Blond Baboon

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“Bit of a breeze,” Detective-adjutant Grupstra* said

Detective-Sergeant de Gier agreed with him but he didn’t say so. He didn’t have to. Hie pale gray Volkswagen he was trying to steer through the wide, empty thorough-fare of Spui in the center of Amsterdam had just been pushed onto the sidewalk and had stopped, thanks to his timely braking, at about an inch from a lamppost. The engine was still running and he reversed the car, bumping hard on the uneven pavement. The gale, which had started as a deadly suck of cold air, touching the frightened faces of the capital’s citizens around lunchtime, had grown to such strength that it could be called a hurricane. It had forced the inhabitants of Holland’s flat, below-sea-level coast to go home early, to watch the worrisome weather from behind the plate glass of apartments or the dainty windows of narrow gable houses. They listened to radios and watched TV and noted die State Weather Bureau’s forecasts that grew a little more serious as the minutes ticked by. They knew mat the authorities had been taken by surprise but that the emergency was being dealt with, and mat the dikes were manned, and that heavy earthmoving machinery was on its way to the danger areas, where high seas were threatening man-made defenses and strengthening their attack methodically, repeating their onslaught every half-minute, raising roaring, foam-topped water mountains in deadly rushes, whipped by shrieking blasts of furious air.

But Sergeant de Gier wasn’t concerned with the overall danger of the calamity. He was only trying to do his duty, which, right now, consisted of keeping the Volkswagen moving. He was on normal patrol duty in the city, together with his immediate superior, the large adjutant who was peacefully smoking a small cigar while he held on to the car’s roof and commented on the weather.

Grijpstra turned his heavy head, topped by a whitish gray millimetered bristle, and smiled almost apologetically. “Not too many people around, eh?”

The sergeant, who had got the small car back on the road and was preparing for a U-turn, grunted agreeably.

They are at home,” Grijpstra explained, “where they should be. Maybe they are in bed already, it’s nearly eleven. Watch it!”

Grijpstra pointed. De Gier’s mourn opened in a soundless shout. An elm, a full-grown tree over forty feet high, was ready to break. They could hear the protesting wood creak and saw die trunk split. De Gier shifted into reverse and pressed the accelerator with his toe. The car began to move, whining. The tree fell ponderously, its foliage touching the round nose of the Volkswagen. Grijpstra sighed.

De Gier was ready to say something but the car’s radio had come to life. “Three-fourteen,” the radio said politely. “Three-fourteen, come in.”

“Go on driving,” Grijpstra said. “There are other trees.” He had grabbed the microphone from under the dashboard. “Three-fourteen.”

“A little job for you, adjutant,” the well-modulated voice of a female constable in the radio room of Amsterdam’s police headquarters said. “A car of the uniformed police is asking for assistance. They are in the Kalverstraat. Where are you, three-fourteen?’

“Spui.”

“Good, you are close. A lot of store windows in die Kalverstraat are smashed by garbage cans. A thief had a go at a jeweler’s display and was seen but got away. A small fellow, a little over five feet, long black hair, short new leather jacket. In his late twenties. The colleagues think he is still close by.”

“Right,” Grijpstra said without any enthusiasm. “We’ll join the chase on foot so that we can see what is falling on us.”

“Good luck, adjutant. Out.”

Grijpstra was still clambering out of the Volkswagen when de Gier sprinted away, leaning over to counterbalance die gale’s driving force. Grijpstra cursed gently as he moved his bulk into motion. The athletic sergeant was waiting for him on the sidewalk, sheltered behind a parked truck.

“Which way?” de Gier asked. Grijpstra pointed as he ran.

“Let’s try the alleys.”

De Gier jumped ahead, veering toward the protected side of a side street while the wind howled along store-fronts, pulling at signboards and gutters. A lid of a garbage can obstructed his way and he jumped and shouted a warning, but the adjutant had seen it and kicked the rolling disc so dial it shot off at a tangent. A few cardboard boxes followed the lid and the policemen avoided them, turning into a passage that would take them to the main shopping center of the Kalverstraat. Grijpstra stopped running.

“In here somewhere,” he panted. “He is bound to be somewhere around here. In the Kalverstraat he can be seen-the stores all have glass porches. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” de Gier said softly and put out a restraining hand.

“Whatr

“I think I saw a head pop out, over there. I’ll go.”

Grijpstra grinned as he watched the sergeant’s progress.

De Gier was sliding with slow, exaggerated movements. His tall slim shape merged with the alley’s shadows. The hunter, the deadly hunter. But Grijpstra stopped grinning. He was sure that de Gier would make his kill. Ferocious, he thought. Very.

