Swimsuit (27 page)

I kissed Mandy’s poor bruised mouth again and again. If love counted for anything, she would be safe. Our baby would be safe.
And I would see them both soon.

But the opposing thought went through me like a lance.
I might never see Amanda again. This could be the end for us.

I dried my eyes with the palms of my hands, then watched Mandy go through the checkpoint. She looked back, waved, threw kisses,
then turned away.

When I couldn’t see her any longer, I left the airport, took a cab to the Gare du Nord, and boarded a high-speed train to
Amsterdam.

FOUR HOURS AFTER I boarded the train in Paris, I disembarked in the Centraal Station in Amsterdam, where I used a public phone
to call Jan Van der Heuvel. I had contacted him before I left Paris about our getting together as soon as possible. He asked
me again what made this meeting so urgent, and this time I told him, “Henri Benoit sent me a video I think you should see.”

There was a long silence, then Van der Heuvel gave me directions to a bridge that crossed the Keizersgracht Canal only a few
blocks from the train station.

I found Van der Heuvel standing by a lamppost, looking into the water below. I recognized him from the news clip that had
been shot of him in Copenhagen, the journos asking him to comment on Mieke Helsloot’s murder.

Today he was wearing a smart gray gabardine suit, a white dress shirt, and a charcoal-colored tie with a silken sheen. The
part in his hair was as crisp as if it had been drawn with a knife, and it highlighted his angular features.

I introduced myself, saying that I was a writer from Los Angeles.

“How do you know Henri?” he asked after a long pause.

“I’m writing his life story. His autobiography. Henri commissioned it.”

“You met with him?”

“I did, yes.”

“All of this surprises me. He told you my name?”

“In publishing, this type of book is called a ‘ tell-all.’ Henri told me everything.”

Van der Heuvel looked extremely uncomfortable out on the street. He appraised my appearance, seemed to weigh whether or not
to take this meeting further, then said, “I can spare a few minutes. My office is right over there. Come.”

I walked with him across the bridge to a handsome five-story building in what appeared to be an upscale residential area.
He opened the front door, indicated that I should go first, and I took the four well-lit flights of stairs to the top floor.
My hopes rose as I climbed.

Van der Heuvel was as twisted as a snake. As part of the Alliance, he was as guilty of multiple murders as if he’d killed
people with his own hands. But as despicable as he was, I wanted his cooperation, and so I had to control my anger, keep it
hidden from him.

If Van der Heuvel could lead me to Henri Benoit, I would get another chance to bring Henri down.

This time, I wouldn’t blow it.

Van der Heuvel took me through his design studio, a vast uncluttered space, bright with blond wood and glass and streaming
sunlight. He offered me an uncomfortable-looking chair across from him at a long drawing table near the tall windows.

“It is hilarious that Henri is telling you his life story,” Van der Heuvel said. “I can only imagine the lies he would say.”

“Tell me how funny you find this,” I said. I booted up my laptop, turned it around, and pushed the Play button so that Van
der Heuvel could see the last minutes of Gina Prazzi’s life.

I didn’t think he had seen the video before, but as it ran, his expression never changed. When it was over, Van der Heuvel
said, “What is funny is… I think he loved her.”

I stopped the video, and Van der Heuvel looked into my eyes.

I said, “Before I was a writer, I was a cop. I think Henri is doing
mop-up.
He’s killing the people who know who he is. Help me find him, Mr. Van der Heuvel. I’m your best chance for survival.”

VAN DER HEUVEL’S back was to the tall windows. His long shadow fell across the blond table, and his face was haloed by the
afternoon light.

He took a pack of cigarettes from his drawer, offered me one, then lit one for himself. He said, “If I knew how to find him,
there would no longer be a problem. But Henri has a genius for disappearance. I don’t know where he is. I have never known.”

