Blond Baboon ac-6

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “Almost, sir, I can see the ferry sign, it should be just around the corner, and the village should be a few hundred yards farther down.”

  “Right. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Out.”

  Grijpstra replaced the microphone and turned to Gabrielle “You’ve had an exciting morning, Miss Carnet.”

  “It’s still going on.” She had used the time to adjust her make-up and comb her hair and seemed to have recovered some of her composure. “A real crisis, isn’t it? I never expected Bergen to lose himself so completely. He was a raving maniac when he attacked the baboon. I’d gone into the bathroom when the bell rang, but when I heard the shot…”

  Grijpstra mused. He remembered the young woman who had shot her husband. It had happened a few weeks before, early in the morning. Just after nine, he and de Gier had just gone out on their patrol and were waiting at the first traffic light. The couple was about to get divorced and the man had been ready to go to work when his wife shot him in the face, point-blank, with no more man a foot between the pistol’s muzzle and the man’s forehead. She had telephoned the police herself, and the detectives had arrived within a matter of minutes. The woman was crying when de Gier took the weapon out of her hand. A hopeless case. The couple had a little son, four years old, wandering about in the apartment. Father dead, mother in jail. They had taken the boy to the crisis center, he hadn’t dared to check what they had done with him. The crisis center wasn’t a good place to check with, its staff was continuously overworked. He hoped that the center had found good foster parents and that the boy wasn’t being shifted around.

  Gabrielle was talking and he forced himself to listen.

  “Was he really saved by that crazy contraption, miss?”

  Gabrielle kept her eyes on die Rolls’s rear bumper. “Yes, he must have been. The crazy skeleton, I knew it was mere. He never showed it to me but I pressed the cupboard’s button once, thinking it was a light switch, and I became hysterical when the horror lunged out at me. Crazy, like the baboon himself, Just look at mat car. There’s hardly any money, between his mortgage payments on his house and the rents he is collecting and he has to pay for the upkeep, mere are always lots of repairs. He is living on a few hundred guilders a month, but if he takes me out he won’t let me pay and we go to a sandwich bar somewhere and we sit in the front row of the cinema. But he runs a car like mat. When he can’t afford to pay for gas he takes the streetcar, often he walks.”

  “Doesn’t he sell boats?”

  She shrugged. There isn’t much profit in that, either. I wish he’d come back and work for us, he could have a good income and he’d be worth it too.”

  The Rolls had parked near the ruins of a mill, and the baboon and de Gier were walking to a small brick building almost hidden under a patched thatch roof. Grijpstra squeezed the Volkswagen between the Rolls and a tree.

  A hunchbacked man behind the bar was pumping four beers and listening to de Gier at the same time.

  “Yes,” he said, deftly wiping the beer’s foam into the counter’s small sink, “he was here. About an hour ago. Had a few beers and drank them through a straw. First time I’ve ever seen beer drunk through a straw.”

  “Was he talking to himself?”

  “No. He was quiet. I’ve seen him here before. A well-behaved gentleman, but he looked somewhat scruffy today. Out on a binge, is he?”

  “Yes. Where would he be now?”

  “Should I tell you?”

  De Gier produced his police card, and the man took a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles from a drawer. He studied the card and tugged on die end of his scraggly mustache. “Police, hmm. Never see police here except the local constable and he’s my brother. Nice job if you can avoid the poachers but he can do it. You’ll be different, I suppose.”

  Grijpstra drank his beer and die hunchback left the bar and peered through a side window. That’s his car, I think, so he can’t be far. Seems he wanted to hide it, you can’t see it from the road.”

  The baboon came to life at his end of the bar. There’s a cemetery close by, I remember. Where is it again, not far, is it?”

  “Out the front door, turn right, first path on your right again, and you’ll walk straight into it.”

  De Gier paid and they left the pub, but Grijpstra paused at the door. “It would be better if you stayed here, miss.”

  “No.”

  “Stay here,” the baboon said. Gabrielle took a deep breath, but the men were out on the dike and the door had closed in her face.