As de Gier jumped ahead and flattened himself against die aged, crumbling front of a small house, Grijpstra stepped back and drew out his heavy service pistol, loading it as he jerked it out of its cracked holster. He shook his head. There had been times, not so long ago, that he wouldn’t have thought of drawing his gun, but thieves were changing. Hit-and-run thieves were usually armed these days, with knives mostly, with firearms occasionally if they were desperate enough, because the drug habit was forcing them to be desperate. He covered the slow-moving sergeant, edging inch by inch along his wall. The sergeant reached the porch and froze. There was no movement for a little while. The gale seemed to have the alley to itself, wheezing up strength while it rattled windows and doors tentatively. The thief would show himself again. The thief was in there. The thief was nervous. The thief wanted to know what was happening.

Out popped the head. Long shiny black hair framing a furtive eye peeping over the tumed-up collar of a leather jacket. The sergeant’s hand shot out and grabbed the head by the hair and pulled. The thief tumbled from the porch. A plastic bag dropped and clanged as it bit the pavement’s gleaming bricks. A knife flashed.

“Police,” Grijpstra roared. The knife fell too. The sergeant’s thumb had found the thief’s wrist and had pressed it cruelly while his fingers twisted. The thief squeaked.

“Handcuffs,” de Gier said, and Grijpstra put his gun back and produced the required article. The cuffs clicked. De Gier blew his whistle. The shrill earsplitting sound cut through the gale’s roar. Two uniformed constables came running into the alley.

“Ha!” the constables shouted. “Got him!”

“Got him,” de Gier said. “Here you are, with the compliments of your CID.* Why didn’t you catch him yourselves? We’re supposed to drive about quietly and not to interfere.”

“We are old men,” the constable facing de Gier said, “and we like to give others a chance. Nasty wind, what?”

“Bit of a breeze,” Grijpstra agreed. “You don’t mind if we go back to our car, do you? If it is still there-an elm nearly got it just now. Did you see this man break in?”

“I didn’t break in,” the thief said. “The window was all broken and the stuff was spilling out into the street so I picked it up to take to a police station, but these fools were running and firing their guns so I ran too. I don’t want to get killed.”

Grijpstra patted the narrow leather shoulder. “Professional, are we?”

The thief looked up. His eyes had widened with fear and he shivered.

“We’ll take him. You want your handcuffs back, adjutant?”

“Of course, constable. My private property, I saved up for them.”

The cuffs were taken off and the constable brought out another pair. The thief looked unhappy. “Ouch! Too tight!”

“They are not too tight,” the constable said, tugging the steel grips gently. “See? Plenty of room. We’ll take them off at the station. Come along.”

“Home,” de Gier said as he twisted his tall body into the Volkswagen’s driving seat. “The wind will be hitting my balcony full on. It’ll be tearing up my plants and Tabriz will be nervous. She’ll be at the marmalade jar again.”

“Marmalade jar?” Grijpstra asked. “What does a cat want with a marmalade jar?”

“Throw it on the floor and break it, what else? So that I can cut my feet and then slither about in the jelly-it has happened twice already. The last time I fell on the table and tried to steady myself on a shelf and I broke just about everything in the kitchen and cut an artery in my ankle.”

“I know.” The adjutant tried to stretch but gave up the attempt. His shoulder hurt; he had probably bumped it during the chase. “You took a week off, remember? But I still want to know why a cat gets at a marmalade jar.”

There were more trees down, and de Gier was maneuvering around their fallen twisted forms. One of the windows of the car didn’t close and the wind cried through it, a high-pitched evil wheeze. “They used to have that sound on radio plays. Horrible sound. I would always switch off the program. To accompany young girls raped in attics, as if the crying and sobbing weren’t enough.”

“Cat,” Grijpstra said. “Marmalade jar.”

“I don’t know why she does it, a way to show her displeasure, I suppose. Cats have their ways. Your household will be a mess too, with your wife and kids rattling all through the place.”

Grijpstra frowned. “My wife won’t rattle. She’ll ooze. She got fatter again, you know, I didn’t think she would do it but she did. She’s sleeping on the floor now, bed won’t hold her weight.” He took the microphone out of its clasp.

“Headquarters, Three-fourteen.”

“Come in, Three-fourteen.”

“We caught your thief and gave him to the constables and we are on our way to the garage.”

There was a strange breaking noise and Grijpstra stared at the microphone, which looked small and innocent in his large hand.

“Window got blown in,” the female constable said. “That’s the second window tonight. It’s a mess here. My notebook has blown away. Did you say you are coming back?”

“Yes, we were supposed to go off duty at eleven. It’s close to midnight now.”

“I am sorry, but I have another assignment for you. We’re short of staff again-everybody is out helping people who got trapped, there are crushed cars all over the city, and we’re having panic calls from people who got their walls blown in or roofs torn off. And people have been blown into the canals and, oh, all sorts of things.”

