by Bill Moody
We get in, and he manages some passable Dutch to the driver for directions. “Zeedijk,” he says, then a street name I couldn’t pronounce if I tried, and a number. The driver frowns and shakes his head but presses the button on the meter.
I look at Darren. “Not a cool place to be goin’ after midnight,” he says. He slumps in the seat, his gloved hands folded, and stares out the window.
The taxi winds through the narrow streets and over canal bridges till we hit a main boulevard in the direction of Central Station. We make a right in front of the station, then filter down through a maze of streets to a brightly lit underpass north of the station. It comes out along the waterfront, onto a two-lane curved road that meanders for a mile or so, then over another short, narrow bridge with room for only one car at a time. I catch a glimpse of the harbor lights on our left, then we’re in a Chinatown section—old buildings, newly restored restaurants, cafés, and shops, wedged between warehouses and drab apartment blocks.
The driver slows the taxi and looks around, trying to read street names. He stops a couple of times, then goes on. After a couple of wrong turns, Darren taps him on the shoulder.
“Here,” Darren says, leaning forward to tell the driver to stop. I pay the fare, and we get out and walk a couple of blocks past rows of apartments and more abandoned warehouses while Darren looks for numbers. The air is chilled from the harbor, and the smell of the sea is strong, fighting for dominance over the odor of Chinese cooking. We walk a little farther, then Darren stops and points. “This one,” he says.
Some of the windows are boarded up, some are broken. The front door has duct tape across the glass in diagonal rows where the glass has been cracked. Inside the tiny lobby is a bank of mailboxes, but I wonder how much is delivered here. Most of the name slots are empty; others are scratched out or unreadable. Darren points up the stairs.
The smell makes me not want to breathe. Cigarette butts litter the dimly lit hallways, and fumes from broken wine bottles and crushed beer cans mix with the odor of urine, and some other smell I can’t make out at all. We walk up to the third floor and pass doors where muffled sounds from televisions and voices, some even children’s, filter through the thin walls.
“Some kind of government housing,” Darren says, wrinkling his nose at the stench. “Got projects everywhere.”
“You sure this is the place?”
“Yeah. Got the address from another guy. Told him van Gogh owes me money.”
“You’ve never been here?”
“Hell, no,” Darren says, like he’s annoyed and offended by the question.
He touches my shoulder, and we stop in front of one door and listen for a moment. The brass number 9 is nailed to the door, but the top nail is missing so that the number hangs upside down. I hear a television turned down low and something else—a kind of rhythmic tapping sound. Darren raps on the door with a gloved hand. Inside, the tapping stops. “Yo, van Gogh,” he says, glancing down the hallway.
There’s nothing but the sound of the TV for a moment, then footsteps, slapping toward the door. “Who is?” the dark, raspy voice says from just behind the door.
“It’s Darren, man. Got that guy I told you about. Open up, man. Stinks out here.”
The door opens a few inches. Van Gogh’s face is deeply lined and gaunt. His long lank hair, shoulder length, flies in all directions off the top of his head. Van Gogh looks at Darren, gives me a quick glance, then breaks into a grim smile. Several teeth are missing, and the remaining ones are yellowish. Cautiously he opens the door wider, sticks his head out to look up and down the hallway, then steps aside to let us in.
He’s wearing a tank-top-style undershirt that was probably white once, and faded torn jeans. His feet are in leather sandals with a couple of the straps broken or ready to tear. In his left hand, he holds two scarred drumsticks; in his right, a cigarette, burned down nearly to his fingers. He inspects me as I pass, drags on the cigarette, and exhales a cloud of smoke.
The room, and that’s all it is, has a small sink, a countertop, a couple of shelves above it with a few dishes and cups. Lying on the counter next to the sink are a two-burner hot plate, a large jar of instant coffee, an open bag of sugar, and two spoons. I don’t see any kind of refrigerator. In one corner is a black iron-framed single bed, a small table, a lamp that barely illuminates the room, and a large white ashtray with the logo of some bar, overflowing with ashes and butts.
