Blond Baboon

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “Sir.”

  “Do you want to go home now?”

  “Not particularly, sir.”

  “You can come with me, I want to pay another call on Mr. Bergen. You haven’t met him yet.”

  He opened the door of the Citroen and took out the radio’s microphone.

  “Headquarters?”

  “Headquarters, who is calling?”

  “CID, the Camet case. Any news from Detective Cardozo?”

  “Yes, sir, he left a number, wants you to call him.”

  “Any urgency?”

  “No, sir.”

  He pushed the microphone back. “I’ll call him from Bergen’s house.”

  “We might have dinner somewhere, sir,” Grijpstra said from the back of the car.

  “Later, if you don’t mind. I’d like to see Bergen first. Would you like to have dinner with us, sergeant?”

  “Thank you, sir, but I’ll have to go home first to feed Tabriz and I’d like to get out of this uniform and have a shower.”

  “Fine, how about nine o’clock at that Chinese restaurant next to the porno cinema in the old city? We’ve eaten there before, it’s a favorite hangout of yours, I believe.”

  “Cardozo might like to come too, sir. He’s been complaining that he is always sent off on his own and that he loses track of what goes on.”

  The commissaris smiled. “Yes, and he is right, of course. But I have his number and I’ll ring him later. He’s probably having his dinner now but he can have it again. By nine o’clock our preliminary investigation should be complete. It’ll be time to compare our theories, if we have the courage to bring them out, and to move into the next stage.”

  “Setting up traps, sir?”

  The commissaris turned around. “No, Grijpstra, the traps have been set up already and not by us. This time we’ll have to do the opposite, if we can. We’ll have to release our suspects, they are trapped already.”

  “The opposite,” de Gier murmured. “Interesting.”

  \\ 12 /////

  CARDOZO MARCHED ALONG, ARMS SWINGING, UNTIL HE became aware of his own eagerness and dropped back into an exaggerated slouch. He had been out of uniform for some two years now, but he hadn’t yet lost the habit of being on patrol during working hours. He was still checking bicycles for proper lights and would start every time he saw a car going through the red. He also missed the protection of his mate. Policemen on the beat are hardly ever alone, detectives often are. His trained eyes were registering.

  The neighborhood wasn’t known for crime but there were still traces. A young man on the other side of the street was moving about hazily. Drugs? Or just tiredness after a long day at grammar school? A badly dressed foreigner, possibly a Turk, a man with a wide brown face and a heavy coal black mustache, seemed interested in a bicycle thrown against a fence. A thief? Or an unskilled laborer on his way to an overcrowded room in a cheap boarding house in the next quarter, which was only a mile from there. Cardozo shrugged, he shouldn’t bother the man, even if he stole a bicycle right in front of his eyes. He was a murder brigade detective, a specialist. But he crossed the street. The Turk had stopped and was bending down to examine the bicycle’s lock. Cardozo’s hand touched the man’s shoulder. He shook his head and pulled back his jacket so that the pistol’s butt shone against his white shirt.

  “Police. Move along now.”

  The man’s teeth showed in a lopsided grin of fear. “Only looking.”

  “Sure. Move along.”

  The man stepped aside and began to run. Cardozo noted the man’s shoes, the soles had worn through. The seat of the man’s trousers was patched, badly, with a piece of different cloth. Poverty, a rare occurrence in Amsterdam, but the Turk would be outside the cradle of social security. If he starved he starved, there would be nowhere to go. Cardozo had only been introduced to poverty once, when he was on his way back from France during a holiday and had lost his wallet with his money and train ticket, slipped through a tear in his unlined summer jacket. He had noticed the wallet’s absence in a restaurant, just before he had begun to read the menu, and had wandered out into the street again. Lunchtime without lunch, in Paris where he didn’t know the way and could hardly ask for directions for lack of words. It had taken him all day to walk out of the city and find the expressway, and he had waited for hours at the side of the road as night fell and the traffic’s flow began to show gaps, long black lulls that increased as the night crept on. He had drunk from a tap at a gas station, suspiciously eyed by attendants in crisp uniforms. No coffee, no cigarettes. He had bummed a cigarette from another hitchhiker and smoked it hungrily. The hitchhiker was professional, a tanned young man carrying a brand-new shoulder pack stuck on aluminum tubes. A sporting type with muscular legs and high boots and an insulated wind-breaker and an American flag sewed on his pack. An efficient traveler who had planned his trip through Europe and who had his money in traveler’s checks, folded in a cup and buttoned away in his breast pocket. Cardozo had been carrying an old suitcase, reinforced with a frayed belt, and had shivered in the early morning’s chill, a lost little figure who was refused, with an imperative wave of her bejeweled and manicured hand, by the lady who gave the American his lift. Cardozo remembered the loneliness and hunger of the two days he had needed to get home, and the memory showed later when he had to deal with the lost and strayed of his own city.

