The Mind-Murders

8

"But look here," Grijpstra said, "you were seen opening your case, taking out a small plastic bag, and pulling back your arm with the obvious intention of throwing the bag into the canal. We subsequently searched the case, which you closed again when you were arrested and managed to kick into the water. The case contained plastic bags, and each bag, according to our laboratory, was filled with a quarter of a pound of first-class cocaine. All in all, you had four pounds of high-priced junk in there. True or not?"

Muller's chins moved convulsively in a fluid movement upward until his thick lips trembled slightly. Grijpstra wasn't sure how to interpret this facial agitation. "Are you smiling, Herr Mtiller?"

"I am."

"Why?"

"Because you're wrong."

"You weren't about to throw the cocaine into the canal?"

The fat man's hands shifted slightly on his belly, which was pushed up obscenely and ready to flow over the edge of Grijpstra's desk.

"Your facts are correct but your explanation isn't The case belonged to Boronski. He left it in my room; perhaps he planted the case on me, I don't know. Boronski was a sick man. He chose my car to die in; perhaps that desire was intentional too, again I don't know. We weren't getting on well; I was displeased with the quality of his shipments. I told him that I might find another supplier. He wasn't in his right mind, he was hallucinating, he was causing trouble in the hotel."

"Really?" Grijpstra asked. "So why would you destroy the cocaine, why didn't you give it to us?"

Miiller's face appeared to become more solid. A crafty light flickered in his protruding eyes.

"Tell me, Herr Muller."

"Because you are the police. The police here are no good. The food is no good either. Nothing is good here."

There was a newspaper on Grijpstra's desk. The adjutant glanced at the headlines. Further moves in drug scandal. He had read the article earlier that day. The paper claimed that charges would be pressed against several highly placed police officers.

"Yes," Muller said. "I'm from Hamburg, our dialect is similar to Dutch. I can read your newspapers. What would happen if I gave you four pounds of cocaine?"

"It would be confiscated and in due time destroyed."

"Nein."

"Nein?"

"Nein. It would disappear. It would make you rich. I don't want to make you rich. Cocaine is bad. It would still reach the addicts. I decided to do some good work. I'm an honest merchant, I deal in lumber. My material goes into homes and furniture. I protect society. I took the risk to do away with the poison myself, but you prevented my service to society."

Grijpstra nodded pleasantly. "You could also have burned it, or flushed it down the toilet."

"I'm not a chemist. Perhaps cocaine explodes when it bums. Perhaps it does not dissolve easily. I did not want to clog up the hotel plumbing. I thought I was doing the right thing, but you interfered."

Grijpstra got up. "Fine. I will now take you back to your cell."

Muller got up too. "I want some cigarettes and matches."

"But of course. We will get them from the machine on our way to the cell block. By the way, Herr Muller, there's another charge against you. You resisted arrest and attacked an officer. You hurt her knee."

Muller smiled triumphantly.

"This way," Grijpstra said.

He came back a few minutes later, sat down, and dialed.

"No," a female voice said, "the teletyper is in use by your chief."

"My chief is at home."

"He's here."

"Here? Doing what?" Grijpstra looked at his watch. "It's two in the morning."

"He's using the teletyper."

Grijpstra looked at the telephone.

"Will that be all, adjutant?"

"No. Get me the Hamburg Police Headquarters, Inspector Wingel, drugs department. He won't be there, but they'll know where to find him. I'll wait here for his call."

"I don't speak German," the girl said.

"Then just get me the number."

It took twenty minutes before Wingel was on the phone. His voice sounded sleepy but became clipped when he understood what he was told. "Yes," he said. "Yes."

Grijpstra yawned. "I thought you might be interested."

"I am. I'll be right over."

"Here?"

"There. I'll leave now and bring a colleague. There won't be much traffic. We'll be there in three hours."

"Very well," Grijpstra said. "I'll wait for you." He let the telephone drop back on its hook. He yawned again. He picked up the phone again.

"Who is the commissaris talking to? Not to the German police, is he?"

"No, adjutant. To Colombia. It took us forever to make the connection. He's got himself set up in the other office. He's been there for more than an hour; he's speaking to our embassy out there."

Five minutes later the adjutant was asleep, his head against the wall, his feet on his desk. The remnants of a grin eased his face and he burbled placidly through pursed lips. De Gier was asleep, too, at the edge of his bed to give room to Tabriz who had stretched herself on a wet towel. She had come in late and nudged Asta's body aside patiently, pushing the girl with her nose and soft paws. Even Muller was asleep, snoring heavily while he fought shapeless fiends that tore at his lies. Boronski was dead, more dead than when the detectives observed his stiffening features. Perhaps his spirit was about, but the attendant Jacobs no longer cared. He had built his transparent insubstantial egg and sat within it, peacefully puffing on his battered pipe, studying a Hebrew text through his little round glasses.

Only the commissaris was awake, waiting for the teletyper to rattle again and reading through a stack of paper with torn edges that recorded his conversation so far.