Janwillem De Wetering - Just a Corpse at Twilight

"Better?" de Gier asked when Grijpstra emerged from the shower. "Ready for lunch? Noodles? I made some noodles. You like mackerel? I have some scallops too that Lorraine got skindiving. Crabmeat? Your favorite cocktail sauce? For starters you do like seafood, don't you?"

"I could be goddamn seafood myself," Grijpstra said.

There were explanations of course, there always were. De Gier had been listening on the CB's open channel all morning except for two brief periods when he thought he heard Mr. Bear rummaging about the pagoda. Bears on the Maine coast don't care to show themselves much. Bear hunting is a sport, practiced diligently by experts such as SheriffHairy Harry and Deputy Billy Boy. De Gier wanted to photograph Mr. Bear with his new Nikon. He'd rigged up wires on the beach that Mr. Bear would touch if he showed up where he had climbed ashore before, at daybreak, a week ago, when de Gier happened to be awake, meditating on the clifis, without the Nikon.

Something touched the wires twice that morning, triggering the alarm. Must have been foxes.

"Don't you carry your radio?" Grijpstra asked.

It wasn't a battery-operated CB. You had to plug it into the wall. "See?" De Gier demonstrated.

"First the goddamn deputy called in to tell you I was here," Grijpstra said, "and then the goddamn restaurant called in that I was here, and you were looking for a bear?"

Chance, happenstance… things go wrong sometimes, this is earth, a planet beyond human understanding, de Gier was truly sorry. "Okay?"

Not okay.

De Gier was sorry Grijpstra felt that way. So how was El Al? Wasn't Ishmael a card? Katrien had written that the commissaris's inflamed leg joints were a trifle better. True? Would Grijpstra care for lobster for dinner?

Grijpstra shoveled down fried noodles and pickles. He felt a bit better, he could maybe imagine that he didn't dislike de Gier. This was like long ago, when he avoided Mrs. Grijpstra by staying over at de Gier's suburban apartment, which faced parks front and back. De Gier was a good cook, using herbs he grew on his balcony, serving choice dishes with a welcoming flourish.

Grijpstra's tone of voice was almost pleading, "So how come you said I could row the distance and when I tried I almost died?"

"From the Point," de Gier said, "it's only a quarter of a mile." He explained, "There's a peninsula south of Jameson and it bends this way." Hadn't Grijpstra seen the Point from Ishmael's plane? Ishmael lived at the Point. Didn't Ishmael show it to him from his airplane?

"I never got that," Grijpstra said. "There's the harbor just outside Beth's Diner, there are dories. Your island is visible from the harbor…"

"No," de Gier explained. From Jameson Harbor to Squid Island was quite a few miles. Nobody in his right mind would ever try it. Only the stupid maybe.

"Stu-pid?" Grijpstra asked, lowering his fork, pointing his fork.

Well, kind of silly, de Gier said. And then somebody at the diner, probably Aki, was supposed to… lovely Aki, Akiapola'au… named after the vulture finch of her native islands of Hawaii…

"Vulture finch." Grijpstra glared. "No such thing."

"Please," de Gier said. "Change your coordinates. We aren't at home. Mr. Bear visits this island, and there's such a thing as a vulture finch in Hawaii." De Gier smiled. "You liked the lady? Aren't you pleased you came? Something else, eh?"

Grijpstra had carried his bowl of noodles to the window and was looking at the peninsula shore, which was, indeed, close. He was eating again.

"You liked Akiapola'au?"

"The vulture finch is lesbian," Grijpstra said.

De Gier stared.

"Isn't she?" Grijpstra asked. "So is Beth. I saw it. I always do."

"So?"

Grijpstra shrugged.

"Are you a sexist now?" de Gier asked.

"Please," Grijpstra said. "We've gone through this before. I was New Age before the Age was New. Sexism means that one sex thinks it's superior to the other. That's negative. I'm definitive."

"You're negative," de Gier said. "I asked whether you like Aki and you say, 'She's lesbian.'"

"Not that way." Grijpstra stopped slurping noodles.

"I said,'She's lesbian.'"

"With that kind smile?"

Grijpstra stopped slurping again. He swallowed. "With that kind smile."

"So you like Akiapola'au?"

"I like Akiapola'au fine."

"And Beth?"

Grijpstra nodded. "I like Beth fine too." He pointed his fork at de Gier. "It's you I don't happen to care for right now."

"I care for you," de Gier said. "I hadmade arrangements. If I wasn't at the restaurant whenyou arrived-and I probably wouldn't be since I didn't know how long Ishmael would take to get you here from Boston-then Beth was to call the Kathy Three. If she couldn't raise Flash and Bad George, either Beth herself or Aki was supposed to drive you to the Point, and you could row yourself from there. Beth told you so. She was busy, she askedyou to wait a few minutes, but you wandered off, and then there you were rowing out into the bay, with a gale buildingupandlowtidesuckinglikecrazy. ShesentthesherifF after you, but he came back, saying you didn't want to be picked up, which she found hard to believe, so she eventually managed to raise the Kathy Three."

"So you're telling me I was in good hands?" Grijpstra reported on his meeting with the sheriffs powerboat.

De Gier was nodding.

"What are you nodding for?"

"Another complication I didn't foresee," de Gier said.

"There's drug traffic here. Maybe they think I'm interested.

Now maybe they think you're interested too."

"Who's they?"

"Probably everybody," de Gier said. "There's marijuana growing on all the islands and there's more coming in by boat, and there's probably hard stufftoo, being flown in all the time."

"And the sheriff is in on that?"

"Please," de Gier said.

"Please what?"

De Gier gestured. "Remember Amsterdam? Remember any possible drug being available at any possible time at any possible place and nearly four thousand policemen running around keeping the distribution going? You've heard of capitalism? Ofsupply and demand? If we don't do it someone else will? May as well be us? I mean, after all, who is in charge here?"

"Not all four thousand of them," Grijpstra said.

"Most all of them, some way or other."

"Not us."

"So the situation gets confusing," de Gier said. "If cops are supposedly against that sort of thing, but most of them are kind of all Hup Ho let's do it…"

"I almost got lost at sea because you told these killers here that you and I used to be cops?" Grijpstra asked. "That was brilliant. Were you trying to impress the ladies?"

"What should I tell the ladies?" de Gier asked. "That I was a needlecraft salesman? A former copper from Amsterdam chooses to live in the Twilight Zone. So what? What do Lorraine and Aki care? 'So where is Amsterdam? Amsterdam, Ohio?'"

"Where's Ohio?"

"Inland America," de Gier said. "They only know about their own country here. 'Europe? Europe where?"'

Grijpstra put down his bowl carefully, grabbed de Gier by the flaps of his neat bush jacket carefully, shook de Gier forcefully. "Why did you tell them you used to be a cop?"

There was an explanation, of course, wasn't there always. De Gier gently disengaged himself, served coffee, used his soothing voice, reminded Grijpstra that he, de Gier, had been to Jameson, Maine, before. To help out the commissaris to help out his sister, who, suddenly widowed, and being a helpless person, had to be repatriated forthwith. At the time de Gier had met some great people-the sheriff. .."

"Hairy Harry?" Grijpstra asked. "You knew Hairy Harry?"

Another sheriff. Sheriffs come, sheriffs go. "Do you mind?" de Gier asked. "Can I go on? Can I explain this to you? You're a private detective now, you've taken on the job, you've got to protect yourself, you need all the information you can get. You're out in the open. Remember what the holy man said."