"What's that fluid on the windscreen?" Grijpstra finally asked.
Ishmael, still discussing the human necessity to make sense of things, even ofBigga on Boston Common, and the human refusal to allow for random occurrence, switched his window wipers on.
"It isn't raining," Grijpstra said.
The fluid was gasoline. Ishmael wasn't surprised. This had happened before. "You see, Kripstra, there's an old gas tank in the port wing and another in the starboard wing and the gas pump sucks in rust that clogs the tube to the engine and the pump keeps pumping so the tube bursts a bit."
"So now the gas runs on top ofthe engine and not into the engine?" Grijpstra asked.
The engine spluttered.
Grijpstra reflected on whether ending equals beginning. Is death birth?
"The engine's still trying." Ishmael checked the dashboard. "For a while." He patted his passenger's hand. "You're right, we don't want high-octane gasoline, the world's most popular explosive, run on top of a hot engine, do we, Krip?"
"We do not," Grijpstra said.
The hills ofJameson were in sight. So was the town itself, a crescent of pastel-colored Victorian mansions, with a second tier of more modest frame houses, mostly plain white, rectangular, for more regular folks. A few ofthe larger frame houses carried cupolas, little watchtowers, offering sea views. There were thin-spired churches. The bigger church showed the creator's giant eye on its front wall, sea blue, with long lashes, looking benevolently at the approaching airplane.
Grijpstra only saw the hills with granite slopes, thinly overgrown by spruces, or just bare, glaring, harsh, waiting for the little plane to smash into them.
"Jameson airstrip is on the other side ofthe hills there," Ishmael said, cutting the engine. "Can't make that, I think, not unless we want to catch fire. Let's aim for the critters, shall we?"
The critters were sheep, running about nervously as the Tailorcraft, aimed at their meadow, lost height rapidly.
The little plane was gliding quietly down, taking its time, giving Grijpstra a chance to check out the harbor, where Jameson's small fleet of lobster vessels had attached themselves to moorings, between ledges dotted with sea gulls and cormorants. Grijpstra saw a string of islands, one squidshaped, with a short body and numerous tentacles of dotted rock lines fanning outward. A peninsula reached into the sea from Jameson, bending toward the islands, of which the first, semi-attached with a bar of glistening wet sand and ledge, was clearly visible through what could be some ten feet of pale green water. He saw shoals of shiny fish, and cormorants, wings stretched, twisting and diving in pursuit.
Grijpstra took in the beauty of the scene below, in spite of, or perhaps because of, being scared, the fear that sharpens perception.
The plane landed, hopping about on clumps of grass, following the galloping sheep, twisting and turning.
"It'll be your foot on the brake again," Ishmael said.
Grijpstra pulled back his legs. The Tailorcraft, about to fall over, righted itself neatly.
A large four-wheel drive came trundling up a dirt road, blue lights quietly flashing, then stopped at the fence. The vehicle was marked SHERIFF. Hairy Harry jumped out nimbly. The sheep's leader, a mighty ram with curled horns, left his flock to confront the intruder. The sheriff, turning back from replacing the field's wooden gate, put his hand on his gun.
Ishmael came running. "Now, now," Ishmael said, maneuvering between beast and man, "none ofthat, Harry."
The sheriff put the revolver away. "Rams scare me, Ishy." He spoke in a high childlike voice that matched his hairless head. A naked head, Grijpstra thought. Hairy Harry was still explaining. "We had a ram on the farm. I'd have to take a jug ofcold coffee out to my dad and the ram would run me down. I'd spill the coffee, my dad would beat on me." Hairy Harry smiled widely, showing good teeth, which he shouldn't have, Grijpstra thought, being that hairless and babylike. "You hear what I'm trying to tell you, Ishy?"
"I hear you," Ishmael said, scratching the ram between his horns. "It's okay now, Harry."
The sheriffkept his smile. "Saw you both come tootlin' down, thought I'd check you out, Ishy." Harry pushed up the rim ofa new-looking straw hat. "Was expecting you two in a way. Tad of trouble?"
Ishmael mentioned rusty gas tubes and a persistent fuel pump. He walked the ram back to his sheep. "Sorry about using the common. This here is Kripstra, Sheriff."
"Let's see what we have here," the sheriff said after shaking hands. "Wouldn't be bringing in anything from away, would we? Anything we wouldn't need here? Mind if I frisk you? Could you turn around, sir?"
Grijpstra was patted down and asked to produce the contents of his pockets. The sheriff checked the wallet, studying an ID card with a photograph and the red, white, and blue colors of the Dutch flag. "Detective?"
"Private," Grijpstra said.
"Mr. Marlowe," Hairy Harry said, "Mr. Foreign Mar-lowe. You read Chandler, Krip? I'm a Charles Willeford man 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?"