Stacked on the floor in a neat pile are several paperback books, the one on top with a garish cover, some kind of horror novel. Propped against the wall is a canvas bag with a couple of framed, smudged charcoal drawings sticking out. A few feet from the side of the bed, a small black-and-white television with a rabbit-ear aerial is tuned low and perched on an old trunk. A movie flickers on the screen. The smell in here is only slightly better than in the hallway.
By the side of the bed is the room’s one unusual item, which explains the tapping sound. On a shiny chrome stand, with a circular piece of black rubber at its center, is a drummer’s practice pad. Van Gogh sits on the bed, drops the cigarette butt in the ashtray to continue smoldering. In the lamplight, I can see that his left hand is misshapen, the fingers crooked. He places one stick in the crook between his thumb and forefinger of his left hand and curls his fingers around the shaft of the stick.
Without thinking, I flex my own hand. Van Gogh’s fingers have been broken at one time and never healed properly, but their movements are long practiced from memory. He cocks his head slightly to the right as I’ve seen countless drummers do, and continues tapping out rhythms from somewhere in his mind, accenting here and there, but all very quietly, very controlled. The sticks never come off the pad more than a couple of inches. Then, as if remembering some tune he played long ago, he begins to play a medium-tempo ride cymbal beat with his right hand, while accenting with his left.
I glance at Darren. He’s taken off the shades, and his eyes flick from me to van Gogh and back again. “You digging this, huh?” he says.
Van Gogh stops the time play then and vamps on a soft press roll. I watch the muscles of his forearms, lined and scarred by a thousand needle marks. He stops the roll then and carefully replaces the sticks on the pad. He looks at me.
“You have one cigarette, please?”
I dig for mine and hand him the pack. He offers me one first, takes one for himself, and lays the pack on the table. He lights us both with a wooden match from a large box next to the ashtray, inhales deeply twice, three times, and exhales clouds of blue smoke. “Ah, menthol,” he says. “Very expensive.” He picks up the pack and examines it.
“Keep them,” I say.
He breaks into another nearly toothless smile and nods. I think of the later pictures of Chet from the portfolio. He and van Gogh could be from the same tribe, some ancient clan for which heroin is the peace pipe. If Chet Baker hadn’t been Chet Baker, and he were still alive, would he be in a room like this, playing on an old trumpet?
Darren walks over to the window and struggles for a moment to get it open and let in some cool air. I sit down on the bed next to van Gogh.
“You play, huh?”
He shakes his head. “No more, but I remember. I like this,” he says, touching the pad with a finger. “I relax.” He turns his palms up and looks at his forearms. “All the money is here,” he says.
“You played with Chet Baker?”
He nods and closes his eyes, remembering. “Yes, two, maybe three times. Long time ago. So beautiful, his horn, and after, together we…” He taps his arm again.
“I’m trying to find a man Chet may have owed money to, his connection—and maybe yours too?”
Van Gogh shakes his head. “No, Chet pays. He has money.” He raises his left hand and tries to close it into a fist but can only manage halfway.
“A dealer did that?” I say, pointing at his hand.
“Yes, to anyone who no pay. Chet, he pay, he knew.” He pauses, lo
oks at me. “And I no tell.”
“What? You didn’t tell what?”
Van Gogh just shakes his head, remembering something, but it’s not for me.
“Is that man still in Amsterdam?”
Van Gogh regards me with his version of a perplexed expression. “You want?” he says, looking at my clothes, my face. “I don’t think so.”
“No, not drugs. I just want to talk to him. I’m trying to find my friend.”
He glances at Darren, then back to me. “You are not police?”
“No, no, piano player. I’m…I’m just trying to do something for Chet, for a friend.” But even as I say the words, I know I’m here in this junkie crash pad talking to an old drummer as much for myself as for Ace or Chet Baker. I can’t shut it off.
“Ah, piano.” He inhales the cigarette deeply again, then puts it out in a mountain of ash. He picks up the sticks and begins tapping on the pad, his eyes going to the TV screen. “Listen,” he says. “You know this tune?” The tapping begins again, but in a jagged, repeated pattern. He plays it several times. I look at Darren. He checks his watch and rolls his eyes, impatient to go.
