The Corpse on the Dike

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “Nothing,” Cardozo said. “I have nothing. Do you have anything?”

  De Gier shook his head. “Let’s go. They’re starting another song about love over there and there’s another lot of dealers coming our way. If we keep on hanging about, the constables will arrest us for loitering. We stick out like blue herons in a crowd of ducks.”

  Cardozo giggled. “They wouldn’t arrest us. They know me. Two of them were at the police school with me. And I am not exactly a heron. You perhaps, especially in that blue denim suit. I look more like a bittern.”

  “A bittern?” de Gier asked. “Aren’t they the small fat birds that explode every now and then? You never see them but you hear them booming away in the marshlands. I heard one a few weeks ago when we were trying to locate a stolen river cruiser.”

  “They’re ugly birds,” Cardozo said.

  “Nature is never ugly,” de Gier said. “So you had no luck with the Arabs?”

  Cardozo burped. “I ate something,” Cardozo said. “Couscous they call it. It looks like brown semolina pudding and it’s hot. They serve it with meat. It’s still sitting in my stomach.”

  “And Sharif?”

  “They ran for the phone when I mentioned his name. I only mentioned it twice—in a Moroccan eating place and in a Lybian coffeehouse. They claimed they had never heard the name but in both instances I saw a man sneak to the telephone.”

  “Yes,” de Gier said thoughtfully, “the same happened to me. Only I didn’t eat couscous. They gave me a bit of goat’s leg with hairs on it and a half-cooked green pepper. I have eaten in Arab places before and the food was delicious. But this time I was treated like the enemy. Sharif must be a holy name to them—a head man who protects them—an idol perhaps. He became a millionaire and he has a white Lincoln and a driver. I think he is their self-respect.”

  “And if it is hurt they’ll gang up on us?”

  “They won’t say anything,” de Gier said. “They said nothing to you; they said nothing to me. A lot of them are illegal immigrants without any security. When we catch them we fly them straight back to wherever they came from. But sometimes they get help—someone pays a deposit for them while they apply for a visa. Sharif has a lot of money and he is a devout Moslem.”

  “So we can’t catch him?”

  De Gier suddenly stopped. They were in an alley behind the Dam square; it was a narrow alley and there wasn’t much light. Cardozo bumped into him.

  “Hey,” Cardozo said.

  “Of course we’ll catch him,” de Gier said. “We’ve had bad luck tonight but if we keep on trying we’ll have good luck as well. Sharif has had good luck but his luck will change too.”

  “Tonight?” Cardozo asked.

  “Tonight, or tomorrow night. Or next week some time.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I have no idea,” de Gier said, “but there’s a pub on the next comer. I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “No,” Cardozo said. “I have paid for your coffee and I’ve paid for your lunch. Don’t let me break the habit.”

  “All right,” de Gier said. “If you insist.”

  De Gier stared moodily at his glass.

  “Cheer up, sergeant. You remember about the good luck. It can come any moment now.”

  “Tell me a story,” de Gier said, “anything, provided it is funny.”

  “Finish your drink, sergeant, and I’ll buy you another one.”

  “Jenever isn’t funny.”

  “I know a story,” Cardozo said. “I told it to Adjutant Geurts once when we had a flat tire and were waiting for a truck to tow us away. The spare tire wasn’t in the car and the adjutant was upset. The story made him laugh. Maybe it’ll do something for you too.”

  De Gier raised his glass, drank its contents and held it up for more.

  “Last month,” Cardozo said, “there was a circus in town. They were parading the animals and the elephants were crossing a bridge. Traffic was congested as usual and a man in a VW was driving behind the last elephant, trying desperately to pass the cortege. He accelerated and turned his wheel but a truck was coming from the opposite direction and he had to go behind the elephant again. His foot slipped on the accelerator and the VW hit the elephant’s hind leg. Being a circus elephant whose trainer had taught him that he should sit down if his hind leg was touched in a special way, the elephant sat down, right on the VW’s nose.”

  “Ha,” de Gier said.

