Death of a Hawker ac-4

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "Brr," Grijpstra said. "Some ashtray!''

  Louis smiled. The smile was arrogant, condescending. "Friend of mine made it. He is a sculptor. Silly thing really, but it's useful so I kept it. And the meaning is obvious. Memento mori."

  "Why do you have it if you think it's silly," the commissaris asked. "You could have thrown it out and used a saucer instead." The commissaris, who had spent the day in bed to ease the pain in his legs which had almost lamed him during the last few weeks, was rubbing his right leg. The hot needle pricks of his acute chronic rheumatism made his bloodless lips twitch. The commissaris looked very innocent. His shantung suit, complete with waistcoat and watch chain, seemed a little too large for his small dry body, and his wizened face with the carefully brushed, thin colorless hair expressed a gentle exactness.

  "The man is a friend of mine, he often comes here. I think it would hurt him if I wasn't using his work of art. Besides, I don't mind having it around. The message of the skull may be obvious but it's true nevertheless. Life is short, seize the day and all that."

  "Yes," the commissaris said. "There is a dead man in the house to prove the saying's worth."

  The commissaris stopped to listen to the noises downstairs. Feet were clomping up and down the bare steps. The photographers would be setting up their equipment and the doctor would be getting ready to start his examination. A uniformed chief inspector, his jacket soaked and caked with soapstone powder, stomped his way into the room. The commissaris got up.

  "Sir," the chief inspector said. "Anything we can do for you?"

  "You have done enough today it seems," the commissaris said mildly.

  "We haven't had any dead men outside," the chief inspector said. "Not so far, anyway."

  "We have one here, one floor below. Got his face bashed in, hit by a stone or something, but we can't find the stone or whatever it was in his room."

  "So my constables were telling me. Maybe your man was a reactionary, somebody the red mob outside may have disliked."

  "Was he?" the commissaris asked Louis Zilver.

  Louis grinned.

  "Was he?"

  "No," Louis said, carefully stubbing out his cigarette in the skull's silver cranium. "Abe didn't know what politics were. He was an adventurer."

  "Adventurers get killed for a number of reasons," the chief inspector said, impatiently tapping his boot with his truncheon. "Do you have any use for me, sir?"

  "No," the commissaris said, "no, you go ahead, I hope the situation is getting a bit better on the square."

  "It isn't," the officer said. "It's getting worse. We are getting fresh crowds now, young idiots who come in screaming and dancing. I better get back."

  Grijpstra watched Louis's face as the officer left the room. Louis was showing his teeth in the way a baboon does when he feels threatened. "It seems you are enjoying yourself," Grijpstra said.

  "It's always nice to see the police get a beating,'' Louis said in a low voice.

  Grijpstra bristled. The commissaris made a gesture. "Let's forget the Newmarket for a while. Tell us about the incident in this house. What do you know about it?"

  Louis had lit a new cigarette and puffed industriously. "Esther found the body close to five o'clock this afternoon. She screamed. I was here, in my room. I ran downstairs. I told her to phone the police. Abe had been in my room an hour before Esther found him. He was right here, talking to me. There was nothing wrong with him then."

  "What's your connection with Abe and Esther?"

  "I am a friend. I got to know him on the market, the Albert Cuyp Market. I bought a lot of beads from him once, kept on going back for more. I was trying to make a structure, an abstract figure which I was planning to hang from the ceiling. Abe was interested in what I was doing and came to see me where I lived. I had an uncomfortable room, small, no conveniences, no proper light. He was buying this house and suggested I move in with him. And we used to go sailing together. His boat is outside, moored next to that big houseboat you can see from the window. A clapped-out little yacht. He would take it out when there was a good wind but he found it difficult to handle by himself."

  The commissaris and Grijpstra got up to look out of the window. They saw the sixteen-foot plastic sailboat.

  "It's half full of water," Grijpstra said.

