The Hollow-Eyed Angel

Chapter 4

New York received the commissaris pleasantly enough, after a first-class ride on the roomy top deck of a large airplane. He had eaten, dozed and dreamed about the hollow-eyed tram driver/angel. The dream was probably caused by the stewardess who served him, a tall woman with blond hair. There were many of these in Holland now: a new archetype.

Immigration and Customs waved him through. He didn't have to join the long line for cabs; a large burly man in a red waistcoat guided the commissaris to a brand-new minivan. It was illegal, of course. No husding for rides at Kennedy Airport. He had seen posters in the airport's waiting areas, warning passengers.

"Isn't this illegal?" the commissaris asked the man shooing him along.

"Been doing it for years now," the soft-spoken driver said pleasantly enough. "Mind if I rustle up a few other passengers? It'll make the ride worthwhile. Some music while you wait? I'll give you the seat of honor."

The driver switched on his radio, tuning to a classical music station, determining his choice after a glance at the little old gentleman sitting quietly in the high passenger seat. A well-modulated male voice announced a piano concerto by Albeniz, after suggesting that listeners avail themselves of the services of an investment broker. The commissaris didn't catch the sponsor's name. The announcer interrupted after the first movement. "By the way, Gillette is a good buy today. A free tip from your favorite station. Gillette. A debt-free company about to launch an important new product. When the product sells, shares will go up." Music again, remarkably clear, piping in through speakers in the minivan's four corners. It died away briefly.

The announcer spoke gendy: "Remember now, never wager your wad."

The commissaris thought he would like to wager his wad now. Go for broke. All or nothing. As there was little or nothing he would be able to do with All now, victory would amount to nothing anyway. He would solve the case, retire and be forgotten. All = Zero. He thought of the reptile oracle in his Queens Avenue garden, back in Amsterdam. Turtle would agree with such radical thinking. The commissaris, feeling he was on the verge of true insight, smiled happily. Euphoric feelings floated on the lovely Albeniz composition. But he might just be ill. Flu was going around, especially within the enclosed air circulation of airplanes. He was probably infected. An oncoming fever would alter his perception.

The commissaris, shivering, paged through the police convention brochure while he laid out his plans. He would spend the rest of today in his Cavendish suite, looking down on the magnificent trees of Central Park for comfort and entertainment. Tomorrow he would attend a lecture on modes of death by Dr. Steve Russo, pathologist and assistant chief of the NYPD's Crime Laboratory, and make an appointment to meet with Detective-Sergeant Hurrell of the Central Park Precinct. For now all he had to do was lean back and listen to the music.

The driver, when he came back, herding two thirty-year-old businesswomen in suits and lace blouses, talked golf while he drove his catch into town. The commissaris watched the Manhattan skyline against an expanse of glistening blue marked by just a few little white clouds. The music was Bach now, the Italian Concerto. The announcer mentioned Gillette again.

"Make a bundle, play golf in Florida for the rest of your life," the driver was saying. He had done that for some years: long fairway shots between unusual water hazards, lagoons filled with alligators, Key West. Those were the days. But the trick was not to listen to the jokers interrupting the classical music. The driver nodded disdainfully toward his door's speaker, where the announcer had just made a suggestion.

"What does he know? Shit-eating wiseass… Oh dear, ladies present. Sorry, ladies."

The ladies were talking. They might not have heard.

"No more golf, eh?" the commissaris said.

The driver said no more golf. A bad investment on margin, lost his wad, back to a leased van, back to the merry-go-round of collecting fares to make the payments, I-owe-I-owe-ofF-to-the-airport-I-go, Kennedy-Manhattan-Kennedy forever.

The commissaris rembered that Katrien had mentioned a golf ball. He didn't know about sports. Of all the balls he could visualize, only the golf ball might be a weapon.

"So are you a good golf player?"

He wasn't bad, the driver said. He missed winning money and drinks at the club house. There were golf courses around New York too, but play on them was not so relaxed as in Key West, and-except for the few crowded public courses-a lot more expensive.

"Public? In parks?"

The driver, bad-tempered now, reflecting on his greed and stupidity, turned nasty although he didn't show it. He smiled at his client. "Sure, sir. In some parks."

