Blond Baboon (16 page)
Cardozo was nodding and smiling, but the little wave of guilt had crept back and he heard himself defending the sergeant. “But he is very good, I have worked with him for a long time now. He is very intelligent and dependable.”
“Pff. He is a showoff!” She looked at her watch. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I
must
take my shower. It was such a hot day and I’ll have to go work again. If I don’t bathe Iil be prickly and irritable and nothing will go right. I promised Mr. Bergen that I would sort out his stock files. We are preparing a statement of what we have in our warehouse for the bank, and so far we come up with a different figure every time. I’ll have to check through the invoices again.”
She jumped up but held on to his wrist so that he was pulled off the couch. He was in the bathroom before he knew that she had taken him with her and he saw her drop her housecoat and step into the tub and adjust the faucets. He stood, holding his glass, trying to find a harmless object to look at. She laughed. “Silly! Haven’t you ever seen a naked woman? Why don’t you sit on the toilet and enjoy your drink. I’ll be ready in a moment.”
The shower came on. The bath had plastic curtains but she didn’t draw them. He saw the hot water splash on her shoulders and run down her arms and there was a small riverlet trickling between her breasts, with two sidelines running down and causing a steady drip from her nipples.
“Don’t you want to see me like this?”
But he did want to, of course, and he was having trouble with his breathing. He took her by the hand before she had had a chance to reach for the towel.
“But I’m still wet.”
He pulled the towel off the rack and wrapped it around her body and swept her off her feet and carried her through die corridor. Her head rested on his shoulder.
On the bed he saw the arrogant eyes of the Spanish nobleman and he pushed the portrait’s broad gold frame so mat it slid off its hook and got stuck between the couch and the wall. The terrier was watching too, its dark button eyes fixed on the linked, throbbing bodies. Hie dog’s fuzzy ears stood up, quivering with interest, and his short tail tapped on the side of his basket. Cardozo wasn’t aware that some of his passion was shared by Paul, and when, after a while, he turned over and looked at the room, the dog had curled himself up in a tight ball and was fast asleep.
T
HE CITROËN’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.