Choke Point (17 page)

K
nox occupies the seat of the motorcycle across the canal from Kreiger’s latest hangout: a coffee shop/pot bar in the red-light district. A cold drizzle falls causing him to wipe the visor of his helmet. It’s not wet enough to want to get out of it, but he’s hardly dry. It’s nearing the lunch hour; Kreiger isn’t in there to get high. It’s business.

Three days of following the man and it’s apparent to Knox that Kreiger has his hand in everything the city has to offer: a company offering walking tours; a private brothel where Kreiger keeps an office. This is the man’s third visit to a “coffee shop” in as many days. The previous two he entered alone and left with a young woman. The city is working to eliminate the coffee shops and clean up the red-light district, a plan that can’t sit well.

Knox switches out SIM cards and texts Sonia if she wants to meet for lunch. She’s been writing around the clock and could use the break. She texts back that she needs to keep working, showing her true colors. He envies her that kind of singular focus. He’s more of a Ping-Pong ball in a cardboard box. The stakeout on Kreiger has tested him. It’s getting time to bust some heads and take shortcuts. He understands why police detectives are such assholes.

—

“
Y
OU’RE SCREWING
HER, AREN’T YOU?”
His only meeting with Dulwich in the past seventy-two hours. “That’s a mistake.” They’re customers in a brown café near the Van Gogh Museum. Tourists go in every direction. Cabs are queued up. There are more people in the bar from the UK than the Netherlands.

“That’s indelicate,” Knox says.

“Find yourself another hole.”

“And again.” Knox fights the urge to jump across the table and shut him up.

“She’s a source.
The
most important source we have. What happens when it goes south?” he asked rhetorically.

“Such confidence.”

“We can’t lose her, Knox. She’s at the center of this storm.”

“I won’t lose her.” He adds, “You’ve had that phone number for three days. What the hell?”

“We’re using our Paris office. They’re on it. The chip is a pay-as-you-go just like yours and mine.”

“So map it.”

“I said they’re on it. When they have something, we’ll have it.”

“That’s actionable intelligence,” Knox says. “Three days.”

“End it, nice and gentle, or you’ll find yourself on a plane to Detroit.”

“If I end it, we have problems. It wasn’t planned, and we aren’t . . . we aren’t sleeping together. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“Don’t go all Bill Clinton on me.”

Dulwich relates Grace’s theory about Kreiger’s using the money trail to hide behind.

“Where does she get this stuff?” Knox asks.

“Don’t ask me.”

“It’s a blind?”

“It’s a possibility he’s using it as one. Yes.”

“So we treat Kreiger as hostile. That’s where he was anyway. No change.”

“Agreed.”

“I sit on him until something better comes along.”

“And you stop her from sitting on you,” Dulwich says.

“You’re not going to enjoy where this goes if you keep that up.”

A table of women laugh from the corner. One of them makes eyes at Knox, causing Dulwich to moan like he’s sick.

“Have you ever had to work for anything in your life?” Dulwich asks.

He’s ruined the moment. Knox can think only of Tommy, of all the work that has gone into saving for his brother’s independence, of how far there is to go. He guzzles some beer. Dulwich notes the change from sipping.

“We’ll find her,” he says. Dulwich isn’t referring to the knot shop.

“Soon, or it’ll all be spent.”

“She’s an accountant—”

“A bookkeeper.”

“She’ll invest it. Purchase assets. It won’t be spent frivolously. We’ll regain ninety percent or better.”

“Your lips . . .”

“Trust me.”

Knox polishes off the beer and sets the stein down heavily. Says nothing. Doesn’t offer to pay. Never looks back on his way out.

Grace’s plan is fraught with risk. Knox wishes he and Sarge had spent less time on his sex life and more on how to best protect her. His concern for her takes a backseat to the embezzlement. He stews on establishing priorities as he endures the drizzle.

Across the street, Kreiger is on the move.

—

K
REIGER LEAVES
THE COFFEE SHOP
with yet another young woman and they walk up the street to his electric silver Volvo C30. The car pulls out and Knox parallels him across the canal. Knox has left two messages for the man and has yet to hear back. If any of the man’s appointments have to do with Knox’s purchase, Knox has yet to make a connection.

With his earlier two attempts to follow the Volvo botched because of traffic and weather, Knox tightens the distance of the current tail. He backs off only at traffic lights. He detours to avoid a jam and ends up getting ahead of Kreiger, allowing himself to wait for the Volvo to retake him. The tactic works: he’s got the Volvo in sight five minutes later as it slows for a parking space. Knox knows the final destination, having been here before. He drives past.