  The sun hung under a ragged edge of heavy clouds and its filtered light seemed to deepen the green of the grasslands all around them. A herd of spotted, light-colored cows was grazing close to the fence and a flock of unusually neat-looking sheep was moving away on the other side of the path.

  “An experimental state farm,” the baboon said. “I remember Bergen telling me about it. They have imported types of cattle here, special breeds. Bergen seemed to know all about the farm. I remember because he had never expressed any interest in anything that wasn’t furniture. He was a different man out here.”

  A falcon hung above the field, whizzing its wings, its stiff pure white tailfeathers sticking out like a miniature fan.

  The baboon pointed. “Hie cemetery. There’s no cover here, he’ll be able to see us coming.”

  Cartridges clicked into the chambers of the policemen’s pistols. De Gier had taken the lead, sprinting toward a high gravestone so old that its writing had been eaten away by the weather and overgrown by thick, bristly lichen. The first shot rang out as he reached the stone, and Grijpstra and the baboon dropped into the grass on the sides of the path.

  “Bergen!” Grijpstra’s booming voice reached into the depth of the soundless cemetery that stretched away from mem, aloofly tolerating their intrusion.

  “Bergen! Come out of there! We’re here to help you. You have misunderstood Dr. Havink. There’s nothing the matter with you, Bergen. Come out and let us talk to you.” Grijpstra’s voice, even with all the air in his lungs behind it, sounded calm and reassuring, but the cows, pushing each other behind a duckweed-covered ditch, mooed mournfully and offset his message. Grijpstra gestured at the baboon. The baboon pushed himself up.

  “Down! Stay down there. You’ll only be in our way and you are wounded already. Get those cows to shut up.”

  The baboon crawled back and jumped across the ditch. The cows were still jostling each other, trying to see what was going on, and he grabbed the biggest one by the horns and pushed. The cow didn’t move. His attempts startled a pair of peewits that flew up from behind a cluster of swamp reeds, calling shrilly.

  Grijpstra got up, ran, and dropped behind a tombstone crowned by three miniature angels that had once played trumpets but were now staring sadly at their broken arms. The closest angel had lost both its nose and chin and weeds were crawling up its chubby legs. Grijpstra peered around the legs.

  “Bergen! You’re all right. You only have palsy, no tumor. You hear! No tumor. There has been a mistake. Bergen!”

  The cows mooed again furiously, irritated by the baboon, who was still shoving their leader.

  “Palsy,” Grijpstra shouted. “It will go away by it-”

  There was another shot, mis time aimed at de Gier, who had left his gravestone and was without cover as he jumped to the next. He dropped as die shot cracked, and the bullet whistled away in the general direction of the cows.

  “Fool!” Grijpstra roared and de Gier looked around, waving a weed with small pink flowers that he had picked from a spot where the stone had powdered away so that nature could reassert itself. He was close enough to be able to speak to Grijpstra in a normal voice.

  “You know what this is?”

  “Keep your cover.”

  Thousand-guilder weed, Grijpstra, Centawium erythraea, one of the very few I know by its Latin name. Fairly rare, I believe, but it grows near the streetcar stop and I took some to the city’s botanical garden the other day. Amazing, don’t you thin
k? It grows all over the place here.”

  “De Gier,” Grijpstra said pleadingly, “he must be close. It’s hard to hear where the shot came from. These stones echo, I think, but he must be over mere.”

  “Where?”

  “There, near that damned prick.”

  “Prick?”

  Grijpstra was pointing at a heavily ornamented phallus, sprouting a poll of withered grass on its crumbling extremity. It was nearly six feet high and throned on a huge granite slab.

  De Gier moved and drew another shot. They heard the bullet’s dull impact where it hit the earth; a tufted reed sagged and broke with a snap as the tuft touched the ground.

  “How many bullets left?” de Gier asked.

  “One for the baboon, three for us, two left.”

  “Can I move again-we’ll have to draw the other two-or do you want to sit here all day?”

  Grijpstra picked up a rock and threw it at a patch of dandelions that brightened a complicated ruin of several tombs that had tumbled together. The revolver cracked again.

