The Mammoth Book Best International Crime Page 10

  “Can I … can I, um, ask you something?” he stammered.

  I ignored him and scanned a bottle of Coke and two bags of crisps for a man with a sunburned forehead and a T-shirt that read NO BULLSHIT in big letters. “That’ll be €16.44,” I told him, wondering if that was a catchphrase between him and his wife – and if he was the one who said it to her or the other way around.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the kid in the leather jacket shift nervously from foot to foot. Why didn’t he just go to another register? What did he need me for? Maybe he was getting up the nerve to pull something and could tell I was new to the store and less ready to handle problems and emergencies. Here’s your chance, man, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, take her down! Shit, this was all I needed under any circumstances, and least of all now.

  “Can I—?” he said again. He was actually blushing. Oh, this was just perfect – on top of everything else, he’s shy?

  I waved him off, as NO BULLSHIT handed me a twenty-five-euro note.

  “Have you got two euros, sir?”

  He searched his pockets and came up empty. I glanced around the store, but no one was paying us the least attention. Anja was ringing up groceries as if her life depended on it, and the other girl, Rachida, was finishing up a sale. I handed the man his change, counting out the coins slowly.

  When I was finished, I turned to Leather Jacket. “Yes?”

  He smiled, revealing an irregular row of teeth. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Well, go ahead,” I said impatiently. “There are people waiting.” I glanced at the woman who was next in line. Her face was red from the sun, and her overdone makeup emphasized the tiredness in her eyes instead of concealing it. She blew a strand of hair off her face, like a girl in a TV commercial.

  “Those boxes.” He pointed to the pile of empty cartons across from the registers. “Can I – if you’re not going to use them, can I have some of them? I’m moving, see, and I—”

  “Go ahead,” I cut him off. “Take as many as you want.”

  He smiled his gratitude and nodded. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d tried to kiss my hand, the creep. He was missing a couple of teeth, I noticed.

  “Poor kid,” said the woman with the red face, as I returned my attention to her. “He’s probably on welfare. Our taxes at work. I guess that’s just the way things are, nowadays …”

  I nodded silently and reached for her first item.

  The rest of the afternoon, I was pretty much on autopilot. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up. But it was for a good cause, the best cause. My own cause. Dozens of litres of soda, bags of crisps, packages of peanuts, bottles of wine, six-packs of beer, boxes of cookies passed over my scanner. Sometimes it seemed like these people never ate an actual meal, just snacked and boozed. A blond woman with a fat little boy riding in her cart set bread, vegetables, a package of four hamburgers and a bunch of bananas on the belt, but when the child – stabbing an eager finger at the candy rack – let out a bloodcurdling cry, she added a couple of Mars bars to her pile, tore the wrapper off another one and shoved it into his fist. He looked triumphant.

  By the time I handed the register off to the next shift, I was dead on my feet. My fingers wanted to keep right on scanning, and coins and banknotes danced before my eyes. I blinked them away. All I had to do was throw my smock back on its hook, and then I could go home to Marcel, who’d be waiting for me. I punched in the code Anja had given me and went upstairs. Just outside the lounge, I felt an unexpected hand on my shoulder and stifled a scream.

  “Marjolein,” said Hovenkamp. “It’s Marjolein, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I need you to fill out a couple of forms. Can you step into my office for a minute?”

  I followed him. The seat of his trousers, I noticed, hung loosely over his flat ass. No butt on him, but the unmistakeable beginnings of a beer belly, barely contained by his tight striped shirt. Why did that happen so often to men, all their weight on the wrong side of their bodies?

  “Have a seat.” He indicated a chair, laid a form on the table in front of me and bent over me. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck and smell a sad mixture of perspiration, aftershave and an ashtray that hadn’t been emptied in way too long. Probably because I’d quit smoking myself a couple of months earlier – which had been harder than I’d expected it to be – that last component of his odour was the most annoying.

  I filled in the form. “This is my home address, obviously,” I said,“not my vacation address. I mean, I can’t really put down the campground, can I? I don’t imagine the taxman would approve.”

