Death of a Hawker

6

His suit was stained with soapstone powder and his right trouser leg smeared with red paint. He hadn't noticed anyone throwing paint but someone had. His socks were still wet, for although the water cannon hadn't hit him full on, he had been forced to run through puddles and mud had oozed into his shoes. He badly wanted to go home and have a hot shower and lounge about bis small flat in the kimono he had bought at a department store where they were having a Japanese day. He wanted Oliver to be asleep on his legs while he looked through the paper and smoked and sipped tea. He also wanted a meal, some spaghetti perhaps, a dish he could cook quickly and tastefully, and Oliver would be sitting on the chair, his only chair, while he squatted on his bed and ate the spaghetti from a bowl. And then, afterwards, a cigarette on the balcony. He would have to do something about his flower boxes. He had lobelia in them again, and alyssum, like last year, and a geranium in a pot hanging from the wall. There might be more interesting plants. He stopped and cursed. Elizabeth, the artful gardener. Nellie and her three hundred and fifty guilders. Had he joined the criminal investigation department to meet crazy people? To be with them? To try to understand them? To find, as the commissaris had suggested, his own connection with them? The commissaris! Silly little wizard with his limp?

"Mustn't talk about the commissaris like that, Rinus," he told himself. "You admire the man, remember? You like him. He is an advanced man, he knows far more than you do. He understands. He is on a different level. Higher, Rinus, much higher."

He stood at Esther's front door but he didn't ring the bell. The launch was taking off, the water sergeant was hauling in the mooring rope. The commissaris and Grijpstra were talking on the foredeck. They probably thought he had gone in already. He might not go in at all. What was he doing here anyway? Was he being the efficient policeman, efficient and energetic, going on when others were having a break? Or did he want to hold Esther's hand again?

A lovely woman, Esther. Not a cheap whore like Nellie who had bedazzled him with her big shapeful tits and low oozing voice, a gritty oozing voice. A voice can't be gritty and oozing at the same time but hers was. It was, damn it. "Easy, Rinus," he told himself. "You are losing control. Today has been too much for you. A battered corpse and a whole square full of dancing idiots throwing soapstone powder and paint and all those uniformed bullies charging the idiots and the sirens, it was too much for you. The commissaris shouldn't have left you, he knew you were cracking up. But he left you all the same, didn't he?"

De Gier listened to the silence of the canal. So he had. And if the conunissaris had left him on his own he must have had faith. Policemen don't usually work on their own, they work in pairs. Detectives work in pairs too. So that the one can check the other, restrain him if necessary if he loses his temper, or touches his gun. The one policeman protects the other by restraining him. He protects him against himself. It is the task of the police to protect the civilian against himself. It is the task of the policeman to protect his mate against himself. He was talking aloud now, droning the words.

"Shit," de Gier said and pressed the bell.

Esther opened the door.

"You," Esther said. "Sergeant Rinus de Gier."

De Gier tried to smile.

"Come in, sergeant."

Esther looked better. There was color on her face again and she had made up her lips.

"I am having something to eat. Would you care to join me, sergeant?"

"Please."

She led the way to the kitchen. He was given a plate of soup, hot tomato soup from a tin. De Gier didn't like tomato soup and never ate the bloody-looking fluid but he didn't mind now. She cut him a piece of bread and there were gherkins on the table and olives, and a piece of blue-veined cheese. He ate it all while Esther watched him.

"We can have coffee upstairs."

He hadn't said anything during the meal and now he merely nodded.

"A nice room," de Gier said, from the deep low chair Esther had directed him to, "and you have a lot of books."

Esther waved at the two walls covered by bookcases. "A thousand books and I have learned nothing from them. The piano has been of more use to me."

He got up and walked toward the baby grand. An etude by Chopin was lying on the stand and he put a hand on the keyboard and picked away, trying to read the notes.

"That's very nice," Esther said. "Do you play often?"

"No. I had piano lessons as a child but I switched to the flute. I play with Grijpstra, the adjutant you met today."

"What does he play?"

"Drums," he said and grinned. "Someone left a set of drums in our office at Headquarters, years ago now, we have forgotten why, but Grijpstra remembered that he played drums once and started again and I found my flute. It's a silly combination perhaps but we manage."

"But that's beautiful," Esther said. "Why shouldn't drums and flute go together. I'd love to hear you play. I could play with you too. Why don't you both come one evening and we can try?"