  “Bergen! Stop making an ass of yourself. We won’t charge you, just get out of there. You’re safe. We want to help you.”

  “Let me be!” Bergen’s voice was high-pitched, hysterical with fear and rage.

  “No, you’re being senseless.”

  Several cows mooed simultaneously. Grijpstra tried to move and slipped; his face fell into a patch of raw earth and he sat up, spitting out dirt. He saw de Gier take aim carefully, supporting his right arm with his left. The pistol’s bark was sharp and was followed immediately by the heavier retort of the revolver.

  “Got him,” de Gier shouted, “in the arm. And he’s out of bullets. Come on, Grijpstra.”

  They ran but Grijpstra stumbled, and de Gier stopped to help him. They reached Bergen in time to see him press the revolver against his temple. They were both shouting but the shot drowned their words. Bergen’s head snapped to the side as if it had been bit by a sledgehammer, and his body tumbled against the phallus and slid down slowly until it rested on the grave’s rubble. A small pile of cartridges had been stacked neatly into a cavity on the gravestone’s surface.

  De Gier took out his hankerchief and manipulated Bergen’s revolver so that its chamber became detached. Its compartments were empty except for one. He closed the gun again and let the hand drop back.

  “He just had enough time to slip in one more cartridge.”

  “Yes,” Grijpstra said. “If I hadn’t stumbled we would have got him in time. What a mess.” He pointed at die blood seeping out of the corpse’s head. It was trickling off the stone and mixing with another little stream pouring out of the man’s arm. De Gier looked away. Grijpstra replaced his pistol into the holster on his belt and stretched. His back ached. It was very hot, and he thought of the cool pub on the dike and the cold beer that its polished barpump would splash into a polished glass.

  When he turned he saw the commissaris running up the path, and he waved and shouted. The commissaris was supporting himself on a cane with a metal handle; he limped as he ran.

  “Don’t run, sir, it’s all over.”

  The baboon had jumped back across the ditch and was moving through the fallen gravestones, waddling on his short legs. He reached the corpse at the same time as the commissaris.

  “We tried to draw his fire, sir, and rushed him when we were sure the revolver was empty. De Gier had put a bullet in bis right arm so we were doubly sure. But he had extra ammunition and he used his left hand.”

  The commissaris had knelt down and was examining Bergen’s head. “Pity,” he said quietly. “The skull must be badly damaged on the inside.”

  “He is quite dead, I think, sir.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s clear. Dead. But there’s something else, this case goes on, adjutant. Well, never mind. I’ll mink of something, but it’s a pity about the skull.”

  \\ 21 /////

  De Giers balcony door was open and the Commissaris was sitting close to it, peering contentedly at his mug. De Gier faced him. He was coming to the end of his flute solo, a sixteenth-century drinking song, full of trills and quick runs and occasional short intervals of almost mathematical precision. Grijpstra, his bristly mustache white with beer from, was rubbing Tabriz’s belly, smiling at the cat’s droopy look of complete surrender. Cardozo was stretched out on the floor, his head resting on a small cushion propped on a stack of books.

  De Gier lowered his flute. The commissaris inclined his head and applauded briefly. “Very good. Get him another beer, Grijpstra. Pity you couldn’t bring your drums, it’s been a long time since I heard you play together.”

  Grijpstra lumbered into the kitchen and came back holding a fresh bottle. De Gier poured the beer, spilling a little. “I won’t be able to play anymore, sir, the neighbors will be at my throat tomorrow.”

  Grijpstra had brought in another bottle but the commissaris shook his head. “I would like to, adjutant, but it’s getting late, my wife’ll be expecting me. Cardozo, how do you feel?”

  Cardozo’s eyes opened. He seemed to be thinking. The commissaris smiled. “Go back to sleep. I don’t think either of us should drive.”

  It was past midnight. The lights in the park behind de Gier’s apartment building had been switched on sometime before but the opaque white disks, spread among the willows and poplars, couldn’t compete with the moon. The apartments around had gone to rest, and there were no sounds except an occasional rumbling from the boulevard on the other side of the building and the confused squeaking of a group of starlings that hadn’t found the right tree for the night yet.