  "Yes. Rainwater. He never bothered, just hosed it out when he wanted to go sailing. The sails are downstairs; it only takes a few minutes to rig the boat."

  "What about that houseboat?"

  "It's empty," Louis said. "Been for sale for a long time. They want too much money for it and it's rotten."

  "Somebody could have stood on the roof and thrown whatever it was that hit Abe," the commissaris said thoughtfully. "Why don't you go down, Grijpstra? Perhaps the police in the street saw somebody on the houseboat."

  "What was that nasty remark you made about the police just now?" the commissaris asked when Grijpstra had left the room. "You told Esther to telephone us when the body was found, didn't you? So we must be useful, why sneer at something which is useful?"

  "The body had to be taken care of, hadn't it?" Louis asked, and his eyes sparkled. "We couldn't dump it into the canal, it would foul the water."

  "I see. So you called the garbage men?" Louis dropped his eyes.

  "But your friend is dead, his face is bashed in. Don't you want us to apprehend the killer?" Louis' face changed. It lost its sparkle and suddenly looked worn and tired. The sensitive face became a study in sadness only kept alive by the luster of the large eyes.

  "Yes," Louis said softly. "He is dead, and we are alone."

  "We?"

  "Esther, me, others, the people he inspired."

  "Did he have enemies?"

  "No. Friends. Friends and admirers. A lot of people used to come and see him here. He threw parties and they would do anything to be invited. He had lots of friends."

  "And in business? Was he popular in business as well?"

  "Yes," Louis said, staring at the plastic skull in front of him. "King of the Albert Cuyp street market. Very popular. All the street sellers knew him. Bought from him too. He was a big businessman you know. We used to bring in cargoes from Eastern Europe and a lot of it was sold to the market. Lately we were doing wool, tons of wool, for knitting and rug making. Wool is expensive stuff nowadays.'"

  "We?" the commissaris asked.

  "Well, Abe mostly. I just helped."

  "Tell us about yourself."

  "Why?"

  "It may help us to understand the situation."

  Louis grinned. "Yes, you are the police. I had almost forgotten. But why should I help the police?"

  Grijpstra had slipped into the room and taken his place on the bed again. "You should help the police because you are a citizen," Grijpstra boomed suddenly, "because you are a member of society. Society can only function when there is public order. When order has been disturbed it has to be maintained again. It can only be maintained if the citizens assist the police. The task of the police is to protect the citizens against themselves."

  Louis looked up and laughed.

  "You think that's funny?" Grijpstra asked indignantly.

  "Yes. Very funny. Textbook phrases. And untrue. Why should I, a citizen, benefit by what you, in your stupidity, in your refusal to think, call public order? Couldn't it be that public order is sheer boredom, a heavy weight which throttles the citizens?"

  "Your friend is dead downstairs, with a bashed-in face. Does that make you happy?"

  Louis stopped laughing.

  "You are a student, aren't you?" the commissaris asked.

  "Yes. I studied law but I gave it up when I saw how sickening our laws are. I passed my candidate's examinations but that was as far as I could go, I haven't been near the university since."

  "What a pity," the commissaris said. "I studied law too and I found it a fascinating discipline. You only have a few years to go. You don't want to finish your studies?"

  The boy shrugged. "Why should I
? If I become a master at law I may find myself in a concrete office somewhere working for some large company or perhaps even the State. I don't particularly want to join the establishment. It's more fun shouting at the street market or driving a truck through the snow in Czechoslovakia. And I am not after money."

  "What would you do," Grijpstra asked, "if somebody rolled your wallet?"

  "I wouldn't go to the police if that's what you mean."

  "And if someone murdered your friend? Didn't you tell Ester to phone us?"

  Louis sat up. "Listen," he said loudly. "Don't philosophize with me, will you? I am not used to arguing. I accept your power and your attempt to maintain order in a madhouse and I'll answer any questions you may ask as long as they relate to the murder."

