Blond Baboon

\\\\\ 13 /////

The Citroen’s smooth shape was coasting through the avenues of Amsterdam Old South like a large predator fish patrolling its hunting streams. It had been cruising for twenty-five minutes and it kept on turning the same corners. Grijpstra was studying a small soiled map and gave directions that the commissaris found hard to follow. Every turnoff they tried led into one-way streets and they invariably tried to enter on the wrong side. If Grijpstra had been with de Gier his mood might have turned sour and been edging toward blind fury, but the commissaris’s presence had soothed his mind and he continued trying to trace a course while the car floated on.

“It can’t be here anyway,” the commissaris said quietly. “Look at those vast houses, they were patricians’ homes once. Homes for the aged now, adjutant, and private hospitals and maybe a few high-priced sex clubs tucked away here and there. The whole neighborhood is subsidized by the state now.” He smiled. “Or lust, and expense accounts that cater to lust. Lovely old places all the same, don’t you agree?”

Grijpstra looked up from the map. The heavily wooded gardens lining the curving avenue did indeed offer a spectacle of sedate grandeur. The gardens shielded four- and five-storied villas, decorated with turrets and cantilevered balconies overgrown with creepers, abodes of splendor where merchants had once planned their overseas adventures and enjoyed the benefits of constructive but greedy thoughts.

“Yes, sir. But we should be close, we have been close for a while now. The street behind this one must be the one we want, I’m sure of it. Some mansions were pulled down and a bungalow park has taken their sites. Bergen probably has one of the bungalows, but I wouldn’t know how to get in there with all these damned NO ENTRY signs.”

The commissaris tried again. “No. No use. We’ll walk.”

They heard the evening song of a thrush the minute the engine was shut off and the commissaris pointed at the bird, a small, exact silhouette on an overhead wire. The thrush flew off and a nightingale took over. Grijpstra had folded his map and put it away and began to walk on, but the commissaris restrained him, waiting for the end of the trilling cantata. The nightingale seemed to feel that he had an audience, for he pushed himself into such a brilliant feat of pure artistry, and sang so loudly, that Grijpstra expected him to fall off his branch. When the song broke, and ended, in the middle of a rapidly rising scale of notes, the commissaris was standing on his toes, his small head raised, his eyes closed.

Grijpstra smiled. It was good to be with the old man again. His perception had risen and he became aware of the quiet of the street. The one-way system had effectively blocked all through traffic and the old-fashioned streetlights, adapted gas lanterns spaced far apart, threw a soft light that was held by flowering bushes and freshly mowed lawns and hung between the gnarled branches of old beeches and oaks. They walked on, two contemplative pedestrians enjoying the peace of the evening, and found Bergen’s street at the next corner.

Grijpstra checked the house numbers. “This one, sir.”

The bungalow’s garage doors were open. A new Volvo had been left in the driveway, unable to fit into the garage, where the wreck of a small, fairly new car blocked its way. The compact’s nose had been pushed in and its hood stood up, cracked. A refrigerator with its door hanging open leaned against the wreck and parts of a lawn mower littered the floor.

“I’m sure most of that could be fixed,” Grijpstra said as he peered into the garage. The commissaris had walked on. “Maybe that’s considered to be junk, adjutant, the throwouts of a different lifestyle.”

The commissaris pushed the bell. The door swung open and Bergen was staring at them, one eye large and round and menacing, the other almost closed. He was holding his face and his spectacles hung on one ear. He was in his shirtsleeves and his suspenders were slipping off his shoulders.

“Do you mind if we come in, Mr. Bergen? We’re sorry having to disturb you again today, but we won’t be long.”

Bergen stepped back and they walked through a hall, stumbling over a pair of rubber boots and two or three coats dropped on the floor, and stopped in the corridor. The door to the kitchen was ajar, and Grijpstra saw a heap of dirty dishes dumped into the sink. There was a smell of burned meat. Bergen passed them and opened the door to the living room. He was still holding his cheek. His voice sounded muffled and, after he dropped his hand, slurred. Grijpstra sniffed; there was no smell of alcohol.

Bergen shifted a pile of laundry on the settee and motioned for the commissaris to sit down. Grijpstra had found a leather recliner, next to a waste basket overflowing with crumpled newspapers topped by banana peels.

“Your wife isn’t back yet, Mr. Bergen?”

Bergen had found a chair too and faced die comraissaris dumbly.

The commissaris asked the question again.

“No. It’s a mess here. I’ve been camping out, more or less, waiting for her to come back. She won’t. There was a letter in the mail today, a lawyer’s letter. She wants a divorce.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Bergen muttered something.

“Pardon?”

“Can’t speak so well, paralysis, you know.” The word “paralysis” seemed to be causing him considerable trouble.

“It’s all right, sir, we can understand you. I must really apologize for this intrusion, but we’re still working on Mrs. Carnet’s death, as you will understand.”

Bergen’s round eye stared fiercely. “Any progress, commissaris?”

