Blond Baboon

\\\\\ 18 /////

“Very very sorry,” Puluni said. “I will buy new truck for Eraldo. That old truck, he has bad brakes. I warn him many times but Eraldo, he keeps driving truck. Eraldo, he says you broke your cane, yes?”

The commissaris felt in his pocket. He put the handle on the table. Pullini picked it up. He shook his head in silent consternation.

“Nice handle, beautiful handle. Maybe I can get you new cane. Really very sorry. Eraldo, he could have hit you, yes? Fortunately he turned wheel just in time, but say he had not, then what would happen? Commissaire de la police municipale d’Amsterdam dead in Sesto San Giovanni. Accident, of course. Constable here, he says accident. Eraldo, he says accident. Many witnesses say accident. But you, you dead commissaire.”

The commissaris took off his glasses and began to polish them. His eyes twinkled. The wine had been excellent, so had the meal. Proper gourmet food, exquisitely cooked. A lovely salad. Even the ice cream had been outstanding, and the service could be called personal, very personal. Renata had served every dish and had hovered around the table in between courses, managing to be both inconspicuous and lovely.

He couldn’t argue about Pullini’s good taste as he couldn’t have argued with Eraldo’s little green pickup that had missed him but had taken his cane and crushed it Eraldo was, indeed, a good driver. Pullini’s chauffeur had taken his chances, another fraction of an inch and the commissaris would have been caught by die sleeve, whirled around, and smashed into the cobblestones. As it was he had fallen, but the truck, in spite of its alleged absence of brakes, had stopped a few hundred feet down the road and come back to pick him up. Eraldo had been most apologetic and solicitous. He had brushed the commissaris’s jacket and helped him into the truck’s cabin and delivered him at the Ristorante Pullini. A good show.

“Now,” Pullini said, rubbing his wide hands, “we have eaten and now we talk. Something I understand now. Francesco, he has been silly, Elaine, she has been also silly. Sillier, for now she is dead.”

“Did you speak to your son this afternoon?”

“Oh, yes.” Pullini smiled benignly. Yes, he had finally got through to Amsterdam. Francesco was quite sure that the police suspected him of having pushed Mrs. Carnet down the stairs, and he was also quite sure that he was caught. His passport had already been taken away, soon he might be in jail.

“And did he kill Mrs. Carnet?”

Pullini’s right hand balled up and began to turn. Will, perhaps something did happen. But it was an accident, of course. There had been a scene, a terrible scene. Francesco was very upset, also on the telephone. Perhaps Papa Pullini should have told his son about the romantic adventure so long ago, and so far away, all the way to Paris.

Pullini poured more wine, barola, a rich wine. He spilled a little, and Renata’s lithe body came between them to sprinkle salt on the stain. Pullini was talking volubly. He had been in Paris at the time to buy luxuries that could be sold to the American officers in Milano. It had been a good time, but difficult, for he had to learn so much. Fortunately some of the American officers had spoken Italian. That had been a help, but even so. He was gesturing wildly. Even so, a struggle, yes. But he had earned the capital necessary to buy his furniture business. And he had enjoyed himself in Paris.

“Where you met Elaine Carnet?”

“Oh, yes, surely.”

“But you didn’t marry her. Why not, Mr. Pullini?”

Amazement spread over Pullini’s gleaming cheeks. Marry a nightclub singer? A foreigner? When he had just invested his entire capital in a furniture factory? He needed connections in those days. He needed textiles to upholster his furniture, didn’t he? And the young lady he married was the daughter of a textile manufacturer.

“So Francesco thinks we may put him in jail?” The commissaris asked the question gently, patting his lips with the snow-white napkin that Renata had just handed him.

He had taken a few seconds to admire Renata. She had noticed his admiration and the raven-black eyes had flashed. Pullini had noticed too. He was grinning.

“You like her, yes?”

“Beautiful,” the commissaris agreed.

“Renata, she sleeps upstairs. Perhaps we can have a small glass with her later, yes? Restaurant, he close soon.”

“Jail,” the commissaris reminded his host.

