The younger people rolled their eyes and smiled, indulgently.

“She was an Austrian,” he went on. “Beautiful. Pigtails, like Heidi. Every morning, she made my bed, and I would play rumpy-pumpy with her. I was always late to the set. I’m lucky I was working for Wim Wenders, otherwise curtains for Graus the louse.”

“That was in Chapter Eight of your book,” Katie said, giggling again. “Except I think you said she was Swiss.”

Graus made kissing sounds at her. “In the uncensored version. You know everything, little girl. That’s why I love you.” Then he turned, suddenly and coldly, to me. “That’s all I remember about my life, that chambermaid. You want to know any more?”

“Well,” I said, stupidly answering, “actually, yes, I’d very much like to know about The Day—”

“Forget it, Charlie! That’s the end of the line, last stop, everyone out! I got no more to say!”

Graus buried his face in a mug of beer, which sat, half-finished, on the table. I sensed tension in his companions now. When he finished drinking, Graus slowly licked the foam from his mouth, and looked right at Katie and Johnny.

“Tell your scummy friend to leave or I’ll kill him,” he said.

I assumed this was an exaggeration, like everything else he had said.

A second later, I learned it wasn’t.

GRAUS SPRANG AT ME LIKE A SMALL OLD LION.

The two of us went flying onto the dirty floor. Growling and barking, smelling of dope and beer, he pummeled me, as we rolled around. I tried pushing him away, but he held me in a hug, one surprisingly hard to break.

“I’ll kill you before I tell you anything,” he whispered in my ear.

I brought my knee up into his groin, but he didn’t recoil. To my shock, Graus seemed gratified by the impact, and he groaned with what appeared pleasure.

“Little tiger,” he said. Then he made to sink his teeth into my ear.

Luckily, he never got a chance. A second later, he was choking.

“Gaaak,” Graus gurgled.

The silk scarf around his neck had been tightened. He coughed again with an expression of surprise. Then his eyes, which already protruded, grew even bigger.

I looked up. Johnny stood there, holding the end of the scarf in a tight grip, yanking on it as if it were the reins of a feisty horse. Then, with what seemed superhuman strength, he pulled Graus’s compact body up and off of me.

Still using the scarf as a lead, he jerked the older man to him. When they stood nose to nose, he jammed a hand into his own pants pocket. He came out with a little paring knife, which gleamed in the bar’s dim light. Graus’s eyes grew impossibly large and his “gaaak”ing became more alarmed and birdlike.

Johnny waved the weapon in front of the actor’s eyes. Then, with one swift snap, he cut the scarf, freeing Graus. The movement was so sudden that the sybarite stumbled back, and plopped directly onto a chair.

My savior wasn’t finished with him. He quickly approached the seated Graus, who seemed genuinely dazed. Drawing his right hand back, swiftly, Johnny slapped him in the face. The cracking sound echoed through the nearly empty place. Raising his mitt once more, Johnny backhanded him.

He was not about to stop. He made to strike again. There was something parental and sadistic about the beating. It seemed like child abuse, though Graus predated us all.

“That’s enough!” Katie yelled.

Johnny’s hand stopped in mid-threat. He glanced at his girlfriend, whose eyes pleaded with him, though vaguely. Then he looked at his victim, whose cheeks were beet red and whose lips emitted a tiny speck of blood. There was a pause before a decision was made.

“One more,” Graus whispered.

Johnny nodded. It was the hardest blow of all, and the actor’s head flipped back like a ricochet. Then it came forward and his chin settled on his chest, his wild hair hung in his eyes, and a trickle of blood discolored his chin.

There was silence for a second. Then, panting, Johnny looked down at the floor, where I was still lying.

“You okay, pal?” he asked me, with his usual concern.

I didn’t know what to say. I was relatively unhurt. But okay?

Johnny didn’t wait for me to answer. He held out a friendly hand—the palm red from beating Graus Menzies—and pulled me up.

“Sorry Graus couldn’t be more helpful,” he said. “I think he’ll open up when he knows you better.”

“Oh,” I said, shaken. “Okay. But will he be—”

“He’ll be fine,” Katie said, pleasant again. “This is just, you know, a thing we do.”

“Now go get washed up for dinner. You ever have ‘ricetable’? It’s a Dutch specialty.”

Katie was nodding, vigorously. “It’s delicious!” she agreed.

“Tastes good,” Graus even said, though very quietly.

His assistant rose from her doobis haze and administered to Graus. With a table napkin, Katie wiped off his face and then carefully recombed his hair. The older man found the strength to place his hands on her behind and squeeze.

Somewhat stunned, I sat and stared. But then the look on Johnny’s face became threatening again, after having shifted to gentleness. That made me move.

“Hey, I like your friend,” I heard Katie say, sincerely, as I left.

—

I headed back to my room, determined to flee Amsterdam. After Howie, Troy, Marthe, Thor, and Gratey, here was yet another curdled piece of the past, and one more weirdo family. How much did Graus know about Clown, anyway? Was it worth putting up with this? If I could only find the tape, I might not need anyone’s help, I could get the hell out.

I hesitated, recalling Johnny’s weird, mercurial personality. He had rescued me—twice, now. He seemed sincere about helping. At the same time, he was fast with fists and knives and willing to engage in erotic pain games with an iconic has-been. I also thought of Katie’s pretty face; she had said she liked me. Mixed feelings and motives slowed my resolve.

Then something stopped it entirely. Dena’s fax had arrived: excerpts from her father’s diary.

ALL FORTY-EIGHT PAGES OF THEM.

The elderly lady who owned the B&B, who had been so polite when I met her, now looked at me with disgust. Carrying the piles of paper that had jammed her machine, I went, mortified, to my room.

I laid the pages on my bed, as if they were pieces of a puzzle. Then, completely wiped out, I fell asleep beside them.

—

In the morning, I began to read.

The surviving entries in Ted Savitch’s diary scanned the last forty or so years of the twentieth century, though commented only briefly on most of it. There were passages ranging from two words in 1977 (Head cold!) to a longer discourse on money problems in 1990 (No light, all tunnel.).