Just a Corpse at Twilight (3 page)

"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."

"Your friend's trouble?"

"Psychological, ma'am." Grijpstra smiled. "Not to worry. Besides, his grandmother was Jewish."

She smiled too. "What's this
Jewish?"

"Because you're concerned," Grijpstra said. "You don't want your plane to be blown up, you want to know I'm okay."

"Are you okay?" the clerk asked.

"Oh yes," Grijpstra said.

"So what's your friend's trouble?"

Grijpstra sighed. "Money maybe?"

"He doesn't have money?"

"He has lots and lots of money," Grijpstra said. "He's free of needs. It's hard to be free of needs."

"Your friend is religious?"

"No," Grijpstra said.

"It sometimes helps to keep busy."

"Are you religious?" Grijpstra asked.

"No," the clerk said. "My husband is. He says he's got to be to face the riddle. Do you face the riddle?"

"I'd rather look the other way."

"What if it won't let you?"

"Then it makes me crazy, ma'am."

"Do you have lots and lots of money?"

"Some," Grijpstra said.

"So you're free of needs?"

"Some," Grijpstra said, "but the vacuum doesn't worry me that much. It's beauty that makes me crazy. I try to get it by painting upside-down ducks on canals. I also try to play it on drums."

"Do you ever get it?"

"No," Grijpstra said. He also said that he wasn't carrying any arms or explosives and hadn't accepted any parcels from strangers. She didn't check his luggage.

"You believe me?" Grijpstra asked.

"Some," the clerk said. She smiled.

She looked Egyptian. He thought he'd seen her as a sculpture between hieroglyphics in a museum in Leyden. She had long black hair, an olive skin, very large eyes, and softly carved lips. He asked her. She said her folks had come from Egypt.

The Boeing, rumbling up to the runway, was accompanied by two armored trucks with machine-gun turrets sticking out of their backs. Inside the plane a movie was starting up: Robert Redford in Cuba. Grijpstra watched, listening to music on another channel: Bill Evans on piano, Eddy Gomez on bass. The piano right hand was strong, like a solo horn almost, and the bass—Grijpstra thought that the instrument's bridge had to be moved up to provide such cello-like sounds—answered the piano's questions a little, coming up with questions ofits own too, so that the harmo- nious dialogue might deepen. Robert Redford's tropical landscape setting was both romantic and fearful, depending on whether the camera focused on beautiful people on unpolluted beaches or on propeller warplanes strafing beautiful people on unpolluted beaches. Grijpstra liked the architecture of the Cuban mansions and the sultry actress who duetted, as Mr. Gomez's bass became her voice here and there, with Robert Redford, whose pleasing profile took on sound in the sensitive jazz piano's notes. The attractive actress could be proud of her country, and she was being very hospitable, very ready to share.

Grijpstra slept, seeing a sultry Lorraine sharing the magic of the Maine coast with de Gier, then woke gasping as she got kicked down a cliff for her troubles.

Chapter 3

The commissaris, old, wrinkled, small, thin, reflected on his status of
otium cum dignitate,
while watching his knees emerging like twin islands out of the foam ofhis bubble bath.
Out of office with honor,
so it said, in Latin and gold lettering, on a little mahogany shield handed over by Amsterdam's chief constable when the commissaris, chiefofdetectives, retired after forty years of representing the queen to serve the people. Katrien, wrapped in a towel, sat on a stool next to the bath and observed her lover.

Katrien had her hair in curlers. The commissaris had lost his last hair, except a little fluff on a narrow chest. Katrien frowned. "So what are you saying? That de Gier doesn't kick women off cliffs? So what do
you
know? You don't even know the story about the boots and the laces."

The commissariss head disappeared at one end of the bath, his foot appeared at the other. The foot moved closer to the faucets. The big toe on the foot adjusted the hot faucet. Toe and foot disappeared. Head reappeared.

"Don't do that," Katrien said. "My father did that. He died. He was having a heart attack. My mother thought he was joking."

The commissaris washed his spectacles and handed them over to Katrien.

"Yes?"

"Please dry them," the commissaris said.

She dried the glasses, leaned over, carefully adjusted the frame across his nose and ears. "Yes?"

"Thank you for drying my glasses," the commissaris said. "I wish you wouldn't wear those curlers, dear."

"Who says you have to look at me? Nellie is right, you know. De Gier shows his true colors now that he's on his own. You could have seen it earlier on but you never wanted to, of course. Just think of the sort oflife Rinus was leading."

"Ah." The commissaris smiled.

"Yes," Katrien said. "Too late now, Jan. If I had practiced law, as I wanted to, we could have had an affair. We could have been living apart together. You could have had cats like Oliver and Tabriz and women like what's her name."