The Mystery of the Third Lucretia (20 page)

I'd seen the American Hotel on the Leidseplein, the square where the Hard Rock Café is. It was in the other direction from the Quarter.

Lucas and I looked at each other. Mom would be safely out of the way until midnight.

Back in the hotel while she was getting ready, Mom said, “Now, you're sure you'll be all right?”

“Mom, we're just going to take a canal tour. What can happen?”

She reached into her purse. “Here's some money for the boat, and you know where you can catch it, in front of the Rijksmuseum. And don't go into the park. It's dangerous at night. After the tour I want you to come right back here. Got that? And be sure and stay together.”

“We'll stay together every single minute,” Lucas said firmly.

And we would. Part of the deal we'd finally made was that we'd be together the whole time. If I was going to go back into the Quarter and check out Jacob Hannekroot's studio, I wasn't going to let good old Nerves-of-Steel Stickney out of my sight.

Walking into the quarter this time, I didn't have to have a near-death experience to feel like I was in a nightmare. Neon signs lit up the night sky. People stared at us as we walked along. The air smelled disgusting, noisy music blared out of the bars on both sides of the street, and up ahead a drunk guy was standing with a beer bottle in his hands yelling in Dutch at the top of his lungs.

Even with Lucas beside me, I was scared.

Like I said before, in the daytime the first part of the Quarter seemed pretty friendly, almost like a tourist attraction. Now, with all the stores closed, it seemed like a place where only bad things happened.

Both of us had put on lots of eye makeup and lip liner, and we were wearing short black skirts and tight tops, black nylons and black shoes, all of which we'd bought at a cheap shop up in the central part of town. Even with our jeans jackets, we totally fit into the neighborhood. All except for the shoes. The women around here wore high heels, but we needed flats.

I suppose it was our outfits that made the men act way too friendly. It didn't take me long before I started wondering if dressing up like the women who hung out in the Quarter had been such a good idea.

I noticed a couple of women staring at us from half a block away. Even though it was night, and cool, they were wearing short, strappy dresses. They had on a lot of makeup and high-heeled shoes. It wasn't until we were almost next to them that I saw they were really young, not much older than Lucas and I were. It was obvious just looking at them that they were tougher than I'd ever thought of being.

Still, I felt sad that they were here, in this awful part of town. This was worse even than what I'd seen in those movie previews, and it was way worse than I'd expected it to be. I knew the whole world wasn't Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, but I hadn't imagined it being quite like this. The guys scared me. I was sure some of them were on drugs, and that scared me even more. Even the women kind of scared me.

What I did to get through it was just focus on walking. Step step step step step. Focus on getting as far as that bar entrance up ahead. On getting past that guy with the long, greasy hair slumped over in a doorway. I left the men and what they said to us to Lucas, who seemed to ignore it.

If Jacob's corner on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal had been in the very busiest section, I couldn't have taken it. But at night it seemed like a
good
thing that it was quieter there. There weren't any weirdos around, which made it feel safer. I also was keeping my eyes peeled in case Jacob was on the street somewhere, but when we got closer and the street got emptier, it was obvious he wasn't. In fact, the only people we saw while we were walking the last block before Jacob's corner were two women going into the Mission of St. Mary Magdalene across the street from Jacob's place. There were lights on in the mission, but it seemed quiet.

When we got to the ministreet, Lucas marched around the corner and plopped her backpack down on the sidewalk. She seemed to have forgotten to check if Jacob was around.

Not me. I hadn't forgotten for one minute. I went across to the mission side and looked up at his window. No light. In fact, there weren't any lights on in the building at all. The more I looked at that ugly building in that dirty little street, the surer I was that Marianne Mannefeldt wouldn't set foot in it in a million years. Of course Jacob could be up there alone taking a nap or something, but at nine thirty at night that didn't seem very likely. I was pretty sure he was gone.

I walked back to where Lucas was taking off her jacket.

“Are we sure this is such a hot idea?” I asked.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Standing around looking like the women who hang out here,” I added.

“You're the one who wanted to dress up like this in the first place!” Lucas said, and reached out for my jacket. I took it off and gave it to her, and she stuffed both of them into the backpack.

“But I'm thinking maybe it was a mistake,” I said. Actually, I was thinking that on a scale of one to ten, this idea should get about a minus eleven.

“Well, it's too late now,” Lucas said.

By this time we were finished getting rid of our jackets and we each had a heavy flashlight. We could use them for light, but we thought they'd also be good to use as weapons in case anybody tried to do anything bad to us.

We were dressed in black so we'd be less noticeable—especially Lucas, who was going to climb up the outside stairs to look in Jacob's window. Lucas and I had decided that I'd stay at the bottom and keep watch while she climbed up because I'm afraid of heights. In fact, just thinking about going up there made me feel sick and dizzy.

While I was looking at the front of the building, I noticed the address of the place. Jacob's place was number 17, and above and to the right of the door was a street sign that said ACHTERBURGWALSTEEG.

The staircase must even have seemed high to Lucas. She looked up, took a big sigh like she was going to do something she didn't want to do, and whispered, “Here I go.”

“Wait a second. What do I do if somebody comes out of the mission?” I asked.

“Say you're just hanging out. You have a right to be here.”

“What if some men come up and start—”

“Tell them to drop dead. Don't worry.”

