Free Assignment - Lowlands by Edward S. Aarons Page A

hand remained on Durell’s chest. “You do not know where you are, mynheer?”
    Durell saw Julian Wilde escaping if another moment went by, and acted out of momentary anger as he chopped at the big Hollander’s hand that pressed him toward the dockside. But the seaman’s arm was like an oaken log, hard and immovable. His eyes opened with blue, innocent surprise and hurt, and when Durell stabbed a stiff fistful of fingers into the man’s solar plexus, in what should have been a disabling blow, the Hollander wasn’t there to receive it.
    “Mynheer, please, we are friends—”
    Durell swung again, but his wrist was caught in the huge hand and he was twisted off balance. No one had ever been able to do that to him before: the Hollander’s strength was enormous. The man grinned like a happy idiot.
    “I am sorry, Heer Durell. I have a boat to offer you, that is all. You are looking for a boat to rent, are you not? We should make a bargain quickly, before people start to stare at us.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Inspector Flaas suggested that you rent a boat, right?” Durell stared at the huge young man, then at the alley where Wilde had disappeared. It still might not be too late. But when he started around the big man, the other said in a low, firm voice, “I am sorry, mynheer. I must insist. I have my instructions. Trinka wants to see you now.” 
    “Later!”
    “Now.”
    Durell let his arm go slack, ducked under the other’s grip, feeling his skin burn where the big man tried to hang on, and came up facing the Hollander. This time he got in a hard right to the other’s belly. He didn’t care what sort of scene he created now. He heard a woman passerby gasp, and a man shouted and the big Hollander went staggering back, losing his cap as he jolted heavily against a dock shed with enough of an impact to make the little structure shake violently. There was still only innocent regret and surprise on the man’s face. He licked his lips, shook his head, hunched his shoulders, and came at Durell like a charging bull.
    Durell never liked to think afterward of what might have happened if he really had it out with the Hollander then. He stood braced as the giant charged, frustrated by the man’s persistence. And then, as if he had been checked by a leash, the Hollander came to an abrupt halt as a girl’s annoyed, light voice called:
    “Jan! Jan Gunther! Stop that nonsense this instant!”
Eight
    Her voice carried astonishing authority for her size. The Dutch girls Durell knew were usually full-bodied and had the typical Hollander’s well-fed look. This one was tiny, with jet-dark hair that betrayed Spanish ancestry from the time the Duke of Alba ruled the Netherlands for Spain. Her features, however, had the milky softness and radiant complexion of all the Dutch. And in proportion to her size, her figure was exquisite, even bold.
    She came toward them across the quay with a determined stride: a small, seductive figure in white shorts and a man’s white shirt open at the throat. Her legs were long and firm and deeply tanned. She wore her dark hair cut short, boyishly, but there was an ultrafemininity about her, from the top of her angry head to her tiny, tapping toes as she stood diminutively beside the hulking Jan Gunther.
    “I am so sorry, Heer Durell. Jan misunderstood. I did not mean to detain you this way. Were you going somewhere important?”
    “It doesn’t matter now,” Durell said.
    “I am Trinka Van Horn,” she said, and put out her hand. “Uncle Piet and I work for the same company, you might say.”
    “Trinka?”
    She wrinkled her tiny nose. “A very common name, is it not? Katrinka Van Horn. The boat I own is the Suzanne —no one knows why. It is as stubborn and opinionated as a mule—or a man.”
    “That could be a feminine trait, too,” Durell said.
    “Oh, dear. Are we to be enemies?”
    He looked at her firm, perfect little figure in her shorts. “Are we to share your