PRIVAAT CLUB
NATUURHONIG

The engraved plaque is mounted to the left of the stone stairs leading to the canal house’s imposing front door. Knox has passed close enough to read it only once, and that was three days earlier. Natural Honey. It’s the whorehouse where Kreiger keeps an office.

“Kreiger’s earlier stops make sense now,” Knox tells Sarge over the phone, watching the club from a distance. “The coffee shops sell drugs. Teens from all over Europe arrive in droves, get high and expect to find work. Instead, they run out of money, some more quickly than others. What better place than the coffee shops to recruit girls for a sex club? The manager keeps his eye out, calls Kreiger, and Kreiger pimps the girl to the club, taking a cut of her earnings.”

“Unless he owns the club in the first place.”

“There’s that, too.”

“Can you get in there?”

“The only thing private about the club is the cover charge. Fifty euros to get through the door. Helps keep the window gawkers from Oudezijds Achterburgwal out.”

“Your accent’s improving.”

“Kreiger knows me. If I’m spotted, I’m busted. But if I make a date with him that takes him away from the club . . .”

“If you’re asking me to volunteer, the answer is unequivocally yes.”

“Your job is Kreiger. I will set up a meet. You’re my backer and you’re sick and tired of all the delays with the rug deal. It’s either yes or no, but you’re not waiting around. It guarantees he’s out of the building. Grace and I do this together: a couple shopping for a threesome. I get the office open, Grace does whatever she does and we find out if Kreiger is our guy.”

“Fahiz identified his attackers as two Caucasians. Not Muslim, or Turks or Russians. Kreiger’s Caucasian.”

“That hasn’t slipped my mind,” Knox says.

“But it’s too easy. We both know that,” Dulwich states.

“We do.”

“Shit like this doesn’t drop into your lap.”

“Grace teed it up for us. We have to swing at this one in order to get a mulligan.” It was unfair but necessary to manipulate Dulwich through his love for golf. “We know it was his cash that reached the trigger man. It’s not a matter of going after Kreiger, it’s
how
—as a somewhat innocent bystander, or the big dick. Big difference.”

“I’d rather be the one doing the legwork. Why don’t you take Kreiger?”

“Who is going to buy you and Grace as a couple?”

“Up yours.”

“He hasn’t been answering my calls, so it may all be moot, but I’m sure he’s getting them. If you imply it’s now or never—”

“It
is
now or never,” Dulwich says.

“But maybe not for him. I’ll let you know.”

T
he last time we were together in a place like this, it did not work out so well.” Grace’s nervousness manifests itself as tightness in her body, even her voice.

“You’re walking like a robot. Loosen up. Remember, this is exciting for us. We are flush with anticipation.”

She snorts. “I may look the part, but I do not feel it. Do not set your expectations too high, John.”

“So noted.”

“Not exactly my area of expertise.”

They’ve taken the usual precautions in order to be together. Grace has gone one step further—she has found herself a leather miniskirt, and a metallic gray silk shirt that’s unbuttoned to her navel. She’s wrapped in a silver trench coat and completes the look with black spike heels that give her the calves of a supermodel. He catches himself looking over at her yet again, not seeing her as a colleague, and looks away.

“You apparently like robots.”

“Busted.”

“I am flattered.”

“You’re nervous.”

Of course I am. Another woman?
“A threesome? I am not this woman, John.”

“I’m open to suggestions. We can still call it off. I can do this alone, if you can coach me through the IT stuff.”

“No one is requiring this. I will do what the job requires of me.”

Over the course of the next city block, she transforms. It is the butterfly appearing from the chrysalis. There’s a definite, defiant swing to her walk, and her spine straightens. Her posture is aggressive, but also alluring—even the sound of her high heels on the concrete is different, more certain, more determined. She has entered the zone.

—

G
RACE IS
WORRIED ABOUT HIM.
She has witnessed his Messiah complex. Though honorable, it has no place here. They aren’t here to save a prostitute. Together, they must buy each other time. She has set herself to that goal. She would like to avoid getting naked in front of Knox, though she’s no prude. Her earlier sexual encounter at the hotel has prepared her well; nothing could be worse than an unfulfilling lay with a stranger.

Her focus must remain on the IT needs of the operation. Knox’s job is to get her into the office; once there, the real challenge begins. Will there be a computer in the office? Wireless or Ethernet? Physical files to copy? A landline telephone?

She carries listening devices, line taps and cameras to install—all in a purse slung over her shoulder. The items are hidden in the bottom of her bag beneath a camisole, a cordless vibrator and a riding crop. She is a one-woman wrecking ball.

