Outsider in Amsterdam (19 page)

“You can go on forever,” Beuzekom said, “but you talk rubbish. Ten thousand would just about cover the lot. The TV was bought new but I got a nice discount. The other stuff was all bought at auctions, or at factory prices, or in some other intelligent way. You don’t think I am the type who allows himself to be robbed by shopkeepers do you? You can save about seventy percent markup if you know how to go about it.”

“Maybe you can save thirty percent,” de Gier said. “Then I can still count up to fifty thousand in this house.”

“I inherited some money from my father,” Beuzekom said.

“Are you working, Ringma?” de Gier asked.

Beuzekom had gone to the bar to fill his glass again and turned around halfway.

“I am a pimp, sir,” he said, “but don’t tell anyone. My little mate earns a lot of money. But not illegally, he even declares his income. We occasionally have a sugar uncle who visits our little mate. How much did you write in your taxform last year, Ringma?”

“Twenty,” Ringma said.

“So you see?” Beuzekom asked. “My nice little self-employed charmer. Twenty red backs he earned, all with his little bottom. And some of it we spent on furniture and what have you, and it’s all around you. We don’t deal in drugs. Drugs are dangerous. You people caught me once. I don’t like being caught. I am still a dealer, but not in drugs.”

“Aren’t you driving around in a little Mercedes bus?” de Gier asked. “Those buses aren’t cheap, you know.”

“Don’t be an utter bore,” Beuzekom said. “Your lot never know where to stop. On and on and on and on. That Mercedes camper is in my brother’s name. He bought the bus for his holidays but his garage is full, you can’t put three cars
into one garage. So I have the bus when he doesn’t need her for his holidays. I have a garage and I look after the car. I am his only brother and he likes me. Do you want to see the car’s registration?”

“Please,” de Gier said.

Beuzekom lost his temper.

“All right, I’ll show it to you. But after that you can clear out. I haven’t done anything, I won’t do anything and I’ll never do anything that would land me in jail again. I didn’t get my brains for nothing. I deal in antique furniture, in Persian rugs, in odd lots, in anything that’ll give me a good profit. Within a year I’ll register my business. I have been at it for more than a year now and I am a hardworking and patient man. The turnover is growing. I thought you were a pleasant fellow when you came in and you have your job to do but you shouldn’t make an ass of yourself.”

“You can give me another drink,” de Gier said and held up his glass.

“I’d like to shuffle around for a bit,” Ringma said. “You like music, filthy fuzz?”

“Yes,” de Gier said.

“Well, if you do, you can select your own tune,” Ringma said and pointed at the lowest shelf of the bookcase that contained several feet of stacked records.

De Gier took his glass to the bookcase, sat down, and looked through the records. He took his time and Beuzekom filled his glass again. De Gier selected a Japanese record, showing a picture of a fluteplayer on its cover.

The flute was a bamboo flute and the music very delicate. It seemed as if its notes were altogether different from the notes de Gier could abstract from his own metal flute. De Gier remembered that he had read about bamboo flutes. Their insides cannot be calculated and each flute has its individual sound, depending on the uneven parts inside the naturally
formed bamboo, even depending on the thin hairs and splinters waving about with each breath of air.

De Gier stretched out on the thick carpet and listened to the flute. He was drunk. He hadn’t had much to eat that day, sandwiches at the police canteen and a bowl of hot noodles at a Chinese restaurant. The seven glasses of whisky had changed his perception. The flute made him tremble a little. He saw a temple and a whisp of a girl, dancing on a balcony, the night was very black behind her but some mysterious light showed up her movements. And the flute went on. The vision became so real that he surrendered completely to it, leaving the world of crime and misery in which he had plodded all day, all year, all his life it seemed. His thoughts were very quick it seemed, clicking through his brain. He switched off his thoughts and returned to the vision. A temple, a dancing girl on its balcony and he, the observer. He had to bundle what little force he could muster to return to the room of the house in Amsterdam. He was a detective again, investigating a crime, questioning two suspects in their own surroundings, only interested in information and prepared to perform a little act to get close to the source of the required information. He opened his eyes and sat up.

He saw Ringma dance. Beuzekom had switched off the lights of the room and only the light of the streetlamps filtering through the curtains lit the frail little body. Of Ringma’s ratface and balding head nothing could be seen.