“Let’s work on this together,” I said. “Kick around some ideas. There must be something you know that can lead me to him.
I know about his imprisonment in Iraq, but Brewster-North is a private company, closed tight, like a vault. I know about Henri’s
forger in Beirut, but without the man’s name —”

“Oh, this is too much,” Van der Heuvel said, laughing, a terrible laugh because there was actual humor in it. He found me
amusing. “He is psychopathic. Don’t you understand this man at all? He’s delusional. He’s narcissistic, and most of all he
lies. Henri was never in Iraq. He has no forger other than himself. Understand something, Mr. Hawkins. Henri is
glorifying
himself to you, inventing a better life story. You’re like a small dog being pulled along —”

“Hey!” I said, slapping the table, jumping to my feet. “Don’t screw with me. I came here to find Henri. I don’t care about
you or Horst Werner or Raphael dos Santos or the rest of you sick, pathetic motherfuckers. If you can’t help me, I have no
choice but to go to the police and give them everything.”

Van der Heuvel laughed again and told me to calm down, take a seat. I was rocked to my core. Had Van der Heuvel just answered
the question of why Henri wanted to write the book? To glorify his life story?

“The Dutchman” opened his laptop, said, “I got an e-mail from Henri two days ago. The first one he ever sent to me directly.
He wanted to sell me a video. I think I just saw it for free. You say you have no interest in us?”

“I don’t care about you at all. I just want Henri. He’s threatened my life and my family.”

“Maybe this will help your detective work.”

Van der Heuvel ran his fingers over the keyboard of his laptop as he talked, saying, “Henri Benoit, as he calls himself, was
a juvenile
monster.
Thirty years ago, when he was six years old, he strangled his infant sister in her crib.”

The shock showed on my face as Van der Heuvel nodded, smiling, tapping ashes into a tray, assuring me that this was true.

“Cute little boy. Fat cheeks. Big eyes. He murdered a baby. He was diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorder, very
rare that a child would have all the hallmarks. He was sent to a psychiatric facility, the Clinic du Lac in Geneva.”

“This is documented?”

“Yes, indeed. I did the research when I first met him. According to the chief psychiatrist, a Dr. Carl Obst, the child learned
a lot during his twelve years in the crazy house. How to mimic people, of course. He picked up several languages and learned
a trade. He became a printer.”

Was Van der Heuvel telling me the truth? If so, it explained how Henri could become anyone, forge documents, slip through
the cracks at will.

“After he was released at age eighteen, our boy got busy with casual murders and robberies. He stole a Ferrari, anyway. Whatever
else, I don’t know. But when he met Gina four years ago, he didn’t have to dine on scraps anymore.”

Van der Heuvel told me that Gina “fancied Henri,” that he opened up to her, told her how he liked his sex and that he had
committed acts of extreme violence. And he said he wanted to make a lot of money.

“It was Gina’s idea to have Henri provide entertainment for our little group and Horst went along with this plan for our sex
monkey.”

“This is where you came in.”

“Ah. Yes. Gina introduced us.”

“Henri said you sat in a corner and watched.”

Van der Heuvel looked at me as though I was an exotic bug and he hadn’t decided whether to smash me or put me under glass.

“Another lie, Hawkins. He took it up the ass and squealed like a girl. But this is what you should know because it is the
truth. We didn’t make Henri who he is. We only fed him.”

VAN DER HEUVEL’S fingers flew across the keyboard again. He said, “And now, a quick look, for your eyes only. I’ll show you
how the young man developed.”

Delight brightened his face as he turned the screen toward me.

A collection of single frames taken from videos of women who’d been tied up, tortured, decapitated, flickered across the computer
screen.

I could hardly absorb what I was seeing as Van der Heuvel flashed through the pictures, smoking his cigarette, providing blithe
commentary for a slide show of absolute and, until now, unimaginable horror.

I felt light-headed. I was starting to feel that Van der Heuvel and Henri were the same person. I hated them equally. I wanted
to kill Van der Heuvel, the worthless shit, and I thought I could even get away with it.

But I needed him to lead me to Henri.

“At first I didn’t know that the murders were real,” he was saying, “but when Henri began to cut off heads, then, of course,
I knew.… In the last year, he began writing his own scripts. Getting a little too drunk with attention. Getting too greedy.

“He was dangerous. And he knew me and Gina, so there was no easy way to end it.”

Van der Heuvel exhaled a plume of smoke and went on.

“Last week, Gina planned to either pay Henri off or make him disappear. Obviously, she misjudged him. She never told me how
she contacted him, so once again, this is the truth, Mr. Hawkins, I have no idea where Henri is. None at all.”

