Just a Corpse at Twilight Read online

  "Flash and Bad George aren't too bad," de Gier said. "They're more like silly. Flash has felted hair, like a bird's nest. Bad George had a car accident, his face got stitched up by a cheap doctor who changed it into a doll's face. They're simpletons who live on their vessel with their smart dog, Kathy Two. They came back this morning, after getting rid of Lorraine's body, to get paid off."

  "Don't tell me you paid."

  "I said I was light on change," de Gier said, "but that you'd help out. Okay?"

  "So the law doesn't know yet?"

  "No."

  "You have choices," Grijpstra said. "You know that, don't you?"

  "I pay?" de Gier asked. "I choose to kick Flash and Bad George down the clifis too? I choose to go to jail? Jail isn't pretty here, Henk. Inmates watch a dead screen all afternoon, until the guard comes to push the button for the evening news."

  "You could run," Grijpstra said pleasantly. "Just ease yourself away." His sweeping hand illustrated the image.

  "It'll ease after me," de Gier said. "Besides, I have to know what happened here."

  "Remember what we used to tell suspects?" Grijpstra asked. "When we were out of cells again?"

  " 'Run, asshole, run'?" de Gier asked. "No. Listen. This isJameson, Woodcock County, state of Maine. You can find it. Fly in via Boston. Take El Al. I just phoned, they've got a flight leaving Schiphol Airport at two A.M. your time. Out of Boston there should be a commuter flight to Portland. Rent a car from there. It'll take just a few hours."

  "You pick me up."

  "I can't," de Gier said. "There's too much going on here. I'm very visible. The sheriff might put out an all-points."

  "I get sleepy driving," Grijpstra said.

  "You still have that trouble?"

  "Getting worse." Grijpstra nodded. "But I know why now—I have these polyps that grow in my sinuses that make me snore and wake up at night. Don't get enough rest. If we go out of town Nellie has to drive me."

  "Get operated on."

  "Sure," Grijpstra said. "There's a two-month waiting list. Keep me informed meanwhile. Let me know how you're doing. Goodbye for now, Rinus."

  "HENK!"

  "Right here."

  "Take the bus from Portland to Jameson. It's a Greyhound. It's easy, Henk."

  "I'll get lost," Grijpstra said. "You're the international type, not me, remember?"

  "Ask the commissaris for directions," de Gier said. "He and I were here before when he had to help his widowed sister.

  "HELLO?" de Gier called, breaking the silence.

  "I'm on my own now," Grijpstra said.

  "I'm sorry, Henk."

  "You don't sound sorry."

  "But I am."

  "You shouldn't kick friendly women to death," Gri-jpstra said.

  "Squid Island," de Gier said, forced by his diminishing stock of coins to talk quickly. "With your back to Beth's Diner that'll be the second island off the peninsula on your left. The island with the pedestal house, lots of glass under two kind of peaked sloping roofs. Like a pagoda, you can't miss it. At rowing distance from the Point. Have Beth—she owns the restaurant, she's a friend—or Aki call the Kathy Three on the citizens band radio. Flash and Bad George will pick you up. Stay away from the sheriff, Hairy Harry."

  "Who?"

  "Joke," de Gier said. "Hairy Harry's hair never grew." Through a window next to his phone booth de Gier could see the sheriff inside the restaurant. Hairy Harry was a pleasant enough looking man but a poor-quality window pane distorted his bare skull, made it pointed, so that he looked like a space character out of a badly drawn cartoon. Extraterrestrial Hairy Harry was munching a hamburger, with a double helping oftrimmings. The sheriff wore a faded checkered flannel shirt, neatly ironed, and patched but clean jeans stuck into polished half-high boots. His bit of a belly might be more muscle than flab. A long-barreled Magnum revolver in a holster was held up by a polished police-type gun belt, with handcuffs, notebook, and flashlight all neatly inserted. The sheriff raised a hand to greet de Gier, then dropped it to force a stream of honey into his coffee. The honey oozed from an upside-down transparent bear-shaped plastic squeeze bottle. Honeybear's feet looked puny above the sheriff's pink fist.

  Grijpstra said, "No one saw you even kick the alleged victim. So, no corpse, no murder."

  De Gier's last quarters clashed into the phone. "No."

  "Where's the body now?"