She mentally choreographs each phase of the operation. Her mathematical mind serves her well. Without any knowledge of what the room will look like, she nonetheless visualizes each stage of the job, rehearsing it. Knox has given her a limit of twenty minutes, promising to occupy their willing partner at least this long. It is barely enough, given so many unknowns. An hour would have been more comfortable—an hour with a team of two or three, better yet. She enters the job knowing they will not get everything they are after, that they will have to settle for less. She hates such compromise.

Knox pays the fifty euros to a fabulous beauty in a
Pulp Fiction
platinum wig and an elegant evening dress that shows off an abundance of smooth cleavage and nut-hard nipples that could be pasties. She has the body of a lingerie model, and the smile of a quiz-show hostess. Knox’s gaze lingers a little too long on the cleavage; Grace is unsure if it’s intentional or not.

The interior of the house is more contemporary than clubby. Dance music plays in the parlor to the right where a half dozen extremely young women show off their wares by dancing together. The smell of pot and tobacco commingle. Nonsmoking is the room to the left, where love seats, couches and coffee tables break the room up into more intimate spaces. The lighting is low and warm. A self-serve liquor bar and small buffet table divide the room. The management is smart: the couches are not crowded with girls. Instead, there are three or four in the room at a time, rotating constantly from a pool of girls at the back of the house. The exchange is done naturally. It doesn’t come off as a parade, nor a runway, but feels more like a cocktail party that is moving between rooms.

The girls are young and very pretty, well groomed and fashionably dressed. Grace feels old by comparison. For everything it tries not to be, it is nonetheless a meat market: blondes, redheads, brunettes; skinny, plump, plus-sized; flat, busty, leggy, tough, cuddly. Grace has always admired the artistry of women’s bodies. God was having a good day when he created woman. Regardless of taste, a man—or woman—could find the look of choice here. Everything is engineered to seduction. She is excited, aroused even. She can only imagine the conflict in Knox—rage versus desire. Repugnance mixed with hormones. Hell for him. Only now does she realize how difficult it must be for him to participate.

Grace clutches his arm. He guides her to a couch. She holds the short skirt as she sits, the hem rides up to where the slightest movement of her legs will flash her red lace panties.

Knox brings her a vodka on the rocks with a twist, three fingers deep. He has poured himself a single malt. She has to watch herself with the vodka; it can go down too easily.

They make small talk with a very well put-together brunette who goes by the name Usha. They begin in Dutch, but her Slavic accent makes her incomprehensible. Grace attempts Russian, but they soon settle on English so Knox can participate.

“You are together,” the woman says, as if in surprise.

“We like adventure,” Knox says.

“Don’t we all?” the woman returns.

“Do you like adventure, Usha?” Knox asks. He takes hold of Grace’s free hand to make the request more obvious.

“Yes, of course.”

Grace doesn’t approve of the look in Usha’s eyes: the woman clearly favors Knox; Grace is an afterthought, which could complicate the job.

The woman never loses her bright-eyed expression. “You want Jin-Jin,” she says, indicating an Asian hardbody who has a preference for dog collars.

Grace will not work with an Asian. “Perhaps not,” she says.

“Veronique,” Usha says.

The French African wears a rainbow of thin metal bands around her long neck. She has sharp collarbones and wide, square shoulders. Her overly large eyes are haunting; her body belongs to a marathoner. Her skin is so black it looks purple. She wears a side-split skirt open to her hip.

“Magnifique!”
Knox pulls Grace to the front of the couch. “You will introduce us, please?”

“Pleasure.”

Usha leads them. Two loud men enter and proclaim themselves partiers. Grace feels Knox tense, and squeezes his hand to bring him back. Had he come alone, a fight would have already broken out.

Veronique grins at Knox across blinding teeth. But it’s the heated look she gives Grace, her eyes first aimed at Grace’s small skirt; she then makes eye contact and loses the smile to a pursing of her large lips. Not quite a kiss, but far from disapproving. She is curious. She is thinking.

She speaks with a British accent. Grace makes small talk. Knox works his way around to the reference of voyeurism. It’s like asking a mechanic for an oil change.

“I can arrange a companion for you as you watch, if you like. For either of you, if desired.” She checks out Grace.

“No, thank you,” Knox says. “I prefer . . . to fly solo.”

Grace says, “We’ll see.”

It’s four hundred euros an hour and any portion thereof. Knox makes a cash down payment to a madam in her thirties. Knox and Grace are left to continue drinking while Veronique prepares the room.

“So far, so good,” Knox says.

“I will need the full twenty minutes. Make sure you give me proper directions.”

Knox says nothing.

“I know this is difficult for you,” she says. “I remember Chongming.”