“Some, we hope. But what’s this about your face? Your office told us that you had some tests done this afternoon. The results are encouraging, I hope?”

“No.”

“Oh, dear.”

“No. Terrible day. This started last night but I didn’t think it was anything serious until this morning, and when I got to the hospital they told me they were busy and wouldn’t have time for me for a few days. I found a private clinic and the specialist said that I needed a skull photograph, an X-ray. Here.” He got up and rummaged through a stack of papers on a side table, impatiently tossing the top sheets on the ground. “Here. This isn’t the photograph but a report that has to do with it. They found a spot, a white spot, chalk, and they said there might be something behind it that they couldn’t see. Read it for yourself.”

The commissaris took the sheet and put on his glasses. He began to mumble bis way through the photocopy’s faint print. “Hmm. Technical talk. Let’s see. “The chloroid plexuses are calcified bilaterally, left greater than right. There is a small area of calcification that appears to be in contact with the right frontal calvarium and measured to be greater than one hundred seventy-five EMI density units.’ Hm hm. And here we seem to have some sort of conclusion. ‘In spite of this, the presence of a small underlying meningioma cannot be ruled out entirely.’”

He peered at Bergen over his glasses. “Is that so bad, Mr. Bergen? I’m afraid I don’t understand the terminology. It would just seem that they found a little chalk somewhere in your skull. What’s a meningioma?”

Bergen’s reply was unclear and he repeated it. “A tumor, and a tumor would mean cancer, brain cancer.”

The commissaris read on. “‘Further serial studies suggested.’” He gave the paper back and sat down. “Yes. So what they are saying is that the chalk could hide a tumor, and then perhaps we might assume that the tumor could indicate cancer. But there is no need to jump to conclusions. Were these further serial tests in fact done?”

“Not all of them. I’ll have to go again tomorrow and the neurologist said he would know then. I took this copy with me and showed it to my doctor but he wouldn’t say anything. They never do when they suspect cancer.”

“I see.”

The silence lasted for a while, and Bergen’s eye, the lid drawn away by the paralyzed nerve, kept on boring into the commissaris’s face.

“This really is not the time to disturb you, Mr. Bergen, and I’m sorry about coming here, but what can we do? You heard that Gabrielle located a hundred thousand guilders under her mother’s mattress?”

“Won’t do any good,” Bergen muttered. “She said she would pay it back into the company’s account. Eighty thousand; the rest she’ll keep, of course, that’s Elaine’s private money. But on top of everything else I had this letter delivered by messenger. A letter from the bank.”

He jumped up and began to look through the papers on the side table again. “You know what this is?”

“No idea, Mr. Bergen.”

“A note to say that the bank is curtailing the company’s credit. For a few years now the bank has let us borrow a million, and we have been using that credit, of course, and now they have decided to cut that in half. Any money paid in by us from now on will be taken out of our account until we have paid in half a million. They would send the letter today. With Elaine dead they’re worried about their pennies.”

The commissaris sat up and pushed his glasses back. “Really? They have no faith in your presidency of the company?”

“So it seems.” Bergen had dropped the letter on the floor. “The manager has come to see Elaine and me a couple of times this year. He had noticed that we were using our full credit continuously and he wasn’t impressed by my last balance sheet. I have been selling large quantities at minimal profit and we have a lot of stocks. 1 told him it was all right. I’m aiming for government business and the transactions are profitable, so why should he be anxious?”

“But he is, evidently.”

“An idiot.” Bergen’s mouth curved on one side. “A perfect idiot. He even suggested that we should hire the baboon again. I think he is a personal friend of Vleuten’s. He sort of suggested that we shouldn’t have fired the baboon and I told him that we never did, that the man left by his own free will, that he resigned.”

“The profit margin of your business was better when Mr. Vleuten was still on your staff?”

“Yes, but since then we have had more competition. Business always has its ups and downs. I am trying to get better prices from Pullini now and we have a new salesman on the road. The pendulum will swing back again. But it’s hard to convince a bank manager, and with Elaine’s death…”

“I see, a new factor to be considered or, rather, the lack of an old factor. Gabrielle will replace her mother, I imagine?”

“The bank is not impressed by Gabrielle.”

The commissaris sighed. “I see you have some problems, sir, but problems can be overcome. I’m sure you’ll find a way. Just one question before we go. Do you have any idea why Mrs. Carnet took out that eighty thousand on the day of her death?”

Bergen’s hands moved about on his skull. The silvery hair that had been so stately during their interview of the morning stood up in tufts. “No.”

“Carnet and Company owe that amount to Pullini, isn’t mat so?”

“Yes, but that had nothing to do with Elaine. She left the day-to-day management to me, she never interfered anymore. She did read our list of creditors every month and she may have known that eighty thousand was payable to Pullini, but why would she concern herself with that? And even if she did intend to pay mat debt, why would she pay it in cash? She could have given Pullini a check and he would have cashed the check himself. We don’t like to move banknotes around, nobody does.”