  “We’ll take a taxi. You can drive the Citroen to headquarters tomorrow, sergeant,” the commissaris said firmly. “One of my colleagues got arrested for drunken driving last week. It reminded me how vulnerable we are.”

  “A brandy, sir?”

  De Gier had struggled to his feet and was groping about behind his books. His hand came back holding a crystal decanter. Grijpstra’s heavily lidded eyes were watching him.

  “Just a nip, that would be very nice.”

  “A bad case,” the commissaris said a little later. “But it’s over and done with now. I didn’t like it. There was too much pettiness in it.”

  Grijpstra stirred. There was a vague note of admonition in his voice. “We did have the baboon in it, sir.”

  The commissaris raised a finger. “Indeed. Its one ray of illumination, and he stayed true to type until the very end, you know…” He looked at the balcony. Cardozo had begun to snore softly, but his cushion slipped away, and he woke up and pushed it back.

  The commissaris sipped his brandy thoughtfully. “You know, I thought he would give in and I didn’t want him to give in. The baboon was drifting into a perfect, happy ending.”

  The commissaris giggled. “But he smartly stepped aside. Good for him. Happy endings are always so sad. I even thought so when I was a little boy and my mother would read fairy tales to me. I would cry when the princes married the princesses and settled down in the beautiful palaces. Whatever were they going to do forever after? Watch football or cartoons? Play cards? But the stories didn’t tell, they didn’t dare to, of course. Just suppose that the baboon would marry Gabrielle and move into mat splendid home on the Mierisstraat with the sheik’s tent upstairs. Just imagine.”

  He put the brandy snifter down and brought out bis handkerchief, wheezing into it energetically. “Our baboon, spending his nights on Gabrielle’s couch while the young lady gradually sucks his soul away, wasting his days back in the furniture business, lodged safely in Bergen’s office, swiveling around on the president’s chair, taking care of things.”

  “The Carnet Company will probably have to declare bankruptcy,” Grijpstra said tonelessly, as if he were reading from a report.

  “Oh, yes. Unless they have somebody on their staff who can take over, but that’s rather doubtful. Or Gabrielle… no. I don’t mink she can do it. But the baboon can, easily. And he would be rich too, I do
n’t think he would need more than a few years to get the company back on its feet and the bank would be sure to back him. Remember what Bergen told us? The bank liked the baboon.”

  “Why do you think the baboon refused to become the company’s president, sir?” De Gier’s voice was flat too.

  “The opposite, dear boy.” the commissaris said. “The opposite. Surely you’ve noticed.” The commissaris blinked and took off his spectacles. “You must have noticed. You are leading an old man on. Or do you want me to confirm what you have already concluded yourself?”

  “Please confirm it, sir.”

  “What would the average man do if something frightened him? He would run away, wouldn’t he? He would prefer to get away from whatever was causing him pain or anxiety. And if he could get hold of it he would try to kill it, or hide it somewhere deep in his mind so that he couldn’t get close to it again, and so that it wouldn’t be able to get at him. But the baboon recreated what he feared and kept his enemies in easily accessible places, on the wall of his apartment and in the cupboard. He set up his fear in such a way that it could charge him. You saw the rat’s tail hanging out of that painting, de Gier. You must have, for you are frightened of rats yourself. Would you have a painting of a rat in here? And would you make it more gruesome by allowing the hellish fiend to let his tail hang out, right into the intimacy of your home?”

  De Gier’s face didn’t move. His large eyes were staring at the commissaris.

  “No. Don’t answer me, you don’t have to. We are discussing the baboon. He likes to do the opposite of what seems to be expected of him, and perhaps he evades the trap that way. He accepted neither Elaine’s nor Gabrielle’s offer. And yet he had worked for the Carnet ladies for ten years, had been their chief salesman and their close friend, their lover even. They were offering him the whole caboodle, lock, stock, and barrel, with themselves thrown in. And Gabrielle’s offer was even better than her mother’s had been, for she is an attractive young woman.”