REKT - Chapter 7
Rotterdam
He said he’d be easy to spot. He wasn’t kidding. Black trench coat, Op Ivy t-shirt, unlaced Docs, high top fade. He’s wandering through the stalls of the fanciest food court I’ve ever seen, just a skinny kid mawing down on a huge baguette, picking at passing cheese samples, flicking toothpicks at trash cans. I can’t tell his age, but it’s a lot younger than I’m comfortable with. I pictured some grizzled guy in his fifties, salt and pepper beard, face lined with decades of hard decisions. A morally compromised man with a lot to lose. This kid? I bet Fortnite is the only place he’s experienced loss. How the fuck did we find him?
A heavy hand falls on my shoulder, startling me. What is with people? Can’t anyone approach from the front? I turn and there’s my central casting stereotype of a crooked customs man. Leather coat, two-day scruff, the cracked eyes of an alcoholic. He smells of smokes, has a newspaper folded under his arm. So, the kid was bait. This guy was watching me watch the kid. The old I was looking back at you to see you looking back at me to see me looking back at you. I’ve never felt better about not being trusted. “That’s my son. He’s on the account.”
A man with something to lose, a son with something to lose. They are in this together. Good. There’s a hint of the Congo in his accent. That explains the Kinshasa connection.
“Ryan.” My hand extends. He won’t shake it, instead starts walking to the escalator. The fucking Dutch, I can never figure these people out.
“Where’s Andy?” our customs man asks.
“New York. He’s handling Fritz. I’m handling you.”
“No one handles me. I provide a service, get paid a fee. That’s it.”
Okay, so today is going to be hard-assery Whatever. I look up at the ceiling as we glide to the stalls below. It’s covered with fruits, butterflies, still life smeared on giant panels. The market is one of those wonders of modern architecture. The type of place they run international competitions for. Gehry gone wild. I remember the first building of his I saw. Disney Concert Hall. It took my breath away. This place is an extended horseshoe of steel, glass, and ambition stuck in the middle of a square. Half Apple store, half misplaced tunnel section. Funny how quick innovation passes from marvel to commonplace.
We meet the kid in a quiet corner. He’s got us a booth and a round of Heinekens. They speak in Dutch, quick murmuring punctuated by grunts. The kid’s fingers pointing out sightlines. The father picks up a beer, turns and holds it in front of me. He disapproves of something. I can see it on his face.
“This shit tastes like skunk, but they paid a million euros for the concession, so you are stuck with it.”
As he says this, his eyes are scanning, looking for cameras. That’s what he and the kid were talking about. The dad didn’t like this spot, but it looks like the kid was right because we aren’t going anywhere. The kid has his laptop open. I pull a chair next to his, open my PowerBook, and login to Frankfurt Bank. We spend the next fifteen minutes walking through line-item transactions. Debits and credits from our bank matching to entries in their system. After each concurrence, the kid shows his screen to the father who pulls a certificate from a folder. Matching on three levels. The certificates form the crux of proof. They contain customs stamps, signatures, and have bills of lading stapled to the back of them. All of that will be scanned and sent stateside to Fritz at Frankfurt with FinCEN cc’ed as an interested party. Assuming everything checks out, our account will be unfrozen.
“Satisfied?” the father asks me.
“Everything seems in order.”
“It is in fucking order,” he replies. Right, I forgot we are hard asses today.
“What happens if someone calls the facility?” I ask.
The father gives me the stink eye. He doesn’t like me. I don’t give a shit.
“Someone has a question about the paperwork or wants some additional information. What happens when they call?” I repeat the question.
Who works for who here? Last time I looked, we cut the checks.
“Everything is in the system,” the kid answers. They ask for your account number; a clerk pulls it up in our CRM and answers whatever they need.
“So, our fake shit is in your real system? Doesn’t that show up in the books or an audit?”
The father stares at the son. More muttering in Dutch. These two have very different opinions, but their conversation ends with a nod of assent from the old man.
“You are in as a special test account. The terminals are coded to show everything as real, but that information is filtered out elsewhere. I am the system administrator. This is not a problem,” the kid answers.
“Tell Andy no one comes here. I don’t want to see that buffoon bluffing someone to the front door of our employer. Now do you have something for us?” the father asks.
Jesus, everyone is worried about Andy. Why do people get into business with him in the first place? Never mind, that question hits too close to home. I reach into my jeans and pull out a folded yellow Post-it. I try to hand it to the father, but he points to the kid. This fucker doesn’t want me touching him. Is this a fingerprint thing, a phobia? Maybe he is just afraid of new money or disgusted by who he’s in bed with. I don’t care. His thing, not mine. The kid unfolds it and begins typing. It’s the key and password to a bitcoin wallet. Their commission for the diamonds.
The kid nods, the father gets up to leave. I grab him by the wrist. He tries to pull away, but I’ve got a good grip on the leather. My turn to be the hard ass. I stand, loom over him, and look down. “Things are coming to an end on our side. We’ve taken the ruse as far as it will go. We’ll be looking at new chapters in our lives soon. During this transition, there may be some additional scrutiny of the business. We expect your support in the matter.”
The father pulls on his sleeve wanting out of here. I don’t let go. He nods.
“You seem to have an opinion of Andy as a volatile man. That’s not incorrect. My job is to control him during the transition which means minimal distractions. You are not to contact him about any additional opportunities. We are in this shit because of those diamonds. No more of that. No more Hans and Stefan types either. If I can’t control Andy, then I cannot control what happens to you. All anyone wants is quiet. It works both ways. Understood?” I ask.
He grunts, pulls hard at his sleeve. The leather slips out of my grasp and he starts off towards a butcher’s case. Some stretch, I can’t remember the last friendly meeting I’ve had. The kid and I spend an awkward minute in silence before he heads the opposite way towards an elevator. That’s it. The entirety of my business here. I flew eight hours in coach for a fifteen-minute meeting. Well, that’s not all. I’m meeting Niko in Amsterdam.