Death of a Hawker

15

The Albert Cuyp is a long narrow street cutting through one of Amsterdam's uglier parts, where houses are thin high slabs of bricks pushed together in endless rows, where trees won't grow and where traffic is eternally congested. The street market is the heart of an area consisting of stone and tar, and its splash of color and sound feeds some life into what otherwise wouldn't be much other than a hell of boredom, in which the human ant lives out its sixty or seventy years of getting up and going to bed, being busy in between with factory and office work, and TV programs and a bit of drinking at the corner bar. It was an area that both de Gier and Cardozo knew well, for it breeds crime, mostly sad and always nonspectacular. The neighborhood is known for its family fights, drug pushing in a small way, burglaries and a bit of robbery, committed by youth gangs who swagger about, waylaying the elderly passerby, stealing cars and motorized bicycles, and molesting lonely homosexuals. The area is doomed, for city planning will do away with it, blow it up with dynamite to make room for blocks of apartments set in parks, but the city works slowly and the street market will be there for many years to come, functioning as a gigantic department store, selling food and household goods cheaply, providing an outlet for the national industry's unsalable goods and for adventurer-merchants who import for their own account, or smuggle, or, rarely, buy stolen goods.

Cardozo had managed to force the gray van on to the sidewalk and was unloading bale after bale of gaily printed textiles, which de Gier stacked on the worn planks of a corner stall, assigned to them for the day by the market master, who had given them a knowing wink when de Gier, waving his license, looked him up in his little office.

"Good luck," the market master said. "You'll be after Rogge's killer, I bet. You'd better get him. Abe Rogge was a popular man here and he'll be missed."

"Don't tell anyone," de Gier said.

The market master was shaking his head energetically.

"I don't tell on the police. I need the police here. I wish you would patrol the market more regularly. Two uniformed constables can't cover a mile of market."

"There are plainclothes police as well."

"Yes," the market master said, "but not enough. There's always a bit of trouble here, especially on a hot day like this. We need more uniforms. If they see a shiny cap and nicely polished buttons they quiet down quickly. I have been writing to the chief constable's office. He always answers, but it's the same answer. Short of staff."

"Complain, complain, complain!" de Gier said.

"What do you mean?"

"What I say. Go on complaining. It helps. You'll get more constables."

"But they'll come from some other part of town and there'll be trouble down there."

"So someone else can start complaining."

"Yes," the market master said, and laughed. "I am only concerned about my own troubles. What about you? Will you catch your man?"

"Sure," de Gier said, and left.

But he wasn't so sure when he got back to the stall. Cardozo was complaining too. The bales were too heavy.

"I'll get you some coffee," de Gier said.

"I can get my own coffee. I want you to help me unload these bales."

"Sugar and milk?"

"Yes. But help me first."

"No," de Gier said and left the stall. He found a girl carrying a tray with empty glasses, who took his order. He ordered meat rolls too and hot dogs.

"You are new, aren't you?" The girl was pretty and de Gier smiled at her.

"Yes. First day here. We've been on other markets, never down here."

"Best market in the country. What do you sell?"

"Lovely fabrics for dressmaking and curtains."

"Will you give me a special price?" The girl reached out with her free hand and patted his cheek.

"Sure." He smiled again and she swung her hip at him in response. He wasn't in a hurry to get back to the stall, but Cardozo saw him and shouted and jumped up and down, waving his arms.

Together they finished the stall, draping some of the textiles in what they thought to be an attractive display.

"This is no good," Cardozo muttered as he worked. That fellow on the other side of the street knows who we are. He keeps on looking at us. Who is he anyway?"

De Gier looked and waved. "Louis Zilver. I asked the market master to give us a place close to him. He was Abe Rogge's partner. He's selling beads and wool and embroidery silk and all that sort of thing."

"But if he knows us he'll spread the news, won't he?"

"No, he won't, why should he?"

"Why shouldn't he?"

"Because he is the dead man's friend."

"He may be the dead man's killer."

De Gier sipped his coffee and stared at Cardozo, who was glaring at him from between two bales of cloth. "What are you so excited about? If he is the killer we are wasting our time here for we'll have to get at him in some other way. But if he isn't he'll protect us. He knows he is a suspect and if we find the killer he'll be cleared; besides, he may really want us to catch the murderer. He's supposed to be Rogge's friend, isn't he? There is such a thing as friendship."

Cardozo snorted.

"Don't you believe in friendship?"

Cardozo didn't answer.

