretty. It was neither quaint tourist bait nor worn and comfortable the way Pelikan had been. What it was was a dive, pure and simple. Cigarette smoke clouded the air. The floor felt sticky under her feet. The clientele consisted mostly of older lushes or hardened men with flat gazes, hunched at the bar or the handful of tables scattered at the front. When Joss walked in, they all turned to look.

Being stared at had never bothered her in the past. She’d always enjoyed being the center of attention. There was nothing that would be fun about being the center of attention for this group, though, unless fighting off the groping hands of men who smelled of cheap whiskey and stale cigarette smoke was someone’s idea of a good time. It certainly wasn’t hers. Scanning the room, she wondered which one was the forger, and tried to imagine handing over the money to any of them.

With a silent prayer that her real contact was yet to arrive, she slid onto a stool a few seats over from a guy the size of a small mountain who looked like he’d recently done time in a maximum security facility.

Anticipation—and nerves—fizzed through her. I can do it, she’d told Bax. Now she had to make good on that promise. She had to make the meeting come off, she had to come home with the forgeries in hand. She had to make it work.

The ex-con stared her way. He wore a dingy plaid shirt with the sleeves ripped off to show his thick biceps and blue tangle of jailhouse tattoos. More muscle than fat, but plenty of both. Joss gave him a dismissive glance. She didn’t have time for him unless he was her contact, and in that case she was going to fly right back to Stockholm and tell Bax to come up with a Plan B, thank you very much.

“Can I get you something?” The bartender stopped in front of her. She had dyed raven hair, pale skin and lipstick so dark it looked almost black in the dim lighting.

Although Joss wanted a quick shot of tequila, it probably wasn’t a good idea. “Just water for now, please. I’m waiting for someone.” She scanned the bar again, studying the faces of the patrons, gauging whether their interest was purely male or held something more.

“Hey you, American?” asked the ex-con in a thick accent.

Joss looked away. There were times for a polite brush-off, but this was not one of them. The last thing she wanted was for some half-crocked criminal to be coming on to her when her contact came in.

Not that her forger wasn’t a criminal, but she hoped he was a little more civilized than this.

“Hey, American,” said the ex-con, shifting closer. “A drink?”

“No thanks,” Joss muttered.

He pulled at his shirt to point to a set of Harley Davidson wings on his meaty chest. “Look, American.”

Joss put her hands on the bar and opened her mouth to
reply when the bartender said something to him in Dutch that had him spitting out a curse and turning away.

“What did you say?” Joss asked.

“I told him you could date a convict in America if you wanted one.”

Joss looked at her. “Thanks. I think.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Joss checked her watch and drummed her fingers on the bar. The voice on the phone hadn’t said when her contact would appear, only for her to wait. She glanced at her watch again.

“You said you’re here to meet someone?”

Joss glanced up to see the bartender again and gave a shrug. “Yes, but I don’t know what he looks like.”

“He did not tell you it would be a man,” she returned.

Joss blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Mr. Kant. The voice on the phone. He said only for you to come here and you would be contacted. I am the contact.”

Joss stared. “I was expecting a guy,” she said finally.

“Clearly. But as you can see, your options here are limited. Now, do you want to meet our friend or don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” There was a rushing sound in her ears.

Goth Girl smiled thinly. “Good. Go outside. There is a building on the opposite corner, a dark red. Buzz 2C and you will be let in. It is the third door on the second floor.”

Joss rose to walk out when a hand clamped on her wrist. “Hey, American,” snarled the ex-con. “Too fancy?”

The bartender spoke sharply to him in Dutch. He ignored her and tugged Joss toward him. He smelled sour and sweaty.

“Let go,” Joss snapped, adrenaline flooding her system.

Across the bar, men were looking up. No one was com
ing to her immediate rescue, though, she saw. No one wanted to tangle with this mountain of a man. She’d have to fend for herself. Taking a breath of mixed fear and fury, Joss flattened out her hand and chopped the ex-con across the Adam’s apple, the way Bax had shown her. The edge of her stiffened hand bounced off the elastic feeling lump of his neck.

