Martin

Martin is a violent, drug-addled American enforcer who works for Horst, a New York-based art dealer and junkie philanthropist. He is sent to Amsterdam to recover the stolen Fabritius painting from Boris and Theo, and is killed by Theo in the ensuing shootout in a parking garage.

Identity and Background

Martin is a broad-shouldered, bored-looking man with a cherubic face and soft white hands, whose calm, friendly voice contrasts sharply with his viper-like eyes. He is a “bad diabetic” and a heavy drug user, so high on the night of the confrontation that his fingers are clumsy and his reactions are slow. Boris describes him as “really, truly nuts—eyestabber kind of nuts,” and claims to have seen him do things he does not like to talk about. Martin and Horst met in a “fancy California mental home” where Horst was in rehab and Martin was a patient because he is genuinely insane. He is accompanied by a thug named Frits, a gray-blond Nordic man with coarse features.

Role in the Amsterdam Confrontation

On Christmas Eve, after Boris and Theo have recovered the painting from a lunchcafe in Amsterdam, Martin and Frits corner them in the Overtoom parking garage. Martin addresses Boris by name in a casual, friendly tone, saying “Merry Christmas.” He explains that Sascha, the man who stole the painting from Boris, called Horst for help, and that Horst sent Martin and Frits to retrieve it. Martin is surprised to be there, having been at a bar called Pim’s when he got the call. He takes the painting from Boris, who refuses to give it up, and orders Frits to take both men to a darker corner of the garage to be killed.

Death

In the struggle, Frits is shot and killed by Boris. Martin, wounded in the arm, tries to raise his gun, but Theo picks up Frits’s fallen pistol and shoots him three times. The first shot hits Martin in the shoulder, the second strikes him above the eye, killing him instantly. Theo later reflects that Martin was “not all human,” that he was born without feelings, and that he would have shot them “out of courtesy.” Boris tells Theo that the police, if they knew, would give him a medal for killing Martin, who had done “much worse things to people than shooting them.”