Van Gogh moves his head from side to side. His lined face pinches into a deeper frown. He looks up at me, gives me that weird grin. I listen, the rhythm pattern repeating, distinctly. He slows it down for me.
It sounds like, da-da-duh, duh-da-duh-da-di-duh, dada-dadaduh-duh da di.
Then he plays a cymbal pattern with his right hand, accents with his left, and repeats the first pattern again. I sing it in my head, try to put it together; then something clicks—the drummer Roy Haynes doing the same thing. I think it’s an old bebop tune, Sonny Rollins.
“Oleo?” I say, making a stab at it. This sends van Gogh into spasms of ecstasy, head back, a low moan coming from somewhere deep inside him, playing hard now, remembering some night on a bandstand somewhere, another time for him. Then silence. He stops, and carefully replaces the sticks on the pad for another time.
I think of something else then and take out the photo I have of Ace.
“Have you ever seen this man?” I ask van Gogh.
He looks at the photo, shakes his head, no, then stands up.
“Come, I show you,” he says.
Darren looks at me and shakes his head. “I don’t understand this shit at all, man.”
Van Gogh ignores Darren. He flicks off the TV and shrugs into an old coat hanging on a hook by the door. Downstairs, back out on the street, it’s chilly now. We follow him as he cuts between buildings, down alleyways, until the lights of Central Station are visible.
“We need a taxi?” I call to him. He shakes his head no and keeps walking ahead of us, occasionally looking back over his shoulder to see if we’re with him, headed now, I’m sure, for the Old Quarter.
“‘Oleo’ was the name of that shit he was tapping out?” Darren asks me.
“Yes,” I say, keeping van Gogh in sight. He walks ahead of us, sandals slapping on the pavement, head turning side to side, scanning faces, but I don’t think he’s looking for anyone. He’s just looking.
“Damn,” Darren says. “How’d you do that?”
“Remind me. I’ll show you with Fletcher.”
We finally round a corner and stop in front of one of the coffee shops. I know where we are now. Darren and I both look at each other. “Shit, I didn’t know,” he says.
It’s the same one I was in the night I hallucinated. Van Gogh motions that Darren is to stay outside. I start to follow him in, but quickly whisper to Darren first, “Call Fletcher. If he’s home, tell him to come over.”
“Right,” Darren says and reaches for his cell phone.
Van Gogh is waiting just inside the door for me. He motions for me to follow him. We walk toward the back, past tables full of customers sampling, laughing, having a good time, the pungent aroma of several grades of marijuana everywhere. At the far end of the bar, a room juts off in a kind of alcove, two men are seated in a circular booth, as if they’ve been waiting for me. They both look up at van Gogh.
One of them I recognize immediately. He doesn’t have his raincoat or umbrella or satchel, and the glasses are gone, but there’s no mistake. This is the same man who gave me directions to the hotel the day I arrived in Amsterdam. He’s probably the one who switched my order in this very coffee shop. The other man I take to be the connection. He’s late sixties, I would guess, with thick, bushy eyebrows, very dark eyes, and thinning black hair, streaked with gray. Dressed in an expensive suit, he could be a banker. There’s a long line, a scar of some kind, down the right side of his face.
Van Gogh shuffles closer, leans in to speak to him quietly. The man nods and takes out a roll of money, peels off some notes, and hands them to van Gogh without taking his eyes off me. Van Gogh doesn’t even look at the money. He just stuffs it in his pocket, turns, and brushes past me. He whispers something to me, but all I catch is “Be careful.” Then van Gogh is gone and out the door.
I move closer to the table. “I’m trying to locate my friend, Professor Buffington,” I say to the younger man. “That man thought you might know where he is, but since you met me at the train station, you and your partner here probably both do. I’ve forgotten your name.”
The two have a brief exchange, in Spanish I think. The dark man either can’t or doesn’t want to speak English. He just continues to stare at me.
“Sit down, Mr. Horne,” the man from the train station says. “It’s de Hass.” He has a thin, pinched face and wavy hair and is dressed in more casual but just as expensive clothes. He’s much younger than the dark man and from his demeanor, obviously his employee.