"Don't you?"

"I am a Jew," Cardozo said, "and Jews believe in friendship because they wouldn't have survived without it."

"That isn't what I mean."

"What do you mean?"

"Friendship," de Gier said. "You know, love. One man loves another. He is glad when the other man is glad and sad when the other man is sad. He identifies with the other man. They are together, and together they are more than two individuals added up."

"You don't have to spell it out for me," Cardozo said. "I won't believe you anyway. There's such a thing as a shared interest and the idea that two men can do more than one. I can understand that but I won't go for love. I have been in the police for some time now. The friends we catch always rat on each other after a while."

"Love your neighbor," de Gier said.

"Are you religious?"

"No."

"So why preach at me?"

De Gier touched Cardozo's shoulder gingerly. "I am not preaching at you. Love your neighbor; it makes sense, doesn't it? Even if it happens to be a religious command."

"But we don't love our neighbors," Cardozo said, furiously pushing at a bale of lining which had fallen over. "We are envious of our neighbors, we try to grab things from them, we annoy them. And we make fun of them if we can get away with it and we kill them too if they don't want to put up with our demands. You can't prove history wrong. I was too young to have been in the last war but I've seen the documentaries, and I've heard the stories and seen the numbers burned into people's arms. We have an army to make sure that the neighbors across the frontier behave themselves and we have a police force to make sure that we behave ourselves within the frontiers. You know what the place would be like if the police didn't patrol it?"

"Stop kicking that bale," de Gier said. "You are spoiling the merchandise."

"Without the police society would be a mad shambles, sergeant, a free fight for all. I am sure that Zilver fellow doesn't care two hoots if we catch the killer or not, and if he does care he has a personal interest."

"Revenge, for instance," de Gier said.

"Revenge is selfish too," Cardozo said, "but I was thinking of money. He'll want us to make an arrest if he can profit by the arrest."

"You've been drinking with Grijpstra," de Gier said, and helped to lift the bale.

"No. You have. Last night."

De Gier looked hurt. "Last night, dear friend, I was at home. I only spent a few minutes with Grijpstra at Nellie's bar and half that time went on a telephone call. He didn't want me around so I left. Nellie didn't want me around either."

"Nellie?" Cardozo asked.

De Gier explained.

"Boy!" Cardozo said. "As big as that? Boy!"

"As big as that," de Gier said, "and Grijpstra wanted them all to himself. So I left. I checked out two prostitutes who were supposed to be Bezuur's alibi and after that I went home."

"Bezuur?" Cardozo asked. "Who is he? I am supposed to help you and the adjutant but nobody tells me anything. Who is Bezuur?"

"A friend of Abe Rogge."

Cardozo asked more questions and de Gier explained. "I see," Cardozo said. "What about the callgirls? Had they been with him all night?"

"So they said."

"Did you believe them?"

"According to Grijpstra there were six empty champagne bottles lying about in Bezuur's bungalow, and there were cigarette burns on the furniture and stains on the walls. An orgy. Who remembers what happens during an orgy? Maybe they were out on the floor half the night."

"Did they look as if they had been?"

"They looked O.K." de Gier said. "One of them even looked pretty nice. But they had had time for their beauty sleep and they knew I was coming. I didn't know the address so I couldn't jump them."

"Couldn't you have checked with the telephone company?"

"I could have but it would have been difficult. It was Sunday, remember? And maybe I was too lazy to try and jump them."

"So what did you do afterward?"

"I went home and I went to bed. And in between I was weeding the flower boxes on my balcony. And I had a late supper with my cat."

Cardozo smiled. "You are a lucky man, sergeant."

"Don't call me sergeant. Why am I lucky?"

Cardozo shrugged. "I don't know. You are older than I am but you are like a child sometimes. You enjoy yourself, don't you? You and that silly cat."

"He isn't a silly cat. And he loves me."

"There we go again," Cardozo said and began to tug at another bale. "Love. I saw a poster in a bookshop last week. A love poster. Half-naked girls with frizzy hair sitting under a beautiful tree chanting away while birds fly around and angels gaze down. It's a craze. When I was still in uniform we had one of these love places a block away from the station. We had complaints every night. The girls would have their bags stolen and the boys had their wallets rolled and they were buying hash which turned out to be caked rubbish and they had knives pulled on them and they got the clap and crabs and the itch. I've been in there dozens of times and it was the same thing every night, dirty and smoky and silly and hazy. Some of them would catch on and drift away, but there were always others who hadn't learned yet and who were begging to get in."

