The Perfidious Parrot Read online

  As soon as the sea around the Berrydore was free of boats and warriors, Captain Noah dropped a line to the lonely swimmer and pulled de Gier aboard. Far away the Stars and Stripes were raised on the cargo vessel. The jet fighters returned again, streaking ahead of their own sound that thundered over the schooner as the planes dove and strafed an island beyond the cargo ship. The schooner’s crew ducked despairingly when another giant bomber dropped more rafts, containers and men. The lagoon, once again, was speckled with the heads of attacking soldiers. “Frogmen,” Captain Noah, crouching next de Gier on the safe side of the schooner’s cabin, shouted over the clamor of rapid gun fire. “An Amphibious Special Forces exercise. These must be what they call the ‘Dead Men Keys.’ We’re well off course.”

  De Gier, glad he had left his personal papers back in the hotel, tried to squeeze water out of his jeans and jacket. Grijpstra, moving on elbows and knees, approached slowly. “You okay?” de Gier asked. Grijpstra didn’t hear him; the nearby explosions of missiles and grenades had deafened him. He sighed and collapsed.

  After more American flags appeared, one to each conquered island or sandbank, a rubber boat captain hailed the Berrymore. The officer seemed genuinely outraged. “What do you think you are doing here? This is restricted territory. Nobody comes here. We could have shot you, you idiots. You are under arrest.”

  Captain Noah cited fog and his own stupidity. He promised he would never get his schooner stuck on a military sandbank again. He told the officer how much he and his crew had enjoyed watching the show. He mentioned the warriors’s efficiency, courage and patriotism. He told the officer how much he would have liked to have been a military man himself.

  The rubber boat captain relented. He spoke into his hand-held radio. More rubber boats appeared and pushed and pulled the schooner free. Grijpstra was sick as soon as the Berrydore began to move on the billowing swell. The vomit hit his shoes, not the frogmen’s heads below, because de Gier pulled him away in time.

  “Wasn’t that something?” Captain Noah asked de Gier after saying goodbye to his liberators. Grijpstra was ashore already, leaning against a palm tree. “Anything else I can help you folks with?”

  “Tell me about the oil trade,” de Gier said.

  “Hashish oil?” Captain Noah asked. “A friend of mine brought it in, in dud gas tanks in antique Jaguar cars that he sold to collectors. One of his girlfriends told on him. He has been in jail for a while now.”

  “Crude oil,” de Gier said. “The raw material for fuel. Comes in on supertankers. Gets lost sometimes.”

  The captain was interested. “Here? Near Key West?”

  “Near St. Maarten,” de Gier said. “Antilles. This side of Puerto Rico.”

  “I know the area,” Captain Noah said. “I sometimes visit St. Kitts and Nevis, in the British West Indies. You want some leads? It would cost you a commission.”

  “I need a lead,” de Gier said.

  “Good grass on some of those islands,” the captain said. “There are airstrips too. Someone picked up fifty tons of the shit once, flew it straight to Paris. It was a jumbo load. I could get you an introduction. Will cost you a few thousand, okay?”

  De Gier was confused. “In a tanker plane?”

  “You want fifty tons of hash oil?”

  “Crude oil,” de Gier said. “A supertanker, a ship, the Sibylle, got herself pirated near St. Maarten. The cargo was property of Ambagt & Son, operating out of the FEADship Admiraal Rodney.”

  Captain Noah had seen the Rodney. “You want to know who the pirates are?”

  “I need to find the cargo.” De Gier smiled apologetically, “It wasn’t insured.”

  The captain whistled. “We’re talking millions.”

  “I’ll pay you five hundred dollars,” de Gier said.

  Captain Noah kept whistling.

  De Gier whistled along.

  “Two hundred now,” the captain said, “three hundred when I give you some relevant information. Can I reach you anywhere?”

  “I’ll find you,” de Gier said.

  Captain Noah wrote down the number of his cellular telephone.

  De Gier peeled off two bills.

