Tumbleweed

9

"Button up your shirt, " Grijpstra said. "I can see your undershirt. Your orange undershirt."

He sounded surprised.

"Have you never seen an orange undershirt?" de Gier asked.

"No. Don't want to either."

De Gier fumbled with his shirt.

"The button is gone," Grijpstra said, leaning closer. "Ha!"

"Ha what?"

"You are getting fat," Grijpstra said triumphantly.

De Gier jumped up and left the room. Grijpstra ran after him. He found de Gier staring at himself in the large mirror which had been placed in the corridor by a chief constable who wanted his men to look neat.

"Stand normally," Grijpstra said. "Breathe out! You'll choke if you breathe in only."

"Fat," de Gier said.

"A little fat," Grijpstra said. "It's your age. The muscles go soft and gradually the stomach begins to pop out. Don't worry."

"No."

"But it may get worse. I had an uncle who had a figure a little like yours. He had to wear a corset in the end."

"What happened to your uncle?" de Gier asked.

"Oh, he died, why?"

"What age?"

"Forty-eight, forty-nine, I believe."

"What of?"

"Vanity," Grijpstra said. "Plain vanity. Looking in the mirror. He got fatter and fatter and he kept on buying stronger corsets and one day the veins in his neck burst. But what do you care about my uncle? Did you read the commissaris' note on my desk?"

"Yes," de Gier said. "I read all the notes on your desk. He has gone to Curacao and he won't be back for a few days and we are to continue our investigations."

Grijpstra nodded.

"So what do you plan to do?"

"Follow me."

De Gier followed and they landed up near the coffee machine where Grijpstra waited until de Gier had found the right coins. The machine worked.

"I have followed you," de Gier said. "Now what?"

"I don't know," Grijpstra said. "We could telephone Mr. Holman again and ask him to come to see us."

"We did that yesterday."

"And the day before yesterday."

"If he comes today he'll cry again."

"He hasn't done it," de Gier said.

Grijpstra leaned against the whitewashed wall and sipped his coffee. "Why hasn't he done it? He has admitted that he has seen Mrs. van Buren by himself, hasn't he? First he said that he always took his little son but later he admitted mat he has been to the houseboat by himself."

"On Sunday mornings only."

"So he says but why shouldn't he have made love to her on Sunday mornings. What's wrong with Sunday mornings?"

"That fat fellow?"

"Come off it," Grijpstra said. "He isn't so fat, no fatter man you will be in a few years' time. And he has a nice pleasant face. Perhaps he gave her a feeling of security. Perhaps she cuddled him. She could never have cuddled her paying lovers. The colonel, the diplomat, and our friend Drachtsma are all over six feet and wide-shouldered and dynamic and handsome. Perhaps she got tired of their profiles and muscles. So jolly Mr. Holman became her true lover. On Sunday mornings.

"Right," de Gier said. "Wonderful. Romantic. They had coffee or hot cocoa or milk with honey and nutmeg and they made warm cozy love to each other and then he bounced home again."

"Yes. But he got tired of her and she threatened to tell his wife so he sweated for a day or two and made up his mind and practiced with his darts. And then he found that lovely wicked knife in a second-hand store in the inner city and he took it home and threw it for an hour or so and then he went to see her last Saturday night and threw it right into her back. Swish. Plop."

"No," de Gier said.

"Why not? He is a violent man. Some little boy steps on a plant in his garden and he gives the little fellow such a wallop that he lands up in hospital with a cracked skull. And he is untrustworthy. His boss trusted him and he stole a couple of thousand guilders when he thought nobody was looking. You have read his file, haven't you?"

"I have read his file."

"So?"

De Gier walked over to the window and looked down into the courtyard where four stolen cars, found by the night patrol, were waiting for their rightful owners. He thoughtfully scratched his bottom.

"So?"

"Maybe. But I don't think so. Perhaps you are right. He is in a terrible state. Every time we ask him a question he wipes his face with that large handkerchief and he gets tears in his eyes and finally he cries. He hasn't got an alibi. But he threw that stiletto of yours into the commissaris' cigar box. That was really silly, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Grijpstra said, "that was silly. But we would have found out about his darts anyway. He knew we would, so perhaps it was very clever to play along with us."

"A lover and a genius," de Gier said.

"He deals in nuts, remember? He set himself up in business after he had been in jail twice. He runs his own business so well that he owns a nice house in a good area and a brand-new red Rover. A Rover is a pretty posh car. I have spoken to two of his clients pretending I wanted some information about his commercial reliability. They spoke very highly of him. He does all his own selling and buying and he has only one employee, an old spinster who answers his phone when he isn't there. I am convinced that he is an intelligent man; to build up a good business in a few years' time takes brains. And discipline."

"You think we should arrest him?"

"No," Grijpstra said, "we can only hold him for a few days. There is no evidence at all. We'll have to make him confess."

"Play cat and mouse? Make him come every day, and men give him a break, and then make him come every day again? Phone him at his house with odd questions?"

