Outsider in Amsterdam (11 page)

“You see that I often come on time?”

Grijpstra mumbled something.

“And what conclusions is the mastermind drawing?”

Grijpstra connected two more circles.

“Well?”

“Ach,” Grijpstra said. “What do I know? Bits and pieces, that’s all I have. They all connect, but then anything does. I see the connections but I don’t understand them. And what can I be sure of? The only fact we have so far is the book that girl of yours threw. The constables who are searching the house haven’t found anything, except some dead mice. The search is still on. The detectives who are grubbing about in the underworld haven’t found anything either. The theories we have come up with aren’t very satisfactory. You helped me think today. Have you thought of anything?”

De Gier sat back and looked at the red lamps decorated with worn tassels. The owner had made use of the talents of a compatriot artist and there were some Chinese landscapes painted on the peeling plaster of the walls. One of the scenes was religious. A pagoda, or temple, inhabited by gods. Fat
gods with bulging bellies, overpleasant smiles, bald heads and obscene female breasts. One of them had a thin beard. Fat tubby babies were crawling all over them.

“Well?” Grijpstra asked.

“Bah,” said de Gier.

Grijpstra looked up. “I thought you liked Chinese food.”

“I do,” de Gier said, “but I was thinking. And I haven’t come up with any good theory. The best one I have heard so far is the chief inspector’s. We shouldn’t think of murder straight off. Murders are rare in Amsterdam. It was suicide. A lot of the facts we have fit in, and the fact I like most is that he looked so neat.”

“Ah yes,” Grijpstra said. “I know what you mean. The Japanese suicide, wasn’t it. You wash up and tidy yourself before you do it. You think he may have meditated a while in front of the little altar in his room, where we found traces of burnt incense?”

“Yes,” said de Gier, studying the menu. “He may have been depressed for some time but he still needed a last push, and the girl throwing the dictionary at him set him off.”

“And the money?” Grijpstra asked. “The seventy-five red backs. Where are they?”

“Blackmail. Or somebody stole it
before
he committed suicide. Another reason to do it. Or, but perhaps that’s too far-fetched, he destroyed the money to put suspicion on somebody else, somebody we would suspect of having murdered him.”

“Brr,” Grijpstra said. “No. Let’s not be too subtle.”

“It could be, couldn’t it?”

“No,” Grijpstra said.

“Let’s eat then.”

De Gier had been given his beer and was blowing into the froth.

“Maybe you are right. I can’t see him destroying money. Like putting it into one of these grey plastic rubbish bags we have
nowadays and giving it to the garbage man. Nobody ever opens those bags. But Piet wouldn’t destroy money. He liked money.”

“But he may have been blackmailed.”

“Seventy-five thousand is a lot of blackmail. What had he done? What can anyone do in Holland nowadays that he could be blackmailed for? Even murder will give you no more than a few years in jail.”

“Ha,” Grijpstra said. “Weren’t you telling me the other day that even twenty-four hours in jail is more punishment than any man should take?”

“True, true,” de Gier said. “Forget it. Let’s eat.”

They ordered and de Gier started eating the moment the waiter placed the food on the table. He tore the fried meat off the thin sticks with his teeth, broke a piece of shrimp cracker and grabbed the noodles, all at the same time.

“Easy,” Grijpstra said. “You are sharing this meal with me.”

“You are right,” de Gier said with his mouth full.

“Easy is the word. We shouldn’t rush so much. This case will solve itself, all we have to do is sit around and watch it. That’s what the chief inspector told me this …”

Grijpstra didn’t finish his sentence and de Gier looked up.

“What now?” de Gier asked.

Grijpstra’s face had frozen.

“Look behind you,” he said.

De Gier looked around and froze as well.

“Shit,” de Gier said, and jumped. Grijpstra jumped at the same time. They both pulled out their pistols and they were both running toward the door but de Gier got there first. Grijpstra had run into the waiter, and the waiter and his tray were still falling when Grijpstra got into the street and saw de Gier running after their victim, a tall thin Chinese man by the name of Lee Fong.

Poor Lee Fong was having very bad luck that day, the culmination of a lot of bad luck that he had had to put up with
during his short stay in Holland. Ever since he had deserted his ship he had nothing but misadventure. He had lost at gambling and been arrested for pushing drugs. He had wounded a guard while escaping from jail. He had quarreled with the acquaintances who had hid him. This was the day he would leave the country. He should have stayed in hiding until the last minute but he had risked a short walk in order to buy a last good meal. And now he had run into two plainclothes policemen.

