The Hollow-Eyed Angel ac-13

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "Nothing out-of-the-way about that," Joop said. "Holland is rich so we Dutch can travel. New York welcomes big spenders. Six jumbos a day on the transatlantic route. 'Step right up, step right up.'" He made inviting gestures. "We're bound to stumble into each other in Central Park."

  "Did that poor man survive?" Sara asked. "He seemed to be feeling very bad. The horse kicked him, you know. There he was, spinning and turning. And that uniformed hussy just rode off."

  "Uniformed hussy," Grijpstra said. "What uniformed hussy would that be?"

  "The policewoman," Sara said. "We had been watching the poor man for a while, you see. So had she. From high up on her huge horse."

  "Well," Joop said, "that's what you thought, Sara. We can't know for sure. She was wearing sunglasses."

  "To answer your question," Grijpstra said, "yes, the old man died. He was found in the azalea bushes the next morning. So the police horse kicked him?"

  "Just a little," Sara said. "There was a lot going on. They had a big balloon beast going up for the kids, on the meadow, some kind of dinosaur."

  "Tyrannosaurus rex," Joop said. "Enormous. Made from multicolor balloons stuck together."

  "And there was a jazz group playing, on a big bandstand."

  "Don't underestimate jazz," said Joop. "Even if I collect classical myself I admit that jazz is a superior art form." He looked at de Gier.

  De Gier nodded.

  "We had been listening to the music," Sara said. "And watching all the costumed people. There was a contest going on. Look-alikes of famous movie characters. Madonna in garters. Monroe pretending her skirt was caught in a draft. Marlon Brando dancing the last tango. Yves Montand being seduced by Catherine Deneuve."

  "Mayor Koch was one of the judges," Joop said. "Odd-looking man but his speech was funny."

  "But this man you came about," Sara said. "He was the most impressive. He reminded me of a professor I had when I was studying interior decoration in Utrecht."

  "He wasn't part of the contest, was he?"

  Sara seemed sure. "Oh no, not at all."

  "I can see you are an interior decorator, that you are visually perceptive," Grijpstra said, looking about the apartment, noting open spaces and a different way of lighting. "Could you describe the man, please?"

  "A tall majestic old man wearing plus fours," Sara said. "Like mountaineers do. Old-fashioned trousers that tie up half-way between knee and ankle. And a waistcoat and jacket, all dark brown tweed, a matching outfit. White shirt, buttoned down. Plaid tie. Long white beard. High forehead. Sharp nose. Bushy eyebrows. Lovely blue eyes. Polished boots and cream woolen stockings. A full head of hair."

  "Sara loves hairy types," Joop said. "He struck me as a performer. He was standing absolutely still when Sara first saw him, but I had noticed the fellow before. He was skipping about then, an unlikely thing for a sage to do."

  "Where was I," Sara asked, "when he skipped?"

  "Going kootchy-coo at a baby."

  "A sage?" Grijpstra asked.

  "A kind of Voltaire type. You've heard of Voltaire?" Joop asked. "He had that sort of world-waking aura, but he looked rather like George Bernard Shaw. You've heard of George Bernard Shaw?"

  Grijpstra looked at de Gier.

  De Gier nodded.

  "Yes," Grijpstra said. "He looked like them, did he?"

  "Upper-class prophet," Sara said. "That's what he seemed like to me. Not crazy looking, but decent. After the skipping he stood at a crossing-still, like a statue, on one leg, leaning forward. Posing, in an exaggerated attitude, for effect. Very startling. You couldn't help noticing the man, and wondering what he was up to."

  "Kids went over and touched him," Joop said. "Making sure he was real." He nodded. "Excellent performer. A showman. You know?"

  "And then we became aware of the mounted cop, also watching him," Sara said. "Mounted cops look nice in America. Not operatic-looking, like here. No long coats and stupid hats. In America their wear blue helmets. And that policewoman had a long ponytail. She wore a smart uniform. Dark riding pants, a blue starched shirt. A lot of leather. High boots. Belt."

  "Nice-Nazi," Joop said. "Gun belt with hardware, complete, all the sidearms and a two-way radio with waving antenna. Like in Star Wars. I liked those films," Joop said. "I don't like the police myself, of course. They're all fascists, you know. Will do anything when ordered. Like in the war when they picked up my parents. Dutch cops did that, because the Germans said to take all Jews to the railway station. If I hadn't been playing outside they would have kicked me into a boxcar too. To gas me in Treblinka."