  The Turk disappeared around the corner and Cardozo followed slowly, turning again into the Mierisstraat. He pulled the polished bell handle and waited patiently until he heard Gabrielle’s voice behind the heavy oak door that swung open slowly, screening her.

  “I’m sorry, I was just about to take a shower when you rang. I saw you through my window.”

  “It’s all right, miss, I’ve come to ask you about that money you found. We heard about your telephone call through the radio but there were no details.”

  “Come in, come in, we can talk inside.”

  She was going up the stairs as he pushed his way through the glass door of the hall. Her bare feet were tripping out of sight at the staircase’s curve, they hardly seemed to touch the thick rug. The housecoat had fallen open when she welcomed him in the hall. He had seen the outline of her body as she hastily retied the sash. A small body, the body of a very young girl but with the fully developed breasts of a woman. She had said she was nearly thirty years old.

  The terrier was waiting for them in Gabrielle’s sitting room. He greeted the visitor and Cardozo bent down and scratched the dog’s head and rubbed the firm woolly ears.

  “Has he recovered now?”

  She laughed. “Yes, completely. We’ve been for a walk this afternoon, I don’t dare to let him out in the garden. Are you still working on Paul’s case? Or isn’t it important anymore?”

  “Yes, miss. We know who gave him the arsenic.”

  “Who?” Gabrielle’s voice had lost its purr and the green eyes were drilling into Cardozo’s face.

  “I can’t tell you yet, miss, not until a summons has been issued, but that won’t be long now. I expect that the poisoner will have to go to court. The judge has been rather fierce on cases of this sort lately. Our man will probably have to pay a fine and damages to you, and there may be a suspended jail sentence of a few weeks.”

  “Good. I think I know who it is. That horrible cat was in the garden again this afternoon. I threw a rock at it but I missed. I can’t stand that cat with its two faces. It was the cat’s owner, right? Mr. de Bree?”

  Cardozo shook his head. “I can’t tell you yet, miss, but you will be informed in due time. We have a confession, you see, but a confession on its own means nothing. People have been known to admit all sorts of criminal deeds mat they had nothing to do with. The public prosecutor will have to evaluate the case but I think it is pretty clear. We also have statements signed by witnesses.”

  “Good.” Her hand came up shyly and touched his hair. “I’m glad you’re with the police, I trusted you from the first time I saw you. How
is the investigation about my mother going?”

  “We are working.”

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  Cardozo looked at his watch. “Perhaps not, miss. I am still on duty.”

  “Oh, nonsense, it’s after hours now. I’ll have a drink with you, and please call me Gabrielle. We don’t have to be so formal, this is the third time we’ve met. Whiskey?”

  “You don’t have vodka, Gabrielle?”

  She giggled. “Vodka doesn’t smell, they say. Do you still have to report today?”

  He nodded. The gauze undercurtains of the room were drawn and the light was soft and restful. He felt tired and the low couch lured him to lean back and forget. He saw the girl open a cupboard and heard a bottle’s gurgle. She left for a moment and came back with a pitcher filled with ice cubes.