He smiles in spite of himself, and his English is excellent, with only a trace of an accent. “You have a good memory. As for your friend, we have no idea where he is at this time. I suspect he has left Amsterdam. We have no further interest in him. Our business is now with you.” The dark man looks at him. They have another brief exchange, which I take to be a translation. The dark man nods.
“With me? What did you do, kidnap my friend?”
He gives me an exasperated look. “We persuaded him, Mr. Horne. Kidnapping, as you put it, was not necessary. He came to Amsterdam and attracted a great deal of notice with his questions about Chet Baker—questions that brought up old memories, old debts. Your friend made himself very visible, and eventually, those questions came to our attention. I offered him a chance to talk with Mr. Navarro.” He nods toward the older man, who glances over at the mention of his name.
That I was right about everything doesn’t make me happy to be sitting here. “Why? What did his research on Chet Baker’s death have to do with you?” I look around the room. There’s no sign of Darren or Fletcher, just customers talking, smoking.
De Hass is enjoying himself. “Chet Baker’s death was of no concern. Money he owed was. By persuading Professor Buffington to let us assist him with his research, we could protect our interests as well.” He looks at Navarro, and his voice inflection makes it obvious he’s asking a question. Navarro seems to approve.
“There were rumors, as there are about any celebrity death—rumors about money, long-forgotten bank accounts. People like to expand, add to legends, but there is often truth to these rumors. Chet Baker was a famous musician. His addiction and his carelessness with money were as well known as his music. I think if you were to check with the police, you would find he had a significant record with many police agencies, including Interpol. The needs of his addiction were provided for many times, and because of his celebrity and his earning power, he was sometimes allowed credit. He always paid his debts, eventually, except for that last time.”
“And of course, you don’t make exceptions.” I shift in the booth so I can see the bar.
“No. I would never have allowed credit to begin with, even for Chet Baker. It’s not good business. Mr. Navarro did on occasion. Perhaps he had a misguided soft spot for Chet Baker.” His smile is
chilling, menacing.
That would be a first. A drug dealer with a soft spot. “And this time you’re talking about, it was just before he died?”
“Yes, so Mr. Navarro blames himself partly for the loss.”
“Chet Baker’s death?”
“His death?” De Hass laughs and shakes his head. “We’re talking about money, nothing more. I know you talked to the police. Chet Baker needed no help from anyone. He avoided Mr. Navarro, perhaps unintentionally, one too many times. But no, Mr. Navarro had nothing to do with his death. Chet Baker was already dead, evidently by his own hand. Mr. Navarro was looking for him, but he was too late.”
And van Gogh never told. Now I know what he meant. I no tell, van Gogh had said. Maybe he had warned Chet, helped him hide from Navarro, and maybe for his trouble, his hand was crushed. But I also know he brought me here not to find Ace but to deliver me to these two, out of fear and need—a few guilders, another fix. Never trust a junkie.
“How much did he owe?”
“Let’s just say it was a significant amount, enough that it was worth exhausting your friend’s leads, to clear the books, so to speak.” He pauses and looks around at Navarro, who says nothing but shifts in his seat and waves his hand in an impatient gesture. The younger man nods and turns back to me.
“Now we come to you, Mr. Horne. Mr. Navarro doesn’t want to bother, but I think there is money and that you can find it. For obvious reasons, I cannot make inquiries of bank records.” He pauses for a moment, then continues. “So, unless you wish to make good on that debt yourself, or know of some other way it can be paid, we are going to insist that you make those inquiries for us.” He glances up then, over my shoulder. I turn and see Fletcher and Darren slide onto a couple of stools at the bar.
“What do you mean, you insist? You forced my friend to—”
He puts his hand up. “Forced? No, Mr. Horne. Your friend cooperated willingly. You perhaps don’t know him as well as you think. He told me from the beginning that you had agreed to help him with his research, and there you were, right on schedule. As a musician it was obvious that you would have more success than he would have, so we simply speeded things along.”