  “Yes. But the car was still usable. The man lives in Amsterdam North and he had to go through the big tunnel, the tunnel, so somebody told me, that you got yourself stuck in the other day. You had a lot of people with you and you ran out of petrol, didn’t you? Right in the middle of the tunnel?”

  “Yes,” de Gier said.

  “Ptetty silly, wasn’t it? Don’t you check your petrol gauge before you drive off?”

  “Yes, dear,” de Gier said. “Go on with your funny story.”

  “OK. So the man drove into the tunnel but there was an accident just before he drove in and both lanes were stopped. The police arrived and were walking up and down, writing reports on the damaged cars. It was a chain collision and some twenty cars were damaged. When they got to his car they couldn’t understand how it had got involved in the accident, since the car ahead and the car behind looked all right. But the VW was all crumpled up in front. They asked him what happened and he said an elephant had sat down on his hood.”

  “Ha.”

  “So they pulled him out of the car. They were pretty irritable already because of the heat and the noise in the tunnel and everybody running around shouting about their lovely cars all mucked up. And here was this boo-boo with his elephant joke. They put him on the back of a motorcycle, rushed him out of the tunnel and charged him with drunken driving. He had had a drink and smelled of alcohol.”

  “So?”

  “It ended all right. When they took him to the station he kept on insisting that there had been an elephant and that it had sat on his car. They all laughed but finally a constable came who had seen the elephants in town. They phoned the circus and the man’s story was confirmed.”

  De Gier laughed.

  “Let’s go,” Cardozo said; “I’ve had three drinks and I usually begin to get drunk on the fourth. When I have the fourth I go on and on. I’ll have a headache tomorrow.”

  “You want to go home?” de Gier asked.

  “No. Let’s look at the prostitutes for a while. There are some new ones around here. Some of these girls from Surinam are lovely. They are lit up by purple neon tubes and wear white lace.”

  They looked at the apparitions in the windows as they wandered about the red light district. They ate some meat rolls and drank coffee in a snackbar.

  Cardozo pointed at a narrow high gabled house opposite the snackbar. “That house has always irritated me. It’s been empty for years. We kept on warning the owner that the hippies would break into it, so they did of course and we couldn’t get them out.”

  “That’s the law,” de Gier said. “Shortage of houses. It’s the man’s own fault.”

  “I know but it’s a ridiculous law. The hippies were pushed out by the dealers and now it’s a true hell hole. When I was still in uniform I helped raid the house a few times. We found children in there—shot full of heroin—old men sleeping in their own shit, fifteen-year-old prostitutes a week out of Surinam, and sacks full of imitation hash, and stolen goods and anything you can name.”

  “Let’s have a look at it now,” de Gier said.

  They strolled over and saw a young girl standing in the door. They kept on walking.

  “Listen,” Cardozo said, “we have nothing to do anyway; let’s do something. I’ll go back alone and go in with the girl. One of my old mates was telling me that the house is used for robberies now. I think the girl is no prostitute but bait. In the clothes I’m wearing and with this bad haircut they may take me for a chappie from the country. I’ll put it on, country accent and all. There may be s
ome men in there who’ll hold a knife to my throat and go for my wallet. Come in a few minutes later and we’ll arrest the lot and take them to the station.”

  “OK,” de Gier said, “but it’s a big house; there may be a lot of people in it. I saw two plainclothes constables a minute ago; they’re just wandering about too. Let’s get them as well and go through the whole house.”

  They found the two constables, who grinned and said it was all right by them. They weren’t supposed to do any raiding that night but if the sergeant suggested it…

  “I suggest it,” de Gier said, and took Cardozo’s pistol and wallet.

  Cardozo walked up to the house while de Gier and the two constables waited around a corner.

  “Darling,” the girl said.

  Cardozo scratched his ear.

  “Good evening.”

  “Come in. Twenty-five guilders. I’ll strip naked for you and you do anything you like.”