  "You mean that humanity consists of mindless forms groping about?" the commissaris asked dreamily as if he hadn't really been listening. He was looking at the trees outside the window.

  "Yes, you've put it very well. We don't do anything, things happen to us. Abe has found his death just now, like a few million black people have found their death in Central Africa because the water ran out. There's nothing anybody can do about it. My grandparents were thrown in a cattle truck during the war and dumped into some camp and gassed. Or maybe they just starved to death, or some SS man bashed their heads in for fun. Same thing happened to Abe and Esther's family. The Rogges stayed alive because they happened to survive; their lives weren't planned, like the deaths of the others weren't planned. And the police are pawns in the game. My grandparents were arrested by the police because they were Jews. By the Amsterdam municipal police, not the German police. They were told to maintain order, like you are now told to maintain order. That officer who was here a minute ago is merrily bashing heads now, on the New-market Square, half a kilometer from here."

  "Really," Grijpstra said.

  "What do you mean, really?" Louis shouted. "Are you going to tell me that only part of the police worked for the Germans during the war? And that most of your colleagues were on the queen's side? And what about 4he queen? Didn't she send troops to Indonesia to bash villagers on the head? What will you do if there's another war? Or a famine? It may happen any minute now." He coughed and looked at Grijpstra's face, ominously, as if he wanted the adjutant to agree with him.

  "Or the Russians may invade us and impose communism. They will take over the government in The Hague and some minister will tell you to arrest all dissidents. And you will maintain order. You will send blue-uniformed constables armed with rubber truncheons and automatic pistols, helmeted perhaps, and carrying carbines. You'll have proper razzias with armored trucks blocking the street on each side. It's not unlikely you know. Just go outside and have a look at what's happening on the Newmarket Square right now."

  "Who are you blaming?" the commissaris asked, tipping the ash of his cigar into the plastic skull.

  "No one," Louis said quietly. "Not even the Germans, not even the Dutch police who took my grandparents away. Things happen, I told you already. I am not blaming things either, it's just that this idealizing, this reasoning, sickens me. If you want to do your job, if you consider your activity to be a job, do it, but don't ask me to clap my hands when you make your arrest. I don't care either way."

  "It seems you are disproving your own theory," the commissaris said. "You refuse to do as you are told, don't you? You don't want to fit in. You should perhaps be finishing your studies so that you can join society on the right level, but you are working on the street market instead and driving a truck in some faraway country. But you are still doing something, working toward some goal. If you really believe what you say you believe, it seems to me you should be doing nothing at all. You should be drifting, pushed by circumstances of the moment."

  "Exactly," Louis said. "That's what I am doing."

  "No, no. You have some freedom, it seems to me, and you are using it. You are deliberately choosing."

  "I try," Louis said, disarmed by the commissaris' quiet voice. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am free in a way and trying to do something with my freedom. But I am not even very good at trying. I would never have done anything on my own. I was rotting away in a dark room, sleeping until two o'clock in the afternoon every day and hanging about in silly bars at night, when Abe found me. I just tagged on to Abe. It happened to me. He practically took me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me along."

  "Didn't you say that you were making some structure out of beads? You were doing that before you met Abe, weren't you?"

  "Yes, nothing ever came of it. I threw the whole mess into a dustbin one day. I had meant to create something really unusual, a human shape which would move in the wind or the draft. I was trying to make a body out of copper wire and connect the wire with thin plastic threads and string beads on the threads. The body would glitter and show life when it moved, but it wouldn't be moving itself, only acting when forces beyond its power played with it. Unfortunately I am no artist. The idea was good but I only managed to string a lot of beads together and waste a year."

  "Right," Grijpstra said. "So Abe got you out of your mess. He may have got others out of their messes. But now he has been killed. The killer may want to kill other people like Abe."

  "Rubbish."

  "Pardon?"

