Just a Corpse at Twilight (24 page)

They walked slowly, to keep time with the commissaris's limp, under maples in autumn colors along a picket fence overgrown with scarlet vines. Jameson Bay was below.

"A beautiful place," the commissaris said.

Bildah nodded. "We are lucky." He touched the commissaris's sleeve. "Technically I did nothing wrong either."

"The lady was dead when she was found in the
Macho
Bandido's
cabin?" the commissaris asked.

"Hairy Harry said so." Bildah looked out over the bay where the yacht was tied up to a mooring. "I didn't want the
Bandido
then so he registered the boat in his own name. I never saw the lady."

"The boat is in your name now?"

It was. Bildah explained that Hairy Harry had been married and was childless. His widow had wanted to cut her ties and go. She sold the house to Bildah.

"For what Hairy Harry paid you? Half its value?"

It was more than what the sheriff's widow had expected. Bildah didn't pay much for the
Macho Bandido
either. All the widow wanted was out. Things always came to Bildah that way—investments, property, deals. "I don't even have to put out my hand," said Bildah.

"You accept all bounty?" the commissaris asked pleasantly.

"You bet." Bildah smiled. "As they say—living well is the best revenge. You're rich yourself?"

The commissaris excused his own luck. "Rich wife, good wages, a pension, lucky with numbers."

They looked at hills on the horizon.

"I don't believe in guilt," Bildah said. "I believe in philosophical curiosity, and in putting things together so as to enjoy some simple comforts, in continuity, for the duration, so to speak."

The commissaris looked down at Jameson Bay, the islands, the foliage in color, the endless ocean, the yacht ready to sail.

"You picked a good spot."

"I should be sailing now," Bildah said, "I wanted to take a look atyour cruise ship today but Little Max had to go to the dentist and I have trouble handling
Macho Bandido
alone."

They walked on. "Your men did a good job here," Bildah said. "Hairy Harry and Billy Boy were hiding a lot of cash. Your men must have told Ishmael and friends where they should look. The dead men's treasure made up for all pain and losses."

"The tunnel on Jeremy Island, guarded by the corpse and Mr. Bear?" the commissaris asked.

Bildah thought that was the location.

"A lot of money?"

Quite a fortune, Bildah thought. Sudden wealth can be destructive but Ishmael could probably handle sudden wealth. Ishmael was quite special; it seemed he shared the loot to everybody's satisfaction. Ishmael himselfonly wanted to replace his airplane.

"You're not sorry the treasure didn't end up with you?"

Bildah smiled, said he had enough to carry on with, thank you, and wasn't it nice to have rich neighbors? Flash had bought him a lobster dinner last time they met.

"What about the salt bags concealing cocaine and the marijuana shipments?"

"Big Max is arranging to take over," Bildah said. "The new sheriff may put a stop to that."

"Take it over himself?"

Bildah didn't think so. The new sheriff came from law enforcement in a Boston ghetto, he didn't care for drugs. If he stayed honest, the business would have to move up north.

"A question," the commissaris said. "Why didn't you back up Hairy Harry? You were here and I was a long way out. You could have protected him and Billy Boy, yes?"

Bildah was quiet.

"You must have felt something was up." The commissaris took time to divulge recent doings: the ritual with Nellie and Katrien.

"A lamb's bone," Bildah said. "So that works, does it? I always thought that sort of thing would. I've read about pointing the bone. Australian aborigines do it. I didn't know the custom had also spread to New Guinea. It's dangerous, right?"

"Never fails." The commissaris nodded. "Kills your victim."

Bildah nodded too. "Yes, sure, but what I read is that the force evoked and released, the power, the devil if you will, may turn halfway and kill the pointer."

"If the gods don't agree?" The commissaris shrugged. "The gods must be environmentalists these days."

"Challenge the subconscious?" Bildah was impressed.

"What's to lose?" the commissaris asked. "Don't mind dying myself." He stopped and faced his host. "Now, tell me, were you aware that your men were in danger?"

Bildah was.

"So why didn't you protect Hairy Harry?" the commissaris asked again.

"I didn't want to," Bildah said.

The two old men sat on rocks, quietly taking in the view.

"Hairy Harry who, by the way, never was
my man,
as you put it," Bildah said, "was clever in some little ways, a minor god in a minor universe, but abysmal ignorance made him shoot Croakie."

Croakie, Bildah said, had been a good raven. Bildah had raised Croakie from the time he was a chick who had either Men or been pushed from his nest. Croakie was blind in one eye and lame in one leg and would sit on Bildah's shoulder. "I have no family," Bildah said. "Man is designed to be gregarious, to interact with fellow beings. So I sometimes feel lonely." He turned to the commissaris. "You have company yourself?"

The commissaris mentioned Katrien and Turtle.

Bildah didn't know about wives or reptiles but he and Croakie had been close. Croakie would fly upside down to make Bildah laugh. Croakie could pronounce four-letter words thoughtfully. "Croakie was free, ofcourse. He had his own window that he knew how to open so that he could sleep in my room."

Bildah said that the sheriff and his deputy's frequent beer-drinking parties sometimes gave way to killing sprees.

The two would fire at sparrows, sea gulls, Croakie.

"You don't hunt yourself?" the commissaris asked.

"Not since Korea." Bildah was in the war there. He had been a medic.

"You don't mind drugs?"

"Don't care for them myself," Bildah said. "But we should make them legal, don't you think?"

The commissaris thought that might happen at some date in the future, if there still was one.

Bildah drove the commissaris back to the harbor.

"Did Akiapola'au look as billed?" Katrien asked, helping him up the cruise vessel's steep gangway. "Are we going to Hawaii now?"

That evening in their stateroom, while the
Lazy Loon
moved in a leisurely fashion on Jameson Bay's slow swell, under a full and quiet moon, listening to loons chuckling near Squid island, the commissaris said that he would never understand it.

"Understand what, Jan?"

The commissaris said that he would never understand the beauty.

"Of this?"

"Of it all."

About the Autnor

Janwillem van de Wetering was born in Rotterdam in 1931, studied Zen in Daitoku-ji Monastery, Kyoto and philosophy in London, and has lived as well in Amsterdam, Cornwall, Capetown, Bogota, Lima, and Brisbane. In 1975 he settled in a small town on the coast of Maine where he still lives.

The Amsterdam Cops series that features Adjutant Grijpstra and Sergeant de Gier working as extensions of the commissaris, a wily and philosophical Amsterdam Chief of Detectives, was conceived when the author served with the Amsterdam Reserve Constabulary. To date over two million copies of his works are in print in fourteen languages.

His joys are an ongoing study of nihilism, keeping a wooden lobster boat afloat and getting older. His pain is an inability to play the jazz trumpet.

He has been married for a long time, no longer smokes or drinks, is kept by a superior dog (like the one in this story), and has become allergic to the guru syndrome.