  “I understand.” Hovenkamp moved a step closer to me and put his hand back on my shoulder. Even through the smock and my T-shirt I could feel how hot and sweaty his heavy paw was. “And your tax number right there.” He indicated the place.

  “Oh, gosh, I don’t know it by heart. Is it okay if I fill that in tomorrow?” I gave him my sweetest smile, though in my imagination I was smashing his face in with my elbow. Lots of blood, his nose broken, his body doubled over in pain. He kneaded my shoulder lightly, his touch so gentle I could barely notice it. I heard him sigh and thought of Mrs Hovenkamp, wherever she was.

  “No problem,” he said.

  I stood up. “Then I’ll be off.”

  Our faces were very close.

  “Maybe,” Hovenkamp began, “maybe sometime we can—”

  But then there was a knock at the door.

  Anja stood in the doorway. “Wendy’s sick,” she said. “She needs to go home. Maybe Marjolein could—?”

  “Me? No, honestly, I can’t. I’m beat, and anyway I have a date.” I looked at Hovenkamp beseechingly. “My boyfriend, I can’t keep him waiting.”

  “Well, then we’ll … we’ll have to think of something else,” said Hovenkamp. “I may just need to work the register myself. Is it busy?”

  Anja nodded.

  “Good night, Mr Hovenkamp,” I said, as friendly as possible. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, yes.”

  I was at Marcel’s by 5:30. His parents were spending a month in the south of France, he’d told me, so he had their place all to himself. He was stretched out in a chaise longue in the back yard. Three empty beer bottles were on the table beside him. Sure, he could hang out and drink, while I took care of business. Well, it’d be his turn soon enough.

  When I stepped through the kitchen door into the yard, he got to his feet. We hugged. His hands insinuated themselves down inside my jeans, searching and stroking. His fingers seemed to want to travel deeper.

  I clenched my cheeks to push him off, but he ignored the signal. Maybe he thought I was trembling in ecstasy.

  “No,” I said firmly, “not now. I’m exhausted. I need to freshen up and have a drink. This is not fun, you know. Do you understand that? Eight hours behind that freaking register.”

  He nodded, as if he actually did understand. But I knew that a little rich boy like Marcel, who’d never had to do anything more challenging than slack his way through high school and a bit of university, didn’t have a clue what I was saying.

  “I can’t take much more of this,” I said. “One more day, tops.” Why not speed things up? The longer I stuck around here, the worse it was likely to get. “Tomorrow, okay? The boss is already nagging me for my tax number.”

  “Okay, fine,” said Marcel, “we’ll do it tomorrow.”

  My second day at the market was pretty much a rerun of Day 1. To Rachida and Anja, this was normal – they didn’t know anything else. I was already beginning to climb the walls, though.

  For one thing, the temperature was a few degrees higher than yesterday, and that had at least two effects on the customers. They had less patience, grew irritated quicker. At one point, Hovenkamp himself had to break up a fight between two guys, one of whom grabbed the last package of beer nuts just as the other one was reaching for it – or, depending on who you believed, sn
atched it right out of the other jerk’s hands. The second effect was that customers came into the store wearing less clothing. Fat bald men with hairy chests and arms appeared at the registers in nothing but a Speedo. I wondered how much hotter it had to get before the first topless woman would walk in. Hovenkamp would probably eat that with a spoon.

  During my lunch break, he sat beside me in the lounge and droned on about the exciting world of supermarketry. The things you could learn about humanity, its idiosyncracies and behaviour! (As if I gave a damn – especially since the idiosyncracies seemed flat and simple, especially when it came to groceries.) How to incorporate design elements to give the store its own ambiance, to make it attractive to its customers. How all the employees were one big happy family, and he’d be glad if I felt myself a part of it. He laid a hand on my arm, and I just managed not to pull away from his touch or slap him. No, I had to stay on Hovenkamp’s good side, at least for another couple of hours.

  After lunch, I soldiered on behind my register, knowing that the more seriously I took the job, the faster the time would seem to pass. Around 3:30 – getting close to the end – a young man of about twenty-five eyed me narrowly as I rang him up. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, not looking up.

