Feelings of Fear by Graham Masterton Page A

six or seven years and $137,000 in extra finance from Randy’s grandpa we managed to climb gradually into profit. Then we wanted to expand into Europe, sending Porsches and light-bodied BMWs to America, and bringing Pontiac Firebirds and Chevrolet Corvettes into Belgium.
    So that was where the Bank van België came in. Jan Boedewerf and I were supposed to work out a realistic finance package which would enable us to order eleven Maseratis and six Lamborghinis as well as two Bentley Azuras and a Rolls-Royce Silver Something.
    To put it mildly, it was an uphill battle, in spite of the fact that Antwerp was one of the flattest places on earth. Jan was practical, straight-laced and completely literal-minded. We had to go through pages and pages of European Union directives and more small print than a Gideon Bible; and I knew that his bosses wouldn’t tolerate anything less.
    â€œEmissions?” Jan would say, picking up a sheet of paper and peering at me through those glass-brick lenses. “What about emissions? We have to have percentage guarantees.”
    â€œYou’re a banker, not a mechanic,” I told him. “What do you care?”
    â€œYou can’t sell a car if it smells,” he retorted, which was just about the only faintly amusing thing I ever heard him say.
    One morning in the second week of January it was so foggy that we could see nothing outside of our twelfth-story window but gray freezing fog, penetrated only by the black knobbly spires of Our Lady’s Cathedral and Saint James’s Church where Rubens was buried. I was tapping out a row of figures when Jan said, “Why don’t you come to lunch today and meet my friend Hoete?”
    â€œI don’t think so, Jan. I want to finish up these forecasts first. We’re running way over time.”
    â€œYou’re so eager to go back to Alabama?”
    â€œDo you blame me, for Christ’s sake? At least it’s warm in Alabama.”
    â€œStill, we have almost completed everything, haven’t we? And you will enjoy Hoete’s company, I’m sure.”
    I sat back in my swivel chair and looked at him. “After everything you’ve said about him?”
    Jan shrugged and made a silly face. Against my better judgement, I switched off my computer. We had almost pulled together a mutually agreeable finance package, and at our last meeting I got the impression that Bank van België were pretty much decided. They were going to go with us, I could sense it. All we needed was $2.75 million and Fancy Cars Inc was on its way to global domination. Today, Antwerp. Tomorrow … who knew? Aston Martins to Azerbajan? De Tomasos to Delhi?
    â€œOK,” I said. “Let’s go meet this grouchy pal of yours.”
    We walked across the gray cobbles of Schelde Stratt in a fine wet drizzle and hailed a taxi to take us to the old part of Antwerp, to a restaurant called ’t Spreeuwke in the Oude Koornmarkt. I was wearing gloves but it was so cold that I had to clap my hands together. That was the trouble with Antwerp: it lay so low that you hardly knew where the land ended and the Schelde River began. And there was always the feeling that ghosts were around, hurrying through the fog. Rubens, and the Rockox, and the Plantin-Moretus family.
    â€™T Spreeuwke was warm and wood-paneled and almost all of the tables were crowded. The maitre-d’ produced two enormous menus and led us through the restaurant to the very back, to a circular table beneath a circular window – a table set for three. The place was fullof laughter and the pungent aroma of mussels. Jan said, “What will you have? A glass of beer?”
    â€œOK. Sounds good to me.”
    He ordered in Flemish, and the waiter brought three glasses of pils, which he set out on the table in front of us.
    â€œJack,” said Jan, raising his glass. “Allow me to introduce you to my friend Martin Hoete.”
    I lifted my glass, too,