Blond Baboon (19 page)
A
MSTERDAM DROPPED AWAY AS THE PLANE BANKED, AND
the commissaris admired the pale greens and faded blues of fields and ponds set apart by geometrical patterns of expressways spreading out from the city. He had observed the tall suburban apartment buildings rising from parks as they swept away under the roaring jet engines. Their disappearance evoked some satisfaction. He was traveling, getting away, even if it was only for a moment. His forehead rested against the window as the plane flew above a large swamp. He knew the swamp well. It had been a mysterious world once, an endless maze of lagoons and reed-lined twisted ditches filled with murky water. He remembered the freshwater kelp that waved and intertwined in the depth, moved by hidden currents or the undulating sleek bodies of pikes and eels. The swamp had provided his first real discovery, a first indication that mere was more to life man school and trying to find ways to fit in with what grownups wanted him to do in the boring grayness of the small provincial town where he was raised.
He craned his neck but the swamp had gone while the plane gained more height and broke through the clouds and reached die great transparency of the sky. It occurred to him that the sky is an emptiness that sits on a layer of cotton wool and has no limit, an ungraspable manifestation of the mystery that he had also felt as a ten-year-old boy, exploring swamp backwaters in a canoe. The swamp had revealed some of its wonders then, die sky might do the same. And he was in it now, reclining in a first-class seat, reaching the top of a curve that would soon begin to dip down again and take him back to the twisted failings of humanity. Afloat in the universe and free while it lasted. Not a bad thought.
A stewardess bent down and smiled professionally. Did the gentleman want a drink? But surely, a nice cold old Dutch gin. He felt supremely happy as he sipped the icy, syrupy liquid and he grinned, for he had remembered what the blond baboon had said the day before. Happiness is a silly word because it has to do with security and security does not exist. True, of course. There is no absolute security and happiness is silly. How very clever of the baboon to have seen that. But there is temporary security and therefore temporary happiness does exist. Right now he was temporarily happy, and temporarily free of everything mat annoyed or threatened him. Afloat in the universe. He mumbled the words, swallowed the gin, smacked his lips, and closed his eyes. He was asleep when the stewardess touched his shoulder.
“Yes?”
“We have arrived, sir.”
“Ah.”
He followed her, carrying his small overnight bag and the bamboo cane with the silver handle.
Giovanni Pullini’s foot kicked an empty matchbox rather viciously. He had been waiting for a while near die airport’s security barrier, guarded by two carabinieri. The carabinieri clutched short-barreled machine guns, and their dark eyes, in which passion and ferocity were equally mixed, scanned the crowd of incoming passengers. One of the passengers would be the commissaris de la police municipale d’Amsterdam, whom Giovanni Pullini had been talking to two hours before. He had no idea what the man looked like but knew that the foreign policeman would be carrying a cane. Pullini didn’t know what the commissaris wanted although he could guess. Pullini didn’t like guessing. A vague but sensuous smile lifted his mouth as a bevy of stewardesses pranced past in high heels, bosoms raised, eyelashes flapping rhythmically.
The smirk faded as his predicament flashed through his mind again. His wide shoulders bulged under his custom-made sharkskin jacket and his short squat body moved a little closer to the barrier. His long eyebrows frowned above the deep-set eyes in a round red face. He felt his balding head. His head wasn’t of much use to him now. It was only telling him that he might be in trouble, real trouble, and he hadn’t been in real trouble for a long time. The opposite was true, he had been doing very well. And he shouldn’t be at the airport now, it was lunchtime, he should be in the country restaurant he owned. He should be listening to Renata, the charming lady who ran the restaurant and who lived in the beautifully furnished apartment on its second floor, an apartment he was getting to know better than his own house. A commissaris with a cane. He saw an old man, a thin little old man, limping toward the barrier. The devil himself, the devil in paradise.
Pullini’s smile was soft and charming when he shook hands and took the commissaris’s overnight bag.
“You had a good flight, commissaire?”
“Yes, thank you. I slept.”
A few minutes later they sat on the rear seat of a large car, a new car of a make the commissaris didn’t recognize. The limousine was chauffeured by a dreamy young man in a turtleneck sweater of exactly the same tender blue shade as the car.