He shouldn’t have hesitated when Grijpstra looked at him. There are a lot of photographs policemen have to remember and Chinese men look very much alike to a Dutchman. But he had hesitated and touched his knife, a long nasty blade that he kept in a special pocket in his jeans. That one movement had caused Grijpstra to act. And now Lee Fong had de Gier after him and de Gier was gaining.

Lee took a corner and found himself in an alley called the Ramskooi. The Ramskooi is a cul de sac. Lee thought he had no choice. He stopped, turned and pulled out his knife. De Gier stopped too and kicked. A good kick from a long leg will remove any knife. De Gier had learned at least three grips to disarm a knife fighter but they were all complicated, consisting of several movements. And he would have had to drop his pistol. He preferred holding onto the pistol. Lee Fong put up his hands as Grijpstra came panting.

The Ramskooi is a short alley and there are three bars on it. The bars’ occupants were spilling into the street.

De Gier handcuffed Lee Fong and the crowd stared and muttered. Grijpstra entered the first bar and telephoned the central radio room. Within seconds a siren began to whine. Within two minutes a white VW turned into the alley. Within three minutes it had left again, carrying de Gier and Lee Fong. The crowd was still muttering and Grijpstra dabbed at his forehead
with a large dirty handkerchief. The crowd stopped muttering and returned to the bars and the next flood of beer.

“Sir,” a small voice said.

Grijpstra, on his way to the restaurant, looked down. A seven-year-old boy was walking next to him. A Negro boy, very black.

“Yes, friend?” Grijpstra said.

The boy grinned, flashing large, white teeth.

“Are you a policeman, sir?”

“I am,” Grijpstra said pleasantly.

“Can I see your gun please?”

“Guns are not for showing,” Grijpstra said.

“No,” the boy said smiling. “They are for shooting.”

“You are wrong there, you know. Guns are for keeping in leather holsters, here.” Grijpstra patted the holster under his jacket.

“What had the man done, sir?”

“Fighting,” Grijpstra said. “He is a bad man. He fought with a knife and he hurt somebody.”

“I fight too,” the boy said.

“With a knife?”

“No sir. With my hands.” The boy showed his small fists. “But my brother fights with a bicycle chain. He says he will teach me. It’s very difficult, he says.”

Grijpstra stopped and faced the boy.

“My name is Uncle Hans,” Grijpstra said. “Now you go and tell your brother that he shouldn’t fight with a bicycle chain. It isn’t difficult and it isn’t nice. If he wants to fight he should learn judo. You know what that is? Judo?”

“Yes sir,” the boy said. “I have seen it on the TV. And my teacher at school is a judo fighter. He has a brown belt but he wants a black belt. He practices all the time.”

“That’s good,” Grijpstra said. “Maybe you can learn from him. You know what judo fighters do before they start fighting?”

The boy thought, then he smiled.

“Yes, sir, I know. They bow to each other.”

“You know why they do that?”

The boy thought again, a little longer this time. “They like each other? They’ve got nothing against each other?”

“Right,” Grijpstra said. “Run along now.”

“Goodbye, Uncle Hans,” the boy said.

A minute later Grijpstra found himself cursing. The curses, strung together shaping an eight-syllable malediction of some force, mildly surprised him. He had stopped in front of a small display window, part of a shop halfway between the dead end alley and the Chinese restaurant. He wondered what might have caused this sudden burst of harsh and indecent verbal violence. The objects in the small shop window? He identified the objects: three sets of dentures on a shelf, guarded by a fat cat, asleep and heavily motionless on a second shelf, placed above the first. But he knew that the unexpected appearance of false teeth would be unable to upset him. He owned a set of false teeth himself and the daily early-morning sight of them grinning from the waterglass on his washstand had never yet unnerved him; on the contrary, he thought his teeth to be both handsome and useful. The cat perhaps? But Grijpstra liked cats, even if he wouldn’t admit the fact to boastful and sentimental cat-keepers like de Gier.

