Just a Corpse at Twilight

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  Where was asshole de Gier? Safely tucked away while his savior crossed an ocean in an airplane that had to be protected from terrorists by armored vehicles with machine guns on top, and while his guardian angel flew in a kite soaked in explosives, and while his redeemer was abused by authorities. . . . Was he really expected to row across an ocean to an island?

  Grijpstra would rather be ferried. He smiled at the woman behind the counter, loading more plates. "You must be Beth. I'm Kripstra, guest of Rinus de Gier."

  Beth smiled too. She had cascading chins and bulging arms and breasts like stuffed hammocks. She had large blue eyes. The eyes were very clear. "Pleased to meet you. Coming to watch nature too?"

  Grijpstra kept smiling. He explained his presence. He painted ducks on Sunday afternoons, upside-down ducks, using their orange feet for little sails. Nature always turned him on. "Yes, ma'am." Nature. Nature Woman. Dead nature woman Lorraine, floating upside down in that vast ocean out there?

  Facing the younger woman he was being friendly-fatherly, he was good at that. When he and de Gier policed Amsterdam's inner city, de Gier bothered the suspect while Grijpstra took care, held hands, bought cofiee, worried about his client's feelings, read him his rights.

  Grijpstra smiled.

  He spotted a gray metal box on the shelf behind the counter. There was a microphone connected to the box.

  "Is that your CB radio? You think you could reach the Kathy Three?"

  Grijpstra remembered the commissaris summing up his New World experience. "Americans mean well. If they can figure out what it is you want them to help you out with, and they think they can help you out, they will."

  "Sure." Beth activated her set. "Kathy Three, this is Beth, come in, Kathy Three"

  The radio crackled.

  Beth tried Squid Island too. "Rinus, this is Beth . .."

  Beth shook her head. "Nothin' doiri."

  "I could row, couldn't I?"

  "Sure," Beth said. If he'd wait a moment she'd take him to the Point, or Aki could take him, but there were still too many fishermen in the restaurant. Would he mind waiting? Could she get him more coffee? "Excuse me, Kripstra." New customers had come in. "Seat yourselves, dears."

  Grijpstra wandered away from the counter. He knew where the rowboats were and he could see Squid Island. He'd left his bag at the table. Aki handed it to him. He liked Aki. Aki and Beth, was it? Nellie had gay friends too. She was probably bisexual. He had never dared to ask.

  At the quay Grijpstra met Little Max, son of Big Max the lobsterman. Little Max was fishing from his dad's dory.

  "Hi."

  Little Max said hi too.

  They exchanged names.

  "My friend Rinus lives on Squid Island, Little Max. I'm going to stay with him for a while. I'd like to row out there. Can I borrow your dory? I'll bring it back when the tide turns and then I'll pay you ten dollars."

  "Ten dollars," Little Max said thoughtfully.

  Grijpstra, to diminish distance—he was good with dogs too—sat on his haunches. "You know the man out on Squid Island, the fellow who watches nature? You must have seen the foreign man. I wanted to go with the Kathy Three, with Flash Farnsworth? And Bad George? But Beth can't raise them on the CB, so now I'll have to row."

  Little Max was impressed. This outsider sure knew names. Grijpstra had shaved on the El Al airplane, and his worsted suit didn't look too crumpled. The leather bag was new. Little Max thought this knowledgeable fellow, talking "from away," sure looked like a banker. Little Max had seen Bostonian bankers before, they came out to fish or hunt and they spread dollars around like crazy but so far not to him. Ten big ones' worth of Beth's chocolate-chip ice cream; he could spread that out some.

  Grijpstra rowed. He hadn't lost his touch since his father had taken him out fishing some forty years ago. The oars stayed in their locks, little waves broke musically against the bow behind him. His direction was good for he'd drawn a line between Squid Island behind his back and Jameson's tallest church spire facing him now and if he could just manage to keep that spire between his feet, which were planted firmly against the dory's rear seat, and look over his shoulder once in while to check out the other end, he should make it easily, he thought. The tide pulled and the wind pushed, a breeze that kept strengthening as the dory got further out ofjameson. The waves increased in size. He saw a beige-colored speedboat leaving Jameson Harbor, powered by twin outboards. It approached rapidly. As the speedboat skipped across waves, wavering a bit before coming back on course, Grijpstra could read the lettering on both sides of the bow: SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT WOODCOCK COUNTY. The boat was fair-sized, thirty feet long at least, sleek, dangerous, and efficient. A shark prowling.

