Janwillem De Wetering - Just a Corpse at Twilight

"Need to hear the rest of it?"

"If you please."

"So the truckers tell the judge they were parking the truck for lunch, and just as they were going to break out the hamburgers there's Bald Baby and they don't know why. How could they know there were bales of marijuana hidden in the bushes? 'Jeez, Judge… what kind of a place is this Maine anyway?'"

"And the judge says he regrets the inconvenience caused to these nice out-of-state truck drivers trying to have lunch at the wayside."

"Never underestimate local authority's expertise at exploiting its area."

"Hairy Harry did lose his shipment, though," de Gier said. "He must have been saddened. But what the hell, you lose ten percent, ninety percent is still millions."

Aki brought the crab rolls, a foot long, well filled.

Grijpstra ate. "You know the biggest-size crab roll in Holland now?" He held his thumb and index finger two inches apart. "Costs a day's wage too." He leaned over. "About this case of yours. Know your enemy. Remember the stratagem? Say I used that on Aki, flipped into her mind. Say we can use the trick on the others too. Aki told me that Flash and Bad George are musical, Flash on the tuba, Bad George on the fiddle. School-band days. A musical get-together?"

De Gier thought that was funny. He choked on his crab roll.

Grijpstra waited. "Okay? Aki said Ishmael plays piano."

"A faulty upright," de Gier said, still smiling in spite of his pains. "We tried 'St. Louis Blues' together. I wailed. He pecked. But Flash Farnsworth on the tuba?" De Gier choked again. Grijpstra, eyes closed, chewing and smiling, ignored the disturbance.

"I'm okay now," de Gier said.

Grijpstra swallowed. "Here is what we do. I want you to tell Flash and Bad George that you're not going through with this extortion nonsense, you want to get that bullshit out of the way. That you like them, and that dumb dog is okay too, that you don't want them to think they have something on you. You can pay them something for expenses, hold out a little more for later."

De Gier nodded. "Fine."

"You offer a get-together party."

"Do some bonding?" de Gier asked.

"Force a bit of a showdown," Grijpstra said. "We're running out oftime. Aki was over at Lorraine's quite a lot?"

"Yes." De Gier nodded.

"And she could go again any time soon," Grijpstra said, "and then raise the alarm." He ruefully contemplated his empty plate.

"Look," de Gier said, shifting about on his chair a bit, "I know what you're getting at-create some easy atmosphere, get somebody to talk so that we can find out where the body is. I don't care, of course, and you're in charge, but what do you think those jokers, Flash and Bad George, would do if they got irritable, or downright angry?"

"Let's see now," Grijpstra said. "They might dig up the body and show it around."

"Which makes them accessories," de Gier said. "Whatever way they present their case, either they buried Lorraine themselves or they watched me do it. So why haven't they told? Because they mean to suck me dry? That's another charge."

"So they won't do that," Grijpstra said. "They would rather drop a hint. Sherifffinds Lorraine's remains. After that the finger points. At who? At you."

"Because of the autopsy," de Gier said, "coroner concludes that body was abused, causing miscarriage…"

"No evidence for Harry to link killer and corpse," Grijpstra said. "Flash and Bad George know that too. Nothing but vague conjecture.. . slippery stuff." He pushed his chair back. He held his head to the side. He dropped his voice. "But rattling little guys with loving kindness may be a good way to find Snow White."

De Gier looked nervous. "You sure that's the way to play this?"

"I don't want to play at all," Grijpstra said, "but I'm in this now. They have nothing on you. Nobody saw you kick the woman. I don't want you paying off hoodlums."

De Gier smiled. "Hoodlums-Flash and Bad George? I don't really mind giving them money. They can fix up their tub."

"They won't get greedy and keep hounding you for more?"

"Yes," de Gier nodded. "There's that too."

"For sure there's that too," Grijpstra said. "And maybe that's still not the point. You want to find out ifyou did what it seems you did. You can't accept that in yourself. You don't really believe it. Without the body you'll never know."

"I can't live with this," de Gier said. "You know that, don't you?"

"What if you have to?"

De Gier shook his head. "Maybe I could accept it in you. My best friend turns out to be a killer, so? Man has to use whatever happens to be around." He sucked in his cheeks, raised his upper lip, and imitated the commissaris's slightly shrill voice. "Gentlemen, please remember: You can only use people the way they come, not the way you'd like them to come."

"So you're a user now too?" Grijpstra laughed, then looked serious. "You would still want me for a friend even if I kicked Nellie down her new oak stairs?"

"You'd be sorry, wouldn't you?" de Gier asked.

"Are you sorry?"

"Yes," de Gier said. "I'll never drink or do dope again."

"Try a year."

"Ever," de Gier said. "It releases the wrong demons."

"Maybe you have to accept them in yourself."

"And keep calling you to put them back in their cages?"

"Do what you have to do," Grijpstra said. "See if I care. I don't drink either now. We can be boring together."

"This may be another possible aspect of the human predicament in all its horrifying glory," de Gier said. "A problem you become aware of when it is too late. I could be programmed not to be able to handle liquor, genetically burdened with the chronic and incurable disease alcoholism, unaware of evil powers that control me."

"We'd have to go by the symptoms first," Grijpstra said. "We haven't even determined whether you pushed or kicked the missing person. We haven't got anywhere. You're no help either. You didn't even tell me what you knew about Aki working for the DEA here." He gestured. "I know, I know, that would lead to Hairy Harry and you claim the sheriffhas nothing to do with this, all I have to find is the body. But that sheriff decided to kill me the minute he set eyes on me."

By then they were out of the restaurant. De Gier opened the car door for Grijpstra, gently pushed him inside.

Grijpstra sat, watching trees flash by. "I don't need this, Rinus. Hairy Harry's business interferes with what you got me out here for. There's more going on here than your personality disorder. Its like everything I ever try to do: In order to fix Nellie's faucet you have to clean out the shed to find the clamp."

De Gier parked the car, opened Grijpstra's door, pulled Grijpstra out, held him by the shoulders, aimed him at the Point's dock.

"Sheriff Hairy Harry complicates my life," Grijpstra said.

De Gier shoved gently.

Grijpstra walked slowly down the path, between junipers and a picket fence covered with flowering vines.

"Nothing changes," Grijpstra said. "You're still Mr. Hot Shit. I can't stand you as a client. You should be helping out. You're another complication."

"Me?" de Gier asked. "I'm the loser here. I'm underfoot? How can I possibly ever get in your way?"

Grijpstra nodded energetically. "I keep tripping over you. Like over the sheriff. Hairy Harry's heavy hand is all over these islands. I'll have to fix you fuckers."

De Gier rowed. Grijpstra sat on the dinghy's back seat. There was no wind and the little boat skimmed along quietly, driven by de Gier"s long strokes. A loon floated by, chuckling dreamily, its long head pointed down. Late sunlight lit up white polka dots on the bird's wings. The loon lifted its wings briefly, showing its startling white chest.

"Aki calls it the magic bird of Maine," Grijpstra said.

De Gier leaned on his oars for a moment. "You did like Aki, you got that much…"