She shrugged again. “I don’t know much.” The answer seemed guarded. Then I realized it was just indifference.
Katie now leaned onto my shoulder to adjust her sneaker. Her hand staying and resting there, she asked me, “Why do you want to know so much, anyway, Roy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why not just enjoy what you can’t know? Leave things open? That’s how I like it.”
No wonder Graus dug Katie. Besides her obvious physical appeal, she was a throwback to the actor’s sexy, searching, seventies heyday. But trivial people, not to mention detectives, need certainty.
“I wish I could,” I said, somewhat insincerely. “But I can’t.”
As I feared it might, this made her remove her hand. “You’re a man on a mission?”
“You could put it that way.”
“Well,” she scrunched up her face, with imitation seriousness, “be careful.”
Was she kidding? “What do you mean? Why?”
Katie turned her head, then pointed it. “Because that guy over there’s been watching us.”
“What guy?”
I looked where she pointed. Another cyclist stood across the canal, leaning against a building. He wore a bike rider’s spandex outfit; a skullcap and goggles completed the ensemble.
“There have been a lot of robberies around here lately,” she said. “Maybe we ought to get going.”
I was surprised at such trepidation from carefree Katie. The street couldn’t have looked more placid and residential. Or, come to think of it, more empty, now that the workday had begun. Maybe she had a point.
“Get on,” she said, “and let’s go.”
Katie didn’t wait; she straddled the lead position as decisively as a Hell’s Angel would his hog. I got on the back, trying to keep up. Then we took off.
The other guy did, too.
“Is he coming?” Katie asked.
“Yes!”
“Damn!”
The three of us rode on parallel sides of the street, separated by water. Occasionally, we passed another tiny bridge, which linked the two parts of the gracht. For now, the guy was safely behind.
“Catching up?”
“Not so far!”
“Good!”
We passed over another bridge. When I turned to look across, I didn’t see him anymore.
“I think we lost him!” I called.
“What?”
“I said I think we—”
I turned to look again, virtually turned my head around. The bicyclist had taken the bridge, and was now on our side. And gaining.
“Forget what I said!”
“What?”
“He’s coming closer!”
“Okay then! Hold on!”
“What?”
“I said, hold on!”
KATIE STOOD IN THE SADDLE AGAIN.
I was too rattled to ogle her. My heart rose as she did, and I could feel the blood in my ears.
We zoomed past rows and rows of adorable, identical Dutch brown-stones. Soon all I saw were blurred colors; the city became an Impressionist painting, courtesy of Katie. I had no choice but to dig in, and my tortured legs hammered up and down.
I hoped Katie knew what she was doing. I thought that Jack Nicholson had replaced Rip Torn in Easy Rider and Lee Marvin had replaced Keenan Wynn in The Wild One.
When I turned, the guy was even closer.
My head bobbing, I couldn’t focus on his face; but beneath the goggles, he seemed to be grinning, crazily.
I turned forward again. The neighborhood was coming to an end. Too soon, the street would gutter out into a commercial block catering to tourists. I saw a big, corny windmill above a tacky restaurant.
There was one last bridge over a last canal before we got there. My mind racing as fast as the bike, I thought that Alec Guinness had replaced Charles Laughton in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Laughton was too fat to be bought as a prisoner of war.
The whiz of wheels was now right behind my head.
I flared around, unable to resist seeing our pursuer. He had the same strange gritted-teeth look, only more extreme, the effort of the chase taking its toll. But he wasn’t too tired to do something new.
He reached out to grab our bike.
His fingers clawed at the rat-trap above our back rear tire. He fell away. Then he tried again. Katie and I managed to pedal fast enough to keep him ever reaching, never taking hold. But how long could we keep on doing it?
“Don’t stop!” I yelled, more at myself than her.
“Don’t worry!” Katie responded.