He gave a choked bellow and grabbed for his neck, releasing her.

“Hey,” the bartender cried, but Joss ignored her. Instead, she bolted for the door, slamming out into the afternoon sun.

T
HERE HAD BEEN
no reason to go through the whole bar routine, Joss thought as she stomped angrily across the street to the ruddy stucco building. They knew who she was, she’d been vouched for. It was a waste of time, and an irritating one at that.

She was in a working-class neighborhood of stark, utilitarian buildings that looked like they’d seen better days. The area held none of the charm and warmth of central Amsterdam. In the doorway of the red building, the directory showed no name next to unit 2C. Joss pushed the bell.

The door buzzed immediately and she pushed it open, her pulse speeding up just a bit. The entryway smelled musty in the warmth of the summer day. She climbed the stairs slowly, listening carefully, the self-defense rod out and in her hand. When she reached the right door, she knocked.

She’d expected someone different, was her first thought as the door opened inward. Someone who looked menacing. Someone who looked more criminal. Certainly she hadn’t expected someone who looked like he could have been an eighth grade math teacher. She released the rod and brought her empty hand out of her pocket with an inner smile.

Slight and spare, he peered at her nearsightedly through thick glasses. He wore an ink-smudged blue canvas print
ers’ apron over a white shirt. He didn’t look like someone she’d need self-defense moves to overcome.

“I’m looking for Mr. Kant,” she said.

“Ah yes. Come in, come in.” He stepped back from the door.

It was clearly a working studio. There was a drafting board, shelves laden with inks and tools. On a solid wooden table sat a compact, old-fashioned printing press, and next to it a machine that looked very much like the perforator that she’d seen at the postal museum in Stockholm.

He smiled faintly at her inspection. “Sometimes the old tools are the best.”

Joss turned to look at him. “Old tools to make new things?”

“Indeed. So you have come from Stockholm,” he said. “What is it that you seek?”

Of course. Force her to declare herself so that if she were in law enforcement it would be entrapment. He was just doing what any smart criminal would. “I need a reproduction Post Office Mauritius pair. A very, very good pair. They should be able to pass inspection by an experienced amateur. They don’t need to convince an authenticator.”

He nodded, his dark hair gleaming under the lights. “You realize, of course, that these are the most famous stamps in all the world?”

“Yes.”

“Then you understand that producing the type of reproduction you seek is not a simple thing. There is the ink, the paper, the gum. And there is the matter of the plate.”

“I thought the original plate for the Post Office Mauritius pair still existed.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I see you have done your
homework. The owner is not, however, prepared to participate in making reproductions, even for a very handsome sum.”

And he’d probably offered that sum, from the sound of it. “So what do you do without a plate?”

“I do not need the original. I have the technology to make my own.” He opened a door and flipped on the light. The room behind it was as high-tech as the workshop was old. A large blue metal box sat on a steel table, next to a computer. Waffled tubes ran to a humming box in the corner. Power cords snaked to a wall outlet. “This is a laser etching system. I scan a photograph of the stamp and the laser produces a new plate in copper. Very high quality. Very precise.”

And undoubtedly expensive, Joss thought. “Impressive. So you can do the job, it sounds like.”

“Oh, yes.”

“How much do you want for it?”

He pressed his lips together as though he were considering a geometry problem. “It is risky, you understand.”

“Your price?” she asked with an inward sigh.

“Fourteen thousand euros.”

Fourteen thousand, she thought in shock. It was well over what the contact had told her, well over what she could afford. And well over what she had on her. “No way. That’s too high.”

“The Post Office Mauritius set is very valuable,” he countered. “Of course such a fine reproduction should be of commensurate value. I seek merely a percentage of their price at auction.”

“Your figure is higher than your broker suggested.”

“My broker is not always privy to my production costs. Developing the correct ink colors for the Post Office Mauritius set, for example, has required visits to the Stockholm
Postmuseet. The papers are very specialized, and must be hand-treated to age them. Even the gums are specialized, and of course all of my printing equipment is rare and costly.”

“But surely you have some of these materials in house.”

“I have all of them, madame. I must recover the cost it required to amass them, though.” He looked at her placidly.