  "Yes," Grijpstra said.

  "Nothing personal," Joop said. "Obedience to authority goes with being human. We like to follow orders. Gets us up in the morning. We like violence too. Now there are Jewish police on the West Bank and in Gaza. Doing the same thing. Then that will turn around and they'll be beating us up again." Joop smiled, impressed with the exactitude of his argument. "Maybe humanity can evolve though? Suddenly twist its genes and become a new species?"

  "Joop," Sara warned.

  "So the Central Park female police officer on horseback caused her mount to kick Termeer?" Grijpstra asked. "That was his name, by the way, the name of the man you call a prophet. She attacked Bert Termeer, using her horse as a weapon?"

  "No," Joop said. "That's to say, not on purpose. This Termeer was standing still, like a statue of someone, about to take off at speed, and then suddenly he did. He leaped onto the path, to start skipping again-the other part of his act-and the horse reared and its hoof struck him."

  "The policewoman ignored that?" Grijpstra asked. "She rode off? Left the scene of an accident without taking proper action?"

  "No," Sara said. "She dismounted and asked him if he was okay. He said he was, and then she rode off. But he wasn't okay. Soon after that the man-Mr. Termeer- started reeling and swaying. We helped him over to a bench. The policewoman was still in view, riding about in the meadow where the people were bopping to jazz from the bandstand. When we started yelling and waving, she came back and got nasty."

  "Ordered us 'on our way,'" Joop said. "We're not the kind of people that can be ordered around, you know. We complained about her. Left our card at the Park Precinct."

  "Of course," Sara said, "we didn't expect to get any response."

  "You didn't get the messages the NYPD left on your machine?" Grijpstra said.

  Sara blushed.

  "Before we went on our trip I bought a new answering machine," Joop said. "When we came home Sara pressed the wrong button and erased everything. So this gentleman-Termeer-died, did he? What of, do you know?"

  "Maybe a heart attack," Grijpstra said. "The body was found in some azalea bushes, dressed in rags, partly covered by a filthy blanket. Animals had consumed some of the corpse. Mr. Termeer's dentures were found at a distance from the body." The adjutant produced the faxed NYPD report and accompanying photograph, which had come through fairly clearly. Then he folded the papers and put the photo back in his inside jacket pocket. "I don't think you want to see this."

  Joop was quiet. Sara poured more coffee.

  "Termeer wasn't having a heart attack," Joop said while he passed around nonpareils. "Not when we saw him. I have had two heart attacks myself. He didn't seem to have a headache, wasn't feeling his neck, there was nothing wrong with his left arm, none of the well-known symptoms. He was just dazed, but after we helped him sit down I'm sure he felt much better."

  "Were there any other people around?" Grijpstra asked.

  Nobody. By then, both Lakmakers stated, events in the meadow were in full swing: The balloon dinosaur was being launched, the jazz band was playing.

  '"When the Saints Go Marching In,'" Joop said.

  The look-alikes and wannabes were lining up for their contest. There was nobody else at the crossing where Termeer, cared for by the Lakmaker couple, was recuperating from shock.

  Grijpstra seemed ready to leave the Lakmakers' residence when de Gier took over. "Why,"
he asked Joop, "did you pay so much attention to this, this George Bernard Shaw type?"

  "You don't know about George Bernard Shaw," Joop said. "How could you, policeman? What is your rank?"

  "Yes," Grijpstra looked at de Gier. "George Bernard Who?"

  Grijpstra looked at Joop. "De Gier is a sergeant."

  "The sergeant reads a lot," Grijpstra told Sara. "Without using dictionaries. It takes him a few years to pick up a language. He likes languages, you see."

  "You graduated from a grammar school?" Joop asked de Gier. "Wouldn't that qualify you for academic study? Shouldn't you be an inspector then, or a lieutenant or something?"

