Ridley Pearson - Choke Point

He sees his plan has worked perfectly. Sonia is outside and moving across the street.

Her tail realizes she’s gone.

Too late.

Knox uses the iPhone’s camera to take a photo of the Nikon’s small display. He texts the photo to Grace.

Sonia boards a tram. Her tail is too late.

—

GRACE’S PHONE BUZZESin her right hand. Even though she expects the text, the sensation nonetheless startles her. Standing outside Centraal Station, she feigns studying the tram schedule display. Her jaw lifted, her eyes are nonetheless trained on the faces of all the passengers disembarking a Line 5 tram. She raises the phone to where she can see Knox’s photo of the man in the café, while studying the faces of those departing the tram.

She slips her iPhone into her black leather bag.

The area outside the station is jammed. Busier than she’d expected. She works to filter out the noise and confusion, to focus. She’s noticed three pairs of police on patrol. One is behind and heading away from her. Another to her left dealing with a vagrant. The third pair enters the station.

And yet, despite the chaos, there is something reassuring that everyone has a place to be, a place to go, a schedule to keep. If only the world were more like a train station, she thinks. When had the comforting sense of order been replaced by randomness?

Sonia appears from the door of the number 5 tram, as expected. She has a beautiful face: wide-set dark eyes, gorgeous Indian skin. She’s shorter than Grace expected, perhaps her same height, wearing a soft purple scarf over her head, designer blue jeans and a flowing top beneath a tailored brown leather coat. She doesn’t hurry, doesn’t look back. Grace has the sense she’s paying attention to her surroundings. Her body language is magnificent, that of a bored commuter, but a close look at her eyes tells the observer she is alert and busy-minded. Grace is immediately impressed.

A half dozen outdoor platforms serve the station. Platform 4 is currently serving Line 13.

Sonia is following Knox’s directions to the letter.

Grace waits, sipping a coffee and swallowing her impatience. It is a deficiency her trainers have worked hard to remove. Not easily done. But she has learned to overcome it with small tricks, aware of its destructiveness.

Sonia’s tail appears only minutes later on the next number 5. He’s a clever one, this bastard. He inspects the schedule display, turns around. Grace does as Knox asked. She moves toward him and they collide. Her coffee spills across him.

“Shit,” he curses in Dutch-accented English.

As Grace catches sight of Sonia climbing onto the number 13 tram, she rattles off an apology in Mandarin. She’s brushing his side now, feeling a lump under his coat that is the weapon, down his leg as she kneels. He swipes at her hands, not wanting the contact. The delay is effective. At least twenty seconds and counting. She is telling him in Mandarin that she wishes to pay for the stains she has created. She proffers euros he has no use for, making sure that he knocks them from her hands in the process of his refusal. Making a scene. Forty seconds. Fifty. Head held low in an act of contrition, when the real point is to keep him from getting a good look at her. There may be cause for them to meet later. Grace cannot afford to be recognized.

It’s over quickly. He steps out of the puddle and makes physical contact with her as he pushes her aside in his disgust. A simple shove to the shoulder, but she goes over like a feather duster, impressed. He’s on the scent like a hound, pulled by the same string that aimed him at Platform 4. She could follow, but Knox has instructed her not to, and though it was difficult at first, she has learned to trust his areas of expertise. She has come to respect, even admire, his abilities—his street savvy, his people instinct, his understanding of crowds. He is capable of things most people don’t ever think of. But she does think of these things because she has been trained to, because it interests her. She enjoys the role of the predator, the voyeur, the phantom. She thrives in shadow. This man understands these worlds in ways others do not; there is much to learn from him, though she is loath to admit it. It comes to him naturally, a second nature; he’s like a natural-born musician who doesn’t understand his own talent. But she understands for him. She knows what he does not: that there are few like him, that he teaches without meaning to, that he can frighten with a look, calm with a word or two. For now, she is content to follow his lead in some areas while making sure he never thinks she is. So she lets the tail go. The minute delay was all that was asked of her and she has accomplished it. The rest is now on Knox’s meeting with Sonia. Grace can get back to what she does best—though what exactly that is, she’s still working out.

Having received a text from Grace that her delay tactics went according to plan, that Sonia Pangarkar departed on the number 13 without her tail, Knox slows as he approaches the Dylan Hotel’s front doors.

Three people occupy the far sidewalk—an older couple with a dog on a leash, and a woman crouched and petting the dog. Four other people on his sidewalk, a good distance away and moving.

He carries the camera bag. The Dylan Amsterdam is four interconnected Keizersgracht canal houses. A courtyard at the entrance. It’s a European mix of contemporary and classical. Once into the hotel, the guest is enfolded in cream walls with white enamel trim; large windows flood the rooms with light. An eclectic collection of contemporary furniture coddles the weary. Knox enters the hotel lounge, a floor of reclaimed barn wood. He looks around.

She isn’t here.

According to Grace, Sonia had followed his instructions to the letter. So why not to their conclusion? Has he helped her lose her tail only to get nothing in return?

Only now does he realize Sonia Pangarkar was the woman petting the dog. She’d checked him out—might’ve even snapped a photograph. The cautious and curious journalist.

He’s an ass for making such a sophomoric mistake. He orders a beer and sits on the love seat with his back to a stone wall.

He sends a text:

cute dog. if you trust no one, you have no one. you have 15 minutes.

The cold beer goes down smoothly. There’s a long hallway with windows that look out onto gardens and the canal beyond, and she comes down it like a runway model—all alone, arms swaying by her side, a boldness to her walk. Not a woman easily intimidated. She trusts the safety of the surroundings. If he’d chosen a city park, she never would’ve showed.

His moment has arrived. He doesn’t consider himself much of an actor, but presenting himself to women is easy enough. Second nature. As smooth as the beer. He’s never been afraid of women. Appreciates the companionship. He’d rather see a movie with someone than alone, would rather share the Sunday paper, a meal, a drink.

The coffee she describes to the waitress has so many adjectives and descriptive clauses that the two might as well be speaking a foreign language. The waitress apparently has no trouble with interpretation and is off.

She stares at him. Not exactly sizing him up, but not letting him off the hook. If he were an artist he might consider painting her. He’d like to see her naked; it’s one of the first thoughts that pops into his head, and it surprises him. It’s her skin that is the elixir. He wants to see what that coloring does to all the various parts. His imagination is a little wild with it, and he blames it on the beer. He doesn’t consider himself the type to first undress a woman, and yet that’s exactly what he’s done. He can imagine she smells different—exotic, sweetly perfumed, but heavy with the musky scent from between her legs. It’s not a reaction he’s comfortable with. He’s aware it can give her an unfair advantage, a leverage that he has no intention of giving. He has only seen her at a distance. Sitting so close is disarming.