  "My blackmailers hid it. Listen," de Gier said. "Picture the situation: I'm deliberately high on this whiskey-and-pot-and-Miles Davis combination. Lorraine arrives. She wants meaningful hanky-panky. I say, 'Some other evening, darling.' She still wants meaningful hanky-panky. Push comes to shove. And she must have fallen down that clifE I go into the house. The motor vessel Kathy Three arrives, with Kathy Two on the bridge, barking like crazy. I see the ship, hear the dog, but I don't react. Flash and Bad George go ashore and find Lorraine, bleeding. Lorraine tells them I came at her and kicked her. Flash gets into the house but I'm too far gone to say anything. Flash takes a blanket from the house. He and Bad George wrap Lorraine in the blanket, carry her to the boat, and set off for Jameson to take her to a doctor. But halfway there, Lorraine dies. The Kathy Three turns back and Flash and George show me Lorraine's corpse. I'm still out of my mind. Flash suggests that he and George get rid of the corpse somewhere. I say sure."

  "Kathy Two is a dog?"

  "Small and woolly. She likes me. She liked Lorraine, too. Flash says they wouldn't have checked Squid Island last night if Kathy hadn't been barking. As soon as they got close, Kathy Two jumped ashore and led them to Lorraine."

  "Who is Kathy One?"

  "Mother of Flash Farnsworth. She gave him a bad time so he told her she'd have to come back as his dog. There's some Indian blood here; Indians believe in ideas like that."

  "Flash treats the dog well?"

  "Kathy Two runs his whole show."

  "So Flash isn't all bad?"

  "No," de Gier said. "But he thinks I'm made of money and he has this little notebook in the breast pocket of his overall and a little bit of a pencil and he likes to write bills. He's been ripping me off for running errands but the man is poor and Kathy Three is expensive to run and it would be hard to get along here without the services ofthose two and I've got all this cash."

  "What did Flash charge for getting rid of the body?"

  "Ten thousand."

  "Dollars?"

  "Dollars is the currency here."

  "So?"

  "Okay," de Gier said, "I know what you're saying, but it's the principle, Henk."

  A recorded message interfered, asking for more quarters.

  "I'm out of coins. So you're coming, Henk? Okay?"

  Grijpstra's answering okay got lost as the phone first clicked, then buzzed. The lack of communication, Grijpstra told Nellie afterward, didn't matter because he and de Gier were friends: Twenty years of togetherness form a connection for the duration. De Gier knew he could rely on his soulmate Grijpstra. He and de Gier had a spiritual relationship, a shared quest, if you will. De Gier took care of the subtle aspect of that quest while Grijpstra was in charge of basic details. Grijpstra told Nellie that such bonding might be hard to explain.

  Nellie helped Grijpstra pack. She said he didn't have to explain because the whole thing was pure little boy's masturbation bullshit, that he'd been looking for an excuse to leave her for a while now, that he was just itching to chase more exotic women. She found his pistol, a Walther P 5, the new police weapon, no safety, urtable not to demolish anything it pointed at (up to six hundred feet), but Grijpstra put the weapon back between the longjohns he wouldn't take along either. "Won't get through airport security, honey."

  "Won't they try to hurt you out there?" Nellie's ample bosom, packed in a pink sweater, flowed against Grijpstra's powerful chest.

  Nellie had been a Miss Holland contestant, but her attributes had overwhelmed the judges. Nellie lost, but her friendly pimp, university student Gerard, was the lucky winner. Nellie
didn't love Gerard then but found it hard to resist his charm and good looks. Gerard, Nellie told her intimate friend Katrien not all that long ago, when they were having tea, resembled de Gier, both in- and outside. Gerard and Rinus could be twins. Here we see two very similar men, one dead, one drifting, both tall, athletic, philosophically curious, sporting cavalry mustaches, surrealists who refuse to watch TV, not even football. Gerard read modern French literature aloud to please Nellie, whose parents were Belgian/French, but the existentialist French authors depressed Nellie and the literary French authors seemed too clever, and both brands finished up interfering with her well-earned sleep. De Gier was reputed to read French nihilism to his cats. "Toutes les valeurs sont vides, Oliver. On ne connait rien, Tabriz" De Gier excelled in judo. Gerard liked fencing. Both men drank some, but a pimp is subject to less discipline than a policeman, so Gerard drank more. There was a bar fight and Gerard got knifed by a colleague. Nellie thanked the Lord at Gerard's funeral, after she stole his savings. The devout former mistress set up a private hotel, with champagne room service for gentleman guests, to pay off the mortgage.

