Janwillem De Wetering - Outsider in Amsterdam

Beuzekom cut two lemons and squeezed them with a practiced gesture using a small strainer. Ice cubes tinkled. A silver stirring ladle appeared as if by magic. The glass was served on a small antique tray, solid silver.

"Have you ever been a barman?" asked de Gier, who had been watching the performance with interest.

Beuzekom smiled. "Can you see it? You are right. As a student I used to make some money during the holidays. I started as a lavatory scraper on a cruise ship, I was promoted to cabin steward on the second trip and became barman on the third. Nice work, and it brought in a little pocket money as well. Would you like a lemonade, too?"

"Yes, please," de Gier said.

"I hope you don't mind if we drink something a little stronger?"

Beuzekom poured two glasses from a bottle of an expensive brand of whisky.

"Neat?" he asked Ringma.

"On the rocks," Ringma said.

"And what can we do for you two gentlemen?" Beuzekom asked. He had sat down, in a highbacked velvet-covered chair and smiled down on his guests.

"The fellow has charm," de Gier thought. "It pours out of him. It requires an effort of will to dislike him."

De Gier made an effort of will.

"You have been convicted of drug dealing," Grijpstra said, put his glass down, pursed his lips and paused.

"That's correct," Beuzekom said, after a while. "The police are well informed. Three months in jail, one suspended. Ringma was acquitted for lack of proof. He did the housekeeping while I was away. But that's a year ago now, I had almost forgotten."

"And now there is some indication," Grijpstra said, "that you are back in the business. You may have been buying hash, packed in small casks. Hash that looks like mizo-soup paste. According to the information we received you picked up the merchandise yourself, in a house at the Haarlemmer Houttuinen, property of Piet Verboom, now deceased."

Beuzekom nodded, gulped his drink down, and shivered. "First drink today," he said. "Always gives me the shivers."

The room gradually filled itself with a nervous silence. Its occupants merely looked at each other.

Beuzekom poured himself another drink. "Your information is correct, up to a point. I did buy some mizosoup paste from Verboom for he was overstocked. I thought I might be able to sell it to other restaurants. But so far I haven't had any luck, not yet anyway. There are some restaurants in The Hague I have to try. I bought five casks and I still have five casks. They are here, in the house. Would you like to see them?"

"Damn," thought de Gier, who had been studying Ringma's face meanwhile. Ringma's eyes had twinkled.

"I'd like to see them," Grijpstra said.

"Give us a hand, Ringma," Beuzekom said and together they rolled five little casks into the room. They hadn't been opened and had been wound with thick rope.

"Shall we open them up?"

Grijpstra nodded.

"Don't," Ringma said. "Once we have opened them we can't sell them anymore. They are nicely closed and that rope looks very decorative. I'll never be able to make them look the way they look now. I am no Japanese."

"Don't be a bore," Beuzekom said. "Open them up yourself and be careful about it. Maybe you can get them back into their original state afterwards. If the police think that they contain hash they'll keep on thinking it unless they have been proved wrong. You know there is no hash in the casks, and I know there is no hash in the casks, but what matters now is that the police will know there is no hash in the casks."

"All right," Ringma said, and began to loosen the knots as carefully as he could. It took him a few minutes to open the first cask.

De Gier dug into its contents with a spoon and tasted it. It was no hash. He dug a hole into the paste and Beuzekom produced a long meatfork so that de Gier could get right to the bottom.

Meanwhile Ringma opened the other four casks.

"Convinced?" Beuzekom asked in the end.

"Can we search the house?" Grijpstra asked.

"But of course," Ringma said. "We have nothing to hide. But don't make a mess, please. I'll have to tidy it all up again if you do."

"You are the woman about the house?" de Gier asked.

Ringma giggled. "Yes."

They didn't find anything except cupboards full of expensive clothes, antique furniture, luxurious wall-to-wall carpets, and a few paintings of the lesser old masters.

"Let's give in," Grijpstra said. "Can you explain that mizo-soup business?"

"No," de Gier said.

"It's illogical," Grijpstra said. "What would these men do with the mizo-soup paste? And what happened to the rest of it? Didn't those Hindist Society people tell us that Piet sold them various lots of twenty casks each? Perhaps we can prove the sale, there should be purchase invoices in Piet's bookkeeping files. We might get some statements signed by those boys in the houseboat. If Johan and Eduard declare that Piet Verboom didn't use more than one cask a month in his restaurant and that he sold his surplus and that these men here were the buyers…"

De Gier wasn't impressed.

"It will never hold in court if the public prosecutor would allow it to get into court. All right, so these men bought mizo soup from Piet. Well, they still have it don't they? And who cares about mizo soup anyway? If we want to make it stick we have to produce evidence of dealing in drugs."

"Yes," Grijpstra said thoughtfully. "Hash is only a soft drug but sixty casks of it is a lot of soft drug. The prosecutor would be very interested. But where are the sixty casks? These five we found were planted here, in case we would ever discover the link between these dealers and Piet's Society. Mizo soup? Sure, here is mizo soup. The real stuff must have been sold as fast as it got here, maybe it never got here. Maybe they have another address, the inner city if full of little cellars."

"Well," Beuzekom asked when the detectives had returned to the living room, "did you find anything?"

"No," Grijpstra said.

"So you must be satisfied that we are in the clear. Another lemonade?"

"Not for me," Grijpstra said.

"I'll have a drink," de Gier said. "You go home, Grijpstra. I think I'll have another little chat with Mr. Beuzekom and his friend."

He winked at Grijpstra behind Beuzekom's back.

"All right," Grijpstra said. "I'll see you in the morning. Try and be on time. It can be done, you know, you mustn't give up. It's all a matter of habit."

Beuzekom had relaxed in his velvet chair and Ringma was stretched out on the settee. Grijpstra had been gone for more than two hours. Of the two bottles on the bar one was empty and one half full.

"Are you allowed to drink when you are on duty?" Beuzekom asked. He spoke with some difficulty but his grammar was still impeccable.

"I am not on duty now," de Gier said. "I only work eight hours a day, just like everybody else. I am visiting, visiting good friends."

"Ha," Ringma said, "filthy fuzz!"

"Now, now," Beuzekom said, "be nice to the guests, little mate. Maybe this gentleman is filthy fuzz but now he is here at our invitation. You can call him names when you meet him in the street. 'Fascist,' or 'SS man,' that sort of thing, and then run for it."

Ringma began to cackle.

"Mizo soup hahaha," Ringma cackled, "and they are looking for hash. They are suckers, aren't they Beuz?"

"Shut up, little mate," Beuzekom said. "We don't even know what the gentleman are looking for. And you must respect another fellow's job. If you hadn't been so lazy at school you might have joined the police yourself."

"Come off it," Ringma cackled and fell off the settee.

De Gier waited until Ringma's cramps had subsided.

"What you told me is very interesting," de Gier said, "the story of your life I mean. So you graduated in psychology, did you?"