Fear gripped Sean Dooley as surely as if he had come face to face with the Devil himself and Beelzebub had thrown him, naked, into Hell’s firestorm. The flames nipped at his dick. Satan’s spear surely awaited him. The anticipation of jagged pain made his stomach churn and he convulsed involuntarily, right there on the floor. Walter had pegged him right. Now he was afraid the Irish pussy might throw up. This Sean Dooley was no more than a regular guy, not a trained operative. Too often, Walter knew, when you use loud aggressive threats with civilians, instead of cooperating they tighten up, harden their resistance as a reaction to the violence they sense is about to come their way. They can’t help it. They instinctually react in a manner inconsistent with their own self-interest. With them, the calm and quiet assertion of authority, coupled with the prospect of impending bodily harm or even death, works much better. Be reasonable, he told himself. They respond to reason. On the other hand, Walter found over the years, pros fell into two groups. The first were people who would die before talking. It was a waste of time to question them. The second bunch often needed a specific sign of what was to come before giving in. They could manage the abstract threat of violence, but not a taste of the real thing. A kick in the groin, a gun barrel shoved up their ass. Something to get their attention. Why they didn’t believe, at the start, in the certainty of their own misfortune was a mystery. One thing was for sure, you could never tell what impulse would make a man willingly give his life rather than surrender information. It was irrational, but what could you do? Sean Dooley talked, and Walter was well enough convinced, after a while, that the Irishman told the truth. How many men had Walter interrogated over the years? More than he could remember. He knew how to ask the same question, in different ways, in unconnected context, to test the truth of the initial answer. Mostly these were simple questions, the kind a regular person, a truthful person, had no time to figure out.
“When did you get to Amsterdam?” Walter asked. Dooley told him he’d just arrived. “You came here straight from the airport?”
“Yes,” he told Walter, “straight from the airport.” A few minutes later, Walter asked, “What time was it when you got off the plane?” The question demanded an immediate answer and he got one. He knew that someone like Sean Dooley would look at his watch as he walked off the plane, leaving the jetway and entering the terminal area. People in a hurry, on a schedule, always do. Dooley gave Walter the right answer. He really had come straight from the airport. How the hell did he know where to go? Walter motioned to Harry pointing at the overcoat on the floor near one of the flamingos. Harry snatched it up. “Check the pockets,” Walter told him. Dooley’s plane ticket was there, one-way from London to Amsterdam. He’d been in Holland less than an hour. Harry pulled something else out too, unfolded it and gasped.
“What is it?” Walter asked.
“My picture,” said Harry.
It was indeed. There, on the page, was a photograph of Harry Levine and underneath it, written in hand- Harry Levine, 310 Heerensgracht, first floor. Amsterdam.
At the top of the page was a fax-generated telephone number-the sender’s number-an American number with an area code Walter didn’t recognize. He looked at Harry.
“Area code 617,” he said. “You know where that is?”
“Boston.”
Walter looked down at the man lying on the floor. “Sean, are you with me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who do you know in Boston?”
“I dunno.”
“Young man,” said Walter, now sounding every bit the genial family doctor. “Tell me who sent you a fax of Harry Levine’s picture or I will step on your balls and crush them into the floor. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir. Please don’t… It was Miss O’Malley. She sent it for me.”
“Who is she?” asked Walter looking over at Harry who shrugged. He had no idea who this Miss O’Malley might be.
“She’s a woman I done some jobs for before. American, but that’s all I know of her. I don’t ask questions.”
“What sort of jobs?”
“You know, just jobs, all kinds of stuff here and there.”
“Tell me about this job.”
“There’s this thing, she called it a document. She said that Harry Levine has it. She wants it.”
“And your job?”
“Get it.”
Sean Dooley was not the brightest light shining from the Emerald Isle. It went on this way-Walter asking a question and Sean giving a short, simple answer-for what seemed to Harry to be a half-hour. Actually it was only a few minutes. Finally, Walter said, “Pull your shirt down.” The Irishman did and for the first time Harry saw his face. Sean Dooley may have been only thirty-one, but he looked like fifty. His Irish mug was both puffy and deeply lined at the same time. Probably the result of a lot of time spent outside, Harry concluded, and a lot of beer drinking when he was indoors.
“Put your pants on. Go ahead, it’s all right.” Dooley pulled his pants up from around his ankles, tucked his shirt halfway in and buckled his belt. He was breathing easier now. Walter thought the vision of his balls ground into the hardwood floor was still very much in Sean Dooley’s mind. “I want you to do two things for me, Sean, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. First, I want you to give Miss O’Malley this number.” He handed the Irishman a small slip of paper. On it was written a telephone number. “You won’t lose it, right?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I won’t lose it.”
“And second-and Sean, listen very carefully because your life depends on this-I want you to leave Holland, right now, and never come back. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Leave right now. When you walk out of here go straight to the airport. Sleep at Schiphol, if you have to wait before you can get a flight back home.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dooley.
“Here’s the part where you have to listen carefully.” Dooley looked up at Walter from the floor and nodded in a manner that showed Walter he wanted to comply completely and he was eager for Walter to know it. Walter said, “If I ever see you again, I will kill you. Tell Miss O’Malley that if I see anyone else she sends, I will kill them and then, Sean, I’ll come back and kill you too. Even if you’ve done everything I’ve said, I’ll come back for you. Miss O’Malley sent you. If she sends anyone else, you’ll pay too. You have good reason, a powerful incentive to convince Miss O’Malley of my bad intentions.” He waved Dooley’s driver’s license in his face and then tossed it over to Harry. The rest of the wallet he gave back. “I won’t have any trouble finding you, you know that don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” said Walter. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Pack,” said Walter as Harry poured himself a glass of milk.
“What? I beg your pardon. What do you mean?”
“We have to leave. It’s too dangerous here.”
“But you let him go. You threw him out.”
“It’s not him I’m concerned about. Our boy Sean hasn’t been killing anybody. Sir Anthony Wells, and your Ambassador Brown, they were killed by pros, mean ones at that. They were beaten for information. Can you imagine a hundred-year-old man taking that sort of abuse?” Walter stopped for a moment and shook his head. He didn’t have to ask what kind of man would do such a thing. He knew. “We need to get out of here,” he said, looking at the little clock next to the couch. It said 3:20 am.
Ten minutes later, after Walter made two phone calls, a taxi pulled to a halt in front of the building. Walter and Harry walked quickly down the stone steps and into the waiting cab. As they drove off, Walter looked in all directions. He saw no one. He gave the driver specific instructions-“turn here… turn there”-taking them through the empty residential neighborhoods in the Jordan section and then, quickly and unexpectedly, in the opposite direction toward the newly developed part of Amsterdam where clusters of gleaming glass skyscrapers surrounded the Heineken Music Hall. The streets were empty. Nobody followed them. Finally, no longer visibly on edge, Walter leaned forward and said to the cab driver, “Rotterdam.”