“Is that the sort of job you have for us?” Grijpstra asked, dangling the microphone as if it were a dead mouse.

She tried to laugh. “No, adjutant, the uniformed police and the fire department are around too. I have a proper job for you, a dead lady. A health officer called just now. He was supposed to pick up a corpse, but the doctor hasn’t come and the death isn’t natural anyway. An accident, according to the lady’s daughter. Lady fell down the garden stairs and broke her neck. The ambulance can’t take the corpse until they have clearance from us. Mierisstraat Fifty-three. Just a routine call, probably.”

Grijpstra showed his teeth. The microphone was still dangling.

“Three fourteen?’

De Gier stopped the car and tugged the microphone from Grijpstra’s hand.

“We’ll go, dear. Do you have any additional information? The Mierisstraat is a nice quiet little street. Nobody throws anybody down the stairs of a house in the Mierisstraat.”

That’s all I know, sergeant. Dead lady, fell down the garden stairs and presumably broke her neck. The health officer says she is dead.”

“Okay.”

“Out.”

De Gier pulled a knob on the dashboard and a small pale red light came on as the siren began to howl from its hiding place under the hood. Grijpstra lifted the blue sparkle light from the glove compartment and rolled his window down. The magnet clicked the light onto the car’s thin roof and its reflection lit up the wet street surface around them, sweeping a ghostly wide beam on die reflecting road. The Volkswagen shot away as de Gier’s foot came down. The gale grabbed the car at the next corner and pushed it to the middle of the glimmering tar. It was raining hard suddenly and the wipers had trouble keeping the windshield clear. A streetcar approached from die opposite direction and de Gier twisted die wheel viciously. The streetcar’s bell was clanging as its long yellow shape flashed past. Grijpstra closed his eyes and groaned. The driving rain became a solid white spray in the headlights, then it stopped. Another streetcar threw up a sheet of gray liquid dirt that hit the Volkswagen head on. De Gier cursed and braked. The windshield wipers cut through the mud and he could see again. The car skidded around a tree, a huge poplar that had fallen parallel to the sidewalk. A branch got into the right front wheel and wrapped itself around the tire. De Gier drove on and they could hear twigs snap. Grijpstra opened his eyes.

De Gier was laughing. “Look! We’re driving through a forest.”

The poplar’s leaves were brushing Grijpstra’s windows.

That lady was probably blown down her stairs,” he said morosely, “and that fool health officer shouldn’t have phoned. Doesn’t he know we’re busy tonight?” He closed his eyes again. The wind was pushing the car toward a canal and the Volkswagen was skidding. The sergeant pumped the brake and steered with the skid. They stopped a few feet from the rail, a thin rail, about a foot high, meant to stop parked cars from sliding into the water.

“We’re all right,” de Gier said and reversed. The wind was whipping at the car’s rear and they were gathering speed.

The adjutant kept his eyes closed. It’ll happen again, he thought, remembering how he had been in a small car mat slipped into a canal and sunk slowly and nearly drowned him; he had been saved in the nick of time by a fire brigade’s crane. He badly wanted to shout at de Gier, to tell him mat the lady was dead, and that they wouldn’t revive her by hitting a tree or drowning in a muddy canal or getting under a streetcar. He wanted to ask the sergeant why he had switched the siren on if the din of the gale was so overwhelming that they had hardly been able to hear the streetcar’s electric bell clamoring right next to their ears.

Grijpstra opened his eyes when de Gier’s hand brushed past him. The sergeant was switching off the siren. They had arrived. Mierisstraat. He recognized it. Quiet, slightly elegant. Wide sidewalks lined with tall plane trees. Tall narrow houses, turn of the century. A street of doctors and lawyers and comfortable upper-middle-class families making their money in gentle leisurely ways. An unlikely street to be stalked by violent death. A street where pedigreed dogs lift their legs daintily before they spray a lamppost. He smiled. The smile didn’t come to full bloom.

“Dog,” Grijpstra said, and his fist hit de Gier’s side softly.

“Dog, damn it. Same address. Day before yesterday. Cardozo was supposed to take care of the complaint. Remember?” De Gier whistled.

“Same address. Poisoned dog. Mierisstraat Fifty-three. Cardozo didn’t want to go.”

“Right.” De Gier’s handsome profile was nodding solemnly.

“You had to kick him out of the room. And he was talking about it yesterday. He had a suspect, he said. Man who lives in the rear. The gardens meet. He had some of the dog’s puke in a bottle. Very proud of himself. Lab test proved arsenic poisoning.'’