Pullini laughed. Yes. Francesco is such a dear boy, he imagines things. Pullini suddenly looked sad. He launched into another monologue. Police officers in Italy are very badly paid, so thoughtless of the government, no doubt it was the same in Holland. Police officers are hard-working officials, but who thinks of them as they risk their lives in the middle of the night chasing the bad men? Or nearly get run over oy a truck in a foreign country? So many police officers think of themselves sometimes and arrange a little this or that. Pullini’s balled hand was turning again as if it wanted to bore a hole into a wall. Police officers know many people. Perhaps some of those people would be connected with the furniture trade. It might be possible mat a certain commissaire would like to be connected with a certain furniture business, say, on a monthly basis. Or yearly. Part of the profits. A little more wine, perhaps?

“Yes,” the commissaris said and smiled benevolently. Another glass of barola, a majestic wine.

“So?” Pullini asked.

“No, sir. Perhaps Italian police officers are badly paid but the Dutch police cannot complain. The salaries are quite adequate. And they are not so interested in business; business has to do with buying and selling and distribution and so on, a different kettle of fish from what Dutch police officers are used to doing for a living, Monsieur Pullini, very different.”

Pullini wiped his face. His eyes, slightly bloodshot, became calm. He picked up his glass but it was empty, and Renata moved closer. He waved her away.

“Your leg,” Pullini said quietly, “it hurts, yes?”

“Yes, I suffer from rheumatism.”

Ah. Pullini’s eyes gleamed again. He knew all about rheumatism. His mother, old Mrs. Pullini, bless her soul, also suffered from rheumatism, but she had gone to the mountains and there, no more pain. She was dead now but her last years were peaceful years. No pain, no pain at all. The mountain air is clean and quiet and known to cure many ailments. And it so happened that he, Pullini, had a little chalet for sale, a beautiful chalet. The price, for a friend, would be very reasonable, almost nothing in fact, maybe even nothing at all. A token payment so that the deed could be passed and registered in the friend’s name.

The commissaris held up his glass and Renata filled it.

The raven-black eyes flashed, the hips swung smoothly, the narrow skirt split and there was a glimmer of a firm white thigh.

“Maybe,” Pullini said quietly, “maybe we go upstairs now and we talk about chalet, yes?”

But the commissaris was shaking his head. “Non.”

Pullini breathed out. The breath took a number of seconds and seemed to take all the air out of his body. He sank back in his chair. When he spoke again his voice was low and precise.

“Commissaire, what can you prove against my son?”

The commissaris put his glass down. “Enough, sir. There are statements by witnesses. Your son has lied to us and we can prove that he lied. My detectives are working now but we don’t really need any more proof. The judge will convict your son.”

Pullini looked at Renata. He was smiling helplessly.

She held up the bottle and he nodded.

“So, commissaire, why you not arrest my son? My son, he is in hotel, yes? Not in jail.”

“Your son must confess, sir. He must come and see us and tell us what he did, how he did it, and exactly why he did it. He must describe everything that happened.”

“Why, commissaire?”

“It will be better. Your son did not murder Elaine Carnet, he only killed her. He didn’t plan her death. He got angry and he pushed, that’s all.”

Pullini’s heavy body had straightened up. He was staring at his opponent. His hand pressed and pushed the table-cloth.

“Yes? So all right, Francesco, he confesses, then judge, he sends Francesco to jail. How long?”

“Not so long.”

“Years?”

“Months. There are extenuating circumstances. Our charges will be modest. But he must come to us, he must tell us what he did.”

A cold calculating light had crept into Pullini’s eyes. “So he confesses, so very easy for police municipale d’Amsterdam, not so? Police, she maybe know nothing, she maybe guesses, and here stupid Italian boy, he walks right up and he says, ‘Me, I guilty, please take me.’”

“No, we know what he did. If he doesn’t come we will have to take him from his hotel. The case will be much worse.”

Pullini’s mouth tried to sneer but the expression trembled away before it had a chance to form itself clearly. The sneer became a joyless smile that did little more than show Pullini’s expensive teeth.

“You trap me, yes? Me, I tell you that Francesco, he pushes Elaine. I know because Francesco, he tell me. He also tell me about the eighty thousand guilders. He already confesses, to accident and to stealing from his father. I knew about the stealing, not how much, but mat not important. His life different to mine, for Francesco everything easy from beginning, too easy. Maybe better to start off with baby birds and one peacock. Well…”

His hands rose slowly from the tablecloth, men dropped from their own weight. “You trap me, yes. But how do you know all mis? How you know Gabrielle is Pullini’s daughter?”