  The girl was white, not yet twenty years old and dressed in a long skirt and white blouse with the top buttons undone. Her breasts were ripe and milky white. She stood so close to Cardozo that he could smell the mixture of sweat and perfume. She moved a little so that the split in her skirt opened and he could see her leg, right up to the top of her thigh. She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled. One of her front teeth was missing.

  “I have more than twenty-five guilders,” Cardozo said.

  “How much?”

  “A hundred.”

  “For a hundred you can stay all night. What would like me to do with you? Do you know any exciting tricks?”

  “All right, I’ll go with you,” Cardozo stuttered.

  “Come in, darling.”

  The men were waiting for him at the end of the corridor. One of them grabbed the small detective and hit him on the side of the head. It was a vicious blow that almost stunned him. He was pushed against the wall and a knife touched to his throat while hands quickly went through his pockets.

  “Shit,” a voice said. “He’s got nothing on him. Nothing! What do you mean coming in here with nothing on you, monkey? You want us to cut your balls off?”

  The knife now pressed against his throat with some force. Soon the skin would break.

  “Police!” There were running feet in the corridor. The knife clattered to the floor as the ghoul pulled back and crumpled up. De Gier had hit him with the flat of his hand just under the ear. The constables were after the other man and caught him as he tried to reach the courtyard. The two men were handcuffed together and to a gas tube. De Gier pressed Cardozo’s pistol into his hand and they ran up the stairs together.

  All the doors of the rooms upstairs were open except one and de Gier kicked it with such force that the lock fell out of the rotten wood. The door, slamming back, hit the young man standing behind it and pushed him to the floor. The girl was cowering in a corner. Another man was trying to climb out the window and a third, holding a pistol, faced the two detectives rushing at him. He dropped the pistol just before Cardozo reached him. De Gier pulled the other man back from the window by the collar of his jacket and slammed him against the wall.

  “Nice catch,” the desk sergeant said twenty minutes later at the Warmoes Street police station. “Very nice. Five hoodlums, one female lure, five knives and one alarm pistol. Why all the energy, de Gier? You think we can’t take care of our own district? The house was due to be raided anyway, you know.”

  “Sorry, sergeant,” de Gier said. “We were getting upset about never having anything to do.”

  “No,” the sergeant said. “Seriously, what caused all this; are you working on a special case?”

  “Wernekink’s death,” de Gier said. “The dead body on the dike in North. The case connects up with your district, we think.”

  “Nobody ever tells us anything.”

  “No time. Do you mind if I interrogate one of the suspects? Your constables can do the reports but perhaps there is something in it for us.”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re an Arab, aren’t you?” de Gier asked the suspect, a short thickset man some thirty years old. The man was massaging his neck where de Gier had hit him during the arrest.

  “Yes. Casablanca.”

  “Do you have a permit to stay in Holland?”

  “No.”

  “How come you speak Dutch?”

  “I have been here five years.”

  “Never caught before?”

  “Yes. They flew me back two years ago.”

  “And you came straight back?”

  The man smiled. “I was back before the military police who took me home got back to Schiphol airport. Came back on the next flight.”

  “You are in trouble now,” de Gier said, “real trouble. You put a knife on a policeman’s throat. Assault and robbery. And we’ll get you for pimping as well. And drugs. There are detectives in the house now, tearing it apart. They’ll find drugs, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’ll be in jail for a while, a long while.”

  The man’s smile had gone. He was staring at the floor. “How long, sir? How long will I be in?”

  De Gier gave the man a cigarette and lit it for him. They were in a small white-washed room, sitting in low easy chairs. Cardozo came in with three paper cups of coffee. A calendar on the wall opposite the window showed a color photograph of a forest.

  “Don’t know,” de Gier said. ‘Two years, three maybe, depends on you and on the judge.”

  “Let me go,” the man said. “I’ll go and I won’t come back this time, I promise. I haven’t harmed him.”

  He pointed at Cardozo. Cardozo felt his throat.

  “You almost did,” Cardozo said. “You were pressing that knife, you miserable sod. How many times did you use that knife on some fool that girl sucked into the house?”

  The man didn’t answer.