“Horst Werner signs Henri’s paychecks, doesn’t he?” I said. “Tell me how to find Werner.”

Van der Heuvel stubbed out his cigarette. His delight was gone. He spoke to me with dead seriousness, emphasizing every word.

“Mr. Hawkins, Horst Werner is the last person you ever want to meet. In your case in particular. He will not like Henri’s
book. Take my meaning. Don’t let it out of your hands. Scrub your computer. Burn your tapes. Never mention the Alliance or
its members to anyone. This advice is worth your life.”

It was too late to scrub my hard drive. I’d sent my transcripts of the Henri interviews and the outline of the book to Zagami
in New York. The transcripts had been photocopied and passed around to editors and Raven-Wofford’s outside law firm. The names
of the Alliance members were all over the manuscript. I had planned to change the names, as I’d promised Henri, in the final
draft.

I bulled ahead. “If Werner helps me, I’ll help him.”

“You have the brain of a brick, Hawkins. Listen to what I’m telling you. Listen. Horst Werner is a powerful man with long
arms and steel fists. He can find you wherever you are. Do you hear me, Hawkins? Don’t be afraid of Henri, our little windup
toy.

“Be afraid of Horst Werner.”

VAN DER HEUVEL abruptly called our meeting to an end, dismissed me, saying that he had a flight to catch.

My skull felt like a pressure cooker about to blow. The threat against me had been doubled, a war on two fronts: If I didn’t
write the book,
Henri
would kill me. If I did write the book,
Werner
would kill me.

I still had to find Henri, and now I had to stop Van der Heuvel from telling Horst Werner about Henri’s book, and about me.

I dug Henri’s Ruger out of my computer case and aimed it at the Dutchman. My voice was hoarse from the stress of unexpressed
fear and fury when I said, “You remember I said I didn’t care about you and the Alliance? I’ve changed my mind. I care a lot.”

Van der Heuvel looked at me with scorn.

“Mr. Hawkins, if you shoot me, you will be in a prison for the rest of your life. Henri will still be alive and living in
luxury somewhere in the world.”

“Take off your coat,” I said, hefting the gun in my hand. “And everything else.”

“What is the point of
this,
Hawkins?”

“I like to watch,” I said. “Now shut up. Take off all your clothes. The shirt, the shoes, the pants, every stitch you have
on.”

“You are really a fool,” he said, obeying me. “What have you got on me? Some pornography on my computer? This is Amsterdam.
We are not prudes like your citizens of the United States. You can’t tie me to any of it. Did you see me in any of those videos?
I don’t think so.”

I stood with the gun clasped in both my hands, leveled at Van der Heuvel, and when he was naked, I told him to grab the wall.
Then I whacked him on the back of his head with the gun butt, the same treatment Henri had given me.

Leaving him unconscious on the floor, I lifted Van der Heuvel’s tie from the pile of clothes on the chair and used it to secure
his wrists tightly behind his back.

His computer was connected to the Internet, and I worked fast, attaching the Henri Benoit videos to e-mails that I addressed
to myself.
What else?

There was a box of marking pens on his desk, and I dropped one of them into my coat pocket.

Then I walked through Van der Heuvel’s immaculate, full-floor flat. The man was house-proud. He had beautiful things. Expensive
books. Drawings. Photographs. His closet was like a clothes museum. It was sickening that a man this base, this vile, could
have such a carefree and luxurious life.

I went to Van der Heuvel’s magazine-quality kitchen and turned on the gas burners on his stove.

I set dish towels and two-hundred-dollar ties on fire, and as flames reached for the ceiling, the overhead sprinkler system
opened.

An alarm rang out in the stairwell, and I was sure another alarm was ringing in a firehouse nearby.

As water surged across the fine wooden floors, I returned to the main room, packed away the computers, slinging both mine
and Van der Heuvel’s over my shoulder.

Then I slapped Van der Heuvel’s face, yelled his name, jerked him to his feet. “Up! Get up. Now!” I yelled.

I ignored his questions as I marched him down the stairs to the street. Smoke billowed from the windows and, as I’d hoped,
a thick crowd of witnesses had congregated around the house: men and women in business attire, old people and children on
bicycles that the city provided free to residents.