Once his cleverness had left him Pullini’s face changed strangely, perhaps to its truest form. The powerful jaws smoothed into round, innocent lines that continued so that they held the bald skull too, and the eyes, bereft of their cunning glint, became bland and almost transparent.

The commissaris’s small thin hand was pointing, and Pullini turned around to see what he was pointing to. A portrait of a young woman singing, the woman’s smooth arm resting on the top of an upright piano.

“Elaine,” Pullini said. “Yes, that is Elaine. Was Elaine, thirty years ago in Paris. But she must be changed in thirty years, Francesco, he did not know her like that. You, you never knew her. How you know that is Elaine? You guessing again, yes?”

“There is another copy of that portrait.” The commissaris told Pullini where he had seen it.

Pullini nodded. Two portraits, eh? Elaine, she keep one, and she send me one. In parcel; no letter, no nothing. Just portrait. I like it and I hang it here, in my restaurant where I eat every day. Me, I don’t go home much. But no proof for you, commissaire. You, you do not know that Elaine, she sends portrait to me. You only see portrait when you come here.”

“If is proof now,” the commissaris said, holding up his glass. Renata brought a new bottle of barola. The other guests had left; the two men had the restaurant and the woman to themselves. Renata locked the door and switched off most of the lights. There was no further conversation until Renata opened the door and the two men entered the narrow street and walked the few blocks to the hotel, arms around each other’s shoulders, swaying in unison.

“Tomorrow you go, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Me, I go with you. What time your plane he leaves?”

“At ten in the morning.”

“Good, we breakfast together, yes?”

“Yes.”

Barola is a good wine. It seeps away both aggression and resistance. Their embrace was quiet and dignified.

“Me, I am sorry about Eraldo’s truck. But I tried, yes? Eraldo, he good driver. When he is told to miss, he miss.”

“Yes,” the commissaris said.

“Tomorrow I buy you new cane. I have handle. Same handle, new cane.”

“Yes.”

They peered into each other’s face. A half-moon had dipped the small quiet square into an eerie haze of soft white light that encircled the vast dark mass of a widely branched oak, a comforting central ornament caressing the cobblestones with its deep purple, almost imperceptibly moving shadows. The commissaris watched Pullini’s squat body turn ponderously. Pullini could still walk on his own, but he had to find his way slowly in the square’s silence, stopping every few steps to make sure of his direction. Three identical little Fiats, pushing their noses into the pavement, provided support in turn until Pullini, with a final lunge of great deliberation, located the gaping dark mouth of the small alley that would take him back to his restaurant and Renata’s comforts.

The commissaris shook his head and began to walk to the hotel door. He noted, to his surprise, that he had sobered up again and that he wasn’t even tired. It seemed a pity to withdraw from the square’s tranquillity and he turned back, feeling the polished surfaces of the cobblestones through the thin soles of his shoes. He rested for a while against the oak’s trunk until he began to feel cold and pushed himself free reluctantly.

The case was solved. He had been very sly, basing his attack on shaky proofs and a web of deductions that fitted but could be shaken loose by any lawyer for the defense. If he had given himself more time the proofs would have been substantiated sufficiently to stand up in court, but he had been pushing the case at breakneck speed. But Francesco would no doubt confess now and make further work unnecessary. The prosecution wouldn’t be too hard on the suspect and the punishment would be mild. That, in a way, was a pleasant consequence of the method he had applied.

But why had he been in such an infernal hurry? Yes. His small head nodded firmly at the hotel door’s polished brass knob. There was more to the case, and he had better get back to see how the pus, festering out of the wound slashed by Pullini when he refused to marry Elaine, was spreading. Perhaps he should have had the other actors, the baboon, Bergen, and Gabrielle, and Francesco too, locked up. But it isn’t the task of the police to lock up citizens who are potentially dangerous to each other. Jail space is limited and reserved for those who have translated their faulty thinking into wrong acts. He had better get back quickly. But he would have to wait for the morning plane. And meanwhile he could have another bath. When nothing can be done it is not a bad idea to do nothing. The profundity of the thought helped him up the hotel’s stairs.