Ringma danced, using small steps, hardly lifting his feet. Suddenly he crouched, making himself very small, and jumped. He jumped high, nearly touching the ceiling, and landed elasticly. He stood still and started a movement of his arms and hands, silhouetting against the white curtains. Ringma was a doll, a bewitched doll moving mechanically, drawing life from someone else. De Gier looked around and saw Beuzekom, still standing behind the bar, staring fixedly at his little friend.

The flute broke halfway through a note, there was the
metal sound of a gong suddenly struck, the record stopped and Ringma collapsed.

Beuzekom walked over to his friend and patted him softly on the head. “My little mate used to be a ballet dancer once,” he said to de Gier.

“Let’s have a drink,” Ringma said hoarsely, “a tiny little drink, Beuz.”

Beuzekom poured him a small whisky.

“That was very good,” de Gier said.

After a few minutes the conversation started again.

Beuzekom had lit a thick church candle and was observing his visitor.

“How much do you make in the police?” he asked.

“Not much,” de Gier answered.

“What’s your rank?”

“Sergeant,” de Gier said.

“So you’ll be earning about fifteen hundred or two thousand a month, I expect.”

“That’s about right.”

“You could get that anywhere,” Beuzekom said. “I think an inspector of the city’s cleaners gets more.”

“And what do you earn?” de Gier asked.

“A lot,” Beuzekom said. “More than you’ll ever earn if you stay with the same boss. Why don’t you work for me? I do all right but there are a lot of things I could do if I had someone working with me, someone like you. I wouldn’t pay you a wage but a percentage. You could make more on one deal, a deal taking a few weeks, than you are now making in a year. Do you speak any languages?”

“English,” de Gier said.

“Fluently?”

“No, but I know a lot of words. I read it well and I have taken a course. My grammar is all right.”

“How long have you been with the C.I.D.?”

“Six years.”

“And before that?”

“Five years on the street as a constable.”

“You should have enough experience. I am quite serious, you know. I can really use you.”

“And what can you use me for?” de Gier asked.

“Not drugs,” Beuzekom said, “antique furniture. Paintings. Good stuff that we can sell to the American dealers. And some black-market buying and selling. Odd lots that are sold for cash to the street markets and the shops. I’ll have a proper office soon, complete with a beautiful secretary.”

“What do we want a beautiful secretary for?” Ringma asked petulantly. “She would be frustrated, poor thing.”

“Think of others,” Beuzekom said. “Our friend may like her, and our clients may like her.”

De Gier got up, swaying slightly. He walked over to the window and looked at the quiet water of the canal where some ducks were floating about, fast asleep.

“The real money is in drugs,” he said. “There may be money in the sort of trade you mentioned but there won’t be a fortune in it.”

“That’s true,” Beuzekom said.

“And drugs mean the end of everything,” de Gier continued. “It was the end of China before the communists solved the problem. Drugs mean dry earth, dust storms, famine, slaves, bandit wars.”

“Yes,” Beuzekom said, “that’ll be the future.”

“And you want to be part of it?” de Gier asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Beuzekom said. “You know what’s coming. You can read statistics, just like I can. We can waste our time being idealists, or refuse to stare facts in the face, but it’s coming all the same. It’s probably a cosmic apparition, part of the destruction of this planet. But meanwhile we can make a profit out of it and live well, if we live
with
our circumstances,
not against them. If you want to fight the general trend I would suggest that you buy an antique helmet, find yourself an old horse, and attack the windmills with a lance. There are enough windmills around, you’ll be busy for the rest of your life.”

“I saw the dead body of a girl today,” de Gier said, “some nineteen or twenty years old perhaps. She had sticks instead of arms and legs and her face was a skull.”

“Heroin?” Beuzekom asked.

De Gier didn’t answer.

“Okay,” Beuzekom said. “Heroin. Heroin is bad for the health. So is quicksilver poisoning. Atom bombs are even worse. And machine guns, and tanks, and guided rockets. Very unhealthy. So do you want me to cry? The world is the way it is. And we are on it. We can fly to the moon but we can’t stay there.”