  It took a while for de Gier to get the witnesses to confirm that Termeer had made an extraordinary impression. It wasn't just being good Samaritans, for they weren't, both Sara and Joop admitted. In New York they had stepped over homeless people, ignored beggars, walked away from traffic accidents. And it wasn't just New York-they would do that anywhere. At the most they would "alert the authorities," but the authorities, in Termeer's case, were right there. So when Bert Termeer was sent reeling by the policewoman's horse, the couple interfered for other reasons.

  "Because you were upset with the authorities?" de Gier asked.

  Joop was willing to go along with that, as an easy way out, but Sara said she wanted to be honest.

  The interrogation continued. Honest is nice. De Gier was smiling at Sara. He liked her.

  "No," Sara confessed. Now that she was old and retired and more able to watch the human situation as is she no longer felt much pity. Her sense of duty was way down too. If a man gets hurt by the police there is little one can do. She did do that little, by complaining about the policewoman at the Central Park Precinct, but normally she wouldn't have done that either. Certainly not in America where she happened to be as a tourist.

  So what was abnormal? Why did Sara Lakmaker involve herself with a man she had already called prophet-like, philosopher-like, Shaw- and/or Voltaire-like0…

  "Who is Voltaire?" Grijpstra asked de Gier. "One of your nihilists again?"

  De Gier didn't think so. "Voltaire insisted on being rich; it guaranteed his independence."

  "A benevolent atheist," Joop said, "who abhorred useless punishment."

  "The sergeant likes the idea of Nothing," Grijpstra told the Lakmakers. "He lives in an empty apartment and he doesn't have a car. He does buy clothes, though. Has them made. But he doesn't have many."

  "Are you married?" Joop asked de Gier.

  "He is not," Grijpstra said.

  "Ever been married?"

  "That wouldn't be consistent with his insight, would it now?" Grijpstra asked.

  "You have a dog?"

  "He lives with a cat," Grijpstra said.

  "You really have no car?"

  "Never," Grijpstra said.

  "I did own an orange Deux Chevaux once," de Gier said, "but it was stolen."

  "But he doesn't have a TV," Grijpstra said.

  "And he doesn't talk much," Joop told his wife. "The fat policeman does that for him."

  Grijpstra looked at Joop.

  "Pordy," Joop said, patting his own protruding stomach. "I am sorry, policeman."

  "Joop," warned Sara.

  "So you like the idea of Nothing?" Joop asked de Gier. "You want to own Nothing or you want to be Nothing?"

  De Gier was still chewing on his nonpareil.

  "The sergeant wants to be Nothing," Grijpstra said. "But he can't tell you that because then he makes Something out of Nothing. We often discuss that apparent controversy. I always get tangled up."

  "You would," Joop said.

  "Joop," Sara warned.

  "I'm sorry," Joop said. He smiled apologetically. "I would like to belong to Nothing too. That's why I refused to wear a star as a kid, even in spite of my parents, who said that I should, because the German Nazis were It then, and if It tells you to wear a star then you do that. But I didn't so I was Nothing, and I was playing outside, and that's why I am still Something today."

  "So," de Gier said, "you felt attracted to this Bert Termeer, the man who was found in rags in Central Park, partly eaten by animals, under a filthy blanket."

  "He seemed like a kind of prophet," Sara Lakmaker said.

  "You like prophets?"

  Sara did.

  Perhaps, Grijpstra suggested on the way home to Amsterdam, with rain slapping against the windscreen, Sara had prolonged the interview because she felt attracted to handsome de Gier. Maybe Sara didn't want the sergeant to go as yet. De Gier shrugged that away. "Why not allow Mrs. Lakmaker to be nice?"

  Grijpstra wouldn't do that.

  Chapter 6

  The commissaris didn't have a good night physically, although mentally he qualified the episode as exciting. He was up a lot, with bathroom problems. He kept his headache down with the generic painkiller. He drank his cold tea, wondered whether he should disturb Room Service, emptied out the nonalcoholic contents of his small refrigerator. He did get some sleep but the long-legged streetcar driver kept appearing. In spite of what he had told Katrien, the recurring dream had definite sexual aspects, although he hardly felt aroused. The Angel of Death's hollow eye sockets might have put him off. He whimpered himself awake, tried to remember the dream's details, but they mostly slipped away. Frustrated, he found himself padding about barefoot on the thick Oriental carpet, hoping for daylight. Stopping at the suite's picture windows he could see shadowy figures moving in the park below, derelicts searching garbage cans for food. He told himself things could be worse, got back into bed and drank more soda.