"It's free music," he said. "We have some themes we use, church music mostly, sixteenth and seventeenth century, but then we go off and we play anything. Trills and bangs."

"I'II fit in somehow," Esther said confidently.

He laughed. "O.K. I'll ask Grijpstra."

"What else do you do?" Esther asked.

"I fuss with my cat and I try to do my job. Like tonight. I've come to ask you questions. If you don't mind, of course. I'll come back tomorrow if you mind."

She sat down on the piano stool. "Right, sergeant, go ahead. I feel better now, better than I did this afternoon. I have even slept for an hour. Maybe one shouldn't sleep when one's brother has been murdered, but it seemed the best thing to do. He was my last relative, I am alone now. We are Jewish. Jews think that families are very important; perhaps we are wrong. People are alone, it's better to realize the truth. I never had much contact with Abe, no real contact.

You are alone, too, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You understand perhaps."

"Perhaps. Did your brother have a weapon in his room, a funny weapon? Something with a studded ball at its end, a weapon which can be swung?"

"A good-day?" Esther asked. "You mean that medieval weapon? I know what it is. It is often described in Dutch literature and in history. I took history at university, Dutch history, murder and manslaughter through the ages. Nothing changes."

"Yes, a good-day."

"No, there was no weapon in Abe's room. He used to carry a gun, a Luger I think it was, but he threw it into the canal years ago. He said it no longer fitted his philosophy."

Esther fumbled in her handbag. "Here, I found this, his passport and a notebook."

He looked through the passport and saw visas for Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Poland. There were also entry and exit stamps from Tunisia and Morocco. The notebook contained names and telephone numbers.

"A hundred names," he said. "Too many to investigate. Any close friends? Boyfriends? Girlfriends?"

"Girls," Esther said. "Just girls. Lots and lots and lots. Two a day sometimes, more even. It disgusted me to see them trooping in and out. Last Sunday he had three, just after he had come back from Morocco. They couldn't wait. He had one before each meal. The first came before breakfast. She is a tourist guide and starts early but she had to have her sex first."

De Gier wanted to whistle but rubbed his chin instead. "And he accommodated them all?"

The pretty ones."

"Were all his contacts as casual as that?'"

"No. He would go and see Corin. She works at the university with me. I don't think he just slept with her although perhaps he did. Corin never discussed him much. Her name is in the notebook, I'll mark it. Corin Kops. You can find her address in the telephone directory." "Anyone else?"

"Yes, a student, a very young girl. Studies medicine. I think he was fascinated by her or perhaps she just annoyed him. Wouldn't give in so easily. I'll mark her name as well. Tilda van Andringa de Kempenaar."

"Beautiful name."

"Yes, she is nobility, perhaps that's why she won't give in. Blue blood."

"Copulation doesn't mean an introduction,'' de Gier said, and grinned. His sanity had returned, or rather, it was beginning to return. He still felt shaken. He closed his eyes and tried to think.

"You aren't falling asleep, are you?" Esther asked. "You must be very tired. Shall I give you a blanket?

You can sleep on the couch if you like. I'll wake you up at any time you say."

"No, no, I have to go home to feed my cat. Thanks anyway. Business, that's what I wanted to ask. Do you have his business records here? I'd like to look through them. I am no expert at bookkeeping but I'd like to have some idea about the size of his transactions.''

"Louis takes care of his books, he's got them upstairs. He is in now. Ill ask him if you like."

De Gier had been hearing an irregular buzzing sound for the last ten minutes and a noise which seemed like scraping. It came from the floor above and he looked at the ceiling.

"Is he making that noise upstairs?"

She giggled. "No, maybe the killer has returned and is whirring his deadly ball. Why don't you go up and have a look?"

He didn't feel like leaving the comfortable chair but he got up obediently.

"Yes," Louis said, and looked up at de Gier who had opened the door. He was sitting on the floor and picked up a toy mouse, winding its clockwork. De Gier's mouth was half open. He hadn't expected what he saw. The floor was full of small tin animals-mice, birds, turtles, frogs, even moles and giant beetles. Most of them were moving. The mice stood up every two seconds and then fell down again, busily going on with their zigzag tours on the bare boards of the floor. The frogs jumped, the turtles ambled, the birds hopped and waved their tails, the beetles zoomed. Every now and then one of them would stop, and Louis would pick it up and wind the key. Some of them had pushed themselves against the wall and were burring aimlessly. A bird had been stopped by a small carpet and was jumping feebly, trying to pass the obstacle. A beetle had fallen on its side and its motor was whirring at full speed.