“But what if—”

“Stop worrying, Kari!” Lucas hissed.

She turned to the staircase again and took another look up. I moved out to a place on the sidewalk where I could keep watch on both the Oudezijds Achterburgwal and the little Achterburgwalsteeg. Just as Lucas put her foot on the bottom step, the mission door opened and a woman came out.

It wasn't one of the women who'd gone in a minute before. They'd looked like they belonged in the neighborhood. This woman didn't. She had dark hair with some gray in it, she wasn't especially slim, and she wore a buttoned-up cardigan sweater, slacks, and lace-up shoes with thick soles like older women wear.

She glanced from one of us to the other and said something in Dutch.

Lucas said, “I'm sorry, we don't speak Dutch.”

The woman switched to English. “I said, what are you doing here?”

“We're just hanging out,” Lucas said.

“So you are American girls, are you?” It didn't sound mean. In fact, she seemed friendly. She had big blue eyes with nice crinkles around them.

We both nodded.

“What are you doing in this part of town?”

“Are you a nun?” Lucas asked. I noticed she was answering a question with a question, but she kept her voice respectful. Her family's Catholic and she knows a lot of nuns.

“Yes I am,” the woman answered. “My name is Sister Anneke. Sister Katje and I founded this mission.” She was still right in front of the door. Now she opened it and called, “Katje!” and added something else in Dutch.

A tall, gray-haired woman appeared in the door behind her. “Why don't you come in and have a Coca-Cola or something?” Anneke asked. “Nice girls like you shouldn't be standing outside in the Quarter.”

I wasn't sure what Lucas would do, but I knew our plans for climbing the stairs were shot, and I for one didn't want to go inside and have a Coke with a couple of Amsterdam nuns. “Thanks for inviting us, but I think we'd better be going,” I said. I quickly walked over to where we'd put the backpack, slung it over my shoulder, and started pulling on Lucas's arm.

“Don't tell anyone we were here,” Lucas said. “Please. It's important.”

“Alstublieft,” I said, which is the Dutch word for “please” that we'd learned from Tony. I gave Lucas another jerk, and we turned around and started walking. Partway down the block Lucas said something I didn't quite hear, about how we had to come back later. I just ignored her and started walking faster. There was no way I was ever coming back, and I meant it this time.

We walked fast down the street and through the really bad section until finally we were almost running.

We were almost out of the Quarter, waiting for a traffic light when I looked across the street.

There, waiting at the other curb, was Mom, with Bill beside her. Mom looked us over, starting with our made-up faces, then down to the skinny tops and the short skirts and the black nylons.

We were totally busted.

Mom almost never gets really mad. Irritated? Yes. Naggy? Yes. Especially certain times of the month, if you know what I mean. But hardly ever mad, and never, never, never
this
mad.

She didn't say one single word to us all the way back to the hotel. First she said something to Bill, who gave us a look like he felt sorry for us, turned around, and walked away. Mom hailed a taxi and opened the door for us to get inside. Back at the hotel she led the way up the stairs, unlocked the door, and held it while we walked in.

All this time it was obvious she was steaming, boiling mad. Her movements were quick and jerky, and you could see in the light that her face was white. She was shaking.

When we got into the room, she hung her purse over the arm of the chair, took off her coat, and hung it in the closet. Then she said, “Siddown.” Not “Sit down.” Siddown.

We sat, perched on the side of the bed. Mom stood over us, her arms folded tight across her chest.

Then it started. I timed it by the clock radio, which was on the desk behind where Mom was standing, and it was twenty-five minutes of solid lecture.

You can about imagine. She started out with, “I can't believe I found you leaving the Quarter looking like . . . like that.” Next came, “How could you do this when you expressly promised not to?” “I thought I could trust you.” And, “I thought you had better sense than this.”

Then she started pacing and shouting. She told us how rotten we were for deceiving her, how she could never trust us again, and how we'd blown the good relationship we'd had.

Then for a while her voice got intense and she sat on the chair, teeth clenched, her head sticking out so she was in our faces. She said if it hadn't been a whole concert of music by Arnold Schoenberg, which both she and Bill hated, they would have been calmly sitting in the Concertgebouw and she wouldn't have found out what lying sneaks we'd turned into. And she wondered what else we'd been doing in all the years Lucas and I had been together.

After that part was over, she got up again and started pacing, her arms folded so tightly in front of her that it was almost like she was hugging herself. “Walking around the streets in that part of Amsterdam at ten o'clock at night looking like . . . I don't know what kind of women.” Her voice rose, and she started to sound hysterical. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? Do you have any idea what somebody might have done to you?”

It was then she began to cry. With tears running down her face, she said, “You could have been killed, or raped, or . . .” She heaved a huge sigh, then she broke down and sobbed.

I was mad that she was yelling at us like this, and I stayed mad even after she started crying. Yes, I knew we'd done something stupid, something that could get us into trouble if we got caught. But she was overreacting. After all, we hadn't been killed or raped or sold into white slavery. So I just held my lips really tightly shut and stared at the wall most of the time.

Lucas was looking straight at Mom, her chin up high as if she was trying to face all Mom's anger without flinching. Lucas is more used to arguments than I am and they don't bother her a whole lot, but I figured she wouldn't much like being chewed out by my mother.