  He got up at nine o'clock; the "Modes of Death" lecture wasn't till eleven. The Cavendish's breakfast room was inviting enough, with a complete buffet, the fragrance of fresh rolls, a display of smoked fish, flowers everywhere, a marble fountain sprinkling in a corner, but he went out anyway, clasping his cane. A walk would do him good. He limped along, the pain in his hipbones dulled by codeine.

  Thrushes sang as he found a restaurant off Madison Avenue, Le Chat Complet. He was feeling bad again. The restaurant occupied a basement with high narrow windows. Three tall black men with shaven skulls, wearing identical red jackets and red butterfly ties on impeccable white shirts, busied themselves behind the counter. They hummed as they filled orders shouted by waitresses darting about between the tables. The feet of passersby were visible in the high windows, occasionally the feet and legs of dogs. When a complete cat showed itself the cooks broke out into song.

  "Le chat complet…"

  There was also instrumentation: percussion on cowbells and what sounded like a sock cymbal, hidden under the counter. One of the cooks, in between breaking eggs and spearing sausages, played the xylophone on a row of labelless bottles.

  The commissaris, waiting for his order of French toast and bacon, a menu item discovered during a previous visit to the USA (he also asked for fries, a potato dish he had tried to get Katrien to make, but she couldn't), compared the model in a painting with a little old lady bustling about the restaurant. The painting, three by four feet, dominated the cellar. It showed a naked black woman, in her thirties, with large firm breasts, reclining on a cane couch under palm trees. The woman was about to bite into a red apple. A black dog stared up at her. A blood red tongue lolled out of the dog's mouth. There were purple mountains in the background of the painting.

  The commissaris was sure the old lady refilling coffee cups all over the restaurant was an older version of the luscious woman in the painting. Even in her white apron and red butterfly necktie she showed the same immoral attitude, an irresistible abandon, as in her earlier projection. He wondered where the painted scene was set.

  "Haiti," the little old lady said when she came by to check his tea. "We from Haiti. The country. La campagne." She bent down to peer at his cup. "What you do to your tea?"

  The painting had required all the concentration he had been able to muster for he had put both lemon and milk in his tea. The resulting fluid curdled in hi
s mug.

  "Stupide," the woman said. "Mamere bring you fresh tea. No charge. Because this my restaurant and you are stupide."

  The commissaris took his time over breakfast. The cellar filled up and he had to share his table. He hoped that another cat would set off the jazzy musical he had enjoyed before. No cat showed.

  An unmarked police car driven by Sergeant Hurrell picked him up at the Cavendish and dropped him off at One Police Plaza in what, considering the distance and heavy traffic, seemed a surprisingly short time. Hurrell, who had guided the commissaris into the rear seat of the car, evidently wasn't looking for talkative company. He drove silently, scowling at black or turbaned cab drivers who wiggled fingers at him and smiled. Apparently there was a way for the drivers to recognize Hurrell's car as police. The commissaris cleared his throat and was about to ask for an explanation when Hurrell looked at his passenger via his mirror. "It's the type of antennae we use. Or maybe they can smell me."

  In the reception hall there were speeches and coffee. The commissaris recognized colleagues from European countries. He waved and shook hands. German heels clicked. French hands flourished. A British detective chief smiled affably. Only the American hosts wore uniforms.

  Dr. Russo was a handsome slim man who looked like he worked out regularly. His lecture was enthusiastic. Gory slides illustrated his subjects. The first slide showed a skull with a ragged hole in it. Russo explained that the human remnant was found in a pit dug to hold pillars that would support yet another super-tall building. The hole indicated foul play. "Someone bashed our friend," Russo said happily, "but he did so a very long time ago. My guess is four hundred years. We found other skulls nearby- keepsakes dating back to Indian executions."

  There was the same picture, but now in color, and showing more detail, that the commissaris had faxed to his assistants in Amsterdam and that Adjutant Grijpstra, after deliberation, had not shown to Sara. The commissaris, studying the way the Central Park animals had consumed all of the belly, the genitals and part of the upper thighs, reflected on the unacceptability of identifying human existence with the body. Could this mess be what we are?