To Die Beautiful by Buzzy Jackson

Author:Buzzy Jackson [Jackson, Buzzy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

In the alley, I took a deep breath. Truus put a finger to her lips. I was three years older than Truus, but she was the veteran here. I smiled at her. She winked.

It was quiet again.

A moment later, just around the edge of the building, the door to the bar opened and a glaring rectangle of light, cigarette smoke, laughter, and music splashed onto the empty street. We’d walked by a few times yesterday and today, but only Truus had gone inside. When she came out, she confirmed it: we would approach Kohl outside. The tiny tavern with only one exit was a trap.

Truus peeked around the corner to see as a cluster of four noisy German soldiers clutched each other’s shoulders, creating one huge boozy beast, laughing as they lurched off the curb and almost fell.

Truus shook her head: not Kohl.

The soldiers staggered in our direction, and Truus pressed herself up against me as we’d practiced, pressing her cold cheek against mine, wrapping her arms around my neck: just another young couple sneaking a kiss in the dark. One soldier whistled in our direction, but the others were too distracted by their own hilarity to bother with us. They stumbled away and their rough voices faded. The little street returned to stillness. I used to walk down this street a decade ago to go to piano lessons, I realized.

Truus and I pulled apart and exhaled. We looked in each other’s eyes, communicating without speaking because we’d gone over it fifty times—no, a hundred: Be patient. This would only work if Kohl came out of the club alone.

“Kohl’s no different than the grunts,” she muttered, watching the soldiers disappear. “He thinks he’s on an armed vacation.”

A lot of Germans saw the Netherlands that way, happy to visit a not-too-foreign land filled with blondes and Heineken. I stood up straight and fussed with my hair again, tightening the belt on my coat. As I reached into my purse, Truus glared, but I pulled out a cigarette. Two cigarettes. I flipped open my silver lighter and she leaned in, her freckled features rosy in the flame. In the distance the faint tinkling of a canalboat bell floated in the frosty air. The metallic click when I snapped the clasp of my purse echoed off the cold stone walls. Truus flinched.

“Relax,” I whispered. She glared. Not that I was relaxed. But it made me feel more relaxed to pretend.

The door to the bar opened again: the bright shaft of light, the noise of the drinkers inside again puncturing the cold silence of the narrow street. I leaned out to look and shuddered to a stop.

There he was, just as we’d imagined. At least half a foot taller than either of us, ducking down to exit through the old wooden doorframe, the sweep of his leather greatcoat making him look even bigger. A monstrous raven released from a small cage, flapping and flaunting its wings. The door banged shut behind him.

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