  Cardozo’s lips split in a happy sensuous smirk. This was the true police life, the adventurous scene he had so often dreamed himself into at the movies and in the short but vivid imaginations pressed into pauses between his alarm clock’s piercing shrieks. The weary detective enjoying a break. The room was just right. His gaze rested briefly on some delicately arranged flowers, on the rows of books, on the soft orange and brown border of the Oriental carpet covering most of the floor. Gabrielle gave him the glass. The drink was properly prepared with a slice of fresh lemon stuck on the side and the ice tinkling through a blurred mixture of vodka and club soda. He saw Gabrielle’s breasts, only for a moment again, for the house-coat closed as she straightened up.

  He also saw the small object between her breasts, the skull of a cow carved from a small piece of gleaming walnut. A beautifully chiseled miniature with deep eye sockets and a protruding mouth, each tiny jaw complete with its teeth. Between the minute horns the forehead showed a cavity, perhaps a natural fault of the wood, forming an extra eye and accentuating the skull’s ghoulish threat.

  She had squatted down at this feet and her eyes sparkled in the semidarkness. A small wave of guilt prompted his question.

  “You found some money, I was told. A lot of money? How did that come about?”

  “I was cleaning my mother’s bedroom and stripping her bed. The bills were under the mattress, stuck in a magazine. You want to see them?”

  “Please.”

  He sat up while she was away. A small painting caught his eye. It was hung in a dark corner near the end of the couch and he bent over to study it closer. A portrait of a young man, head and shoulders. A young man in some medieval costume, a tight tunic that fitted the narrow shoulders closely. A striking face framed in long, dark, flowing hair. A hooked nose, large liquid eyes, a high forehead. A nobleman from the South, Italian, Spanish, perhaps a Spanish don from the time that Spain was trying to conquer the Netherlands. He wondered what had moved Gabrielle to hang the portrait in the intimacy of her room, so close to her bed. Whenever she lay on her right side the young man would be staring at her. He heard her in the corridor and moved to the middle of the couch. She came back with a ladies’ magazine and opened it and they counted the notes together, one hundred notes of a thousand guilders each. Eighty were brand-new, twenty slightly used.

  “I don’t suppose I should keep the money here. Do you need it as an exhibit? You could give me a receipt; I suppose the police would return it later?”

  The small hand on his wrist distracted him but he could still think logically. “No. Just hide it until tomorrow and deposit it in your bank account. I have seen the money and I’ll make up a report and sign it under oath.”

  Her purring voice laughed. “Yes, you are an official, a police officer. I can’t believe it. You must be very dangerous, nobody would ever expect you to be a detective. How clever of the police to employ you. I am sure people will tell you anything you want to know!”

  “You mean I look like a harmless moron?”

  Her hand was stroking his neck. “Never mind, I am only teasing. I like you very much. I like men who don’t look tall and overpowering and handsome like that other officer who came the night of Mother’s death, the beautiful man with the large mustache. Men like that are unbearable.”

  Cardozo was nodding and smiling, but the little wave of guilt had crept back and he heard himself defending the sergeant. “But he is very good, I have worked with him for a long time now. He is very intelligent and dependable.”

  “Pff. He is a showoff!” She looked at her watch. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I must take my shower. It was such a hot day and I’ll have to go work again. If I don’t bathe Iil be prickly and irritable and nothing will go right. I promised Mr. Bergen that I would sort out his stock files. We are preparing a statement of what we have in our warehouse for the bank, and so far we come up with a different figure every time. I’ll have to check through the invoices again.”

  She jumped up but held on to his wrist so that he was pulled off the couch. He was in the bathroom before he knew that she had taken him with her and he saw her drop her housecoat and step into the tub and adjust the faucets. He stood, holding his glass, trying to find a harmless object to look at. She laughed. “Silly! Haven’t you ever seen a naked woman? Why don’t you sit on the toilet and enjoy your drink. I’ll be ready in a moment.”

  The shower came on. The bath had plastic curtains but she didn’t draw them. He saw the hot water splash on her shoulders and run down her arms and there was a small riverlet trickling between her breasts, with two sidelines running down and causing a steady drip from her nipples.

  “Don’t you want to see me like this?”

