myself but Willeford's guy is a cop. Always wanted to meet with a private eye, though. Not too many of your kind around here, Krip.' He pulled a thousand-guilder note from Grijpstra's wallet. 'How much in dollars?'
'Five hundred,' Grijpstra said, 'maybe a little over now.'
The sheriff counted the wad. 'Twenty-two thousand guilders makes eleven thousand dollars?'
'Right,' Grijpstra said.
'You carrying that much cash for a reason?'
'For the trip,' Grijpstra said. 'It came up in a hurry. I thought I might need some.'
Hairy Harry returned the wallet. 'That'll be all for now, sir. You'd have a purpose for your visit? Business? Pleasure?'
Ishmael frowned. 'You'd know that, Harry, from listening in on the open CB channel. You knew Rinus asked me to pick up a friend at Logan Airport. This is a free country, Harry.'
'Oh yes.' Harry held his smile, keeping his message serious in its wording only. 'Free not to bother well- meaning local folks going about their customary business, is that what you mean?'
A jeep pulled up at the other side of the sheep fence and a uniformed deputy got out-a younger man, tall, military looking. The deputy saluted the sheriff and nodded at Ishmael.
'This is Kripstra, Deputy Billy Boy,' Ishmael said.
'How're you doing, Kripstra.' There was no question mark.
Grijpstra said he was doing good anyway. Nice place, this Jameson.
While Billy helped the sheriffto check the airplane and Ishmael's and Grijpstra's bags, Grijpstra walked over to the Bronco. He was admiring the car's steel running boards when the sheriffjoined him.
'Like 'em, Kripstra?'
Grijpstra said he certainly did, he would like to equip his own Ford with running boards like that.
'You drive an American vehicle, Kripstra?'
Grijpstra said he did.
'They still have American vehicles over in Europe? Between them Toyotas and such?'
They sure had.
Grijpstra became enthusiastic. He told Hairy Harry that Holland had been liberated by Americans and Canadians and the British. Poles too, a Polish regiment came from England. But it was the Americans who impressed young Grijpstra, standing on Dam Square in Amsterdam, clutching his mother's hand.
'Those are Yanks, HenkieLuwie.'
The Yanks were in a tank looking down, chewing gum, grinning at little Grijpstra, who was waving his piece of orange cloth attached to a dowel-orange stood for the House of Orange, for the queen, for goodness, for the loving mother who'd come back to her country to rule it in peace, thanks to Yanks chewing gum in tank turrets.
'So you're all still white Protestants out there in liberated Holland,' said Billy, 'and now you're joining your pal Rinus on Squid Island. What would that be for?'
'To watch nature,' Grijpstra said.
'No kidding?'
'Holland's getting too full,' Grijpstra said. He told the sheriff and deputy what Katrien had been telling him, last time he called on the ailing commissaris to pay his respects. Katrien quoted recently published statistics. 'Nine hundred Dutchmen to the square mile, nine hundred pigs to the same square mile, twenty-three cows to the same square mile, twenty-three cars to the same square mile.'
'How big a country are we talking about, Kripstra?'
Grijpstra was still working on how much three hundred kilometers times a hundred kilometers, less allowing for a skinny waist and one southern leg reaching down, would come to in United States measurements when Ish- mael helped out. Holland, said Ishmael, which he hadn't believed was there-who could believe Squid Island's Rinus?-had turned up in Ishmael's encyclopaedia and was half the size of Maine. The sixteen million Dutchmen were also likely to exist. Ishmael's old Encyclopaedia Britannica only listed five million of the creatures, but that was in 1890 and didn't the human affliction keep multiplying all the time thanks to medical science? And sixteen million Dutchmen spread out in half the state of Maine, why, that would equal out at around nine hundred a square mile, as the man was saying. 'That's a lot of crawling around in a space the size of Jameson, don't you reckon?'
The sheriff said he liked people fine but people tended to exaggerate at times. He said Billy Boy was a great man for numbers. Hairy Harry asked Billy Boy to confirm Ishmael's statement.
'That could be right, Hairy Harry.'
'How many of us in Maine now, Billy Boy?'
'About a million, Hairy Harry.'
'Sixteen million customers,' the sheriffsaid, 'crawling all over each other, and you were in the police a good while, tending to their crawling, isn't that right, Kripstra?'
Grijpstra said he had had that pleasure until two years ago.
'And now you're watching nature, you and the other retiree cop? What else'd you be watching?'
'Just nature,' Grijpstra said.
Hairy Harry apologized for any inconvenience he might have caused. He leaned out of his car window.
'Good watching, Krip. We'll be watching your watching.'
Chapter 5
Billy drove Ishmael and Grijpstra to Beth's Diner for a late breakfast. It was ten o'clock by then, but Billy Boy and Ishmael said that, as the lobster boats were coming in from early-morning trap lifting, the restaurant would be jumping. Grijpstra remembered his lack of dollars.
'Rinus will have some,' Ishmael said, 'you could call him.'
'No phone on Squid Island,' Grijpstra said.
Billy Boy pulled a microphone from under the jeep's dashboard. 'This is America, Krip. Everything works.' He pushed the microphone's button. 'Squid Island, this is your sheriff. Come in, Rinus.'
The radio produced a little static.
'Must be out of the house,' Ishmael said, 'or he could be coming into town on the Kathy Three.' Billy Boy pushed his button. 'Kathy Three, this is your sheriff, come in, Kathy Three.'
The radio produced more static.
'Flash and Bad George don't worry much,' Ishmael said. 'They're also hard of hearing. Their diesel might be thumping too.'
Grijpstra moaned.
'You hungry?'
Grijpstra had gained weight since leaving the force. He now liked to keep it up, to project an image of the heavy detective, the man of substance. Nellie helped: her cooking was designed to keep her men stout.
'De Gier could be in the diner,' Ishmael said. 'If he isn't, he might be coming.'
Grijpstra noticed Akiapola'au after he'd eaten the stacked pancakes with whipped butter, the home tries with parsley, the extra large eggs over easy, the little steak to the side with the choice ofsauces, the pumpernickel toast, the fresh orange juice.
'More coffee?'
'Oh yes, miss.'
'I'm Akiapola'au, you can call me Aki.'
Aki said she was from Hawaii, the big island, Kona Coast. Had he ever been there, seen the volcano boil and the little finches eat dead flesh?
Grijpstra burped politely behind his hand, saying, 'Excuse me.' He hadn't been to Hawaii, or anywhere really, he'd only been to Antwerp to eat mussels. Antwerp was just down the street from Holland, in Belgium, a few hours' drive, well worth the effort to eat mussels, but he wouldn't care to go further, and he wouldn't be here in America on the other side of the globe if his good friend Rinus hadn't insisted-so now where was Rinus?
Grijpstra liked talking to Aki, who seemed fascinated by his accent. She was tall and lovely, exotic, black hair