  Hairy Harry was at the console, standing behind the wheel. Billy Boy, protected by curved glass, crouched in the bow. The sheriff smiled, Billy Boy didn't. "How're you doing?"

  "Good," Grijpstra said.

  The outboards, in neutral, growled mightily. The powerboat stopped next to the dory. "We're enforcing rules today," Billy Boy said. "You been studying sea rules, Krip?"

  "Not lately," Grijpstra said.

  Billy had a checklist, clipped to a board. He also had a ballpoint. He was ready to make some checkmarks.

  "Life jacket?"

  "No life jacket."

  "Horn?"

  "No horn."

  No bail bucket either. No extra paddle. No flashlight. No flares.

  "Absolutely got to have flares," the sheriff said, towering high above the console, chewing his cigar. "Suppose you're in trouble, Kripstra, and you want some attention. You got to fire some flares."

  "Flare gun?" Billy Boy asked.

  No flare gun.

  "This is for your own protection," Billy Boy said. "I know the fines are high but people got to learn to listen. Drop by anytime. Six violations at forty bucks each, let's see now."

  "Two hundred and forty," Hairy Harry said.

  "Thank you, Sheriff." Billy, taking his time, steady in spite of the boat's movements, filled in the ticket. He handed it over. "So you only got Europe dollars, I hear?"

  Hairy Harry shifted into forward and pulled the gas handle a bit so that the powerboat could stay on course. "That's okay, Deputy, we can phone Boston for the rate of exchange."

  "Plus forty percent," Billy Boy said, "for the trouble."

  "Did you take the rowboat, Krip?" Hairy Harry asked.

  Grijpstra mentioned Little Max and the ten dollars.

  "Little Max has no right to rent out Big Max's dory."

  "That'll be extra," Billy said. "Big Max will have to press charges. And he will. Isn't that right, Sheriff?"

  "That's right," Hairy Harry said.

  "Drop by anytime," Billy Boy said. "Anytime before tomorrow noon."

  "That's when the bus leaves," Hairy Harry said. "We'll make sure you catch it. Bus back to Boston."

  "After you've paid the fines and all," Billy Boy said.

  The twin Johnson outboards roared and the powerboat turned, spraying Grijpstra with her wake.

  Grijpstra rowed. The waves had grown with the strengthening breeze and it was hard to keep the dory from veering sideways. Every time it did, some water splashed against the hull and into the boat. Bar Island appeared and disappeared. There were shreds of fog. Grijpstra saw treetops through veils of froth, and purple rocks and ledges, gleaming as waves pulled back after crashing wildly. Large sea gulls with black wings and white bodies, effortlessly poised against the gale, cackled mockingly at his feeble effort to manipulate the slippery oars. A seal's head appeared, bald and round, with whiskers sprouting widely to each side. The eyes stared ghoulishly from deep sockets. The sea mammal's body, shimmering in sunlight that broke briefly through fog, raised itself vertically from a watery valley. The seal blew loudly. A greeting maybe or just clearing its nostrils? Grijpstra nodded. "How are you doing?" The seal, overwhelmed by this human response, tumbled over sideways and disappeared into his liquid world, like a clown who, after having been hilario
us for a while, feels obliged to extinguish himself comically. Grijpstra, appreciating the show, rested on his oars. Low tide, at full force now, combined with strong winds to swoosh the dory along Bar Island and through the passage between Bar and Squid Islands. Grijpstra rowed on, exhausted now, with no effect.

  A bizarre-looking building with sloped tiled roofs, two above, two below, the top one ending in a spire, peeked out of the pines. Grijpstra thought he couldn't have reached China yet. A wave raised the dory so that Grijpstra could see the ocean ahead, stretching, he remembered, not to China but back to Europe, to Nellie, to comforts, to survival, to ideas he would never realize now.

  Although he felt impossibly tired and dizzy, he still made a show of working the oars. Why? To impress Nellie, facing him from the dory's back seat. Nellie looked pretty in a white dress and straw hat. Like the day they'd gone out on the Amstel River together.

  The successful lover knows how to amuse his beloved.

  "These waves are from the Far East, Nellie, as painted by—who was it? Hokusai? Hokusai waves, remember the reproduction I showed you? I wanted to use that wave in an Amsterdam canal, with dead ducks on top."

