"I can smoke this?" de Gier asked, studying his joint.
Ketchup lit a match. "Don't inhale too deeply or you'll fall over. This is dope provided by the state; we spread it around and make lots of friends. Rather strong. Pure pure."
"I like that," Grijpstra said. "The simile of the seesaw. Us good guys are up, the very few of us. The view is better from up here. Now what about Jimmy?"
"Zen," Karate said. "Jimmy was into Zen. We got to start with Buddhism here, or you won't follow our lead so well. Do you understand Zen?"
Grijpstra kept up one hand. Karate nodded. "You're the one. And all. And that's the sound."
"Hello?" de Gier said. "Am I still in this, too? Modern mysticism isn't quite my field. Am I missing something? Did Grijpstra give the secret sign?"
"The adjutant disposes of insight," Ketchup said. "That's what matters now, it's important."
Grijpstra put his tulip-shaped glass down. "The sound of one hand. Two hands can clap, right? They make a sound. Now one hand, simply raised, presents the sound of total stillness. I read that in the paper."
"For shit's sake," Karate said. "Now why do you spoil it? Once you start explaining, it's all gone."
"Advanced students can explain," Ketchup said, "because when it's gone it pops up again. You're not advanced yet."
"Grijpstra is advanced?" de Gier asked, sucking in dense smoke. "Then Zen can't be right. Once Grijpstra understands it, there's nothing to understand."
"You must be advanced too," Ketchup said. "Are you, Sergeant? There is nothing to understand."
"I've been understanding that particular aspect of the hidden creed for years," de Gier said. "I have this bed, you see, an old hospital bed, with rails on each side, that I painted gold on a rainy afternoon off. I got white sheets and blankets. There's something insightful about white and gold."
"If I hear 'insight' just once again…" Grijpstra said.
"Insight," de Gier said. "I get it by lying down on my very special bed, which is a gate to the forever, to the unlimited afterward, to the eternal underneath. I lie down and I sort of nap-and this is important, you can't do it with your shoes on, or even in socks-I get my toes around the bars, the bars at the foot of the bed, and then, after a while, I sort of get to be half awake, and then I know these things, like what one hand expresses." He held up one hand. "Yes?"
"Jimmy?" Grijpstra asked.
"All this insight," Karate said. "I didn't think it could be catching. That you have some of it, Sergeant, I get that in a way, but the adjutant too? I always thought the adjutant was rather a heavy type. Limited, you know?"
De Gier smoked and coughed by turns. "So he is, but there's a lot of tension on Grijpstra, and every now and then something may break through. Call it insight. You can't compare it to the commissaris's knowledge. Or it could be imitation. Maybe the adjutant repeats remarks the commissaris is good enough to make at times. If you have a master around you…" De Gier peered with one eye at the glowing joint. He folded his lips around it and extracted a large quantity of smoke. "A master. Someone who sees that there's nothing at all and he expresses that and you mumble after him. That isn't true insight. I do have some insight, because of that trick with the bed and my toes."
"Jimmy?" Grijpstra asked.
"Okay," Ketchup said. "Jimmy. We arrested suspect on a splendid day. The fellow was a dealer, he met the description. We took him to our station, but we were disappointed."
"Very small," Karate said. "Crumbs. Half-grams. Half-grams don't add up. He existed on that junkboat on the Binnenkant canal, with an expensive ladybird from exclusive The Hague-past tense, of course, they lose their veneer once the needle gets in. We met the lady too-her father is a psychiatrist, with two Volvos parked up front, and a garden with magnolia trees-she still had the highfalutin accent of The Hague. Good to lure clients in the alleys up here. Makes a bit of a change. A street hooker, no choice. The medicine is high-priced."
"The lady is dead too," de Gier said.
Karate swiped at smoke floating by. "Sergeant, that joint is too strong for you. Put it away. Yes, dead, and the black fellow too, but there were four junkies on that boat and you only have three bodies under ice. What happened to the fourth?"
"We do have four bodies," Grijpstra said. "Counting the banker. You guys know the fourth junkie?"
"Yes," Ketchup said.
"Description?"
Ketchup stood up, hunched his shoulders, crossed his arms closely on his chest, and turned his hands in. He pressed his head down on a raised shoulder. One side of his mouth sucked inward. He shuffled around the table with one knee pushed out, mumbling and stuttering.
"Spastic?" de Gier asked.
"Met subject in the boat," Ketchup said, "when we took Jimmy home and searched the vessel. There was almost nothing there. A mess, sad to see. The black fellow suffered from cramps, the lady from The Hague was starved, Jimmy spat blood, but the spastic looked fine. We didn't notice straight off that he had some physical trouble, but then subject tried to say something."
"Never saw him again?"
"No, Adjutant. We did go back once to help pick up the bodies, but the fourth fellow must have missed the onslaught."
De Gier smiled. "Keep it up. I like this fluent conversation. Do you know that I can see the space between the sounds?" He flapped his arms. "What is said here is like swans, floating high in the sky, suspended in eternal and liquid silver."
Karate pulled the joint from de Gier's mouth and squashed it in the ashtray. "Those three died of an overdose of pure heroin. I find that hard to believe, somehow. Pure heroin is never sold. Each body had a brand-new needle in an arm. The substance was checked in the laboratory. It was so strong that one injection could take a tribe of gorillas one way to heaven."
De Gier stirred coffee, plonked down by old Bert. "You see this? See how the milk turns? I read answers in the pattern. I'm understanding more and more."
"Smoke some more," Grijpstra said. "It'll increase your insight. Brand-new needles, Karate? How come? The boat people are known for their dirty equipment."
"And we found this uncut heroin," Ketchup said. "Something very wrong there, Adjutant. I say their deaths were planned by some outside agent. Subjects could never have afforded what killed them. Their place was a shambles."
"Not quite," Karate said. "Remember the rhino's head? The spastic subject had created the structure, from floating garbage picked up in the canal. That's hard to do, when you can't control your hands too well. I watched him move. He seemed to keep going where he didn't want to go."
"I've got the artwork at home," Grijpstra said, "and some framed Chinese letters. Very nice, I thought."
"The colors," de Gier said, still stirring his coffee. "I mean, colors are everywhere, they exist here too, in the coffee, but just try to take them out, and to fit them in."
"I said that just now," Grijpstra said and pushed de Gier's shoulder. "On the bridge, and I never got through to you. The greens in the canal…"
"Right," Karate said. "Chinese letters, I almost forgot. Listen here, Adjutant. We had handcuffed Jimmy and I didn't have my key and Ketchup had gone back to the station to look for it and then I saw the Chinese stuff. So I ask, 'What's that?' And Jimmy says he studies Chinese philosophy. I didn't believe him. Subject is dirty, has no teeth, is a bicycle thief and a pimp. He was living off what that lady brought m.
"So he studies Chinese too," Grijpstra said. "I paint."
De Gier looked up and spoke slowly, adding appropriate and expressive gestures to his words. "I play the flute. The more miserable our regular lives are, the deeper are our emotions. Beauty, whirling up from cesspools, takes on wondrous shapes, subtle shades, there is a melody that only the unhappy can hear…"