  "How did you meet Adjutant Grijpstra, dear?" Katrien had asked.

  Detective-Adjutant Grijpstra had been in charge of the investigation of Gerard's violent death.

  "Nothing to do with you?" Katrien asked.

  Katrien and Nellie had been having tea at Katrien's house, facing the Queen's Boulevard in Amsterdam's fashionable southern quarter. Katrien, from the rear veranda, kept an eye on her husband. The commissaris puttered about in his garden, wafting away gasoline fumes with vigorous sweeps of his cane, keeping clean a row of lettuce that he grew for his pet, a turtle.

  "Nothing to do with me." Nellie smiled.

  "The Lord helped out," Katrien said. She had no faith but she was the hostess of this tea party. And there was the class difference too, Katrien being titled and Nellie a retired whore. Katrien didn't want to be awkward.

  Gerard being dead, both women concentrated on the living.

  "Rinus is no good either," Nellie said, "and he would have been as bad if the commissaris hadn't taught him."

  Katrien wasn't sure. Gerard could have found his commissaris too, had he tried.

  "You think Gerard didn't want to learn?" Nellie asked. "But he did. He was always studying some book or other. On his own. Wasn't that sort of. . ."

  ". . . admirable," Katrien said. "Yes. But my husband, Jan, never tried to boss his colleagues. He didn't dominate de Gier in any way, I mean."

  "Even so," Nellie said. "You know Grijpstra? My HenkieLuwie? He's always quoting your Jan. 'The commissaris used to say this. The commissaris used to say that.'"

  "I know," Katrien said. "My Jan quotes ancient Greeks."

  "A man has to know his own mind."

  "Men don't have their own minds," Katrien said.

  That was funny. They laughed.

  Nellie wanted to say something nice too. "And de Gier never lived off women."

  Katrien broke open a can of chocolate-coated wafers.

  Hostess and guest munched and Katrien said that she was sorry, now that she was old, and the commissaris retired, and the whole thing was over, so to speak, that she had never worked. She had studied law, graduated with honors, could have practiced, but she had had kids instead.

  "That's nice too," Nellie said.

  "You like kids?" Katrien asked.

  "I only had customers," Nellie said. "And HenkieLuvvie now, but I would sometimes like to have a real baby."

  "Funny," Katrien said, "I used to like babies too but now they all look like grubs to me."

  They laughed.

  "How many grubs did you have?" Nellie asked.

  "Too many," Katrien said. "Then look what happens: Nine hundred Dutchmen to the square mile, and three of them are mine, three too many."

  "How many Dutchmen should there be to the square mile?" Nellie asked.

  "None?" Katrien replied.

  "It works both ways," Grijpstra told Nellie now. He told her about male friendship being a thing of beauty, about total trust, about the covenant of the Secret Knights. Suppose he, Grijpstra, were in trouble now. All he'd have to do would be to flick his fingers and there would be Sir Rinus de Gier, jumping in full armor out ofthe nearest closet, firing an Uzi. Wiping out Neo-Nazis. Risking everything to save old Grijpstra.

  "Don't help him out for free," Nellie said. "Rinus is loaded." She pushed Grijpstra's chest. "How come Rinus is loaded?"

  "Inheritance?" Grijpstra asked. "His mother?"

  "Please," Nellie said.

  Grijpstra towered over Nellie, explaining Rinusfe wealth. "First de Giefs mother passed away, then his sister died too, she turned black with cancer, so de Gier got his mother's house and savings and his sister's antique needlework collection that he auctioned offfor big bucks. Then he overheard some investment bankers in the elevator and made a killing on the stock exchange, subsequently doubling that killing in a casino. Lucky Rinus!"

  "Sure," Nellie said. She knew better than to argue. How many times does a pittance have to multiply to pay for travels to New Guinea (where on earth is New Guinea?), to stay with Papuan headhunters for eighteen months, meanwhile popping up for weekends in Amsterdam, for skipping off to America afterward, for sending photographs of selfin sports cars (nobody rents out sports cars), on motorcycles (you have to buy motorcycles too), in new safari suits, with beauties (beauties don't come cheap). Whoever heard of a gambler risking his wad and not losing his wad?