  "HenkieLuwie," Nellie said tenderly.

  "Hokusai waves can swallow your house at Straight Tree Canal, Nellie."

  Nellie laughed. Funny HenkieLuwie!

  So he was putting it on a bit maybe. "Well, they can swallow your bicycle shed."

  A birch canoe passed, paddled by a smiling dog-faced woman. Then the forty-foot-long and forty-year-old cabin cruiser Kathy Three appeared, big and just sturdy enough to weather the weather. The vessel's eight-cylinder diesel thumped on relentlessly while the short skipper, Flash, his hairdo standing up in the wind, and equally short first mate, Bad George, his plastic face emotionless, looked the other way, sweeping the rough sea with binoculars, missing the dory bobbing out of sight between waves.

  The dog, Kathy Two, small, blackish gray except for her blond face and feet, did see Grijpstra, and jumped about the bridge, waving long mustaches and eyebrows, barking shrilly. "Thar she blows," captain and mate shouted at each other.

  The Kathy Three stopped and backed up a bit. A triple hook, attached to a good length of thin rope, whizzed toward the dory's bow. Bad George, shouting through what Grijpstra took to be a papier-mache mask and leaning across the railing, held out both hands. Grijpstra, wet through and through, holding his bag firmly like a bureaucrat out in the rain, was hoisted aboard. The dory itself followed. Kathy Two, jumping and sliding about the slippery deck, welcomed her wet guest. Passenger and dog were directed to the front cabin, where Grijpstra lay down on a cot and Kathy Two jumped up, putting a paw on his chest and her face on his arm, growling pleasantly.

  "Damn dog usually don't like nobody," Bad George said, bringing hot coffee. The mug rattled against Grijpstra's teeth as he took in the cabin, resting place of broken and rusted tools, worn rope reinforced with tape, generic dog food and baked beans in large cans, dented fuel containers, and well-used engine parts. The cabin was clean, however, like the kitchen behind it, where scoured pots hung from hooks swaying between bunches of onions, a smoked ham, dried fish, and net bags filled with vegetables and potatoes.

  Flash Farnsworth came to check his catch too. "You could have been swamped by them big waves, you know," Flash said. "Good thing Aki kept calling. Radio was acting up again, we didn't hear her for a while. How're you feeling?"

  Grijpstra felt cold, hungry, his legs hurt, his head was throbbing. He didn't think this Hobbit was real. Flash did have hairy long toes, curling out of his sandals. He wore gray overalls with a yellow silk scarf, torn and dirty. He must have found the scarf, Grijpstra thought, lost by a tourist, blown into a tree. Flash didn't seem the kind who would buy silk scarves. His gray-and-white beard was shapeless, like a cloud blown against his face. The hair wafted up into his eyes. When he spoke, irregular teeth glinted.

  There was shouting from the bridge, and stamping on the cabin's roof. Flash limped away. Grijpstra, moving painfully, tried to ignore Kathy Two. The little dog jumped about, thrusting up long thin ears, that, pink inside like festive pennants, stood out perpendicularly from her small furry face. She wagged a ragged tail.

  "Invitation to the dance?" Grijpstra asked.

  The dog yapped happily. Grijpstra picked her up.

  "I don't dance, dear." Grijpstra staggered on and climbed a rickety ladder to reach the bridge where Flash was turning a small rusted wheel, staring intently ahead, one hand on the gas lever.

  "Tricky here," Bad George said. "Shoals. Can't see them. Flash's supposed to know them."

  The ship inched ahead slowly, turning sharply around the far end of Squid Island, almost touching trees at times, then veering off again to give the coast a wide berth. Here and there Grijpstra saw underwater amber-colored shapes, some rounded off, some jagged, waving seaweed.

  "Ugly fellers," Bad George said, "they'll rip out yer bottom."

  "Easy," Flash told the boat, tugging his beard, the other hand clasped tightly around the wheel. "Easy, darling."

  Then all was calm. Kathy Three even picked up a little speed, sailing nicely between Squid Island's tentacles, until the engine roared briefly, while Flash shouted, "Hard astern" at himself, pulling the gear lever back, before shifting into neutral and switching the engine off. The Kathy Three floated quietly toward the island's dock, where de Gier waited and waved, caught the mooring rope with a delicate gesture, and twisted it expertly around a wooden cleat.