"The wrong place," de Gier said. "Brothels are the wrong place too. And Nellie's bar unless your name is Grijpstra and Nellie falls for you. But love exists." He patted his pockets.

"Cigarette?" Cardozo asked, and offered his tobacco pouch and packet of cigarette papers.

"Thanks," de Gier said. "You see, you are giving me something I haven't asked for. So you care for my well-being."

"So I love you," Cardozo said. De Gier felt embarrassed and Cardozo grinned.

"I only offered you a cigarette because I know that I won't have any cigarettes sometime and I will want you to give me one. It's an investment for the future."

"And if I was dying?" de Gier asked. "Say I was going to be shot in five minutes time and I asked you for a cigarette. Would you give me one? I would never be in a position to return the gift, would I?"

Cardozo thought.

"Well?"

"Yes, I would give you a cigarette, but I am sure I would have some selfish reason, although I can't think of the reason now."

"How much?" a voice asked. An old lady had come to the stall and was fingering a piece of cloth.

"Twelve guilders a meter, darling," Cardozo said, "and ten percent off if you buy five meters. That's lovely curtain material. It'll brighten up your room and it's guaranteed not to fade."

"Expensive," the old lady said.

"What do you mean, dear? It's two meters wide. They'll charge you three times as much in any store, and it won't be as nice as this. This came from Sweden and the Swedish designers are the best in the world. Look at those flowers. Fuchsias. You'll be sitting in your room and you'll draw the curtains and the light will filter through the material and you'll be able to see the nice red flowers. Aren't they pretty? See, every petal is printed beautifully."

"Yes," the old lady said dreamily.

"Take five yards, dear, ten guilders a yard."

"I haven't got fifty guilders on me."

"How much have you got?"

"Thirty, and I only need three yards.''

"For you I will do everything, darling. Give me the scissors, mate."

But he didn't start cutting until the lady had counted out her thirty guilders.

"I thought you said we should get eight guilders for that cloth," de Gier said.

"Start high, you can always come down. And she's got a bargain anyway."

"I wouldn't have that material in my flat if you paid me."

"Stop fussing," Cardozo said. "She selected the cloth herself, didn't she? And it's first-class material, confiscated from a first-class smuggler who tried to bring it in without paying duty and sales tax."

Other customers came and bought. Cardozo was yelling and waving and de Gier handled the scissors. After a while de Gier was selling too, joking and flirting with an odd assortment of females.

"Maybe we should do this for a living," he said during a short pause. A juggler on a collection of soap boxes was attracting everybody's attention and they had time to breathe.

"We have made more than we would normally make in a week working as policemen," Cardozo admitted, "but we have the right goods. It takes time and money to find this type of merchandise."

"I am sure we could do it."

"Yes, we'll find the right goods and we might get rich. A lot of these hawkers are rich. Abe Rogge was rich, or so you told me anyway. You want to get ricn, de Gier?"

"Perhaps."

"You would have to leave the police."

"I wouldn't mind."

"Right," Cardozo said, trying to smooth down a piece of machine-made lace. "I'll join you if you want to become a merchant, but I don't think you ever will. I think you were born to become a policeman, like me. Maybe it's a vocation."

The juggler came to collect. He had drawn a lot of people to their corner of the market. Cardozo gave him some coins.

"Thanks," de Gier said. Hie juggler, an old man with a sun-tanned bald head smiled, showing a messy array of broken brown teeth.

"Thanks for nothing, buddy," the juggler said. "I'll be performing a hundred yards down now and drawing the crowd away from you again, but maybe I'll put them in a good mood and they'll be free with their money. You'd better hurry up though; we'll have rain in a minute and they'll melt away like whores who have seen the patrol car."

"Did you hear that?" de Gier asked. "He mentioned the police. Do you think he knows about us?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe not," de Gier said, and looked at the sky. It had become very hot and sweat prickled under his shirt. The clouds were lead-colored and low. The street sellers were putting up sheets of transparent plastic and pulling in their goods.