Grijpstra didn't answer.

"It's a nasty game, you know. Last time we did it the man had a nervous breakdown and his wife nearly divorced him and he was innocent."

"Yes," Grijpstra said, "I won't forget that case."

"To hell with it," de Gier said, and jumped up. "The boss is away and we have no real plans for today. Let's go."

"Where? It's raining."

"To my flat," de Gier said.

They got to the flat within a quarter of an hour and de Gier put on a record for Grijpstra and took Oliver with him into the kitchen. Oliver growled and scratched at the door.

"You can have him later. Let me make some pancakes."

"Pancakes," he said a little later. "You like pancakes. You can have them with ham, with honey, or with syrup. And this is good coffee. You can have a good cigar as well. Put your feet on that chair."

"Yes," Grijpstra said, "I'll do all that. Put jam on the pancakes. And watch your cat."

Oliver was growling in a corner and sharpening his nails on the carpet while he was fixing Grijpstra with his clear blue slanting eyes.

"Shit," Grijpstra said. "There must be something wrong with you that you like that cat."

"He is called Oliver. And he sleeps in my arm."

"Frrrooo," Grijpstra said softly.

He ate his pancakes, burped, and lit his cigar.

De Gier put on another record and together they listened to church music, an organ playing Bach. Oliver jumped on Grijpstra's lap, purred, and fell asleep. De Gier was stretched out on the floor, his head cradled in his arms. The record came to an end.

"Beautiful," Grijpstra said, and opened his eyes. He scratched Oliver behind the ears. The cat began to purr again.

"You see," de Gier said.

"Perhaps."

"If the commissaris thought Holman had done it he wouldn't have gone to ."

"No," Grijpstra said. " is a warm island. The commissaris has an eternal pain in his legs. He wanted to warm his legs. He'll be on a deck chair somewhere now, on the terrace of a hotel. He took the opportunity when it presented itself. The case is stuck and the lady comes from . He has to investigate her background. It takes only eight hours to fly there and the State is paying for his ticket."

"We can't solve the case while he is away," de Gier said, rolling over on his back, "it'll make him look silly."

"She didn't blackmail the diplomat."

"Why not?"

"She couldn't have. He isn't married."

De Gier sat up. "You are forgetting the Secret Service. They are in this too. She may have known secrets the diplomat shouldn't have told her about."

"Ha," Grijpstra said. "What secrets? Belgium isn't at war. They are like us. Belgium is a small comfortable country spending its time manufacturing things and selling them."

"Exactly. Commercial secrets or secrets involving the economy. Certain nations (he was dropping his voice) are very interested in ruining the economy of the Common Market. Diplomats always know too much and beautiful women are sent to lure them to their houseboats. The diplomats boast."

"No," Grijpstra interrupted, "not our diplomat. He wouldn't have wasted his time boasting. He went to her boat to sleep with her. He made her perform. He played with her or he made her play with him. And then he got into his clothes and into his black Citroen and he drove home."

"You don't suspect the diplomat?"

"No," Grijpstra said.

"The colonel?"

Grijpstra hesitated.

"No?"

"The colonel is separated from his wife. She lives in the States somewhere," he said. "She'll probably know that he won't spend his nights by himself. Mrs. van Buren couldn't have blackmailed him that way."

"Atomic warheads," de Gier said.

"Yes. But we won't have to follow up on that. The military police is after him. And he has an alibi."

"He could have sent a killer, some paratrooper or ranger or special-service man or whatever they call their murderers. Americans kill each other at the drop of a hat."

De Gier laughed.

"The drop of a hat," Grijpstra repeated.

"Nobody wears hats anymore."

"They drop them."

"Not the colonel," de Gier said.

Grijpstra sighed. "You know we are getting close, don't you?" de Gier asked.

"Yes," Grijpstra said.

"IJsbrand Drachtsma," de Gier said in a firm voice.

"He has an alibi."

"So he says."

"The commissaris has checked it."

"So the commissaris says."

"You don't believe him?"

"Oh sure, I believe him. He spoke to the German businessmen Drachtsma had to his house that evening and they said they were there with him. There is no way of getting to Amsterdam from Schiermonnikoog unless you use the ferry, and the ferry only goes twice a day at this time of the year. Schiermonnikoog has no airport. But Drachtsma is a wealthy man."

"Ha," de Gier said. "A helicopter picked him up, on the beach. It dropped him on another beach where a fast car was waiting for him. He raced it to Amsterdam, let himself into the houseboat with a key, and swish and plop."

"Yes," Grijpstra said.

"Balls."

"Yes. There are nine hundred people to the square mile in Holland. The helicopter couldn't have picked him up without them seeing it. True, true. So he didn't do it."

"A pity," de Gier said, "because he is dangerous all right. The diplomat doesn't scare me and if the colonel was after me I would offer to buy him a drink but if IJsbrand Drachtsma…"

"You are serious?"

"I am," de Gier said. "He escaped to England in 1943 when the Germans were watching every inch of the beaches."