  De Gier swung himself across the railing and hugged Grijpstra. He stepped back. "You're wet." He smiled. "Had a nice trip? I would have come looking for you but I only have the dinghy here." He patted Grijpstra's shoulder. "And Aki said the Kathy Three was picking you up." He bowed to Flash, Bad George, and the dog.

  There wasn't any expression, except the usual, which was blank, on Bad George's face. Flash's face, being mostly hair, didn't convey much either, although there could be twinkles in his eyes, which bulged a bit and were bloodshot from peering into direct or sea-reflected sunlight. The dog, looking down from the bridge, frowned furiously.

  "Thanks again," de Gier said.

  Chapter 6

  "Better?" de Gier asked when Grijpstra emerged from the shower. "Ready for lunch? Noodles? I made some noodles. You like mackerel? I have some scallops too that Lorraine got skindiving. Crabmeat? Your favorite cocktail sauce? For starters you do like seafood, don't you?"

  "I could be goddamn seafood myself," Grijpstra said.

  There were explanations of course, there always were. De Gier had been listening on the CB's open channel all morning except for two brief periods when he thought he heard Mr. Bear rummaging about the pagoda. Bears on the Maine coast don't care to show themselves much. Bear hunting is a sport, practiced diligently by experts such as SheriffHairy Harry and Deputy Billy Boy. De Gier wanted to photograph Mr. Bear with his new Nikon. He'd rigged up wires on the beach that Mr. Bear would touch if he showed up where he had climbed ashore before, at daybreak, a week ago, when de Gier happened to be awake, meditating on the clifis, without the Nikon.

  Something touched the wires twice that morning, triggering the alarm. Must have been foxes.

  "Don't you carry your radio?" Grijpstra asked.

  It wasn't a battery-operated CB. You had to plug it into the wall. "See?" De Gier demonstrated.

  "First the goddamn deputy called in to tell you I was here," Grijpstra said, "and then the goddamn restaurant called in that I was here, and you were looking for a bear?"

  Chance, happenstance... things go wrong sometimes, this is earth, a planet beyond human understanding, de Gier was truly sorry. "Okay?"

  Not okay.

  De Gier was sorry Grijpstra felt that way. So how was El Al? Wasn't Ishmael a card? Katrien had written that the commissaris's inflamed leg joints were a trifle better. True? Would Grijpstra care for lobster for dinner?

  Grijpstra shoveled down fried noodles and pickles. He felt a bit better, he could maybe ima
gine that he didn't dislike de Gier. This was like long ago, when he avoided Mrs. Grijpstra by staying over at de Gier's suburban apartment, which faced parks front and back. De Gier was a good cook, using herbs he grew on his balcony, serving choice dishes with a welcoming flourish.

  Grijpstra's tone of voice was almost pleading, "So how come you said I could row the distance and when I tried I almost died?"

  "From the Point," de Gier said, "it's only a quarter of a mile." He explained, "There's a peninsula south of Jameson and it bends this way." Hadn't Grijpstra seen the Point from Ishmael's plane? Ishmael lived at the Point. Didn't Ishmael show it to him from his airplane?

  "I never got that," Grijpstra said. "There's the harbor just outside Beth's Diner, there are dories. Your island is visible from the harbor. . . ."

  "No," de Gier explained. From Jameson Harbor to Squid Island was quite a few miles. Nobody in his right mind would ever try it. Only the stupid maybe.

  "Stu-pid?" Grijpstra asked, lowering his fork, pointing his fork.

  Well, kind of silly, de Gier said. And then somebody at the diner, probably Aki, was supposed to . . . lovely Aki, Akiapola'au. . . named after the vulture finch of her native islands of Hawaii . . .

  "Vulture finch." Grijpstra glared. "No such thing."

  "Please," de Gier said. "Change your coordinates. We aren't at home. Mr. Bear visits this island, and there's such a thing as a vulture finch in Hawaii." De Gier smiled. "You liked the lady? Aren't you pleased you came? Something else, eh?"

  Grijpstra had carried his bowl of noodles to the window and was looking at the peninsula shore, which was, indeed, close. He was eating again.

  "You liked Akiapola'au?"

  "The vulture finch is lesbian," Grijpstra said.

  De Gier stared.

  "Isn't she?" Grijpstra asked. "So is Beth. I saw it. I always do."

  "So?"