Janwillem De Wetering - Just a Corpse at Twilight

"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.