While de Gier’s head nodded Grijpstra’s head shook. “Bad. A poisoned dog and a lady with a broken neck. Same address. We’ll be busy.”

They waited while they thought. Police reasoning. Something small happens, then something big happens. Same place. There would be a connection. They waited until a respectful gloved hand tapped on the windshield.

De Gier got out and the health officer saluted.

“Evening, sergeant. Haven’t met for a while, have we? Different routes. My mate is waiting for you inside. The lady’s daughter is a bit upset, he is keeping her quiet. The two ladies live by themselves, no man in the house. And there is something with a dog. Poisoned, so the young lady says.”

“The wind,” Grijpstra said hopefully, “the bloody gale. Sure the gale didn’t grab your lady?”

“No, adjutant.” The health officer’s face showed helpfulness and apology neatly blended. “The gale can’t reach into the gardens here. The houses are high, you see. The wind may be getting at the tops of the trees but it can’t reach down to the garden stairs. I’ve been out in die garden awhile, nice and quiet. But maybe she slipped. It had been raining earlier on and the stairs are wet and she was wearing high-heeled shoes and a long dress.”

“A party?”

“Could be. There’s a smell of alcohol and an empty bottle. The daughter says there was no party. Lady liked to drink by herself.”

“Wasn’t she with her mother when it happened?”

“No. The young lady has her own apartment, top floor. She said she came down to check if everything was all right before going to bed. The garden door was open and her mother… Well, you’ll see.”

De Gier was looking at the closed door. A good-quality door with simple dignified ornamentation. Varnished oak with a garland of leaves. Two nameplates and two bells. Elaine Camet. Gabrielle Carnet. Hand-painted nameplates, white on green. Polished brass bells. A polished brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head.

The door moved as his hand reached for the lower bell.

This is a bad night, de Gier thought, and he waited for die door to open altogether. A very bad night. I should be home to safeguard the balcony’s plants and to comfort Tabriz and to have a hot shower and several mugs of strong tea. It wouldn’t be a bad night if I were home. But I am not, and this is a killing.

He couldn’t be sure, of course, but he was. As sure as Grijpstra, who was standing just behind him. Each profession develops its devotees. The detectives of Amsterdam’s murder brigade are trained to be suspicious, but that doesn’t mean much more than that they are always suspicious. They ask mild questions and they look at faces and dig about in the endless chain of cause and event, but their eyes are quiet and their voices soft and their manners mild. Not always. There are moments when the detectives quiver, when little fiery stabs touch their spines, when they sweat slightly, and when their eyes open and stare fiercely.

Gabrielle Carnet stepped back quickly and nearly stumbled. De Gier’s long arm shot out and steadied her.

“Evening, miss,” he said, forcing himself to keep his voice down to the prescribed level of politeness. “We are the police.”

Grijpstra had walked past the sergeant. He followed the other health officer through a long corridor, a central hall, into an enclosed porch, to the garden door.

Elaine Camet, a soaked sad shape, lay crumpled at die bottom of the steps. The health officer pulled the blanket away. The head had snapped back at a most unnatural angle. The woman’s dead eyes stared out of a messy arrangement of sodden make-up smears. Her double chin was stretched tight by the position of the head. The hair, neatly puffed up into fluffy curls only a few hours before, clung to the wet scalp. The wide mouth was smiling, and the gold fillings of two canines sparkled in the light filtering from the porch windows. The smile seemed genuine, a joyous surrender to an unexpected but welcome visitor.

Grijpstra stepped over the corpse and squatted. The light fell differently now and the smile had become a snarl. The sudden change upset him and he went back to the steps. A smile again, definitely.

It was only later that he remembered a common feature of the two facial expressions. The common denominator was victory. Something had pleased Elaine Camet, some event had elated her seconds before she died. The thought sparkled through his brain but didn’t ripen just then. He had already settled down in his routine. He was observing his surroundings.

“Leave her here?” the health officer asked.

“Sure. I’ll get the experts. We want some photographs.”

There was a phone on the porch and he dialed. “Commissaris?”

“Yes,” a soft voice answered.

“I know you are ill, sir, but I thought I would phone you all the same. We’ve run into something, Mierisstraat Fifty-three. It’s a bad night, sir. Shall I phone the inspector?”

“No. I’m feeling better. Send de Gier to fetch me-there’s a tree blocking my garage and there won’t be any taxis tonight. What have you got, adjutant?”

“A poisoned dog, sir, and a dead lady.” Grijpstra moved to the window and looked out. Big raindrops were clattering down on the corpse. “A very dead lady, sir.” * The ranks of the Amsterdam municipal police are: constable, constable first class, sergeant, adjutant, inspector, chief inspector, commissaris. An adjutant is a noa-commissioned officers. * Criminal tovertgatioii Department.