Blond Baboon

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Wertheym, the plate on the door read, portrait painter.

There was nothing particular about the door and there was nothing to prevent Adjutant Grijpstra from pressing the hell but he didn’t. He stood with his hands folded and waited. He had been enjoying himself so far and he didn’t want to interrupt the steady flow of well-being that had begun to soak into him from the moment he had left his little house that morning. There was a small black cloud at the end of the flow and he meant to keep it away for as long as he could, a process that would be possible if he consciously experienced the small moments that his working day would present The black cloud was his return home. He definitely didn’t want to go home.

His wife, the blob of semi-solid fats, dirty and bad-tempered, that had grown slowly out of the girl he had once married, was gradually filling the two floors of their home, pushing him to the wall, seeping into his peace, the peace he built up during the day. One day he wouldn’t go home anymore. He didn’t want to see her leaning on the kitchen table that squeaked under her weight, leaning on the creaking railing on the stair landing, leaning on the cracked windowsill. It was hard for her to stand now. It was also hard for her to sit down, for the effort of getting up again might break the few chairs that were still in one piece.

But, where could he go if he didn’t go home? He was spending afterhours’ time in his room at headquarters, he was eating out as much as he could, but he still had to go home to sleep. He cursed slowly, articulating the syllables. But then he promised himself he wouldn’t think of the little black cloud; it would come on its own, without him thinking about it. His hand reached out slowly and pressed the bell.

The door opened at once.

“Mr. Wertheym?”

“Yes, I don’t…”

“I am a police detective, sir, here is my card. Just a few questions, may I come in?”

“Certainly, certainly, I thought you wanted your portrait painted. I don’t do men, you see, only women. I was going to tell you that, saves a lot of chatter. Come in.”

The man could only be a painter. His appearance was a perfect combination of the number of attributes that make up the idea “painter” in the average perceptive mind. A small goatee, high forehead, bright eyes, a beret on the gray locks, an apron smeared with assorted colors-Wertheym was undoubtedly an artist. But there was nothing artistic about his house. The furniture had been taken straight from the showroom of a lower-middle-class store. The imitation fireplace with its licking gas flames creeping over iron birch logs complete with bark was in the worst possible taste. A calendar showing a plump girl in a glued-on flowery miniskirt that could be lifted up hung next to a triangular arrangement of plastic and tin replicas of Spanish swords. Different types of paper flowers had been matched into a bouquet that had lost both color and resilience.

Grijpstra’s lips parted in a thin snarl. He also mumbled, “Home sweet home.”

“Pardon?”

“I was just thinking that my wife would like this room.”

“Would she now?” Wertheym offered a chair, one of a set of four, chrome framed and upholstered with strips of shiny green vinyl. “Not too hot for you here? This house is on the cold side of the street, never gets any sun. I keep the fire going but people say it’s stuffy in here, don’t notice it myself.”

“Quite all right, thank you.”

Grijpstra didn’t open the conversation. He almost never did anymore. Deliberate silences formed a new trick that had crept into his arsenal. He was practicing the trick now. He had done the necessary, shown his identification. The other parry should be a little rattled by now. He waited. Something might come up and, then again, it might not.

Wertheym had read the wording on Grijpstra’s card and remembered his rank. “Cup of tea, adjutant? Or coffee? I was just going to have coffee myself.”

“Please.”

“Police,” Wertheym said slowly. “Po-lice. First time I’ve been visited by a police officer, I mink, doesn’t happen in my trade. I just paint portraits, a harmless occupation. I’ve had the taxhounds after me but never the police. The taxman thought I hadn’t been declaring my true income. Maybe I hadn’t, but he couldn’t prove it so he went away again. So what have I done, adjutant?”

Grijpstra didn’t have to answer. Wertheym had darted off but he came back again, carrying a tray with two flowered glasses. “Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess in the kitchen. No cups today, but the coffee’ll taste the same. Instant coffee, hope you don’t mind, adjutant.”

Grijpstra did mind.

“Mrs. Elaine Carnet,” he said and sipped from the glass. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Yes. She is dead. Was in the paper this morning. And I painted her portrait, last year. She didn’t model. I painted it from a poster, hell of a job it was. The poster was old and torn, a tear right through the face. A French poster. She used to sing in Paris, she said. I did the portraits and she paid cash and she left. Never saw her again. Nice woman, didn’t quibble about the price-they often do, you know. Amazing, their vanity gets in the way of their greed, but I’m greedy too and I never drop my price. The hell with ‘em, I always say. And if they argue, they’ll pay in advance, all of it, or I won’t touch the job.”

“Portraits?” Grijpstra had moved and some coffee had spilled on his trousers. It was seeping through to his skin. He put the glass down and rubbed the stain. “Portraits, you said? More than one, you mean?”