"Now," the commissaris said, "suppose I were to be in a park, not paying attention, and I got hit with a golf ball, a good long fairway shot, as you said just now, Would there be some force there? Say I got hit in the chest, for instance?"

"Kill you stone dead," the burly driver said.

So far, not so good. The commissaris felt worse when he was taken to his hotel suite. He telephoned Room Service for a pot of tea and plain cookies. He arranged his medicines: aspirins and codeine pain pills. His thermometer showed he had a fever, not too high yet. His rheumatism was definitely acting up; red-hot worms crawled about in his hipbones. The shower relaxed his body somewhat but he ended up dizzy. His throat was sore. There seemed to be crushed glass in his lungs, moving slowly every time he breathed.

He took multiple medications. While he wandered about his spacious sitting room in a cotton bathrobe, nicely ironed by Katrien, the codeine took effect. Generic acetaminophen might lower his temperature and also give pain relief. He sucked an antiseptic lozenge to reduce the sandpaper feeling in his throat, while he looked down on the tops of ash and maple and chestnut trees, admiring their full foliage. He followed birds in flight, bending sideways so he could peek at the roof of the Metropolitan Museum. He planned to visit there. De Gier had been talking about the Rockefeller wing, with its Papuan artifacts imported from New Guinea. The commissaris himself was interested in New Guinea, mainly because it seemed to be the furthest place on earth, an enormous, hardly inhabited island surrounded by exotic archipelagos.

Papua New Guinea is an island second in size only to Greenland. Much of the interior is still a vast unknown. De Gier wanted to go there "to experience primitive insights." The commissaris wouldn't mind joining the sergeant's quest. He also fantasized about trying the other side of things, even engaging in soul-testing head hunting, or ritual cannibalism perhaps. Too old, too feeble now, he dreamed about using de Gier's effort as a projection. Get the dear boy to report regularly, to write from his mystical summer camp, to provide vicarious entertainment for sickly stay-at-homes.

His phone rang. "Had a good flight, sir?"

"Yes?" the commissaris asked. "Who is this?"

"Hugh O'Neill. We're down in the lobby. Can we come up and talk about your Central Park case? I have Sergeant Hurrell with me."

The commissaris said he wasn't dressed, bit if his colleagues didn't mind…

They didn't, the hearty American voice said. But if the commissaris preferred to rest first, they could come back later.

"No, please come up."

The New York policemen seemed impressed by the luxury of the commissaris's quarters. The commissaris tried to explain. His wife was paying. He hadn't been feeling well. A present.

"But doesn't the convention take care of hotel expenses for all invitees?" Hurrell asked.

"They wouldn't pay for this," O'Neill said, noting crystal chandeliers, satin drapes, an Oriental rug on the floor, large-screen TVs and VCRs in both rooms. "Nice present. Your wife must love you." He harrumphed. "How do you want to be addressed? By rank? As Mister?" He smiled. "I'm afraid I won't be able to do your last name justice."

"Use my first name," the commissaris said. "J-a-n."

"You pronounce that as 'Yan'?"

"Any way you like. May I call you Hugh?"

"Please," O'Neill said. "First names are easy. Hurrell here is…" He seemed puzzled. "Is what?"

"Earl," Hurrell said. "Funny name. Hardly ever use it."

"Hurrell has brought his reports with him," O'Neill said.

Hurrell was a nondescript man, except for blotched cheeks and a heavily veined nose. A skin condition, the commissaris thought, or alcoholism. O'Neill was boisterous, handsome, with a full head of cropped curly auburn hair. The chief looked athletic. An American football player, the commissaris thought. Better give him the ball when he wants it before he tears you to pieces.

Both visitors were in their forties. Hurrell seemed quiet, moody, unhappy. He needed a shave. He wore a khaki windbreaker over baggy pants, with a faded red T-shirt under his jacket. O'Neill wore a good-quality suit, with the jacket unbuttoned. As the chief moved about, a holstered pistol under his armpit showed. O'Neill seemed efficient and powerful, in charge of himself, ready to take control of whatever was going on around him.

"We won't be long, Yan," O'Neill said. "You need to rest up, but the convention starts tomorrow so you might want to get your problem out of the way now. I believe the dead man is an uncle to one of your people?" He looked at his sergeant and put out a hand. Hurrell handed over a large manila envelope. O'Neill broke the seal.