"Samples," Louis said loudly. "Abe bought a few thousand of them and I took these from the warehouse. Most of them work. Crazy, isn't it?"

"Yes," de Gier said. "How long have you been playing with them?"

"Only started just now. It's amusing isn't it? I had them when I was a child but never more than one at a time. Businessmen can amuse themselves on a large scale as you see. No child will ever have a collection like this."

De Gier had squatted down and saved the animals who had got stuck at the wall, by pointing them at the center of the room. "Hey," Louis said. "I didn't invite you to join me, did I?"

"No," de Gier said, and wound up a frog.

"Never mind. You can play if you like. Have the police made any progress in the case yet?"

"No. The police are baffled."

"It's human fate to be baffled," Louis said, and began to sweep up the toys, wrapping each animal in tissue paper, and replacing it in a carton.

"I hear you kept Abe Rogge's books. Can I see them?"

Louis pointed at the desk. "It's all there, you can take them with you if you like. I have kept the books up to date, the accounting is simple. Most purchases are covered by invoices and they are all paid. Our sales were mostly for cash and they are entered in a cash book. And there's some wages-administration; only Abe and myself are on the payroll."

"Your warehouse is full of goods, I hear."

"Yes."

"All paid for."

"Yes."

"How much do you have in stock?"

"In money?"

"Yes."

"A hundred and twenty thousand guilders and something."

"That's a lot," de Gier said, "and all paid for. Was Abe financing his own deals?"

Louis laughed. "The bank wouldn't give us a penny, they don't back hawkers. Abe borrowed from friends. Mostly from Bezuur, his oldest and best friend."

"So he has friends," de Gier said and nodded. "Very good."

Louis looked up from his packing. "The police would suspect friends, wouldn't they? Friends are close and friendship can change into hatred. Two sides of the same coin."

"Yes, yes. Who is Bezuur?"

"A rich man, a very rich man. He and Abe went to school together, to school and to the university. They both dropped out. They studied French. They also traveled together, mostly in France, of course, and in French North Africa. They also traded together but Bezuur's father died and left him a big business, earthmoving equipment. He's a millionaire."

"And he lent Abe money?"

"Yes, at bank interest. Eleven percent we are paying now. The firm owes him sixty thousand, to be repaid in three months' time when we have moved the stocks in the warehouse, maybe earlier. Abe was planning a long holiday and I was supposed to go with him."

"North Africa again?"

"No, we planned to sail a boat to the Caribbean."

"And what happens now?"

"I'll sell the stocks. I phoned Bezuur about an hour ago to tell him about Abe's death. He said I can go on with the business if Esther lets me, for she will inherit it. And I can repay the loan as planned."

"Did you speak to Esther?"

"Not yet."

"And what will you do when you have moved the stocks?"

"No idea. Find a partner maybe and go on as before. I like this business, especially the irregularity of it."

"And if Esther won't let you go on?"

Louis shrugged and smiled. "I don't care. Bezuur will sell the stocks and get his money back and the rest will go to Esther. I'll just leave. Nobody depends on me."

"Detached, are you?" de Gier said, offering a cigarette.

Thanks. Yes. I am detached, lb hell with it. But I am sorry Abe died, I enjoyed being with him. He taught me a lot. If he hadn't taught me I would be very upset now but you find me playing happily with clockwork animals. And I am not pretending. Any more questions?"

"Was Abe close to anyone else? Any enemies?

Competitors?"

Louis thought, taking his time. "He slept with a lot of girls," he said in the end. "Perhaps he stepped on somebody's toes. I am sure some of those girls had lovers, or husbands even. He behaved like a stud bull at times. And he insulted people, of course. Insulted them by not caring. They could go blue in the face and blow steam out of their ears and he would just laugh, not offensively to annoy them, but because he didn't care. He would tell them they were balloons, or stuffed lifeless animals."

"But he included himself, didn't he?"

"Oh yes, he refused to see any value anywhere."

"So why did he make money then?"

Louis got up and put the carton in a corner of the room. "If nothing matters you can laugh and you can cry, can't you?" De Gier looked blank. "Abe preferred to laugh, with a full belly and a cigar in his mouth and a car parked in the street and a boat in the canal. I don't think he would have minded if he hadn't had any of those things, but he preferred having them."

"Ah yes," de Gier said.

"You don't understand," Louis said. "Never mind."

"You really admired him, didn't you?" de Gier asked viciously.