Pullini pulled down the armrest and his strong, suntanned hand, adorned with two rings, each holding a large diamond, dug into its soft upholstery. The commissaris’s eyes flitted up and observed Pullini’s face. Pullini’s heavy thoughts were filling the car. The commissaris was thinking too. He had planned his attack early that morning, in the garden with the turtle rummaging around his feet and his wife fussing in the kitchen, coming out every ten minutes to refill his coffee cup. He had looked forward to meeting Papa Pullini, but now that his prey was next to him, breathing heavily through nostrils bristling with long dark hairs, he didn’t feel like upsetting the man. Perhaps some rapport had been established between the two, for Pullini’s face turned slowly and his lips formed a single word.
“Non?”
“Non.”
Pullini’s grip on the armrest loosened.
“We go to hotel now. In Sesto San Giovanni. Saint Giovanni. Same name as me, but me no saint.” He laughed and the commissaris laughed too. A joke.
“Small hotel. Comfortable. One night, yes?”
“One night.”
“You have bath, sleep a little, go for a walk maybe, and then I come and we drink some wine. Good wine. Later we eat, we talk.”
Pullini’s smile was innocent, childlike, and hurt the commissaris. He was sure that Pullini had tried to contact his son immediately after their conversation of that morning. But there hadn’t been much time. Chances were that Pullini still knew very little. He would know about Mrs. Camet’s death, for Francesco would have reported such an important event in the connection between the Pullini and Gurnet firms.
“Did you speak to your son this morning, Mr. Pullini?”
“I try. I phone hotel. I phone Camet and Company. Francesco, he not there. I want to ask Francesco what happened that is so important mat Amsterdam police commissaire comes to see me in Milano. Police, they do not like to spend money, yes?”
“Yes.”
Pullini was holding his smile. The smile displayed a glitter of gold and very white artificial teeth, well made and suitably irregular. He raised his hands. “Commissaire, I know nothing.”
“Do you know what happened to Mrs. Carnet?”
The red face froze. “Yes. She dead. Francesco, he tell me. An accident, yes? Or maybe no? You do not travel to Italy for accident.”
An enormous truck pulling an equally enormous trailer zoomed past blasting its horn. The limousine’s chauffeur flicked his wheel. His employee’s equanimity seemed to calm Pullini.
“O.K.”
The word was out of place between the gigantic bill-boards screaming their advertising in poetic, flowing Italian on bom sides of the autostrada.
The car turned off the main road and began to follow a narrow cobblestoned path winding through fields planted with ripening corn. The nondescript office and factory buildings that had lined the autostrada gave way to long cracked-tiled divisions screening the rustic peace of the countryside. There were rows of high trees, a dam with a waterwheel, and a high bridge that had to be negotiated in low gear. The commissaris saw farmhouses built like low, square fortresses defending themselves behind forbidding walls, centered on courtyards overshadowed by umbrella-shaped chestnuts and tall poplars.
Pullini pointed out a low pink and gray building. “There I was born, not fanner’s son, laborer’s son, in shed. Shed no longer there. Burned in war.”
The simple elements that formed Pullini’s face proved to be capable of forming fairly complicated expressions, even combinations of opposites such as sadness and triumph.
“You were happy on the farm, Mr. Pullini?”
“No. My father, he works. My mother, she works. Me, I also work. Always. Feed pigs, shovel shit, pigshit, cow-shit, horseshit. Also chickenshit. Chickenshit, he worse. Chickenshit, he burns. All in same wheelbarrow. Wheelbarrow bad. Push like this.”
Pullini leaned over and groaned, trying to hold the wheelbarrow.
“Sometimes it falls over. Then I shovel same shit twice.” He held up two fingers. “But I had birds. Pheasants. Partridges. Beautiful birds. They walk around like mis: titch-titch-titch. Baby birds.”
His hand moved around on the floor of the car, making short, swift movements. “When they grow I sell to farmer. Farmer, he eats my birds. But every year new nests and new birds. One year I buy peacock, but only money for one, so no baby peacocks. Farmer, he takes peacock.”
“Did he pay your
Pullini laughed, a soft, full bellylaugh mat gurgled in his throat. “No. Farmer says peacock eats too much feed so he takes him for courtyard. Farmer looks at peacock, me, I listen. Peacock shouts, ‘Giovanni! Giovanni!’ and I listen. Then I know one day Pullini must work for Pullini. That better.”
The car turned sharply. They had come to a village. A man greeted the car, men two women who came out of a store, then another man from the doorway of a shop. The greetings were elaborate. The subjects waved and inclined their heads respectfully. Pullini raised his hand but he didn’t wave. He only showed his hand. The driver also reacted by lifting a finger of the hand holding the wheel. The car’s nose pointed at a three-story brick building and stopped. A neon sign above the building’s double front door Said RISTORANTEPULLINI.
