Page 25 of The Expat Affair

“He’s here.”

I keep beanie man in my periphery and tip my head up at Lars. The clouds above his head are spitting snow again, a Van Gogh sky of messy white flecks swirling around all that glorious hair like a hologram.

“Who is? Who’s here?”

I gesture to the empty chair next to me, and Lars drops into it. “See that guy in the red hoodie four tables over? That’s him. That’s beanie man. He followed me here.”

Lars’s eyeballs dart that way, but he’s subtle enough not to turn his head. “You sure? He’s not even paying attention to you.”

Which is the whole smokescreen, and so is the friend who’s joined him. Another man about his age in Nike high-tops and a puffy orange coat, chatting up the three girls at the next table. It seems innocent enough, two single men on the prowl, but my body is still on high alert.

“It’s him. It’s definitely him. Dammit.”

I feel around in my coat pockets for what must be the hundredth time, fingertips brushing against nothing but crumbs and lint. I’m not wearing a tracker, which means he must have followed me here—possible, I guess. Maybe he spotted me coming out of that alley.

A waiter drops by the table, and I know better than to not order. Even for a freezing Sunday night, these are prime seats, on the front row of the terrace and under a heater. If we don’t pay for a drink, this man will chase us away.

“I’ll have a water, please. Sparkling.”

Lars orders a beer, and then we’re both quiet as the waiter weaves through the tables toward the glass doors under the awning.

Lars watches him until he’s disappeared inside. “So, what’s the plan?”

I tell him about the hostel I found two blocks away, the sob story I’ve concocted about losing my ID, the trackers I found in my things that make it impossible to go home. “I need to get off the streets, but I can’t go anywhere as long as that asshole is following me. I’ve got to get rid of him first.”

“Say no more.”

He wriggles his cell from an inside pocket of his coat, punches at the screen, then presses the phone to his ear. I know when the line connects, because he spouts off a steady stream of Dutch. I have no idea what any of it means, but when he catches my eye, he winks.

“Dank u wel,”

he says finally—thank you—then hits End. He tosses the cell to the table.

“What was that about?”

“That was the police. I called to report two men, wearing an orange coat and a red hoodie, pickpocketing women on the Leidseplein. I told them to send someone immediately.”

“You did not.”

I lean back in my chair, impressed. It’s what I should have done instead of sitting here panicking. In fact, I kinda wish I’d thought of it.

A grin spreads across Lars’s face. “Give it a minute or two. The cops are always near this square, especially at night.”

The waiter delivers the drinks, a glass of pilsner draft for Lars and a bottle of water along with a tall glass for me, a lemon slice and a single ice cube sitting in a puddle at the bottom. I thank him and dump the water in the glass, then chink it against Lars’s beer.

“Cheers,”

I say before taking a sip.

Lars settles into his chair, getting comfortable, stretching his legs out long. “So are you going to tell me why this guy is following you around town? Because in the absence of any explanations, I’ve come up with a theory or two.”

“Which are?”

“Well, my first thought was that you are a spy, but then I figured you’d have to be a pretty shitty one to let yourself be chased around the streets of Amsterdam by some man who wears a hat for a disguise, and you certainly wouldn’t need my help to get away from him. But then I thought maybe that was the point, that you’re only playing helpless and playing me. You’re not playing me, are you?”

I laugh. “Definitely not. And I’m definitely not a spy. What’s your second theory?”

“That you’re just a normal girl who came to Amsterdam to hang out for a little while and got herself into some trouble. You know, wrong place, wrong time, that sort of thing. It wouldn’t be the first time. My city, it’s kind of known for its shenanigans.”

“That’s pretty on the nose, actually.”

He seems eager to hear more, but I stall by swirling the lemon around my glass. If Lars hasn’t seen the pictures of me floating around the web, I’m not all that eager to point them out. I don’t want to see his face when I tell him about Xander. I don’t want it to change the way he looks at me.

Before I can work up the nerve, Lars nudges me with an elbow, and I follow his gaze to the opposite side of the square.

A police car rolls to a stop by the tram tracks. People are still everywhere, standing in tight circles around street performers, smoking cigarettes while they wait for the tram, and a police car on the Leidseplein is a common sight. Nobody seems to notice, not even when the doors swing open and two uniformed cops step out.

The officers scan the terrace, their gazes traveling over the people huddled under the heaters and at the tables, but it doesn’t take them long. The orange jacket and red hoodie might as well be beacons.

“Here we go,”

Lars says as the cops march this way.

I reach for my water and settle in for the show.

Beanie man doesn’t notice them, not until they’re stepping up to his table, and even then, he looks at them as if they’re interrupting, which they are. The girls at the next table suddenly seem a lot less interested in his pickup lines.