'Two portraits, identical-well, they differed a little, they were handmade, after all. She wanted two so I made two. Silly work, I mass-produced them. Little blob of blue on the one canvas, little blob of blue on the second canvas. I had never done that before, it was amusing in a way. It gave me ideas but nothing came of them. I specialize in female faces, you see, never do buildings or anything like that. If I could do buildings I could pick a particularly good one and do a whole series of them, just line up a lot of canvases and dance around, fill in the browns, then the reds, and so forth.”

“Yes.” Grijpstra hadn’t listened. “So you did two portraits? Why?”

“I never ask why, adjutant. Why should I? Why should they want their portraits done anyway? There isn’t one portrait I have done in the last ten years that I would want on my own wall. The ladies are all ugly as sin. I beautify them, of course, or I would have no business. In a way Mrs. Camet’s portrait was the best of them all: the poster showed her as a young woman. Young women aren’t as ugly as old women.”

“Thank you,” Grijpstra said. He left his almost full glass on the table. He had only taken two sips but the taste of the vile brew hung on in his mouth. He remembered that he had promised himself that this would be a good day. Fine, so he would find some real coffee somewhere. There were some pleasant sidewalk cafes in the vicinity. He would locate one and sit around for an hour and rid himself of the portrait painter’s sickening fumes. There was plenty of time. Cardozo couldn’t possibly be finished yet, he had been given a sizable job. He would make contact with Cardozo later and they could have more coffee while they thought of the right approach. They had to question Gabrielle Carnet again, and he didn’t know what the suspect had answered to the commissaris’s questions. Cardozo would have to fill him in. It would all take time. No hurry today.

His face looked placid as he ambled in the direction of the old city, careful not to hurt his toes against the uneven cobblestones and walking as close to the water of a narrow canal as the parked cars would permit. There had been a squall of rain, but the sun had come out again and now lit up a formation of seagulls patrolling the water for spoils and conversing raucously. A small boy was steering a homemade raft that was bumping crazily on the choppy waves in the wake of a barge.

He passed several cafes until he found one with the right conditions. It had a view of the canal, the waiter was an old man with a kind face, there was a fresh smell of coffee, and its terrace had already attracted several beautiful women. Fate seemed intent to disprove the portrait painter’s harsh remark, for more beautiful women came just after Grijpstra had sat down. He looked around approvingly. An Oriental girl with a small finely chiseled face, long straight legs, and a tight bosom had draped her self in the opposite corner. Two blond girls, of that very light blond that originates in Scandinavian countries, were exposing their faces and a good portion of their bodies to die wanning sun, and three black women, so stunningly well-shaped that they had to be models or ballet dancers, were talking to each other in the throaty melodious voices that he knew from de Gier’s jazz records. He took in as much as he could stand and closed his eyes. The vision started almost immediately and he concentrated to hold it.

The six women were in a pond, set in a luscious tropical landscape. They were naked, of course. The Scandinavian and the Oriental girls were swimming, turning their lovely bodies through the clear water, the black ladies were climbing out, drops glistening on their ebony skin. There were rosebushes on the banks of the pond and beyond, a forest of fruit trees. The fruit trees didn’t look right and changed into huge palms, their leaves rather similar to the commissaris’s fern. Grijpstra himself was in the vision too, both as an objective substantial form and as an observer. He was riding a camel, circling the pond. The camel ride gave the adjutant the double pleasure of being able to look down into the pool and participating in the animal’s sensuous sway. There was a close-up of the earners feet sinking into high grass and lifting up again. A beautiful beast, incongruous to the scene but fitting all the same. The vision became more involved and less lusty. He noted many details in the girls’ bodies, but they were of color and shape only and abstracted into a line play that got caught in the earners slow dance. He smilingly drifted away into sleep when the commissaris entered the vision, running through the tall grass and waving.

The adjutant awoke and grunted. He left some change on the table and went into die cafe” proper. There was a telephone.

“Ah, adjutant,” the commissaris’s secretary said in her grating voice. “I was waiting for your call. Cardozo has reported. He found witnesses to the attempt of dog poisoning and obtained statements. As we hadn’t heard from you I told him to report for patrol duty, and he is with Sergeant Sietsema in a car now.”

“No,” Grijpstra said.

“Well, we can’t let him hang around, can we? But I just had a message from the radio room. It appears that Cardozo forgot to check out a ring, he said you would know about it. The ring is on his desk and you’ll have to go to the morgue with it.” Grijpstra looked at the phone.

“Adjutant?”

He growled.

“And the commissaris and the sergeant have gone to the Pulitzer Hotel to talk with a Mr. Pullini, they will visit a Mr. Vleuten later today.”

“Everything topsy-turvy as usual,” Grijpstra said. “I need Cardozo to go and talk with Miss Camet.”

“Shall I get him back to headquarters, adjutant?”

“No. I’ll take care of that damned ring first. I’ll call you later.” He slammed the phone down before remembering that this was going to be a good day.