The neighborhood was not particularly nice, nor was the building, Joss thought. He might make money on his various ventures, but he wasn’t exactly prospering. It was worth taking a chance. “I’ll pay you seven thousand,” she told him.

“Ridiculous,” he blustered. “This is precision work. My price is a fraction of the cost of the real stamp.”

“I’m not getting the profit of the real stamp.”

“You will be getting something. Thirteen thousand, then.”

“Eight,” she countered.

“It is impossible to do it for that price,” he snapped.

“Then I’ll go elsewhere.” Joss turned to the door.

“There is no one else who does what I do.” He raised his voice. “You are not just buying the stamps, you are buying my skill and experience.”

“I’ll take my chances.” She laid her hand on the knob.

“All right. Twelve.”

Joss stayed in place. “Nine.” She held her breath.

“Eleven,” he demanded. “Not one euro less.”

She turned back to him, her face wiped clean of any expression of triumph. “Fine. How soon can you have them ready for me?”

“How soon do you need them?”

“Tomorrow? Thursday at the latest.”

“That’s impossible,” he exploded. “Even Thursday is just two days from now.”

“I have to have the stamps.”

“This is an art,” he protested. “It requires not just skill but time to produce a convincing reproduction.”

“And you are a skilled and experienced man. If I don’t have the forgeries by the day I need them, I may as well not have them at all, in which case I will not need your very expensive services.”

He shook his head.

Joss studied him. “I would, of course, be prepared to add an expediting charge to your fee. Say, a thousand euros?”

He gave a grudging nod. “It is possible, I suppose.”

“I thought it might be.”

“I will need a deposit before I begin work. Three thousand now, the rest when you pick up the stamps.”

“Of course,” she said smoothly. “Tomorrow at the end of the day, then?”

“Tomorrow,” he agreed.

J
OSS HELD
her cell phone to her ear and waited for the line to pick up as she walked down the avenue, headed back toward the city center.

Bax answered. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” she said.

Neither one of them considered the fact that Bax didn’t have to think twice to recognize her voice.

“How’d it go?”

“Smooth as silk.”

“No problems?”

“None,” she said, conveniently leaving out the gorilla in the bar. “He came in high but I managed to bargain him down.”

Bax laughed. “A smart shopper. So when are you going to get them?”

“Tomorrow at the end of the day, he says.” She stopped on the corner and waited for the light.

“That will be cutting it close.”

“He has to make a whole new plate. He was talking a week, I got it to two days.”

“Not bad, Chastain,” he said.

Pleasure warmed her. “I try.”

“So it’s what, two-thirty? What are you going to do in Amsterdam all by yourself for a day and a half?”

“I don’t know. Wander, I suppose. It seems like a great city,” she said, looking around. She’d come back into the city center, where the full charm of Amsterdam emerged. “I wish I had someone to play with.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

It sounded perfectly splendid, but she was learning to be responsible these days. “We probably shouldn’t spend the money.”

“True. On the other hand, there’s nothing to stop me paying my own way. I’ve done everything here I can at this point. I’m only going to be sitting around and Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities. I could be there in two or three hours.”

“You mean it?” she began. “That would be a gas. We’d have to get a hotel, of course.”

“Sure.” There was tapping in the background.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going online to get a ticket and a hotel. How would you like to stay on the Gentlemen’s Canal?”

“I don’t know, would you have to be a gentlemen when we’re there?”

“I suspect there’s some waffle room.” He clicked keys some more. “Okay, we’ve got a room in the Huygens House, on the Herengracht.” He spelled it for her.

“I was thinking somewhere cheap out by the airport. We’re spending twelve thousand on the forgeries.”

“This one’s on me,” he told her.

“Bax, you can’t blow your money right and left like that.”

“I’m not blowing it. Consider it a barter agreement. My flight gets in at 7:00 p.m., so I can probably be there by eight. I expect to find you in bed, naked, when I get there.”

One corner of her mouth tugged up into a smile. “If you play your cards right.” She sobered. “Of course, we do have one problem. What if you get followed?”