The clouds burst suddenly and cold heavy rain drowned the market, catching women and small children in midstreet, forcing them to scatter for cover. Sheets of water blocked de Gier's view and roared down, splashing up again from the pavement over his feet and trouser legs, dribbling down from the canvas roof and hitting him in the neck. Cardozo was shouting something and pointing at the stall next to them, but de Gier couldn't make out the words. He vaguely saw the old hawker and his wife scrambling about, but couldn't work out what was expected of him until Cardozo pulled him over and handed him a carton of vegetables and pointed at a VW bus parked on the sidewalk. Together they filled the small bus with their neighbor's merchandise, which the old man had stored under his stall and which was now in danger of being swept down the street by the torrent. De Gier was wet through and cursing but there seemed no end to the potatoes, cucumbers, baby squashes, bananas and cab-

Thanks, mate," the old man and his wife kept on saying. De Gier muttered in reply. Cardozo was grinning like a monkey.

"Lovely to see you working for a change," Cardozo screamed right into de Gier's ear, so that it needed rubbing to make it function again.

"Don't shout," he shouted and Cardozo grinned again, his sharp face alight with devilish mirth.

The rain stopped when they had filled the bus and the sun was back suddenly, brightening a dismal scene of floating cartons and cases and sodden merchants splashing around their stalls mumbling and cursing, and shaking themselves like dogs climbing out of a canal.

"Hell," de Gier said, trying to dry his hair and face with a crumpled handkerchief. "Why did we have to help those fools? They could see the rain was coming, couldn't they?"

"Friendship," Cardozo said, rubbing his hands and waving at the coffee girl, who came staggering toward them carrying her tray rilled with glasses of hot coffee and a dish of meat rolls and sausages smeared with mustard. "Love your neighbor, I remembered. There's nothing those old people can ever do to repay us, is there?"

De Gier smiled in spite of his discomfort. Cold drops were running down his back, touching his buttocks, the only dry part of his body. "Yes," he said, and nodded. "Thanks."

"Thanks for what?" Cardozo asked, suddenly cautious.

"For the lesson, I like to learn."

Cardozo studied de Gier's face. De Gier's smile seemed genuine. Cardozo sipped his coffee, shoving his tobacco and paper toward the sergeant, who immediately rolled two cigarettes, placing one between Cardozo's lips. He struck a match.

"No," Cardozo said. "I don't trust you, sergeant."

"What are you talking about?" de Gier asked pleasantly.

"Ah, there you are," Grijpstra said. "Loafing about as I expected. I thought you were supposed to be street sellers. Shouldn't you be trying to sell something? If you hang about in the back of your stall drinking coffee and exchanging the news of the day, you'll never get anywhere."

"Cardozo," de Gier said. "Get the adjutant a nice glass of coffee and a couple of sausages."

"Don't call me adjutant down here, de Gier, and I'll have three sausages, Cardozo."

"That'll be five guilders," Cardozo said.

That'll be nothing, take it out of the till. You must have collected some money this morning while we were running around catching Turks."

"Turks?" de Gier and Cardozo asked in one voice.

"Turks, two of them, shot them both and took them to the hospital. I hope the one fellow won't die. He got a bullet through the left lung."

"Run along, Cardozo," de Gier said. "What's with the Turks, Grijpstra?"

Grijpstra sat down on a bale of cloth and lit a small cigar. "Yes, Turks. Silly fools held up a bank using toy pistols, beautiful toys, indistinguishable from the real thing. The one had a Luger and the other a big army-model Browning, made of plastic. The bank has an alarm and they managed to push the button. A sixteen-year-old girl pushed it while she was smiling at the robbers. The manager was too busy filling his pants. I happened to be at a station close by and got there on foot, as the patrol cars arrived. The fools threatened us with their toys and they got shot, one in the leg, the other in the chest. It was over in two minutes."

"Did you shoot them?" de Gier asked.

"No. I had my gun out but I didn't even have time to load. The constables fired as soon as they arrived."

"They shouldn't have."

"No, but they lost a man some months ago, remember? He stopped a stolen car and got shot dead before he could open his mouth. These were the dead man's friends. They remembered. And the toys looked real enough."

"I thought those toys weren't sold anymore in the shops?"

"The Turks bought them in England," Grijpstra said, and shrugged. "Some happy shopkeeper made a few shillings in London and now we have two bleeding Turks in Amsterdam."

Cardozo came back and offered a plate of sausages. Grijpstra's hand shot out and grabbed the fattest sausage, stuffing it into his mouth in one movement.

"Vrgrmpf," Grijpstra said.

"They are hot," Cardozo said. "I would have told you if you had waited one second."

"Rashf," Grijpstra said.

"Has he come to help us, de Gier?"

"Ask him when he has finished burning his mouth."

Grijpstra was nodding.

"He has come to help us, Cardozo."

