Members only? He read the sign above the door. Mata Hari. He rang the bell. The doors swung open, and Ali Baba bowed deeply. The doorman was dressed in billowing silk trousers, a brocade waistcoat, a shirt embroidered with flowering palms; he stood on curly-toed slippers, a curved sword stuck into his broad belt. A large turban crowned the beard that almost reached around his made-up eyes. His belly rose majestically toward his chin.
'Hi, Ali Baba,' de Gier whispered, impressed.
'You were brought here?' Ali asked, first in Frisian, then in Dutch.
'Try Arabic,' de Gier said. 'You must be trilingual. An Arab in Friesland. What brought you here?'
'I speak German too,' Ali said. 'And the other languages of the tourists. Did the runner bring you here? Our advertiser?'
'Gent in a felt hat?' de Gier asked, pushing and pulling and whistling.
'That's him,' Ali said. 'Brings in the customers, but he shouldn't tonight. Couldn't reach him in time. We're closing early. Hardly any customers showed up. Would you be desiring a full show? There's only one artiste left, Trutske Goatema, not quite the first choice, but if you insist. Do you favor fat women?'
'Joe!' de Gier shouted.
Ali's sliding slippers brought him forward. 'What do you know! Would it be you, the Amsterdam sergeant?'
'Good memory,' de Gier said, 'which we share. Black Joe, isn't that right? I don't recall your surname.'
'Do come in,' Black Joe said. 'What a surprise. Is Amsterdam still doing as well as I remember? What are you after? A little pleasure on the side?'
'Not sure,' de Gier said. 'Forget the fat lady.'
'An angel at heart,' Joe said. 'The good lookers were all crafted by the devil. I sent them home already, couldn't stand them tonight. I'll be gone myself next week. The joint is too much for me; let the owners find out what it's like to be Ali Baba.' Joe flipped off his turban and showed de Gier the way to the bar. 'A beer for the guest of honor?'
'So good to see you,' Black Joe said. 'Your health, Sergeant. I've thought of you often. You did that nicely, a classy trick. No, I won't forget that. I always underestimated the likes of you. That was quite subtle.'
'Musn't exaggerate,' de Gier said, halfway through his beer.
'Don't be modest now,' Joe said. 'Credit where credit is due. A difference of six months' jail for me.' Trutske stepped out from the back door of the bar, illuminated by pink neon tubes speckled by uncounted generations of Frisian flies and hanging from warped ceiling tiles. 'Client?' She eyed de Gier greedily.
'Friend,' Black Joe said. 'From the merry past. You're off now, dear, have a good rest.'
'Listen,' Trutske said. 'I could do my number, a short* ened version, but I'll do it good.'
'That'll be fine,' de Gier said. 'Thanks anyway. Don't bother, really.'
Trutske waddled off.
'What would she have done?' de Gier asked, twitching as the front door slammed.
'Frustrated self-love,' Black Joe said. 'Specialty of the house. She's an expert at evoking self-centered passion. Groans, wriggles all over, uses all the furniture of the stage, the walls tremble, the clients go wild, pink flesh up to the ceiling, screams of lustful agony, that sort of show, mostly.'
'All that in Frisian?'
'Crazy language,' Black Joe said. 'I'll never master it, although it's easy to pick up. I have a Frisian girlfriend. We're to be married soon. I bought myself a house in a rustic village nearby. I'll be fixing bicycles there. No, I'm not kidding. This side of life is driving me whoppo. You don't believe me? But it's true. I'm qualified. I went back to school during the day. I got the tools, a barn, I'm all set up. Everything you want.'
'Everything you want,' de Gier said modestly.
'No,' Black Joe said. 'That's what you wanted me to do. Beer?'
'Your health,' de Gier said.
Black Joe dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. 'You remember how you got me to turn myself in?'
'Wasn't that your own idea?'
'Never,' Joe said. 'You led me to the station. If you hadn't, I would have been watching bars for half a year longer. The judge changed his mind when he heard I'd gone to the station by myself. He didn't like that scene in the Red Quarter. Ha!' Joe bellowed. 'Another lush who wanted to fight the doorman of a reputable brothel. One tittle push of this…' His hairy fist trembled in front of de Gier's nose. 'Just one little touch and there the lush goes. Ended up all in a broken heap.'
De Gier nodded. 'Ran backward across the street and mashed himself against a wall. You can be thankful that he was still alive. You should be aware of your strength, a little.'
'And then you showed up,' Black Joe said. 'The very next day. I had retired to that posh terrace across from Central Station, the last place where you'd be looking for me, but you found me anyway and I was going to push you too. You didn't want that. You asked me to buy you coffee.'
'I never fight in the mornings,' de Gier said.
'Ha!' shouted Joe. 'That's what you said then. And that I should turn myself in. Tell them I was sorry. Inquire about the lush's condition. Express my hopes that he'd soon feel better. Smile and stutter. Scratch my beard.'
'Always the best way,' de Gier said.
'Much better,' Joe shouted. 'That lawyer was ready to kiss me. He talked good, too. The judge had tears in his eyes. Just one month and some time suspended.'
'You don't push clients anymore?'
'None of that now,' Joe said. 'None of anything, soon. One more week and I'll be taking bikes apart. I've been planning for a while, but I still had to do this for the money.'
'Why here?'
All part of the new way, Joe told him. Not the good way, he wasn't going to go as far as that. It wasn't that he had been bad before. He wasn't sorry, if that was what the sergeant meant. Not a choice, either; you do something for a while and then you come to the end of it. If you don't accept the end and go on, the routine becomes boring. If you don't feel good about it anymore, you got to quit.
De Gier listened and meanwhile studied a painting on the bar's wall. A chubby lady had spread herself out on the canvas, under a hairdo that reminded him of antique maids. Her rounded belly line turned in and popped up on her other side again, as cute raised buttocks.
'That's Mata Hari,' Black Joe said. 'Genuine, done in Paris. And I'm Ali Baba, as you saw just now. That's okay for a while. If you die young, you can keep it up all your life, but if you survive, you begin to see through it. Take Mata Hari, for instance. You know her real name?'
De Gier's ignorance surprised Black Joe.
'Margaretha G. Zelle,' Joe said. 'Born in this city in 1876, around the corner from here, on the Gardens-you must have passed the house. Beer?'
De Gier declined. Joe emptied a can into his beard. 'Right. Thirty-one years old, she got shot by soldiers in parade uniforms. She wore a fur coat and nothing else, opened it just at the fatal moment. Very romantic. Like her life out there. Did some fancy musical stripping on expensive stages. Got herself pawed by the powers on both sides. Never knew or passed too many secrets, but got shot anyway, for Commande was Commanded Joe sighed. 'Silly. Right?'
'Didn't she have a good time?' de Gier asked.
'For as long as it lasted.' Joe sighed more deeply. 'You know how long it lasts?'
'Let's see,' de Gier said. 'Some constructive fantasizing and positive thinking, it could last a good while.'
'I'm forty-one,' Joe said. 'I've seen it all a hundred times. My dad was a bicycle repairman too; I thought that was real stupid at the time.' Joe stared at a horizon receding toward the infinite. 'I used to drive a Ferrari. You ever drive a Ferrari?'
'No,' de Gier said.
'You ever live in Casablanca, overlooking the Casbah? In Tunis? In Morocco?' Joe sang in Arabic. 'You know what I just sang?'
'No,' de Gier said.