  But he did want to, of course, and he was having trouble with his breathing. He took her by the hand before she had had a chance to reach for the towel.

  “But I’m still wet.”

  He pulled the towel off the rack and wrapped it around her body and swept her off her feet and carried her through die corridor. Her head rested on his shoulder.

  On the bed he saw the arrogant eyes of the Spanish nobleman and he pushed the portrait’s broad gold frame so mat it slid off its hook and got stuck between the couch and the wall. The terrier was watching too, its dark button eyes fixed on the linked, throbbing bodies. Hie dog’s fuzzy ears stood up, quivering with interest, and his short tail tapped on the side of his basket. Cardozo wasn’t aware that some of his passion was shared by Paul, and when, after a while, he turned over and looked at the room, the dog had curled himself up in a tight ball and was fast asleep.

  \\ 13 /////

  THE CITROËN’S SMOOTH SHAPE WAS COASTING THROUGH the avenues of Amsterdam Old South like a large predator fish patrolling its hunting streams. It had been cruising for twenty-five minutes and it kept on turning the same corners. Grijpstra was studying a small soiled map and gave directions that the commissaris found hard to follow. Every turnoff they tried led into one-way streets and they invariably tried to enter on the wrong side. If Grijpstra had been with de Gier his mood might have turned sour and been edging toward blind fury, but the commissaris’s presence had soothed his mind and he continued trying to trace a course while the car floated on.

  “It can’t be here anyway,” the commissaris said quietly. “Look at those vast houses, they were patricians’ homes once. Homes for the aged now, adjutant, and private hospitals and maybe a few high-priced sex clubs tucked away here and there. The whole neighborhood is subsidized by the state now.” He smiled. “Or lust, and expense accounts that cater to lust. Lovely old places all the same, don’t you agree?”

  Grijpstra looked up from the map. The heavily wooded gardens lining the curving avenue did indeed offer a spectacle of sedate grandeur. The gardens shielded four- and five-storied villas, decorated with turrets and cantilevered balconies overgrown with creepers, abodes of splendor where merchants had once planned their overseas adventures and enjoyed the benefits of constructive but greedy thoughts.

  “Yes, sir. But we should be close, we have been close for a while now. The street behind this one must be the one we want, I’m sure of it. Some mansions were pulled down and a
bungalow park has taken their sites. Bergen probably has one of the bungalows, but I wouldn’t know how to get in there with all these damned NO ENTRY signs.”

  The commissaris tried again. “No. No use. We’ll walk.”

  They heard the evening song of a thrush the minute the engine was shut off and the commissaris pointed at the bird, a small, exact silhouette on an overhead wire. The thrush flew off and a nightingale took over. Grijpstra had folded his map and put it away and began to walk on, but the commissaris restrained him, waiting for the end of the trilling cantata. The nightingale seemed to feel that he had an audience, for he pushed himself into such a brilliant feat of pure artistry, and sang so loudly, that Grijpstra expected him to fall off his branch. When the song broke, and ended, in the middle of a rapidly rising scale of notes, the commissaris was standing on his toes, his small head raised, his eyes closed.

  Grijpstra smiled. It was good to be with the old man again. His perception had risen and he became aware of the quiet of the street. The one-way system had effectively blocked all through traffic and the old-fashioned streetlights, adapted gas lanterns spaced far apart, threw a soft light that was held by flowering bushes and freshly mowed lawns and hung between the gnarled branches of old beeches and oaks. They walked on, two contemplative pedestrians enjoying the peace of the evening, and found Bergen’s street at the next corner.

  Grijpstra checked the house numbers. “This one, sir.”

  The bungalow’s garage doors were open. A new Volvo had been left in the driveway, unable to fit into the garage, where the wreck of a small, fairly new car blocked its way. The compact’s nose had been pushed in and its hood stood up, cracked. A refrigerator with its door hanging open leaned against the wreck and parts of a lawn mower littered the floor.

  “I’m sure most of that could be fixed,” Grijpstra said as he peered into the garage. The commissaris had walked on. “Maybe that’s considered to be junk, adjutant, the throwouts of a different lifestyle.”