I don’t understand what the cops say to him, but I understand their tone, the way the people at neighboring tables look over in alarm. The guy in the orange coat puts up a fuss, refusing their orders to stand up, to follow them away from the terrace and back toward the car. He empties out his pockets and dumps his belongings onto the table, presumably as proof. Look, officers, no pickpockets here.

But the cops either don’t believe him or they don’t care. They haul the two men out of their chairs, one cop latching on to each man’s arm, and escort them away.

“Holy shit,”

I say, looking at Lars with a grin. “You did it. It actually worked.”

“They won’t keep them long. Only a few minutes if you’re lucky.”

A few minutes is plenty of time to disappear. I dig a twenty from the back of my phone and wedge it under my water glass, empty now but for the lemon slice and a half-melted ice cube.

“Thanks for saving my ass yet again, Lars, but I gotta go.”

I push up from the chair, and the sudden motion makes me lightheaded. The world tilts, and I fall back to the seat, waiting for the earth to settle.

If Lars notices there’s something wrong, he doesn’t let on. He settles his half-drunk beer onto the table and stuffs his hands into his coat pockets. “I realize I don’t know you all that well, but you seem smart. No, not just smart. What’s the word for someone who takes advantage of a situation? Like something unexpected happens and they see their chance and grab it.”

“Opportunistic?”

I frown. That doesn’t sound very nice.

He pulls a hand from his pocket to snap in my direction, then stuffs it back in. “Opportunistic. That’s right. Is that what happened, ? You saw an opportunity and you took it?”

I tell myself that Lars could be talking about anything. That things often get lost in translation and this could be one of those times. Or maybe I just heard him wrong. Maybe I misunderstood. A buzzing in my brain is making it hard to think.

“What are you talking about?”

“You really don’t know? Come on, . I think you do.”

Something about the way he says it has my memories racing back to the night we met. Yes, he was the first to speak, but he was already standing there, trying to get the bartender’s attention when I stepped up beside him, begging for a drink. When he mentioned the bar across the street, I’m the one who suggested food. I practically invited myself.

“No,”

I whisper. “I really don’t know.”

Or maybe I do. Maybe I made it easy for him.

He shifts his chair, picking it up by all four legs and turning it on the bricks. He leans closer, and I see it so clearly, the way danger flits across his expression before it disappears. “Where are the diamonds, ? Tell me where they are and I’ll let you go. I’ll let you get back to your sad little life.”

“My life’s not sad.”

It’s a stupid thing to latch on to, but I feel strangely defensive of the things I’ve done, all the decisions I’ve made that brought me to right here right now, freezing my ass off on a terrace in Amsterdam. I’ve done some sad things, and that includes trusting this man, but my life’s not sad. “I don’t know where the diamonds are. The killer took them.”

“That would be very unfortunate.”

I don’t know what to say to that—unfortunate for who? I don’t dare to ask—so I say nothing at all.

Music kicks in from nowhere. Loud, bass-led house moving closer, drowning out the noises on the street and battering in my brain like a jackhammer. An electric bike zooms down the center of the street, a portable speaker strapped to the handlebars. It weaves in and out of the tram tracks, sending the pedestrians scattering. The sounds beat in my brain as their bodies go in and out of focus. I shake my head, trying to shake the fuzziness from my vision, but it sticks like a thick fog.

“You’re wasting my time,”

Lars says. “Tell me where the diamonds are. We don’t have very long.”

“Long before what?”

I say, even though I already know the answer. I know from the way my tongue can’t quite wrap itself around the words, the way a sudden surge of nausea pushes up from somewhere deep and gathers in a sour ball at the back of my throat. I know exactly what’s happening here.

“Time to go,”

he says, heaving me out of my chair. The second I’m upright, the world tilts. The terrace, the square, the Bulldog across the street, it all turns upside down. I stumble to my left, almost knocking over a chair. Lars catches me, holding me up with a strong arm.

“Jeez, lady, watch out, yeah?”

someone from the next table says, a Brit.

Lars clamps me to his torso. “Sorry. She’s a little overserved. Come on, baby, let’s get you home so you can sleep it off.”

The Brit laughs. “Good luck, mate. She’s sloshed.”

I shake my head against Lars’s shoulder as he tugs me toward the street. I’m not sloshed, and I’m definitely not okay.

I blink and I’m on a bridge. I don’t remember getting here or even crossing the street, but I see the water and the bridge and Lars, tugging me into the back of a cab, and I know this feeling. I’ve felt it once before, my sophomore year, halfway through a Kappa Sigma party. It was the drunkest I’ve ever been, even though I’d only had one beer.

“No,”

I try to say, but it comes out like a moan.

The cabbie tosses me a dirty look and pulls away from the curb.

That motherfucker roofied me.

It’s my last coherent thought before everything goes black.