The contents were shaken out on to the large coffee table. There were photographs that O'Neill sorted quickly. A map and reports were clipped together inside a plastic file.

The commissaris invited his guests to sit down. The effect of the codeine seemed to have worn off already. He felt dizzy again, O'Neill's words waving around him.

"Our dead man-Termeer, Bert-was known as a kind of an exhibitionist, maybe suffering from some compulsive disorder. Tourette's, perhaps? But he didn't expose himself, no nakedness or any such extreme behavior.

"Here is a photo of the corpse. Looks bad, doesn't he? The midsection was damaged by raccoons, we think. Oh yes, there are some living in the middle of Manhattan, in Central Park. And goddamn rats, too, the size of cats. The autopsy mentions that the eyes were pecked out by birds. Hawks will do that, and at least three species live in the park: red-tailed, sharp-shins and Cooper's hawks.

"There was also damage by seagulls, it says, but the raccoons did the big job. Dug out most of the chest and belly, tore the body in two…

"Just one night in the open. Our beastly brethren show little respect.

"Our confusion, Yan, was caused by the clothes. Termeer's body was dressed in rags when it was found. The corpse was robbed, and there must have been a clothes switch. We figured this out later. But at first we had him down as just another homeless "The body must have been robbed by a derelict. He would have been delighted to encounter such rich pickings: wallet, money, watch and so on

"Little chance to trace the unknown perpetrator or perpetrators.

"We found Termeer's dentures. Quite a bit of gold in them, seems surprising the bums didn't take them…may not have seen them-azalea bushes, you know-the dentures were covered with leaves.

"Apart from the robbery, of course, no crime seems to have been committed and that was after.

The commissaris must have asked something, although he didn't heard himself speak.

"Yes, Yan," O'Neill said. "Sure, that's where we went wrong at first. The corpse was found the next morning, you see, by kids, oh dear oh dear. And their father was with them, a medical man. The corpse was torn up, chewed by animals and pecked at-that doesn't look good in a public playground like our magnificent Central Park." O'Neill scowled at Hurrell, who was looking out of the window. "What do you have to add, Earl?"

"Right," Hurrell said. "Right, Chief. Tom and Jerry investigated. It was my day off. They might have taken note of the body's clean fingernails, the nicely cut hair, the trimmed beard and so forth. They didn't. Tom and Jerry had him zipped into a bag. They did take photographs, however."

"Tom and Jerry" sounded vaguely familiar to the commissaris. Cheery New Age faces on ice-cream lids? Cartoon characters? He smiled.

O'Neill laughed. "Hurrell's assistants. Happens to be their names. A good team, but they were sloppy here." He scowled again.

Hurrell, feeling guilty perhaps, was talking now. "Right. Eh…Yan. The mistake was that Tom and Jerry were fooled by the blanket Termeer seemed to be sleeping under." He showed the commissaris a photograph. "Filthy. See? Lots of bums sleep in the park. They're not healthy. They die. But that's no reason not to search the area. Tom and Jerry should have found the dentures but they didn't, not straight off. Maybe because they considered the subject was just another piece of garbage."

In spite of his physical misery the commissaris became aware of a silence in the room, in which Detective Hurrell's labored breathing seemed unnaturally loud and painful.

"Okay?" O'Neill asked. "Earl? You okay?"

"Garbage…," Hurrell continued. "To be thrown out. Tom and Jerry think that way. Don't care much about fellow human beings."

There was the labored breathing again.

"Now then," Chief O'Neill said cheerfully, cutting through what was about to become more silence. "Okay.

So the NYPD kinda fucked up. Happens at your end too, I'm sure. But we did get it in the end, after Charlie showed up. This Charlie was Termeer's neighbor. It's all in the report. You might care to call on him. We had the Dutch nephew by then, inquiring at the Park Precinct house. And there was that angry foreign couple, the tourists, complaining-that wasn't handled to well either." O'Neill rubbed his hair with a fist. "Things kind of piled up. But we figured it out in the end. The autopsy report was clear enough. Bizarre, though. Sergeant?"

"Yeah," Hurrell said. "The corpse was Dutch. And so was the couple who complained. But there was no connection. There must be a lot of Dutchmen around town these days."