  “I talked to you in Night Town,” he insisted, “a few weeks ago. What’s your name again? Something with a K?”

  I shook my head and tapped the nameplate Anja had given me that morning.

  “Marjolein? Well, you’ve got a twin out there, then,” he said, handing me his money.

  “Interesting.” I gave him his change.

  At a few minutes to four, I began to feel nervous, understandably enough.

  And at four on the dot, I took a deep breath and shut down my register.

  As I punched in my code, he suddenly materialized beside me. “I’m going upstairs with you,” he said in a threatening whisper.

  “But—”

  “Do what I tell you.”

  He closed the door behind us, grabbed my arm and pushed me up the stairs. At the top, he pulled a ski mask over his head and took a pistol out of his pocket and held it to my temple. The metal felt cold against my skin. I lowered my gaze: he was wearing red Nikes. Stupid, to wear shoes that stood out like that. I could probably use that later on, though.

  With a powerful push, he shoved me into Hovenkamp’s office. At first, the boss didn’t seem to realize what was happening. “What—?” He started to get up, but then slumped back into his chair.

  “The money – let’s have it. Otherwise, she gets it, then you. Understand?”

  He sounded very convincing.

  He yanked the telephone cord out of the wall and then, pointing his pistol right into the boss’ face, demanded the key to the safe. Jesus, Hovenkamp was sweating like a pig. I knew his type. Typical asshole, lived in a new condo, drove an Opel Corsa. Wife and kiddies either waiting patiently for Daddy to come home or spending the day at the beach.

  As Hovenkamp filled two plastic shopping bags – which I noticed were stamped with one of our competitors’ logos – with paper money, he tried to say something.

  “Maybe we can—”

  “Shut the fuck up or I’ll shoot you in the balls.”

  He seemed to get a kick out of using that kind of language, seemed to use it to keep the boss off-balance, keep him praying that he wouldn’t lose it and start blasting. Technically, you’re supposed to fire a shot into the ceiling at times like this, but that wouldn’t be all that great an idea with that gun, since it was just a toy.

  “But,” I said.

  “You too, bitch.” He swung the gun back over his shoulder, as if he was about to smash me in the face with it.

  I shrank away from him and cowered against the wall, my hands covering my face, sobbing uncontrollably. “No, please!”

  He backed out of the office with the two full bags and locked the door from the outside.

  I held my breath. Hovenkamp hesitated for a moment, as if he was afraid that the robber might come back. Then it seemed like he was about to begin banging on the door, but I threw myself into his arms, pushed myself close, wrapped my arms around his sweaty back, pressed my head into his shoulder.

  “I’m scared! He’ll shoot us – I’m so afraid!” I kept it up. “Oh, Mr Hovenkamp, hold me, please. I’m so scared!” I considered peeing my pants – that’d slow things down a while longer – but decided that pissing myself was ickier than I really wanted to get. I’d’ve loved to have seen Hovenkamp’s face, though, if I did it.

  “Calm down,” he said, stroking my back tenderly with his fat hands. “Be still. He’s gone. You’re okay.”

  “Oh, Mr Hovenkamp! If he – if he comes back, then—”

  “He won’t come back,” he said soothingly, then added, “My name is Theo.”

  “Theo,” I repeated, sniffling.

  After about five minutes, when I finally settled down, Hovenkamp starting banging on the door like a madman. Then he remembered his computer and sent off a quick e-mail. Soon after that, Anja came up. She had to search for the spare key, and it was 4:30 by the time she found it and released us.

  Hovenkamp called the police from the phone in the lounge. The overprotective Anja offered me water, coffee, Coke, cookies, you name it. I called Marcel’s house to tell him I’d be late. He told me he’d had a hunch I might be.

  It took almost fifteen minutes for the cops to arrive: two young officers with healthy beach tans. They questioned me about the robbery, friendly and empathetic. I told them how the robber had appeared beside me the second I’d punched in my code. Had I seen his face? No, he was wearing a ski mask. “Three little holes, two for his eyes and one for his mouth.” Had anything about him caught my attention, any distinguishing characteristics? “No, I’m sorry, nothing.”