“It was his attempt at education,” he thought, and pushed his solid shape into motion again. The small boy he had lectured just now hadn’t really been impressed. He had probably been frightened into agreeing. The display of firearms, the running feet, the suspect’s knife, de Gier’s kick, the handcuffs, the siren of the patrol car, the uniformed constables grabbing the prisoner. “It’s the war all over,” Grijpstra thought. “The kid will have his bicycle chain and join the free fight. Just give him a few more years.”

* * *

Grijpstra was back in the restaurant. Their food was still on the table. The waiter smiled uneasily.

“Hey you,” a fat woman said.

“Madame?” Grijpstra asked.

“You know what you did?”

“Yes,” Grijpstra said. “I ran into the waiter. I am sorry.”

“You a policeman?” the fat woman asked.

“Yes.”

“That fellow you went after, what happened?”

“A criminal,” Grijpstra said, “on the run. His photograph is in all the police stations. Dangerous. Armed with a knife. Had to grab him.”

“Did you?”

“My colleague has got him. He is on his way to the cell now.”

“You made a mess of my clothes, you know that?”

Grijpstra got up and looked at the woman’s dress. It was stained badly.

“A whole plate of noodles. And my husband here got an egg roll on his head. And the girl over there got soup all over her. And you should have seen what you did to the waiter. He had to change his jacket.”

“I am sorry,” Grijpstra said again.

“You should pay something, maybe,” the woman said.

“Ah, don’t listen to her,” the husband broke in. “She is having you on. The dress had to be dry-cleaned anyway and I got the egg roll on my hair, it’s thick enough still.”

“Are you all right?” Grijpstra asked the girl who had got soup over her.

The girl smiled shyly. “Yes.”

“Women,” the husband said. “A policeman got shot last year. Dead he was. And she is talking about her clothes. You might have been shot too.”

“He only carried a knife,” Grijpstra said.

“Or knifed. Maybe that’s worse.”

“It’s okay,” the fat woman said. “But next time run around the waiter. He’s a small chap, you could easily have avoided him.”

“Women,” the husband said.

“Shut up,” the fat woman said.

“Yes dear,” the man said.

“Would you two like a beer?” Grijpstra asked.

“Yes,” the woman said and smiled at him.

The waiter brought the beer and refused payment.

“On the house,” he said and smiled. He still looked very nervous.

“I wonder what he is hiding,” Grijpstra thought. “No papers, that’s for sure. And a friend of Lee Fong.” He looked at the waiter’s face, trying to remember it. Perhaps he should drop a hint at the Aliens Department. Perhaps he should not.

“There’s enough trouble in the world,” he thought.

Ten minutes later de Gier came in. The waiter brought a fresh plate of noodles and some fried vegetables.

“So?” Grijpstra asked.

“It’s okay. They’ve got him in the cell. A lot of charges against him now. The fool shouldn’t have drawn his knife. I phoned the chief inspector and he seemed pleased for once. He asked me to congratulate you.”

“Me?” Grijpstra asked.

“Don’t be modest,” de Gier said. “I can’t stand it. You spotted him, didn’t you?”

“Ah, yes,” Grijpstra said, “and then you caught him. Because I told you to.”

“You never told me anything.”

“I would have,” Grijpstra said, “if I had had a little time.”

“Well,” de Gier said and smiled nastily, “you got the waiter.”

“It’s the little things in life that give us our pleasure,” Grijpstra said. “You pay the bill.”

“Is it my turn again?”

“I paid last week.”

“Four rolls and two cups of coffee,” de Gier said. “Six or seven guilders. This must be over twenty.”

“You are the youngest,” Grijpstra said, “don’t argue.”

“No,” said de Gier, and paid the bill.

“Got anything yet?” Grijpstra asked, addressing a young constable who was moving casks in the cellar of Haarlemmer Houttuinen number 5.

“Perhaps,” the young constable said. “These casks contain some sort of paste. I believe it is called miso and they make soup with it. I ate it once in one of these health-food restaurants. The taste isn’t too bad if you don’t eat too much of it. Innocent stuff anyway but this is different. I picked it up on the floor.”

He showed a few crumbs of a sticky dark brown substance. “It looks like miso but it is harder. I think it is hash.”

“You roll your own cigarettes?” Grijpstra asked.

“Sure,” the constable said. “You want some cigarette paper?”

Grijpstra mixed a little of the substance with cigarette tobacco, cutting it up with his stiletto. De Gier lit the cigarette for him and Grijpstra took a deep puff and exhaled the smoke. They all sniffed.