  13

  SAINTLY MUSICAL CRIES

  The pilot of the commissaris’s chartered Learjet had called Aruba airport to make sure that a cab would be waiting. The cab’s driver was a big black man in colorful clothes. His vehicle was a large model Mercedes, some fifteen years old, nicely kept up.

  “Hotel, sir? You are Dutch, are you? I thought so. I am from Curaçao so I speak Dutch but on this dumb island only English is spoken.”

  The commissaris said he was looking for an oil tanker captain by the name of Souza. The driver knew no tanker captains although there should be some around, cruising their ships between Aruba’s Lago refinery and the U.S. The driver did know Colombian and Venezuelan schooner captains who brought in produce from the South American mainland. He turned toward his passenger, sitting forlornly in the middle of the huge rear seat, comical under his outmoded pith helmet but otherwise quite correctly attired, in his shantung tropical outfit, with a golden watch chain across the modest bulge of his small stomach. “Vegetables and other organics.”

  “Oil,” the commissaris said.

  “Organic pick-me-ups, I would be referring to, sir,” said the driver, “or push-me-downs, as the case may be.”

  “Crude oil,” the commissaris said. “Would there be a meeting place for merchant marine officers on Aruba?”

  “Sniffing organics, injectable organics, edible organics, smokable organics, up-the-rectum organics, even smear-on-the-genitals organics.” The driver hadn’t started his car yet. “But you don’t have to visit a bar for that, sir. I can bring samples to your hotel. Less risky for you. You are in luck, I am the exact contact you have been wishing to meet, sir.”

  “Captain Souza,” the commissaris said. “Master of the Sybille, a supertanker. An alcoholic and a pornographer, if I have been informed correctly. A black man. A citizen of Aruba.”

  “We have hookers here too,” the driver said. “Not quite the quality you might find on Curaçao but not bad either. Discount hookers. Specialized. Whatever you like, sir. Please specify ages, measurements, colors. I will bring them to your hotel. Rubberized of course, no risk of picking up the nasties, sir.”

  “Captain Souza,” the commissaris said, “was flown in, ill. Possibly both feet were amputated. I am sure you can direct me to someone who could help me find the captain.”

  “An oil skipper,” the driver said. “The Sabaneta Hotel bar does attract seamen. Suppose you give me a hundred up front and a hundred if I can find your man. I’ll drive you anywhere. Two hundred in all plus whatever the meter says.”

  The commissaris leaned forward. “You have no meter.”

  “If I had a meter,” the driver said, “it would say about a hundred when I take you to the final destination of today, sir.”

  The seamen’s bar in the village of Sabaneta, ten kilometers from the airport and five from the Lago tanker-harbor on Aruba’s St. Nicholas Bay, was furnished with rough-sawn wooden tables and bright plastic yellow chairs. The music was live, performed by two black trumpet players, a guitar playing Indian (from India) and a tall round-faced white man as leader. The leader’s long hair was silver-gray and hung down smoothly. The long mustache, peeking out under the large luminous eyes and high cheekbones, made him look catlike. The leader doubled as a percussion player, using a set of calabashes and metal bells hanging down from the ceiling. He also sang scat, with occasional long brittle cries that, whenever they escaped his wide chest, instantly halted all background playing although the trumpets sometimes supplied dialogue, either musically commenting on the leader’s cat calls or asking their own questions. The commissaris, looking about the large room to see if he could pick out possible tanker captains, paid no conscious attention to the music but became aware, after a while, of vibrations in his spine and skull whenever the shrill cries sounded.


  The establishment was an “everything place” the driver said. One could eat, drink, gamble, use substances, dance and consent to be taken by hostesses to rooms in the rear. The hostesses wore neat cotton dresses and simple white high heeled shoes, as if they were visiting each other for tea and cookies. They spoke Spanish. The driver said the young ladies were coastal Colombian, and had come to Aruba to earn their dowries in two weeks, the maximum duration of visas issued by the Dutch Maréchaussee, military police sent all the way from the former colonizing nation of The Netherlands.

  “Come here,” the driver said to one of the girls. “Que venga aqui, amor.”