Bax’s only response was a snort.

“Okay, forget that question.”

“Good. I’ll call you from the airport.”

“I’ll drag you to do tourist things,” she warned him.

“I live for the Anne Frank House,” he told her.

She disconnected with a foolish smile on her face. He was flying in to see her. He could have stayed in Stockholm but he wasn’t. He was coming over to be with her.

B
AX SAT
in the back of the cab, watching the gabled buildings of Amsterdam pass by as they headed to the hotel. And to Joss. He’d seen her only that morning, so why was it that it felt like it had been days?

The decision to head to Amsterdam had been sheer impulse, an impulse that made him a little nervous now. One minute, they’d been talking about the case. The next, he’d been on a plane headed south over the Baltic.

Not because staying in Stockholm would have left him at loose ends, necessarily, he thought as the car stopped. He was perfectly happy prowling the city on his own. It was just that being with Joss would give him a chance to keep an eye on her, to be around in case of trouble. And being in Amsterdam would be no hardship—it was his favorite city in all of Europe. He wasn’t getting in over his head with her. He was too smart for that. This was just a little bonus.

He got out of the cab, slinging his satchel over his shoulder, a little rush of expectation running through him. He bounded up the steps to the front door of the little hotel. He knew where he was going. Nodding at the proprietor, he didn’t stop but climbed the steps to the second floor, looking for the room Joss had described to him over his mobile phone as he’d walked through the airport.

And then he was at the door and she was flowing into his arms, all silky, fragrant and soft against him. She wasn’t a creature of his imagination anymore. She was here, safe in his arms. And for a moment he didn’t let himself think about anything, she was all he wanted.

Dropping his satchel, Bax kicked the door closed with one foot and lifted her in his arms. “I thought I told you to be naked,” he growled against her neck, then kissed the sweet rises of her breasts.

“Forgive me, master,” she said, flipping open the towel she’d wrapped around herself to shield herself from prying eyes.

He knew the way desire for her could tear at him. Day after day, over and over he still got the slow thud of arousal in his blood every time he looked at her, driving him to bury himself in the tight heat of her body. At this moment, though, he wanted only to hold her, to feel her warm and close against him. Clothes were an impediment, a barrier that he dispensed with impatiently.

And then he buried his face in her neck and held on for all he was worth.

The need, when it came, was slow, gentle. It wasn’t about the wild rush they usually encountered but a tenderness he hadn’t known he had a capacity for. It was a coming together more than just a coming, and when he slid inside her and he heard her soft sigh, it was as though all the disconnected parts of his world made sense.

And as they rocked together, it was the gathering connection that bound them gently.

J
OSS SAT
on the bed, her legs folded, turning a euro coin over idly in her hands. Lovemaking, a romantic walk down the canals to dinner and now, a quiet evening. She felt lazy and satisfied as a tabby cat with a dish of cream.

All was right in her world. They were getting the forgeries, they had a meet planned with Silverhielm just three days away. Things were coming to a head. Soon, if all went well, they’d be getting the stamp and everything would be back in place. She could return to San Francisco, her grandfather could come home without facing ruin.

And Bax would fly off to Copenhagen.

A shiver of cold whisked through her and she blinked. Having him here, now, next to her felt so right. The hours before he’d arrived, she’d drifted around the streets and canals of Amsterdam. She’d taken in the sights, but it had all felt empty. It wasn’t the same without someone to enjoy it with. It wasn’t the same without Bax, his wry humor, his seemingly endless store of knowledge.

It wasn’t the same without the feel of his hand in hers.

Knowing he was on his way had made it easier. In a week or two, she wouldn’t have that. In a week or two, they’d go from essentially living together to leading separate lives.

It wasn’t a surprise. That had been the plan from the beginning. She’d known she’d have to do it.

She couldn’t imagine it.

Joss swallowed, shaking her head blindly. And the sudden knowledge snaked through her. This couldn’t be. Surely she was smarter than that. She couldn’t have been this foolish, she, who’d always skimmed blithely through relationships without so much as a bobble. She who’d al
ways held the upper hand. She couldn’t have been foolish enough to fall in love.