  "You heard me," Louis said sweetly. "Rubbish. Rot. Abe got killed because some force moved somebody's arm. The force was a haphazard force, like the wind. You can't catch the wind."

  "If there's a draft we can find the crack and block it," the commissaris said.

  "You can jail the instrument," Louis said stubbornly, "but you can't jail the force which activated the instrument. It's beyond you and the effort is silly. Why should I help you waste your time? You can waste it on your own."

  "I see," the commissaris said, and looked at the trees again. There was no wind and the last rays of the sun were reflected in the small oblong mirrors of the young leaves.

  "Do you really? You are an officer, aren't you? You direct the police?"

  "I am a commissaris.* But if your theory is right I am only pretending to direct a shadow play which doesn't exist in reality. You are not original but you probably know you are not. Other people have thought of what you are thinking now. Plato, for instance, and others before him."

  "There have been clever shadows on the planet,"

  Louis said and smiled.

  "Yes. But you have helped us nevertheless. We know a little about the dead man now and we know a little about you. We are simple people, deluded probably, as you have pointed out already. We work on the assumption that the State is right and that public order has to be maintained.

  "And we work with systems. Someone, some human who meant to harm Abe Rogge, has killed him. He had the opportunity to bash his face in and he thought he had a reason to do it. If we find somebody who had both the opportunity and the motive we will suspect him of a crime and we may arrest him. You, Louis Zilver, had the opportunity. You were in the house at the right time. But from what you have told us we may assume that you had no motive."

  "If I was speaking the truth," Louis said.

  "Yes. You have told us he was your friend, your savior in a way. He got you out of a rut. You used to spend your time lying in bed all morning and drinking all evening and trying to make a beady man all afternoon. You weren't happy. Abe made your life interesting."

  "Yes. He saved me. But perhaps people don't want to be saved. Christ was a savior and they hammered nails through his hands and feet."

  "A hammer," Grijpstra said. "I keep on thinking that Abe was killed with a hammer. But a hammer would have made a hole, wouldn't it? The face was bashed in over a large area."

  "We'll find out what killed him," the commissaris said. "Go on, Mr. Zilver. You interest me. What else can you tell us?"

  "Tell me," de Gier said, still holding Esther's hand, "why was your brother killed? Did he have any enemies?"

  Esther had stopped crying and was caressing the table's surface with
her free hand.

  "Yes. He had enemies. People hated his guts. He was too successful, you see, and too indifferent. He was so full of life. People would worry and be depressed and nervous and he'd just laugh and go to Tunisia for a few weeks to play on the beach or to ride a camel to a little village somewhere. Or he would sail his boat onto the great lake. Or he would take off for the East and buy merchandise and sell it here and make a good profit. He was a dangerous man. He crushed people. Made them feel fools."

  "Did he make you feel a fool?"

  "I am a fool," Esther said.

  "Why?"

  "Everybody is. You are too, sergeant, whether you want to admit it or not."

  "You were going to call me Rinus. O.K., I am a fool. Is that what you want me to say?"

  "I don't want you to say anything. If you know you are a fool, Abe wouldn't have been able to hurt you. He used to arrange dinner parties but before anyone was allowed to eat anything, that person had to get up, face the assembled guests and say, "I am a fool."

  "Yes?" de Gier asked, surprised. "Whatever for?"

  "He enjoyed doing things like that. They had to state that they were fools and then they had to explain why they were fools. Some sort of sensitivity training. A man would say 'Friends, I am a fool. I think I am important but I am not.' But that wouldn't be enough for Abe. He wouldn't let the man eat or drink before he had explained, in detail, why exactly he was a fool. He would have to admit that he was proud because he had some particular success, a business deal for instance, or an examination he had passed, or a woman he had made, and then he would have to explain that it was silly to be proud of such a feat because it had just happened to him. It wasn't his fault or merit, you see. Abe believed that we were just being pushed around by circumstances and that man is an inanimate mechanism, nothing more."