The commissaris struggled against letting his body sag back on the couch. He thought he might be fainting. If he let on how he felt, the visitors would probably call a doctor, or, worse, an ambulance. He forced himself to appear interested. "Dutch? Dutch tourists?"

"But Termeer was alive then when the couple saw him in some sort of physical trouble," O'Neill said. "Just not feeling well, which fits in with the autopsy's findings. At that time the subject was wearing his own clothes, of course. Tweed suit. Tie. Hat. He had been gesticulating oddly and frolicking about, after standing still for a long time, finally collapsing. Older man…open-heart surgery…"

The commissaris caught on to words here and there, which came close, wafted away, turned back, floated around. He wasn't quite sure what "frolicking" meant.

O'Neill demonstrated. He held up his arms, fingers pointing at the ceiling, and skipped through the suite.

The commissaris tried to smile. "And Termeer had heart trouble, you said? Open-heart surgery? Of course, that would show on the body."

O'Neill sounded downright angry now. "Jesus F. Christ, didn't we make a mess of it though? A derelict, who'd had recent open-heart surgery? Expensive dentures in nearby bushes? Blatant contradictions. That's what police work is all about, noticing things that don't fit. It's the discrepancies that lead us to truth, right, Sergeant?" He glared. "We would still know nothing if that neighbor hadn't showed…"

It was Hurrell talking now. Somewhat defensive. "Charlie did show and he identified the body as that of Bert Termeer, his tenant, a book dealer."

"We still had it," O'Neill said. "Good thing. Bums' bodies don't stay around for long with our limited morgue space. They get dumped in some mass grave."

"And the Dutch couple," the commissaris said, pronouncing each word with difficulty. "The tourists."

Hurrell found a visiting card among the photographs on the table. He read aloud: "Dr. (Chemistry) Johan Lakmaker…" He read the address: Nieuwegein. "That's the town? 'Nyu-wee-jeen?'"

"But your man wasn't dead when they saw him," O'Neill said. "We have to be clear here. And when he died, much later probably, his death was from shock. The cause could have been that fat branch crashing down. Or a hard object hitting him in the chest: a ball, a rock or something. A Frisbee. The blow wasn't severe. The bruising on the skin in the chest area that remains is slight."

The commissaris tried to keep his eyes wide open. "Shock?"

"Leading to a heart attack," O'Neill said. "It doesn't matter much what the precipitant was because, whatever it was, your man wasn't murdered."

"Roughly robbed, yes," Hurrell said, "but after death. Struck by a branch. Or a random ball. No possible criminal intent here. Just happenstance, Yan, fatally connecting with a heart condition."

"Seventy years old," O'Neill was saying now. "No spring chicken. All that running around the park, and then standing still, posing like some silly statue. Your man was asking for trouble."

"Happenstance," the commissaris repeated. He liked that word.

"You look all worn out," O'Neill said kindly. "We'll leave you our paperwork. It should be self-explanatory. Look it over sometime. No hurry. Here is my card. Phone me if you have questions. Get some sleep first. I'll have you picked up for the lecture tomorrow. It's my pal Russo's show, right? On modes of death or something? Russo will be all gung ho about Maggotmaid again. You will like that."

"Maggotmaid?"

O'Neill raised a joking finger. "Surprise, Yan. You'll find out tomorrow."

Hurrell was doing his heavy breathing again.

"Ball," the commissaris said. "People play ball in your park. Like what kind of ball? Golf?"

"Baseball-softball-volleyball maybe, soccer, lacrosse," O'Neill said. "I used to play that. Used to be an Indian sport. A pretty rough game. They still play lacrosse in the park, Hurrell?"

"Some," Hurrell said. "We don't want them to, but it happens. Ball games are restricted to a few clearly marked areas. Park personnel are supposed to warn offenders. But there are always the assholes."

The commissaris hadn't been able to concentrate. He was feeling nauseous too. So lacrosse was some kind of Indian golf? And there were illegal ball games played in the park? He felt too sick to ask for details.

The commissaris, surprisingly, found himself on his feet, guiding his guests to the suite's door, pumping their hands, thanking them. Excusing himself again for wearing his pajamas and bathrobe.

The burst of energy didn't last. He had trouble making it to his four-poster, where he collapsed, groaned and thrashed about for a while, before getting up to stumble about the suite's bathroom, looking for more medication.