“Very nice.” The commissaris pointed at the sign. “You have another restaurant, I hear, in the mountains somewhere, I believe?”
“Who tell you?” Pullini’s chest bent over the armrest; a whiff of garlic touched the commissaris’s face. “My son?”
“Mr. Bergen told me.”
Pullini’s gold fillings flashed. “Yes. Bergen, he eats very much, but kitchen has plenty of spaghetti, plenty of sauce, plenty of sausage. Also veal, tender veal from Holland, many lires a gram. Bergen, he likes meat. That restaurant in mountains same as this one here, same kitchen. This cook, he teaches cook in mountains. Before, restaurants were bad, just one dish, spaghetti and tomato sauce and sometimes fish, old fish. Now better. We try later to-night, yes?”
The car moved again, following a narrow side street with only centimeters to spare on each side, and emerged into a small sunlit square. A policeman in an olive uniform and carrying a gigantic sidearm in a dazzlingly white gun-belt came to attention. Pullini got out and shook the constable’s hand. The driver slid from behind the wheel. The commissaris rested on his cane. The square was quiet, medievally quiet, paved with gleaming yellow stones, dappled by the light caught and softened in die foliage of protecting oaks. Shrubs grew in enclaves on the narrow pavement and songbirds chirped from cages hung under the arc of a gate.
Pullini’s hand nudged his elbow and the commissaris remembered his business.
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Pullini. What do you think about Mr. Bergen?”
“Bergen,” Pullini said, feeling the word with his thick lips. “Bergen, he all right. He buyer, I seller. He buys, he pays. Sometimes he pays later, and Francesco telephones and talks about this and that and then Francesco says ‘Money’ and Bergen, he pays. And sometimes he comes here.”
“You think he is a good businessman?”
“Half.”
“Half?”
“Half. Bergen is salesman. Big salesman, not big buyer. He, how do you say?” Pullini tried some Italian words and the commissaris held up his hands in apologetic despair. “You don’t understand, no? Here.” Pullini breathed in and his chest swelled up. He kept his breath. A foolish grin spread over his face and his eyes narrowed.
“I see,” the commissaris said gratefully. “A showoff. He tries to impress, is that it?”
Pullini breathed out. “Yes. Bergen all right as long as he pays. That other man, he better. I forget name of other man.” Pullini bent and swung his arms. His lips pouted. He frowned.
“Mr. Vleuten?”
“Yes. The monkeyman. He better. But he gone now. One time Francesco thinks maybe monkeyman he marries Mrs. Carnet and take business. Vleuten, he good businessman. Bergen, he sells, to anybody, any price. Like Francesco, but Francesco, he learns, he changes. Bergen, he never learns.”
They had arrived at the hotel. Pullini had puffed himself up again and was strutting around the car’s bumper, leading the way to the hotel. The commissaris followed slowly. Pullini waited.
“And Gabrielle Carnet, what do you think of her, Mr. Pullini?”
Pullini’s face fell. “Me, I don’t know Gabrielle. Francesco, he likes her. Gabrielle, she beautiful, yes?”
The commissaris nodded firmly. “Yes. She is.”
Pullini whistled. The butt of the small cigar the commissaris had given him rolled on his underlip. He scratched his nose.
“Now maybe Camet and Company finished.”
“Possibly.”
“Never mind. We find other company, Holland has many companies. Pullini furniture is good, good quality, good price. Maybe I go to Holland now. Set up own office. Find good Dutchman, good Dutchman he becomes manager. Holland has many good Dutchmen. Maybe you help me, yes? You and I, do a little business?”
The owner of the hotel had come into the street to meet Pullini and the two men embraced. The commissaris was introduced with a flourish and the owner took the overnight bag from Pullini’s hand. His bow to the commissaris showed servility, deep friendship, respect, and a great love. His smile flashed as he straightened up again. They were ushered into the building with another display of exuberant intimacy. The commissaris’s room on the second floor was large. It had a floor of marble slabs and deep windows, each window with its own vase holding matched bouquets of wildflowers. The owner pointed at the bed as if he wanted to excuse its poor appearance but the bed was big and sumptuous, with clean crisp sheets and a stack of downy pillows. The posts of the brass frame were crowned with white and blue ceramic balls.