"Yes, copper, I did. But now he is dead. The balloon has burst. More questions?''

"No."

"Then I'll go to the nearest pub and have six glasses of colored alcohol, and then I'll go and sleep somewhere. There'll be a girl in the pub who'll let me go home with her. I don't want to spend the night here."

De Gier got up from the floor and left the room. He was too tired to think of any suitable repartee. He found the toilet before he returned to Esther's room and washed his face with cold water. There was a small mirror in the lavatory and he saw his own face. His hair was caked with soapstone powder and mud and there were paint spatters on his cheeks; the eyes looked lifeless, even his mustache drooped.

"Well?" Esther asked.

"I heard the name Bezuur."

"Klaas Bezuur," Esther said slowly, inviting him with a gesture to sit in the easy chair again. "Yes, I should have mentioned him but I haven't seen Klaas for such a long time that I have forgotten him. He asked me to marry him once but I don't think he meant it. Abe and he were very close once, but not anymore."

"Did they fall out?"

"No. Klaas became rich and he had to give up working in the street market and traveling about with Abe. He had to take care of his business. He lives in a villa now, in one of the new suburbs, Buitenveldert I think."

"I live in Buitenveldert," de Gier said.

"Are you rich?"

"No, I have a small flat. I expect Bezuur lives in a quarter-of-a-million bungalow."

"That's right. I haven't been to the house although he has asked us but Abe didn't want to go. He never visited anyone unless he had a good reason, sex, or a party, or a business deal, or a book he wanted to discuss. Klaas doesn't read. He's a bit of a slob now; he was very fat and closed up the last time I saw him."

"I'd better go," de Gier said, rubbing his face. "Tomorrow is another day. I can hardly see straight."

She saw him to the door. He said good night and meant to walk away but stopped and stared at the canal's surface. A rat, frightened by the tall looming shape of the detective, left its hiding place and jumped. The sleek body pierced the oily surface with a small splash and de Gier watched the converging circles fading out slowly.

"Aren't you going?" a voice asked, and he looked around. Esther stood at the open window of her room on the second floor.

"Yes," he called back softly, "but don't stand there."

"He can throw his ball," Esther said, "if he wants to. I don't mind."

De Gier didn't move.

"Rinus de Gier," Esther said, "if you aren't going you may as well come in again. We can keep each other company." Her voice was calm.

The automatic lock clicked and de Gier climbed the two flights of stairs again. She stood at the window when he came in, and he stood behind her and touched her shoulder. "The killer is a madman," he said softly. "To stand here is to invite him."

She didn't reply.

"You are alone in the house. Louis told me he is sleeping out. If you like, I'll telephone Headquarters and we'll have two constables guarding the house. The riot police have gone."

"Here," he said and gave her the toy mouse he had put in his pocket when Louis wasn't looking. Esther had left the window and was wandering through the room. She was looking at the tin animal as if she didn't know what it was.

"A mouse," de Gier said. "You can wind it up and put it on the floor. It walks and it jumps a bit. It's yours."

She laughed. "What's this? Shock treatment? I didn't know the police had become subtle. Are you trying to unnerve me so that I'll drop my defense and give you a valuable clue?"

"No," de Gier said. "It's a clockwork mouse."

"Abe used to give me things too. Seashells and bits of driftwood and dried plants. He would buy them on the market or find them on the beach somewhere and keep them in his room, and then he would suddenly come into my room, usually when he thought that I was depressed about something or other, and give me a present. I still have some of them."

She pointed at a shelf and de Gier saw some shells, bits of white and pink coral, a twig with dried seedpods. Esther was crying. "A drink," she said. "We need a drink. He has a bottle of cold jenever in the fridge, I'll go and get it."

"No, Esther. I have to go, but you can't stay here by yourself."

"Do you want me to come home with you?"

De Gier scratched his bottom.

She giggled through her tears. "You are scratching your bottom, are you nervous? Don't you want me to come home with you? I'll go to the police hotel if you have one, or you can lock me in a cell for the night."

De Gier adjusted his scarf and buttoned his jacket.

"You look a bit scruffy," Esther said, "but you have had a hard day. You are still handsome. I'll come home with you if you like. The house makes me nervous. I keep on thinking of Abe's face and that spiked ball you keep talking about. A good-day you said. It's all too horrible."

De Gier brushed his mustache with his thumb and index ringer. The hairs were sticking together, he would have to wash it. He grimaced. He would get soap in his mouth. He always got soap in his mouth when he washed his mustache.