"Are you selling this stuff or are you just showing it?" an old woman with a face like a hatchet was asking.

"We are selling it, dearest," de Gier said, and came forward.

"I am not your dearest, and I don't like that lace much. Haven't you got any better?"

"It's handmade in Belgium, lady, handmade by farm women who have done nothing but lace-making since they were four years old. Look at the detail, see here."

De Gier unrolled the bale, holding the material up.

"Nonsense," the old woman said. "Rubbish, that's machine-made. How much is it anyway?"

De Gier was going to tell her the price when the wind caught the underpart of their canvas roof and pushed it straight up. Several bucketloads of ice-cold water shot off the top, and all of it hit the old woman, soaking her, frilly green hat first, black flat-soled clumpy shoes last.

Grijpstra, de Gier and Cardozo froze. They couldn't believe their eyes. What had been an aggressive body of sharp-tongued fury had changed into a sodden lump of wet flesh, and the lump stared at them. The old woman's face had been heavily made up and mascara was now running down each cheek, mixing with powder in reddish black-edged streaks which were getting closer and closer to her thin chiseled lips.

The silence was awkward.

Their neighbor, the vegetable man, had been staring at the woman too.

"Laugh, lady," the vegetable man said. "For God's sake, laugh, or we'll all cry."

The old woman looked up and glared at the vegetable man. "You…"

"Don't say it, lady," Grijpstra said, and jumped close to her, taking her by the shoulders and carrying her with him. "Go home and change. We are sorry about the water but it was the wind. You can blame the wind. Go along, lady, go home." The old woman wanted to free herself and stop, but Grijpstra went on pushing her, patting her shoulder and keeping up his monologue. "There now, dear, go home and have a nice bath. You'll feel fine afterward. Get yourself a big cup of hot tea and a biscuit. You'll be fine. Where do you live, dear?"

The old woman pointed at a side street.

'Til walk you home."

She smiled. Grijpstra was very concerned. She leaned against the big solid man who was taking an interest in her, the first man she had been close to in years, ever since her son had died and she had been left alone in the city where nobody remembered her first name, living off her old age pension and her savings, and wondering when the social workers would catch her and stick her into a home.

"There you are," Grijpstra said at the door. "Don't forget your hot bath now, dear."

"Thank you," the old woman said. "You don't want to come up, do you? I have some good tea left, in a sealed tin, I have had it for years but it won't have lost its taste."

"Some other day, dear," Grijpstra said. "I have to help my mates. The sun has come back and we'll be busy this afternoon. Thanks anyway."

"You saved us all," de Gier said when Grijpstra returned. "The old cow would have murdered us. She had a wicked-looking umbrella."

"She never bought the lace," Cardozo said.

They were busy all afternoon, selling most of the cloth they had brought. Grijpstra and de Gier wandered about, leaving Cardozo to do the work, only coming back to the stall when the young detective's screams for help became too frantic. Grijpstra talked to Louis Zilver and de Gier followed up on their contact with the vegetable man. The hawkers were talking about Abe Rogge's death and the detectives listened but no new suggestions were given. There seemed to be a general feeling of surprise. The street sellers had all liked Rogge and were telling tall stories about him, stories which showed their admiration. The detectives were trying to find traces of envy in the conversation but there didn't seem to be any. The hawkers had enjoyed Rogge's success, success as a merchant, success with women. They mentioned his good breeding and his knowledge. They talked about the parties he had thrown in bars and at his home. They had lost a friend, a friend who had lent them money in times of stress, who had drawn customers to their corner of the market, who had listened to their troubles and who had cheered them up by his funny stories and extravagant way of behavior.

"We ought to do something tonight," the vegetable man said. "Have a few drinks together in his honor. Least we can do."

"Shouldn't we wait for the funeral?" the vegetable man's wife asked.

"The body is still with the police," Louis Zilver said. "I phoned them this morning. They won't release it for a few more days."

"Let's have the party tonight,'' the vegetable man said. "I live close by. You can all come at about nine o'clock if my wife is willing. All right, wife?" The fat little woman agreed.

"We'll bring a bottle," Grijpstra said.

"Yes, It'll be in your honor too then," the vegetable man said. "You helped me out today and I hope you'll keep on coming here. I'll ask all the others around here It'll be a big party, forty or fifty people maybe."

His wife sighed. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I'll help you clean up, darling, and we won't work tomorrow. We have cleared our stocks and we shouldn't work every day."

"Right," the vegetable man's wife said, prodding him affectionately.