  “And he threatened you with a pistol?”

  “Yes, and he—”The memory was suddenly too much for me. I buried my face in my hands and let tears well up from deep inside.

  Hovenkamp put a fatherly arm around my shoulder. “Hasn’t she been through enough?” he protested. “She’s only been working here a couple of days, and now this happens. This is the first time we’ve ever been robbed. Holland’s getting more dangerous every day.”

  I didn’t like the way that sounded, me new to the store and suddenly it gets robbed. I hoped the cops wouldn’t draw any conclusions from the coincidence.

  “It’s all over now,” one officer said.

  “But if he—” My sentence trailed off into more tears.

  After half an hour of that, they let me go. The store was closed. Anja and Rachida stared at me with wide-eyed compassion. “And this was just your second day,” Anja said.

  The cops gave me a ride. I hoped Marcel would see me get out of the police car, but he was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a beer. I decided not to mention his sneakers.

  He hugged me.

  “Where?” I demanded.

  “Just like you said. The freezer.”

  He couldn’t understand how she’d managed it. Or maybe it was all just a coincidence. In any case, she’d gotten away clean, with almost all of the money. They’d catch up with her, sooner or later.

  He paced the length of his cell, back and forth, glaring angrily at his feet, now encased in old white jailhouse sneakers. His damned red Nikes, they’d given him away. Stupid to have worn them. She hadn’t said a word about them.

  Sure, he could have gone on denying it, but the ski mask, in freaking August, there was no way to get around that. A second dumb mistake. He should have tossed it in a dumpster, duh.

  Through the barred window high overhead, he could see the sun. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself catching some rays in his parents’ back yard, in his chaise longue, a beer on the table beside him.

  Fuck, how long would it be before he could get back to that world?

  The sun in Spain was much better than in Holland. I stretche
d luxuriantly and gazed across the table at Ivo. We were on the terrace at Alfonso’s. I’d arrived three days earlier, and met Ivo yesterday at the disco. His father was rich, a Dutch fatcat who’d retired here to live a life of money and status.

  Ivo leaned towards me. “Want to go out tonight?”

  “Maybe.”

  He smiled. Last night he’d tried to lure me up to his apartment, but I’d politely put him off. “I don’t have many principles,” I’d said, “but there’s one rule I never break: don’t ever go to bed with a man the first night you meet him.”

  “And the second night?” he’d asked.

  “Well,” I’d said, “that depends.”

  “On what?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  I sipped my Perrier. Ivo’s eyes met mine. We laughed. I had him, I could feel it.

  He had to work that afternoon, till 10 p.m. When he got off, we met back at Alfonso’s terrace. He ordered a rum and Coke, I had a nice glass of white wine. I kept him in suspense for a while, but eventually we wound up at his apartment. First we stopped at my hotel.

  “Not bad,” said Ivo, glancing around my suite.

  “I can afford it.”

  Later, when I lay in his arms – the sex wasn’t anything to write home about, but you can’t have everything – we engaged in some pillow talk. Some guys fall asleep as soon as they’re finished, but others were talkers, I’d learned. Marcel, for instance. He could talk till the cows came home, that one. And I’d just lay there listening, my head on his shoulder, my hand on his belly.

  I let Ivo brag about his work, his ambitions, his grand plans. Then I told him about my life, and I couldn’t resist a little bragging. Once I’d started the story, I figured I might as well spill it all. Maybe because I could see in Ivo’s eyes how fascinated he was. I wanted him to admire me, and it was easy to get there. And now he would certainly trust me.

  “So I set it all up with him – Marcel, his name is. He went upstairs with me. Nothing to it. No, it wasn’t a real gun, just a toy, but of course the boss didn’t know that.”

  What Ivo didn’t know was that I’d brought the gun with me. It was in my suitcase, in my hotel room. You don’t leave a moneymaker like that behind unless you really have to. The beach police had had plenty of clues without it. Besides, I was pretty sure Marcel wouldn’t last long under interrogation.