  "De Gier earned regular money in New Guinea," Grijpstra said. "He didn'tjust study with that voodoo fellow, he also assisted the police commissioner of Port Moresby. That very subtle Japanese case? The diplomat murder? Remember all the faxes Rinus sent? And I bet the Japanese Embassy in Port Moresby paid him too."

  "Sure." Nellie smiled sweetly. She'd been a whore and whores are smart. Since when are gttest police officers well paid in Third World countries?

  "You're just jealous," Grijpstra laughed. He blocked Nellie's left hook.

  "Bah!" yelled Nellie.

  Grijpstra, switching into his fatherly mode, was sorry. Nellie, the forgiving darling daughter, forgave Daddy. The warring parties nuzzled.

  "My dear," Grijpstra said, remembering the Gerard/de Gier similarity. He always forgot Nellie was allergic to anything to do with Rinus de Gier. "I'm sorry, my dear."

  The El Al clerk on the phone asked him to please check in early. Nellie raced the big Bronco to the Amsterdam Airport. She liked to feel the power of the machine, to be high off the ground. She hated having the car filled with gas, waiting at the station, watching numbers flick into an astronomical total. "All this expense is eating up our income."

  Grijpstra's defense was that it cost more to ride a wheelchair than a gas guzzler, that expenses could be deducted, that Amsterdam's dangerous lanes and alleys could be best negotiated in a battle car, that he needed the powerful vehicle to impress his clients, like he needed to have Nellie's gable house refurbished to attract good custom.

  Nellie took the opportunity to question Grijpstra's monthly trips to Luxembourg.

  "I get paid in cash sometimes, dear. The cash goes to a tax-free haven. I go there to invest the money properly."

  "And mail monthly checks to Rinus."

  "I manage his savings too," Grijpstra admitted.

  "So much money you two spend."

  Not all that much maybe, and look what it had bought for Nellie: repaired and repainted windowsills, all brick walls filled in and varnished, new copper gutters and drainpipes, the stone angel balancing on the gable's top secured and restored, new oak staircases and floors on all stories, all inside walk whitewashed, beams and posts scraped and oiled, all by the best artisans the city could provide.

  "We must be in debt."

  "But didn't I refinish the entire basement myself?"

  "But why, HenkieLuwie? I thought you were going to have a heart attack, carrying cement, pouring it yourself. Why didn't you let me help you?"

>   He had liked refinishing the entire basement himself.

  "Just to store all those old files. Those messy cartons."

  "A detective needs good files."

  "Why did you take your files to Luxembourg?"

  "Please." Grijpstra frowned. He had saved. He was making good money now. Not to worry. He sang the Bobby McFerrin line in an attempt at falsetto. "Don't worry. Be happy."

  "And your wife, and the kids?"

  Mrs. Grijpstra was lady-in-waiting at her rich sister's residence in the country. The kids were grown and all except Ricky on public assistance. If he gave them money they would smoke that too.

  "And Ricky at the naval academy?"

  Straight A's. A scholarship. Ricky was funded.

  Nellie sighed. The El Al ticket, ordered at a moment's notice on his Luxembourg-issued credit card that would need to be paid at the end of the month, had to be expensive too. "You're billing this to Rinus?"

  Sure.

  "You'll phone me every day?"

  You bet.

  "But that's costly."

  Not if he phoned outside business hours.

  "Early mornings?"

  Sure.

  "But you're never up early mornings."

  See you later, dear Nellie.

  Chapter 2

  Schiphol's departure hall, postmidnight, was empty but for splendidly uniformed military policemen and Israeli agents in jeans and loose jackets. The young woman behind the counter, looking him straight in the eye, wanted to know why Grijpstra insisted on flying El Al. Grijpstra said it: "I'm not Jewish."

  He remembered wartime, Grijpstra, Sr., coming home confused after seeing German troops rounding up Jewish citizens on the Dam Square in Amsterdam's center, to transport them to death camps. Grijpstra's dad had been asked for his ID too. He'd said it: "I'm not Jewish."

  Was that bad now?

  "You said it," the El Al clerk said. "I didn't ask."

  "I was reading your mind," Grijpstra said. "I'm a private detective, Ma'am, I sometimes do that. I have a friend in America who is in some trouble. I'm going to help him out."

  The clerk checked her screen. "That's why you booked in such a hurry?"

  "Yes, ma'am."