"And the engine of his rowboat broke down."

"Just imagine what it must have been like," de Gier said. "Twenty or thirty hours to go and the beaches looking at you with a thousand eyes. Nasty German eyes peeping out from under their heavy helmets, and machine guns and cannon everywhere and fighter planes in the sky and you sit there in your nutshell tinkering with an outboard engine and the others are rowing and dropping their oars and cursing.

"Would be fun," Grijpstra said.

"I always wanted to do it, but I was a little boy then. Where were you?"

"I spent the last year on a farm, working and trying to repair an old motorcycle. Took me all winter and then the war was over and it wouldn't go."

"Doesn't he scare you?" de Gier asked.

"No. I have nothing to lose. Besides, he irritates me. Cocksure, that's what he is. He has spent a lifetime winning."

"You haven't lost, have you?"

"No," Grijpstra said, "or perhaps I have. There isn't much difference. But he doesn't know. You remember the way he smiled to us when the commissaris introduced us as his assistants?"

"He smiled down."

"Of course he did. It looked friendly but it wasn't."

"He didn't kill her, because he wasn't there. He must have sent someone."

"But why would he have wanted her dead?"

"Blackmail," de Gier said. "What else? He is married and she was threatening to break up his marriage. Perhaps he has all his property in his wife's name. The house in Schiermonnikoog, the house in Amsterdam, his yacht, his airplane, the houseboat, his shares."

"We should meet his wife."

"There's something else," de Gier said, "something I haven't told you about."

"You should tell me everything," Grijpstra said.

"Yes, but perhaps this is silly."

"Go on, go on," Grijpstra said.

"O.K.," de Gier said "you know little Cardozo?"

"Isn't he one of the new detectives?"

"Yes, that young fellow, short, wears a brown imitation fur coat, looks like a musician."

"What about him?"

"I asked him to wait in the corridor when we were grilling Drachtsma, trying to grill him I should say for he was winning that time. I wanted to know how Drachtsma would behave after we had done with him. Cardozo hung about outside and when Drachtsma came out Cardozo was walking behind him, pretending he was going somewhere. They went to the main entrance downstairs together. The door is always locked and the constable who watches the door has a button which he has to press to release the lock. Drachtsma showed his slip, the constable pressed his button, and the door opened. It's a door you have to push."

"Yes, yes," Grijpstra said, "I know the door. I go through it a hundred times a day."

"Quite. But Drachtsma didn't push the door, he kicked it, with his great smelly boot, and as he went through it he farted. A nasty noisy smelly fart."

"And Cardozo got it right in the face?"

"He did."

"You shouldn't trust these young detectives, they tell you what you want to hear."

"No," said de Gier. "Cardozo is ail right. He told me what he saw, and what he smelted in this case."

"Yes," Grijpstra said, "and Drachtsma's home is on Schiermonnikoog. Right?"

Grijpstra got up, forgetting Oliver who had to wake up suddenly and who dug his claws into Grijpstra's legs. Grijpstra yelled and Oliver hung on. Grijpstra backed into the bookcase and de Gier tried to help. A vase fell and broke on the floor splashing water on Oliver who had dropped to the ground. Oliver yelled and bit de Gier on the leg. It took a little while before the room became quiet again.

"He is a challenge," Grijpstra said, "keeps you on your toes. Every policeman should have a cat like that; I will suggest it to the chief constable. We'll be the most aware police force on earth."

"Yes. I am glad you appreciate him now. So we go to the island. When?"

"Tomorrow," Grijpstra said. "First boat tomorrow and we'll play it easy. It is a nice island; I have been there before, I even know the local chief of police. He is an adjutant and he likes birds. Let's be tourists and see what we can see. The commissaris is on an island too."

De Gier was putting his jacket on and looking at himself in the mirror. He was mumbling to himself.

"We still have the afternoon," Grijpstra said. "Go to the gymnasium and practice some judo. You have been getting lazy lately. You aren't as good as you used to be. I saw Geurts throw you twice in two minutes the other night. Geurts, of all people!"

"The instructor had asked me to let Geurts get some exercise," de Gier said.

"Sure."

"You don't believe me?"

"Sure."

"Listen here," de Gier said. "Half the fun of judo is to let somebody else throw you. You learn to fall that way. It's very important to be able to fall."

"Sure," Grijpstra said.

"All right," de Gier said, "and what are you going to do this afternoon?"

"I am going to fire thirty rounds at the range and then I'll clean my pistol. And I'll ask the sergeant if I can fire the carbine a few times and then I'll find someone who knows about knife throwing. I'll throw a knife until I hit something with it and then I'll go home."

"I hope it will take you all night," de Gier said, and dialed a number. "The boat leaves at ten A.M. tomorrow," he said, putting the phone down. "I'll pick you up at seven."

"No," Grijpstra said. "We can't take the car. There are no cars allowed on the ferry and we may have to spend a few days on the island. We'll take the train. I'll meet you at the station at six-thirty."