A big man, Grijpstra thought. Over six feet, he must weigh a ton. He'll eat a hundred guilders a day, easily. Bowlsful of cashew nuts probably, and shrimps, and a bucket or two of potatoes, or spaghetti, and a loaf of bread thrown in, bread covered with fried mushrooms and smoked eel and thick slices of ham.
Bezuur reached out and grabbed a bottle of beer out of a carton placed near his chair. He broke off the cap and filled his glass. The thick foam rose quickly and flowed down the sides of the glass, spilling onto the thick rug.
"More beer, gentlemen?"
The commissaris shook his head. Grijpstra nodded. Bezuur tore the cap off another bottle. More foam was sucked into the rug. "Here you are, adjutant."
They looked at each other in the eye and raised their glasses, grunting simultaneously. Bezuur drained his glass. Grijpstra took a carefully measured sip; it was his third glass. Bezuur had had six since they came into the room. Grijpstra put the glass down gingerly.
"He is dead, the bastard," Bezuur said, and viciously replaced the glass on a marble-topped side table. It cracked and he looked at it dolefully. "The silly stupid bastard. Or perhaps he was clever. He always said that death is a trip and he liked traveling. He used to talk a lot about death, even when he was a boy. He talked a lot and he read a lot. Later he drank a lot too. He was an alcoholic when he was seventeen years old. Did anybody tell you?"
"No," Grijpstra said. "You tell us."
"An alcoholic," Bezuur said again. "Became one when we entered the university. We were always together, at school and at the university. We passed our high school examinations when we were sixteen. Wonderkids we were. We never worked but we always passed. I was good at mathematics and he was good at languages. When we did work we worked together. A deadly team we were; nobody and nothing could tear us apart. We only worked when we came to an examination and then we would only put in the bare minimum. It was pride, I think. Showing off. We would pretend we weren't listening at classes but we soaked it all up, and we remembered the stuff too. And we made secret notes, on scraps of paper; we didn't have notebooks like the other kids. And no homework, homework was for the birds. We read. But he read more than I did and at the university he began to drink."
"He did?" Grijpstra asked.
"Yes."
Bezuur's hand shot out and another bottle lost its cap. He looked at the cracked glass, and turned around to look at the kitchen door. He must have had mote glasses in the kitchen but it was too far, and he drank from the bottle, tossing the cap on the floor. He looked at Grijpstra's glass but it was still half full.
"I think he was drinking a bottle a day. Jenever. He would drink any brand as long as it was cold. One day he couldn't get his pants on in the morning, his hands trembled too much. He thought it was runny but I worried and made him see a doctor who told him to layoff. He did too."
"Really?" Grijpstra asked. "He stopped drinking straight off? Just like that?"
"Yes. He was clever. He didn't want to be a drunk; it would complicate his routine."
"Stopped drinking straight off, hey," Grijpstra said, amp; airing his head.
"I told you he was clever," Bezuur said. "He knew it would be difficult to break the habit so he did something drastic. He disappeared for a while, three months I think it was. Went to work on a farm. When he came back he was off it. Later he began drinking again but then he knew when to stop. He would cut out at the third or fourth glass and drink soft stuff."
"Beer?"
"Beer is not so soft. No, lemonades, homemade. He would fuss about, squeezing the fruit, adding sugar. With Abe everything had to be dead right."
Bezuur tipped the bottle again but it was empty and he slammed it on the table. The bottle cracked. He glared at it.
"You seem a little upset," Grijpstra said.
Bezuur was staring at the wall behind Grijpstra's chair. "Yes," he said, "I am upset. So the bastard died.
How the hell did he manage that? I spoke to Zilver on the phone. He reckons they threw a ball at him, a metal ball, but nobody can find it. It that right?"
He was still staring at the wall behind Grijpstra's chair and Grijpstra turned around. There was a painting on the wall, a portrait of a lady. The lady was wearing a long skirt of some velvety material, a hat with a veil, an elaborate necklace, and nothing else. She had very full breasts with the nipples turned upward. The face was quiet, a delicate face with dreaming eyes and lips which opened in the beginning of a smile.
"Beautiful," Grijpstra said.
"My wife."
Grijpstra looked around the room.
Bezuur laughed, the laugh sounded bubbly and gushy, as if a pipe had suddenly burst and water was flowing down the wall.
"My ex-wife, I should say, perhaps, but the divorce isn't through yet. She left me some months ago now and her lawyers are squeezing me and my lawyers are having a lovely time, writing lots of little notes at a guilder a word."
"Any children?"
"One, but not mine. The fruit of a previous relationship. Some fruit, a little overripe apple, and stupid too-but what do I care, she went too."
"So you are alone."
Bezuur laughed again and the commissaris looked up. He wished the man wouldn't laugh. He had found a way of putting up with the pain in his legs but Bezuur's merriment shook his concentration and the pain attacked again.
"No," Bezuur said, and stretched his right arm. The arm swept in a half circle.
"Girlfriends," Grijpstra said, and nodded.
"Yes. Girls. I used to go to them but now they come here. It's easier. I am getting too heavy to run about."
He looked at the floor, stamping his foot on die sodden rug. "Bah. Beer. Something to do for the cleaning boys. You can't get charwomen anymore you know, not even if you pay them in gold bars. Some cleaning platoon comes here on weekdays, old men in white uniforms. They have a truck and the biggest vacuum cleaner you ever saw. Whip through the whole place in an hour. But the girls come on Fridays or Saturdays and they leave a mess and I sit in it. Bah."
His arm made a sweeping movement again and Grijpstra followed the movement. He counted five empty champagne bottles. Someone had forgotten her lipstick on the couch. There was a stain on the white wall, just below the painting of Bezuur's wife.
"Turtle soup," Bezuur said. "Silly bitch lost her balance and the soup hit the wall. Good thing it missed die painting."
"Who did the painting?"
"You like it?"
"Yes," Grijpstra said. "Yes. I think it is very well done. Like that picture of the two men in a small boat I saw on Abe Rogge's wall."
Bezuur looked at the carton next to his chair, took out a bottle but put it back again.
"Two men in a boat? You saw that painting too, eh? Same artist. Old Mend of ours, a Russian Jew born in Mexico, used to go boating with us and he came to the house. Interesting fellow, but he wandered off again. I think he is in Israel now."
"Who were the two men in the boat?"
"Abe and me," Bezuur said heavily. "Abe and me. Two friends. The Mexican fellow said that we belonged together, he saw it that night. We were on the big lake, the boat was anchored and we had taken the dinghy into the harbor. We came back late that night. The sea was fluorescent and the Mexican was wandering about on deck. He left the next day, he should have stayed a few more days, but he was so inspired by what he saw that night that he had to get back to his studio to paint it. Abe bought the painting and I commissioned this one later. That Mexican was very expensive, even if you were his friend, but he was pretty good."
"Friends," the commissaris said. "Close friends. You were close friends with Abe, weren't you, Mr. Bezuur?"
"Was," Bezuur said, and there was the same blubbery note in his voice again, but now he seemed close to tears. "The bastard is dead."