Silence.

“We both are going to keep her busy, John.”

A younger woman shows them upstairs. The decor is warmer. Knox nudges Grace and eye-checks the floor. Hand-tied rugs. A string of hallway runners. The Dutch oils on the walls look surprisingly authentic. The golden glow from the leaded-glass wall sconces. The sultry, deep-throated voice singing a jazz standard through unseen speakers.

As Grace takes in the rugs, she sees Knox surreptitiously look for the location of the webcams they assume are in constant operation. At these prices, with this clientele, it’s doubtful the cameras cover the bedrooms. But if a girl runs, or a john tries a door other than the one he’s paying for, someone needs to be watching.

“Anything?” she asks.

“No,” he whispers.

She spots a staircase leading higher. An exit sign suggests the window at the end of the hall leads to a fire escape. It has Knox written all over it.

As Grace expected, the bedroom is small but well appointed. It’s cozy, done in warm colors and soft lighting. A place one wants to spend time in. The girl’s job is to push the companionship into a second hour, requiring another four hundred. The corner sink is a welcome sight. “Toilet?” Grace asks.

“Into the hall,” says Veronique. “A second, up the stairs.”

This will help Knox.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” Knox tells Veronique, laying out the rules. “Constance,” he says, referring to Grace, “and you will get to know one another. You will show me . . .”

“It is the next door. This side.” She points to the mirror on the near wall.

“Very good. I will join you later, at which time Constance will watch. You will arouse me but not allow me to climax. I am counting on your professionalism. Constance will rejoin us after that.”

“This sounds like fun,” Veronique says.

“We are in no hurry,” Grace says.

Veronique locks eyes with Grace, who suddenly feels she might faint.

—

F
ROM THE
MOMENT
Veronique touches Grace’s hair, Knox turns his back on the voyeur mirror. If he was in therapy or could drink away the memories, he might find them tempting, but there’s a history buried within him that neither a shrink nor Scotch can ameliorate. And so: avoidance.

The observation room consists of a twin bed and a nylon mesh chair, the same cozy decor as the bedroom where the two women are currently undressing. He’s about to leave as a second mirror in the room reflects Veronique stripping. Next is Grace. When there’s nothing left but the red thong, his pulse races and his throat feels dry. Knox breaks out of his trance, aroused. He leaves the room and heads upstairs.

The room marked
PRIVAAT
is at the top of the stairs to the right. The toilet is to the left.

Knox carries a pick gun, an automated tumbler decipher that picks nearly any lock with the squeeze of a trigger, illegal worldwide and available on eBay. He removes it from the Scottevest pocket. There was a time a person needed actual lock-picking skills. He prepares the iPhone for camera mode and sets up its digital recorder to record from his Bluetooth headset. He’s accustomed to ad-libbing, has to slow himself down to remember to ask for Kreiger if anyone’s inside the office when he opens the door. He and Grace have worked through half a dozen contingencies.

—

V
ERONIQUE TOUCHES
G
RACE FIRST.

“No.” She pauses. “Not yet.”

“You are new to this,” Veronique declares.

Grace feels her cover disintegrating. “I like to take my time. I will do the touching.”

“Whatever you like.”

Veronique lies back. Grace avoids intimacy but touches the woman’s stomach and neck. She tries to appear interested. After a few minutes, Veronique turns to draw on Grace’s abdomen, which contracts under the touch.

“Not yet. I’ll let you know.” Grace starts to pull up the sheet, but Veronique catches it and returns it to their knees.

“For him,” she coos. “He’s watching.”

“Lie back, please.”

Veronique lies on her side. Grace runs her hand over the woman’s muscular buttocks and up from the small of her back and into her hair at the nape of her neck.

Veronique purrs, “A man lacks nuance,” as Grace busies herself with both hands.

Knox opens the door without knocking.

Grace swallows a gasp.

He looks at her first, then quickly he settles his eyes on Veronique.

He smiles, immediately playing his role. “My turn.”

—

W
EARING A
SILK ROBE
with her purse slung over her shoulder, Grace listens to the voice recording Knox has sent to her phone. She flushes the toilet before leaving the washroom without having used the facilities. Although charged with adrenaline, she adopts a lazy stroll on her way down the hall to the office.

“The pick gun is behind the speaker to your left as you face the door,” Knox’s message said. “Laptop, front and center. Wireless router on the lower shelf to the left of the desk as you face it. Vaulted ceiling with natural light. Blinds on the lower windows were open. Now closed. Important you remember to reopen them before leaving. I swept it. No devices found. You’ll want to do better. Twenty minutes. Less, by the time you hear this.”