Outsider in Amsterdam by Janwillem van de Wetering Read Free Book Online Page A

art. He had, during those many early mornings, specialized in the “rustle,” the sweeping of the soft forklike instruments (which had come with the set of drums) on the stretched skin of the two smaller drums. Tsss, tsss and then BENG, but softly. And then a roll, a small roll, exciting because of its strict limitation. While de Gier read, Grijpstra grabbed the sticks and sounded the small roll.
    “Good,” de Gier said, looking up.
    “What’s good?” Grijpstra asked.
    “That roll. And this report too. So he had taken one of his mother’s pills. Palfium, wasn’t it? A trace of an opiate in the stomach. And the times fit. He must have died around seven P.M . and we arrived at eight.”
    The telephone rang.
    “Yes, sir,” Grijpstra said and pointed at the ceiling with a thick index finger. De Gier got up obediently. Within half a minute they were between the cactuses of the chief inspector.
    * * *
    “And?” the chief inspector asked.
    Grijpstra told his story.
    “And?” the chief inspector asked again.
    Grijpstra said nothing.
    The chief inspector got up and paced up and down. The detectives stared at nothing in particular.
    The chief inspector stopped in front of a cactus that was nearly five feet high, a stiff giant noodle, pimply and dotted with sharp cruel hooks. He watched the plant with concentration. De Gier grinned. He had seen the chief inspector measuring the monstrosity, using a tightly wound measuring tape in a metal container, which could be released and sprung by pressing a button and which he carried in his pocket. De Gier knew that he carried the measuring tape at all times, for the pocket of his tailor-made expensive suit bulged. For years de Gier had suspected him of carrying a mini-pistol until he had seen the tape-measure one day when the door of his office had been open and its occupant had been indulging in his secret pastime. De Gier was sure that the chief inspector was sorely tempted at this very moment to produce the tape and measure the cactus, which should have grown another millimeter or so since the previous day.
    The chief inspector turned on his heels and faced the detectives.
    “A nut,” he said. “A crazy nut who wants to improve the world. He goes to a solicitor and registers a society. To improve the environment. A religious society, it can’t be less, and containing a religion that he has created himself, or combined from a lot of ill-digested rubbish he has read or heard about. He buys an old rackety house at the Haarlemmer Houttuinen, fixes it up a little and whitewashes all its walls. He buys a second-hand imitation of an Asiatic statue and puts it in the hall, lights anincense stick and sells health food. Unwashed tomatoes and grains. The kind that sticks in your throat. A rat couldn’t digest it. And carrot juice.”
    He interrogated the detectives with his eyes. Both nodded.
    It was clear that the chief inspector had no liking for carrot juice. They knew what he liked. He liked Dutch gin, and shrimp cocktails, snails and peppersteak. Pineapple with whipped cream. And cognac.
    “There’s a bar as well,” Grijpstra said.
    The chief inspector looked surprised.
    “A what?”
    “A bar,” repeated Grijpstra, “downstairs, as you go in, on the right, a bar where they sell gin and beer.”
    “Good idea,” the chief inspector said. “With a glass of jenever you can get through to the other nuts. And when you have weakened their defenses you can make them eat unpeeled rice.”
    He thought.
    “Ah right,” he said. “But there is no base to the thing. It will attract the odd misfits who will come to join the faith, eager to penetrate the emptiness of purity above. Valhalla on earth. Or Nirvana. Or whatever it is called. What the great man does is new and so he is admired. The society is a success. He is making some money. Before you get into his temple you have to fork out twenty-five guilders, because the joint is ‘members only.’ True?”
    Grijpstra