Grijpstra had gotten up and was looking out through the garden doors. An untidy collection of clumsily sawed logs was pushed against the low stone wall of the terrace. There were scattered and broken roof tiles on the terrace and red stains of crumbled bricks, knocked out by the tree’s falling trunk. He walked back to the center of the room and looked at Bergen’s trousers and hands. No, they were clean. Bergen hadn’t touched his tree today. But even so, the alibi was thin. The tree wouldn’t have taken all evening. He could have used his Volvo to visit Mrs. Carnet, a few minutes’ ride.

“Have you seen everybody now?” Bergen asked.

“I think so. We saw your friend Mr. Vleuten this afternoon.”

Bergen’s right hand waved tiredly. “Not my friend. Perhaps the baboon was right to get out of the business. He’s doing very well, isn’t he?”

“I thought you had had no contact with him since he left. That was awhile ago, wasn’t it?”

I heard,” Bergen said. “We have mutual acquaintances. The baboon is doing well. He’s restored his house, he deals in boats. Boats are the thing these days, everybody who does well wants one. Old boats, antique launches, fiat-bottomed sailing yachts… excellent status symbols. The baboon is a businessman still, he hasn’t forgotten what he learned when he was selling our furniture. And Elaine must have been providing him with capital, she has been saving her wages and profits for the last five years. She used to put them back into the business but stopped when we obtained good bank credit. And she always loved Vleuten. The baboon is the clever one and I am the sucker. I work and he plays around.”

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it, no doubt there are other ways. But we did see Mr. Vleuten and we also talked with Mr. Pullini.”

Bergen laughed cheerlessly and his hand came up to hold his cheek again. “Pullini!”

“You don’t think there’s a connection?”

“No, Francesco hardly knew Elaine. His father did business with her and she went to Italy, but that was all such a long time ago. She was still working then.”

“We’ll have to be on our way again, Mr. Bergen. I wish you good luck with your test tomorrow.”

“Poor man,” Grijpstra said in the car.

“You think so, adjutant?”

Grijpstra’s right eyebrow crept up an eighth of an inch. “Shouldn’t I be sorry for the slob, sir? He is in about as perfect a mess as Job on his garbage pile. Bergen has lost it all, hasn’t he?”

The commissaris suddenly tittered and Grijpstra’s eyebrow stayed where it was. “An absolute fool, adjutant. The man must have a special talent for connecting misunderstandings incorrectly. That medical report didn’t indicate cancer, it only said there might be something somewhere. Doctors like to be explorers, especially when they have a lot of expensive equipment around that can be used in their explorations. All they have to do is instill a little fear in the patient’s mind and they can switch on their electronic gear and work up a bill of a few thousand guilders. And the insurance pays.”

“But there could be a tumor in Bergen’s head, sir.”

The commissaris shrugged. “Surely, and in my head and in yours, but we haven’t thought of that possiblity yet. Bergen has.”

“So you don’t think there is any link between his paralysis and whatever they are looking for in his head?”

“Not necessarily. What Bergen has now I’ve had too, Bell’s palsy, a harmless affliction that will go away by itself. I didn’t want to tell Bergen that. I’m not a doctor and perhaps he is in serious trouble. I’m only saying that the man is overworrying, about everything.”

“His divorce and the bank letter?”

“Exactly. Calamities are only calamities if you define them as such; in reality there are only events and all events can be useful.”

Grijpstra’s eyebrow came down.

“You should know that simple truth,” the commissaris continued. “You’ve been in the police a long time now, adjutant. We always deal with people, suspects or victims, who have managed to channel their thoughts in such a way that they see no acceptable way out anymore. They think they are suffering because of all sorts of reasons-their rights haven’t been respected, they’ve lost something, they’ve been robbed or slandered or treated badly, and so they’re justified in behaving in such a way that they break the law and meet us. But usually they are drowning in a poisonous pool of their own making. But they’ll never blame themselves. Never.”

The Citroen was waiting for a green light.

“Sir.”

“Ah, thank you. No, Grijpstra, I won’t pity our friend Bergen. Pity won’t do any good, anyway. Let’s hope he can get shocked out of his present state of mind and steer himself into a course that may lead to a little more freedom. And it’s time to eat. And Cardozo wants to be telephoned. He must be brooding on the information he collected from his visit to Gabrielle.”

The commissaris parked the car at the edge of the old city and, after calling Cardozo from a public telephone booth, they set out for the restaurant on foot. A brightly lit store window attracted the commissaris and he stopped to look in. He was still lecturing on the lack of awareness that causes illusion and misconstruction and didn’t appear to notice what he was looking at.

Grijpstra cleared his throat.

“Yes, adjutant?”

Grijpstra pointed at the window. “I don’t think this display is of much interest, sir.”

The commissaris grinned and they walked on. The window had shown a number of different types of vibrators arranged on a ground of artificial grass that was fenced off by a row of plastic penises.