  The hostess smiled at the commissaris. “Lo que quieres, viejito.” She sat down on his knee.

  “Whatever you wish, little old man,” the driver translated, adding that “old man” was a term of endearment. “Margarita is to be married in Barranquilla next month. The house is rented but hasn’t been furnished yet. Your contribution will be appreciated.” The driver closed his eyes in ecstasy. “Oh, to donate one’s sperm to the purchase of a bedside lamp.” He winked at the commissaris. “Margarita has been tried and approved.” He raised an appreciative finger. “A-1 Fancy.”

  “Tried by you?” the commissaris asked.

  “By who else?”

  “Gracias,” the commissaris said, and added that he didn’t have the time. “Que no tengo tiempo, desgraciadamente. I am here for trabajo, work, my dear. I am looking for el capitan Souza del buque Sibylle, pirated cerca la isla holandesa Sint Maarten.”

  “I don’t know your friend captain Souza. No lo conozco.” The girl smiled and got up. She touched his hand. “Hasta luego.”

  The commissaris lifted his pith helmet. “Muy amable.”

  “Really,” the driver said. “You speak the language.”

  “My wife Katrien is taking Spanish lessons,” the commissaris said. “She wants us to retire to Spain. We make up conversations together. We never agree on any subject we bring up.” He looked at the hostess drinking a cola drink at the bar. “Amazing, don’t you think?”

  “Your wife Katrien?”

  “She, too,” the commissaris said. “But I was referring to Santa Margarita over there. To think that the dear little thing would actually go to bed with me.”

  “For money.” The driver looked at the girl. “With me, too.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t do it. Not with me. Not for all the money in the Caribbean. Maybe it’s different for women.”

  The commissaris thought so too. “Perhaps they can switch off their imagination.”

  “Unbelievable,” the driver said.

  The commissaris couldn’t believe it either.

  “I am glad I don’t have to believe,” the driver said.

  The commissaris said that there might come a moment when there would be no need to believe anymore, a moment of revelation where everything would become clear. Maybe a release from having to believe would occur during death.

  The driver crossed himself in fear, although, he told the commissaris in a low voice, he wouldn’t mind death because death would liberate him.

  “From what?”

  “From me,” the driver said.

  Fried rice was served, with side dishes of smoked and fried fish, and pickled peppers, the biting taste of which, the commissaris thought, complemented the shrill cries of the cat-faced scat singer.

  The waiter knew one Emilio Souza who had a brother who commanded a tanker. Emilio was a famous figure in Aruba. Emilio would, after drinking his fill, be taken home by his donkey. The donkey drank too but not as much as Emilio. Emilio Souza no longer visited the Sabaneta bar. His, and the donkey’s, liquor bill had long ago reached its limit. Perhaps the pair visited the Divi Divi Bar now. The Divi Divi Bar was situated in Ponton. At the driver’s request the waiter called the Divi Divi. He came back to say that Emilio was banned there too and was now living on credit in Venezuela. The waiter didn’t know where in Venezuela. Emilio’s wife Solange lived in Aruba, in Boca Mahos. Solange was Mexican, the waiter had met her. Some years ago that was. He said she seemed a nice woman. Maybe too smart though. Pregnant and barefoot but her eyes were too twinkly. “Can’t have that,” the waiter said. “Can’t let them see through us.”

  The commissaris gave the waiter twenty dollars.

  “Is Boca Mahos far from here?” the commissaris asked. The waiter and the driver laughed uproariously. In Aruba nothing was far. The commissaris, a citizen of the immeasurable plains of Holland, could not imagine the smallness of the island of Aruba. The waiter brought a cordless telephone. The commissaris, after having been given a number that the waiter looked up for him, managed to raise Solange. Solange said she had nothing to do with Emilio and even less with her brother-in-law, the tanker captain Guzberto Souza. “Todos chingados!” She broke off the connection.

  “Chingados?” the commissaris asked.

  “Mexican for ‘the fucked’,” the driver said. “Not fuckers, she would have said chingadores if she had meant fuckers.”

