picked up, which she found hard to believe, so she eventually managed to raise the Kathy Three.'
'So you're telling me I was in good hands?' Grijpstra reported on his meeting with the sheriffs powerboat.
De Gier was nodding.
'What are you nodding for?'
'Another complication I didn't foresee,' de Gier said.
'There's drug traffic here. Maybe they think I'm interested.
Now maybe they think you're interested too.'
'Who's they?'
'Probably everybody,' de Gier said. 'There's marijuana growing on all the islands and there's more coming in by boat, and there's probably hard stufftoo, being flown in all the time.'
'And the sheriff is in on that?'
'Please,' de Gier said.
'Please what?'
De Gier gestured. 'Remember Amsterdam? Remember any possible drug being available at any possible time at any possible place and nearly four thousand policemen running around keeping the distribution going? You've heard of capitalism? Ofsupply and demand? If we don't do it someone else will? May as well be us? I mean, after all, who is in charge here?'
'Not all four thousand of them,' Grijpstra said.
'Most all of them, some way or other.'
'Not us.'
'So the situation gets confusing,' de Gier said. 'If cops are supposedly against that sort of thing, but most of them are kind of all Hup Ho let's do it…'
'I almost got lost at sea because you told these killers here that you and I used to be cops?' Grijpstra asked. 'That was brilliant. Were you trying to impress the ladies?'
'What should I tell the ladies?' de Gier asked. 'That I was a needlecraft salesman? A former copper from Amsterdam chooses to live in the Twilight Zone. So what? What do Lorraine and Aki care? 'So where is Amsterdam? Amsterdam, Ohio?''
'Where's Ohio?'
'Inland America,' de Gier said. 'They only know about their own country here. 'Europe? Europe where?''
Grijpstra put down his bowl carefully, grabbed de Gier by the flaps of his neat bush jacket carefully, shook de Gier forcefully. 'Why did you tell them you used to be a cop?'
There was an explanation, of course, wasn't there always. De Gier gently disengaged himself, served coffee, used his soothing voice, reminded Grijpstra that he, de Gier, had been to Jameson, Maine, before. To help out the commissaris to help out his sister, who, suddenly widowed, and being a helpless person, had to be repatriated forthwith. At the time de Gier had met some great people-the sheriff. ..'
'Hairy Harry?' Grijpstra asked. 'You knew Hairy Harry?'
Another sheriff. Sheriffs come, sheriffs go. 'Do you mind?' de Gier asked. 'Can I go on? Can I explain this to you? You're a private detective now, you've taken on the job, you've got to protect yourself, you need all the information you can get. You're out in the open. Remember what the holy man said.'
'All holy men are frauds,' Grijpstra said.
'Why?'
Grijpstra shrugged. 'Because there's nothing holy.'
'This fraudulent holy man I refer to,' de Gier said, 'saw God, and he came back to tell us that things are the way they are because God is not a nice man. He said God is not our uncle.'
'Flash Farnsworth is nice,' Grijpstra said, 'and Bad George is nice. And that dumb dog is nice too.' He paused so de Gier could serve dessert. He spoke through a mouth filled with ice cream. He ate. 'Who is not nice here? The sheriff. Who else?' He pointed his spoon at de Gier. 'Who came here to murder girlfriends?'
'During my previous visit here,' de Gier said 'I met the hermit Jeremy. I thought he knew what I wanted to know. I didn't come here to murder girlfriends.'
'Jeremy lives on this island?' Grijpstra asked.
De Gier smiled sadly. 'As I said, God, not being my uncle, cannot be helpful. The search has to be chaotic. There are thousands of islands here. This is not Jeremy's island and Jeremy is long dead. Maybe he got it, maybe he lost it. What's for sure is that he was getting old and feeble and the town voted to place him in a home, so to escape he did what you almost did this morning…'
Grijpstra lowered his spoon. 'Hermit Jeremy rowed away never to be seen again?'
'That's correct.'
'Planned?' Grijpstra asked.
'Planned.'
'What would it be like if you planned it?' Grijpstra asked. 'I didn't plan and I saw lots of stuff.'
'Hallucinating?'
'Nellie in a hat, waves by Hokusai swamping the bicycle shed, a dog-faced woman paddling a canoe.'
'Farnsworth's mother.' De Gier began to clear the table. 'I live here for months preparing for the breakthrough and see nothing; you've hardly arrived, and you see it all.'
'Not that you sent Ishmael to meet me,' Grijpstra said. 'Because I didn't see that and because Ishmael pretended the meeting was accidental so he could ask some questions. About you, for instance. He doesn't trust you.'
'Ishmael knows nothing about Lorraine disappearing,' de Gier said.
'Who is the detective here?' Grijpstra asked. 'Fill me in on Ishmael. How long have you known him?'
'Ishmael met me last time I was here.'
'What did he do then?'
'Drunk preacher?' de Gier asked. 'That was the impression I got at the time. He said so himself too. Addicted to God and liquor. We met in Jeremy's cabin. Ishmael said he was giving it all up.'
'Alcohol?'
'The securities,' de Gier said. 'As Ishmael saw them. Jeremy had to help him out.' De Gier cheered up. 'I tell you, Henk, that's where the way out has to be. Away with it all.' De Gier looked pensive. 'Including the guru, the guide, kick them over the precipice. But.. .'
'But…?'
'The guide, the hermit has to show you where the precipice is.'
Grijpstra looked stern. 'So you can kick her off the cliffs? Lorraine was the guru?'
De Gier shook his head.
Grijpstra stared.
'Lorraine was a nice woman,' de Gier said.
'Back to firmer ground,' Grijpstra directed. 'More about Ishmael. The man is too smart for his own good. Why his interest in what brings me here?'
'Ishmael?' de Gier asked. 'Ishmael is okay.'
'The plane was clean,' Grijpstra said. 'Since I quit BC smoking I can smell narcotics. Your sheriff also found nothing. Ishmael mentioned crossing borders. Bringing in aliens maybe?'
'You're accusing Ishmael of something?'
'You're being accused,' Grijpstra said, 'of murder. You're being blackmailed. Any connection with Ishmael perhaps?'
'You've got Flash and Bad George,' de Gier said.
'They didn't ask me questions. They saved me.'
'Ishmael,' de Gier said, 'flies his plane to see Mohawks in Canada and Mayas in Mexico, like Jeremy used to. Indians who practice shamanic wisdom.'
'You visit Indians too?'
'I thought I no longer needed teachers.'
'Organized shamanism,' Grijpstra rubbed his thumb and index finger. 'A profitable business these