  “Well?” de Gier asked.

  “A few times.”

  “There have been complaints about the house, you know. We can find the people who complained and each victim will provide a separate charge. More time in jail.”

  “Do you know a man called Sharif? Mehemed el Sharif?”

  “Yes,” the man said.

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Very rich, very important, very powerful.”

  “You work for him?”

  “No.”

  “Tell us about him.”

  The man looked up. He was rubbing the side of his neck again.

  “You want me to fall into the canal? What do you want to know? And what do you do if I tell you?”

  “Where does he go at night? Who are his friends? Where do we find him when he is not at home and not in his office?”

  “What will you do for me when I tell you?”

  “I say,” Cardozo said, “the other men we caught in the house, are they Arabs?”

  “Dutch,” the man said, “and Spanish—two Dutch, two Spanish.”

  “You’re the only Arab, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll forget about the knife,” de Gier said, “and that’s a big favor. We never saw a knife. This knife.”

  He was holding up a stiletto and pressed the button. The long thin blade shot out.

  “That’ll save you some time in jail.”

  “Forget everything,” the man said, “and I’ll tell you how to catch Sharif. And give me money; I’ll need it. I can’t stay in Holland and I can’t go home. Sharif’s arm is too long. I’ll have to go to France and even in France I won’t be safe.”

  “No,” de Gier said. “We’ll forget the knife, that’s all. And Sharif will never know.”

  “He’ll know. I won’t tell.”

  “All right,” de Gier said and got up.

  “No,” the man said. “Wait!”

  De Gier and Cardozo waited. The man swallowed a few times. “There’s a club, a brothel. There’s some gambling too. Sharif doesn’t own the club but he goes there once a week
to meet some men who work for him. He’ll be there tomorrow night, at ten o’clock. They talk in a special room. Then the men drink and play with the whores and gamble. Sharif doesn’t drink but he plays with the women. He may stay until two o’clock.”

  “The address.”

  “Prince Alexander Street in South, number sixty-three; it’s a big house. Members only.”

  “Did you ever meet him there?”

  “No,” the man said. “I won’t say more. This is enough. If you tell Sharif I told you I am dead. Forget the knife and tell me your names. It’s a bad deal for me. I give more than I get.”

  “Sergeant de Gier,” de Gier said, “and Constable First-Class Cardozo. Headquarters. We’ll forget the knife and lose it; it won’t be in the report on you. Ask the sergeant to phone if you need us.”

  He got up and opened the door.

  A constable came and took the Arab away with him. The Arab didn’t look up. He was stumbling.

  “He’s scared,” de Gier said, “really scared.”

  “So was I,” Cardozo said, “when he had that knife on my throat. You took your time, didn’t you. And he was breathing garlic at me as well.”

  “Yes,” de Gier said. “I was telling the constables the story about your elephant. We laughed a lot and we almost forgot you.”

  13

  “THEY AREN’T HERE, SIR,” GRIIPSTRA SAID. “DE GIER phoned in this morning to say that he would arrive at eleven and Cardozo would also be late. They had some adventures last night, sir.”

  “What adventures?”

  Grijpstra told him what he knew. De Gier’s sleepy voice hadn’t given him more than a general outline and Oliver, who hadn’t been fed yet and was standing on de Gier’s chest, yowled through the conversation.

  “Hmm,” the commissaris said; “it sounds promising anyway. When they come in I’d like to see all of you.”

  The three detectives looked worn out when they finally arrived in the commissaris’ office at eleven-thirty. Grijpstra looked worse than the others. The birthday party at his sister-in-law’s hadn’t been a success. He had drunk his way through half a crate of beer while he watched funny men on the TV and listened to the political ideas of his brother-in-law. There had been a rip-roaring fight with his wife afterward, all the way home and another hour in the bedroom. And he had been sick. When it was all over and he finally reached his bed his wife had begun to snore and he got up again to look for his cigars. He stumbled and hurt his leg on the open door of the night table. The shin bled and the wound still worried him now. He was rubbing it.