“Headquarters, Three-fourteen.”
“Headquarters,” the imperturbable female voice said.
“An emergency. We are on the Amsteldijk and a suspect has just got away in a motor launch. Could you locate the nearest water police vessel and connect me directly?”
“Understood. Wait.”
Grijpstra counted. Eleven seconds. A very long time.
He looked back at the river and saw the sergeant’s head and one of his feet appear above the quayside. The head was crowned with a garland of waterweeds, the foot trailed an unidentified object attached, apparently, to some wire.
“Water police, what can we do for you?”
“Where are you?”
“Amstel River, about to go under the Thin Bridge, heading north.”
'Turn around and go as far as the Berlaghe Bridge, stop on the northwest side, and we’ll come aboard. Adjutant Grijpstra and Sergeant de Gier. Our suspect has got away in a white launch, going south.”
“We can be at the Berlaghe Bridge in about five minutes.”
“See you there. Out.”
Five minutes, Grijpstra thought, an eternity. Anything can happen in five minutes. But a more cheerful thought interfered with his despair. The white launch had a fairly long stretch of river ahead, a stretch without any side escapes. They might just cut him off, the police boat would be faster than the old-fashioned launch. He slid into the Volkswagen and started its engine, which spluttered to life obediently. His stubby index finger pressed the siren into its first wail of terror. The Volkswagen’s front tires squealed through a short U-turn and brought the car on a collision course with de Gier, who came running, leaving a trail of dripping slime.
Grijpstra leaned over and opened the passenger door.
“Shit,” de Gier said as the car leaped off. “The bastard! Did you see what he did? He pushed the boat’s gear forward and opened the throttle at the exact moment I jumped. I was lucky I fell free, I might have cracked my leg on his tiller.”
“I saw it.” Grijpstra grunted compassionately.
“And he was smiling, the bloody oaf. I know now why he is called the baboon. Did you see his face?”
Grijpstra had seen the face, split under the flat nose and the low forehead, split into a wide scowl of strong white teeth. The man did indeed look like an ape, a large powerful ape, but not a dangerous ape. Grijpstra’s first impression had been quite positive. Yet what the suspect had just done belied the friendliness that Grijpstra had seen in the man’s unusual, misshapen face.
The adjutant thought back as the Volkswagen careened through the Amsteldijk’s traffic, overtaking cars that veered to the side as the siren howled on. De Gier had found a parking place right in front of Vleuten’s house, a tall house, seven stories high, reaching for the overcast sky with the perfect double curve of its ornamental gable topped by a large plaster ball that in turn carried a spike. An ancient Rolls-Royce was parked half on the street, half on the sidewalk, and they had taken a minute to admire the vehicle before climbing the stone steps leading to the house’s green-lacquered front door. De Gier was about to press the top bell, which said “Jan Vleuten,” when a shout nailed them from the river and they had seen a man waving. The man stood on the cabin of an old-fashioned motor launch, painted bright white.
“I am Vleuten,” die baboon shouted. “Do you want me?”
When they got to the launch the baboon stood near his tiller, holding the boat’s painter, which had been swung around a large cleat on the quayside in a loose loop.
“Police,” de Gier had said, squatting down to show his identification.
And while the baboon read de Gier’s identification Grijpstra had formed his happy thoughts. A nice man, strange-looking for sure, but nice. And well dressed, in a thick white seaman’s jersey that set out his wide chest. Light blond glossy hair caught under a small cap, the visor bent up. Long hair still showing the marks of a comb. Large calm blue eyes, very long arms that contrasted with the short legs. The body of an ape harboring the soul of an intelligent, kindly man. What had struck Grijpstra most, apart from the man’s receding forehead and the absence of neck so that the head rested immediately on the potent torso, were Vleuten’s arms. He remembered the large apes he had seen in the zoo and in films and how they walked, swinging, resting not only on their feet but equally on the knuckles of their hands. It seemed to him that Vleuten would walk the same way, and he was waiting for an opportunity to confirm his thought when de Gier’s identification card was thrown onto the quay and the launch pulled away at full speed.
“Did you pick up your card?”
“Of course.”
He still couldn’t understand the suspect’s response to their polite approach.
“Police?” The baboon had a good voice, deep and quiet.
“Yes, Mr. Vleuten. I am a CID sergeant. My colleague and I would like to ask a few questions.”
The baboon had taken the card, a respectable weapon in their continuous warfare on crime-the police badge, the state’s authorization decorated with the red, white, and blue of the flag of the Netherlands, an authorization that legalizes police officers to bother citizens, for their own sake, the sake of peace, and the maintenance of the rules of peace. And the fellow had actually had the audacity to throw the card on the street.
“You aren’t worried about that damned card, are you?” de Gier asked. “What about me? Look at me!”
“You are wet,” Grijpstra said pleasantly.
“Wet! I am probably poisoned. I swallowed some of that liquid shit they keep in the canals these days. I could have got killed on some of that garbage that floats around. I could have got drowned! You didn’t even trouble yourself to see what had happened to me. All you were concerned about was your fucking radio.”
“Now, now.”
“But I still have my card, that’s all the adjutant wants to know.”
“You can swim,” Grijpstra said, “and I would have worried about you but I saw you climbing out. And here we are.”
“Wherer
“Here. I radioed a police boat. They’re supposed to meet us here. Good, they’re coming already, see?”
De Gier saw the gray speedboat pushing a fluffy bow wave but he didn’t seem interested. He looked down at his hands and began to wipe them. His right hand had bled a little; the left hand had a long gluey yellow weed stuck between the fingers. He pulled it out and threw it out of the window.
“He took a risk,” the adjutant said, forcing the car to take a short turn to the right and to dive under a large bridge, Amsterdam’s main thoroughfare, connecting its center to the eastern part of the city. They could hear the bridge’s rumble as a convoy of trucks passed overhead. “I could have shot him easily, but only in the chest or the head. His legs were covered by his boat’s gunwale. Maybe he knows that we only aim for the legs, provided they are not actually attacking us.”
De Gier was wringing out his trouser legs. “That’s my second suit today, got it from the dry cleaner’s this morning. We’ll have to catch him, Grijpstra. I want him in a cell, a bad cell, the corner cell.” The police launch was waiting and they jumped in, ignoring the water sergeant’s helpful arm.
“CID, sergeant, go south, we are after a white motorboat, one man in it, man with a white jersey and a cap. A good-looking boat, old but well kept. A wooden boat.”
The constable in the launch’s cabin shifted a small lever next to the steering wheel. The boat roared and began to cut through the river’s short bright waves, lifting its nose as it gathered speed. Grijpstra stumbled, but the water sergeant caught him by the shoulders.
“Hold on, your Mend took a bath, did he?”
“He did. The suspect removed his boat as my colleague jumped.”
Hands were shaken as the policemen introduced themselves.
“What’s the chase, Grijpstra? Is your suspect dangerous? Armed?”