“I hope your business is profitable,” de Gier said, and closed the door behind him.

G
RIJPSTRA LEFT THE
house of the drug dealers thoughtfully. On the gracht he paused and blew his whistle. The sound wasn’t very loud, but loud enough for the two detectives to hear, and they joined him within a few minutes.

“Nothing doing, hey?” one of them asked.

“No,” Grijpstra said, “but de Gier is still there and maybe he’ll learn something, although I doubt it. Our friends in there aren’t silly.”

“That’s the trouble,” the detective sighed. “Criminals are cleverer than we are. They also have better equipment. Nice fast cars, for instance.”

He kicked one of the tires of the small VW as he said it. Grijpstra sighed as well and got into the driver’s seat. De Gier had given him the keys. He drove off, dropped the detectives at their homes, and telephoned from a public call box.

“I know it’s late,” he said to Constanze’s mother, “but I would like to drop by for a few minutes and see your daughter. She hasn’t gone to bed yet, I hope?”

“It isn’t ten o’clock yet,” Constanze’s mother said, “and my daughter is still up and about. We’ll be waiting for you.”

Grijpstra left the car in the courtyard of Headquarters and set out on foot. The long narrow Jacob van Lennepstraat didn’t improve his mood. Its sidewalks were blocked by parked cars and he had to walk in the middle of the street, jumping aside
every minute or so for gleaming motorized bicycles ridden by young mobsters taking fierce pleasure in revving their engines and missing the pedestrians by a hairsbreadth.

Grijpstra gave in and walked in the one-foot-wide corridor left on the sidewalk by the parked cars. He could follow a TV program by glancing into the windows he passed. He was watching a police thriller and he saw fast cars taking hairpin corners with squeaking tires, handsome men firing pistols and shortbarreled machine pistols and one window gave him a view of a beautiful woman whose blouse was being ripped off by a bad man with a squint.

He rang the bell, the door opened immediately and Constanze’s father welcomed him on the stairs.

“You are alone?” the father asked disappointedly. “Your young colleague didn’t come with you?”

“No sir,” Grijpstra said. “He is very busy tonight. Is your daughter at home?”

“Yes,” the father said, “second door on the right. She is doing some sewing in the bedroom, she has been busy for hours. I am sure she’ll welcome a break.”

Grijpstra knocked, there was no answer and he opened the door.

“No,” Constanze’s voice yelled. “No, please. Close that door.” All Grijpstra saw was a white fluffy cloud.

He couldn’t understand what it was. He closed the door quickly but the movement caused a fresh draft and the cloud became even more opaque.

“What the hell,” Grijpstra thought. He felt frightened. The reaction-program that his training had imprinted on his brain began to work. He was investigating a crime, dealing with suspected criminals, capable of causing violent death. His response to the sudden incomprehensible situation was automatic. The pistol was in his hand, he had loaded it as it came out of its holster.

“Oh
no
,” Constanze yelled again.

The cloud became transparent and he quickly holstered the pistol.

There were feathers all over the room, small white feathers.

Constanze chuckled and then began to laugh.

“You do look a sight,” she said, and came close and began to pluck the little feathers off his suit. “You even have some in your mustache,” she said. “Here, let me take them out. You look like a white rooster.”

She laughed as she worked and Grijpstra stood very still.

“I was trying to fix mother’s eiderdown but the cover was too worn so I was taking all the feathers out and I was just putting them into a bag as you opened the door. What a mess. Mother won’t be pleased.”

“I am sorry,” Grijpstra said.

“It’s all right. We better get out of here, I’ll clean the room later.”

The story was told in the living room and Constanze’s parents laughed.

“You better not tell my partner,” Grijpstra said. “He’ll tell everybody at Headquarters and it’ll be the story of the day.”

“Don’t worry,” Constanze said. “I won’t tell anyone. Why didn’t he come with you tonight?”

“He is very busy,” Grijpstra said. Constanze smiled and opened a can of beer.

“Did you want to ask me something?”

“Yes,” Grijpstra said gratefully. “We were told by the police in Paris who spoke to your employer, your uncle I believe, that you didn’t come to work on the day your husband died.”

The question caused some disturbance in the room. Constanze’s father lowered his newspaper and her mother dropped her embroidery.