Hard Rain

\\\\\ 29 /////

"Ernst?" Fleur Fernandus, Nie De La Faille, a plump woman in her sixties, asked. She was dressed according to younger taste and heavily made up. Her bejeweled fingers reminded the commissaris's wife of fat garden worms, splattered with luminous paint. "Ach, Ernst."

The commissaris's wife, in an effort to be polite, complimented Fleur on the elegance of her apartment. "Yes," Fleur said. "Wasn't I lucky that I still had those shares of Willem's bank? Willem always badgered me to have them transferred into his name, but I didn't want to weaken my position. When we divorced, he had to buy me out. Ernst sold his shares much earlier, and was bamboozled royally, but I got a bundle." She shrugged. "Can't expect a business head on the shoulders of a poet."

"Poor Ernst," the commissaris's wife said.

"No money," Fleur said, "but so what? I would have paid him just to have him around." She breathed heavily. "Ernst is such a wonderful man, but of course I had to settle for his greedy brother…"

"Ernst is doing well?"

"… and for his brother's retarded son," Fleur finished.

The commissaris's wife fidgeted with her handkerchief.

"Ernst…" Fleur clasped her hands together. "Do you know that he asked me to go sailing with him? A hundred years ago? Around the world? And I, like an idiot, refused. We could be living on Mauritius now, and I would have been a nature woman, eating coconuts off trees, splashing about in lagoons, listening to his rhymy wordage." She grinned at her guest. "I have no ear for the stuff, poetry passes me by completely, but I'm good at pretending. I'll bet Ernst's present woman doesn't give half a hoot for his poetry, either."

"Ernst has a woman?"

"Bah." Fleur offered a tray of bonbons. "Have one, they're expensive. Yes. Some native wench who works as a waitress. Ernst was here a month ago, actually looked me up. He sailed in from Mauritius to ask Willem for a loan to buy his girlie a restaurant. Didn't get a penny. Willem tried to interest him in smuggling drugs, but Ernst is too naive for the real world. I bought him dinner, a few times, and clothes so that he could take me out; he dresses rather sloppily."

The commissaris's wife's teeth broke through a thin coating of chocolate. She winced at the oversweet taste. "Not attractive?"

"Very attractive," Fleur said. "Sun-bleached jeans, big pectoral muscles, a tattered shirt, straw sandals, unkempt beard. The depth of the sea is in his eyes and he wears a golden earring. Katrien, Ernst is a dream. But I couldn't get him into one of my favorite restaurants looking like that."

"Fleur?"

"I tried to seduce him."

"Fleur?"

Fleur stroked the armrests of her chair. "With money, of course." She kneaded her thighs. "These won't work anymore. I would have liked to keep him here. I wonder if he noticed. Tried to get him to stay here with me, but he'd rather sleep in his boat. Crummy boat."

"Fleur?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," the commissaris's wife said, "but your son is dead."

"Huip?"

"You only have one son."

"Good," Fleur said. "The hateful monster. I could never stand him; he didn't even have his father's amusing side. Graspy little baby, hurt me a lot, and when he grew up it was even worse. How did he die? Got killed by his cronies? Huip never kept good company. You should have seen the human offal he dragged home from school."

"A boating accident," the commissaris's wife said. "Jan heard about it. I think he even saw it, on the Vinker Lakes earlier today."

"Good," Fleur said. "I always hated those damned lakes. That's where Willem enjoyed himself. Did Willem die too?"

"No, Fleur."

Fleur pushed a large bonbon into her mouth.

"Fleur?"

Fleur swallowed. "So Willem is still out there, making trouble? Why don't you send Jan after him? Jan could catch the miserable sod. Willem isn't all that clever, you know, he does have weak points."

"I think that Jan considers Willem a suspect in a murder case," the commissaris's wife said.

Fleur's eyes bulged. She sucked in her lips. "Hm. He does? Wasn't there something about Jan in the papers? An investigation of some sort? Did your husband turn out badly too?"

"No," the commissaris's wife said. "The other way around. Corrupt officials tried to get him out of the way, but that's all right now, Jan is working again."

"Shouldn't eat these," Fleur said, pushing the bonbons away a little. "Perhaps just one more. Jan should get at Willem's money. Do you know that Willem figures out every night just how much he is worth? To the penny? If it's less than the night before, he has a fit. He would pick up things and throw them."

"At you?"

"No, because I would throw them back." Fleur chewed. "Katrien, tell Jan he should get Willem fined somehow. For nonpayment of taxes-that shouldn't be too hard. Suck his money away, and Willem will be like a deflated scumbag. Jan might work on Willem's drug dealing too, he's been doing that from the day heroin came into the country. Willem was never too normal, but the drugs drove him crazy."

"Does he take drugs, too?"

"No," Fleur said. "It's like his womanizing. I think Willem likes to watch, doesn't get into fun stuff himself."

"Drugs aren't fun."

"No?" Fleur selected another bonbon. "I wonder. They're too expensive for me. They calm you down, I hear. I do get quite nervous."

"Well," said the commissaris's wife, rising and moving toward the door, "nice to see you again, I really love your apartment."

Fleur waddled to the door with her. "Come again."