Free The Perfidious Parrot by Janwillem van de Wetering Page B

said all that?” de Gier asked.
    “The latter part I said,” said the commissaris.
    The Russian paperwork was unbelievably complicated butPeter Ambagt learned how to fill in the forms. After a year of regular business the old man placed an enormous order. A fleet of chartered tankers filled up in Leningrad. He didn’t apply for a letter of credit and blamed the paperwork delay on his banks. The loaded tankers were taking up valuable Leningrad harbor space. Peter Ambagt telephoned his Russian suppliers: hadn’t he always paid, wasn’t he trustworthy, the papers were in the mail. “Please send off your tankers. Please? Pretty please?”
    “Da,”
the Russians said. “Yes.”
    Russian tugs pulled the tankers to sea. Off went the oil fleet.
    “Ah,” de Gier said, thinking ahead. “So Ambagt & Son were paid by the South Africans as soon as the tankers hit Capetown but Ambagt and Son never paid the Russians. A fortune was made for their cost was zero. But didn’t they run a risk here? Didn’t Russia send Ivans?”
    “Ivans?” Grijpstra asked.
    “Ivan Bondsky,” the commissaris said. “Ivan shoot-the-pheasant-feather-of-my-hatsky.”
    “What?”
Grijpstra asked.
    “But there was a change of regime in Moscow,” the commissaris answered his own question. “No more Ivans.” He laughed. “And that’s how Ambagt & Son could purchase a thirty million dollar FEADship.”
    Grijpstra pointed an accusing finger at the commissaris. “Shot a feather off your head? Didn’t you just say that? Where did that happen? While you were walking behind the windmills at Abcoude? In the nature reserve?” Grijpstra’s heavy jowls trembled with fury. “So K&K got you too! Used that idiotic Kalshnikov that hangs above the fireplace at their Amstel apartment.”
    De Gier’s face also flushed with anger. “An untrustworthy weapon. Shoots large caliber bullets too.” De Gier’s finger pointed accusingly. “You never told us. That’s not good, sir.”
    “We’ll get the little fuckers,” Grijpstra said.
    “Now, now, gentlemen,” the commissaris soothed. “Personal weaknesses cannot be taken care of on their own levels. We know that. Yes?” He peered over his little round glasses. “You, de Gier, as a student of Buddhism, and lately Hinduism, is it? Yes. Well, as a student of eastern philosophies you should know by now that Ketchup and Karate will not raise their level of being by anything we can do to them. Only their own effort, which is part of their own quest for insight, may, as a side effect, make them decent. Knowing that we will set our attitudes aside and use K&K purely for their talents.”
    “For their egotistic ruthlessness,” de Gier said.
    The commissaris smiled. “Absolutely.”
    “I understand,” de Gier said.
    “He understands nothing, sir,” Grijpstra said.
    “Ambagt & Son don’t understand anything either,” the commissaris said, “and ignorance makes their practices worse. Figure for yourself. In Bermuda they had a nice villa with a pool and a few expensive hobbies maybe, nothing that couldn’t be financed with an easily produced cash flow. Was that enough?”
    “Enough is too much,” Grijpstra said. “Nellie keeps saying that. She doesn’t even want me to buy her flowers.”
    “Less is better,” de Gier said.
    “You know that now, do you?” the commissaris asked. He peered over his glasses again. “That’s nice. But did the Ambagts? I don’t think so. Bermuda was near-heaven but theywere still paying some taxes. A FEADship that happened to dock in Bermuda harbor gave them the idea they could improve their independence.”
    Grijpstra looked unhappy. “Nellie gave the car I bought her to her sister. She got a used bicycle, rides it to keep her weight down.”
    “Used bikes are mostly stolen,” de Gier said.
    Grijpstra nodded. “Maybe she stole it herself. She used to do that. Stole them from the market where thieves sold stolen bikes.”
    “Now,” the commissaris said. “As