  “Pity,” the commissaris said. “I do have to meet with Guzberto Souza. Won’t you try? Tell her I wouldn’t mind paying her.”

  The driver touched in the number. “Solange, you will receive monedas, ducados, dinero sancto, plata chingada, patatas de oro.”

  He looked at the commissaris. “How many monies, ducats, holy coins, fucked-up silver, golden potatoes?”

  “Fifty?”

  The driver said that Solange said she would see them. “Fifteen minutes through vales and hills. Nice trip, sir.”

  “After dessert.” The commissaris wanted to hear more calabash and bell music. The dessert was stewed pears under a breast-shaped cone of stiffly whipped cream with a cherry as nipple. Margarita served the final course. She wanted to know whether the commissaris really didn’t want to make use of her body. She specialized in older clients. It wouldn’t take long.

  “Gracias, pero que me pardona por favor,” the commissaris said.

  “What was your wife’s name again?” the driver asked.

  “Katrien,” the commissaris said. “My name is Jan.”

  The driver thought that was great. “Jan is scared of Katrien,” he told Margarita. “Katrien beats Jan. Don’t you know, the puppet couple of olden times? Jan Klaassen and Katrien? Punch and Judy? She always beats him. On his wooden head.”

  Margarita didn’t know the couple. Were they literature? She didn’t think Gabriel García Márquez had ever mentioned the puppet couple.

  “Gabriel who?” the driver asked.

  “The Colombian Nobel prize winner,” the commissaris whispered.

  The driver slapped himself on the forehead. “Of course.”

  The combo’s two trumpets and guitar played what the commissaris recognized as a Bach cantata he had once heard in Vienna. The trumpets wove the melody through the guitar’s rhythm, then dropped back so that the leader could repeat the theme with his weirdly elongated cries. The silence returned, and was framed by the percussionist with pedantic little dry knocks on his gourds. The clicking made the Colombian hostesses turn and shake their hips and bosoms, the clients stood next to their partners, ramrod straight, hands on backs, chins extended. The trumpets played a duet, Vienna mezzo-sopranos with Mexican innuendos. The catlike white leader played a snare drum, using both rim and skin, alternating clicking with reverberating staccato rattles.

  The driver was happy. “This is it, sir.” The commissaris agreed. Perhaps he should stay here on Aruba. He could send for Turtle. Katrien could stay behind with the grandchildren. They could E-mail each other.

  In order to defuse music-generated tensions the hostesses took their pleasurably excited clients to the café’s back rooms. Margarita escorted a red-headed first mate in his splendid whites. Bartenders busily pumped draft beer, creating immaculate white-cuffed glasses of golden fluid. Waiters rushed about carrying trays of broiled snapper and grouper.

  “The band leader is a guru,” the driver said. “He realized his
true nature in Amsterdam. Because they still know shit there he came to us.”

  “Ach,” the commissaris said. He had been cleaning his eyeglasses, blaming possible dirt or steam for the appearance of a halo above the catlike man’s head. “And what does he do when he isn’t making mystic music here?”

  “He gambles in the Hilton.”

  “He wins?”

  “He loses,” the driver said.

  “Thank you,” the commissaris said before leaving the Sabaneta bar. He passed a hundred dollar note to the band leader. “You play wonderful music.”

  “Specially composed and performed for your benefit, Commissaris.”

  The commissaris failed to recognize the guru.

  “I used to call myself ‘Puss in Boots,’ ”* the singer said, pointing at his high leather shoewear. “Amsterdam North, twenty years ago. I kept busy keeping unemployed assholes busy, on the dike. Steal and share. Remember that time, sir? You did not agree with my idealism. Made me do some jail time. To take care of karma I worked for National Assistance for quite some years but what I do now seems more suited to my mission.”

  “I came to see a captain Guzberto Souza of a pirated supertanker, the Sibylle,” the commissaris said.

  The percussionist touched his gourds. The trumpets blared, the guitar trembled. The commissaris’s spine began to vibrate again. The sensation became almost unbearable when the singer started his thin brittle singing.