"You aren't a sexual maniac, are you?" Esther asked. "It'll be safe to go home with you?" She laughed. "Never mind. If you are a maniac you'll be a very tired maniac. I'll probably be able to handle you."

"Sure," de Gier said. "Why were you standing at the window?"

"I heard a splash. I thought the killer had come back and that he had dropped his ball into the canal."

"So why go to the window? It's the most dangerous place in the house. Abe got killed at the window, or, rather, we think so now."

"I don't mind."

"You want to die?"

"Why not?"

"You are alive," de Gier said. "You'll die anyway. Why not wait?"

Esther stared at him. He noticed that she had a thick underlip and a wide nicely curved upper lip.

"All right," de Gier said. "I'll take you to my sister's place or anywhere else you want to go. You must have friends in town. This Corin lady you mentioned just now, for instance. Or relatives. Or I can take you to a hotel; there are lots of hotels. I have a car, it's parked near the Newmarket. I'll go and pick it up and you can pack a bag. I'll be back in five minutes."

"I'll go with you and come back tomorrow. Perhaps it'll be better tomorrow. I have washed the floor of Abe's room. I won't stay here tonight."

"I have a cat," de Gier said as he opened the door of the car for her. "He's very jealous. He'll probably want to scratch you and he'll wait for you in the corridor in case you want to go to the toilet. Then he'U jump you suddenly and yowl. He may also piss on your clothes."

"Maybe I should go to a hotel after all."

"If you want to."

"No," she said and laughed. "I don't mind your cat. I'll be nice to him and my clothes will be in my bag. It's a plastic bag and it's got a zip. I'll pick him up and turn him over and cuddle him. Cats like to be cuddled."

"He can't stand it if people are nice to him," de Gier said. "He won't know what to do."

"There'll be two of us," Esther said.

De Gier was on the floor, trying to adjust to the hardness of his camping mattress. Esther was standing in the open door of his small bedroom, her finger on the light switch.

"Good night,'' Esther said.

"Good night."

"Thanks for the use of your shower."

"You are welcome."

"Your bed looks very comfortable."

"It's an antique," de Gier said from the floor. "I found it at an auction. The man said it came from a hospital."

"I like the frame," Esther said. "All those ornate metal flowers. And it's very nicely painted. Did you do it yourself?"

"Yes. It was a hell of a job. I had to use a very fine brush."

"I am glad you didn't use a lot of colors. Just gold, lovely. I hate these new fads. Some of my friends have used all the colors of the rainbow to decorate their houses, and those horrible transfers! Butterflies in the toilet and animals on the bath and funny pictures in the kitchen and you are forced to read the same jokes over and over again. Bah!"

"Bah!" de Gier said.

"This must be a good place to live in. Just a bed and a bookcase and a lot of cushions and plants. Very good taste. Why do you have the one chair? It doesn't seem to fit in."

"It's Oliver's. He likes to sit on a chair and watch me eat. I sit on the bed."

She smiled.

Beautiful, de Gier thought, she is beautiful. She had turned the switch now and the only light in the room came from a lantern in the park. He could only just make out her shape but the light caught the white of her breasts and face. She was wearing his kimono but she hadn't tightened the sash.

She can't feel like it now, de Gier thought. Her brother died today. She must still be in a state of shock. He closed his eyes, trying to destroy the image in his bedroom door but he could still see her. When she kissed him he groaned.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly.

He groaned again. The commissaris will find out. Grijpstra will find out. And Cardozo, the new detective on the murder squad, will find out and make sly remarks. And Geurts and Sietsema will know. The murder squad will have something to discuss again. De Gier the ladykiller. A detective who goes to bed with suspects. But he hadn't planned it. It had happened. Why will they never accept that things happen? Oliver yowled and Esther jumped.

"He bit me! Your cat bit me! He sneaked up to me from behind and bit me! Ouch! Look at my ankle!"

The light was on again and de Gier rushed to the bathroom and came back with a bandage. Oliver sat on the chair and watched the scene. He looked pleased. His eats pointed straight up and his eyes looked bright. His tail flicked nervously. Esther tickled the cat behind the ears and kissed him on the forehead. "Silly cat, aren't you? Jealous cat! It's all right, I won't take him away from you."

Oliver purred.

She switched the light off and took de Gier by the hand.

The kimono had dropped to the floor. Oliver sighed and curled up.

"He doesn't watch, does he?" Esther whispered on the bed.

De Gier got up and closed the door.