“Have you seen everybody now?” Bergen asked.
“I think so. We saw your friend Mr. Vleuten this afternoon.”
Bergen’s right hand waved tiredly. “Not my friend. Perhaps the baboon was right to get out of the business. He’s doing very well, isn’t he?”
“I thought you had had no contact with him since he left. That was awhile ago, wasn’t it?”
I heard,” Bergen said. “We have mutual acquaintances. The baboon is doing well. He’s restored his house, he deals in boats. Boats are the thing these days, everybody who does well wants one. Old boats, antique launches, fiat-bottomed sailing yachts… excellent status symbols. The baboon is a businessman still, he hasn’t forgotten what he learned when he was selling our furniture. And Elaine must have been providing him with capital, she has been saving her wages and profits for the last five years. She used to put them back into the business but stopped when we obtained good bank credit. And she always loved Vleuten. The baboon is the clever one and I am the sucker. I work and he plays around.”
“Well, that’s one way of looking at it, no doubt there are other ways. But we did see Mr. Vleuten and we also talked with Mr. Pullini.”
Bergen laughed cheerlessly and his hand came up to hold his cheek again. “Pullini!”
“You don’t think there’s a connection?”
“No, Francesco hardly knew Elaine. His father did business with her and she went to Italy, but that was all such a long time ago. She was still working then.”
“We’ll have to be on our way again, Mr. Bergen. I wish you good luck with your test tomorrow.”
“Poor man,” Grijpstra said in the car.
“You think so, adjutant?”
Grijpstra’s right eyebrow crept up an eighth of an inch. “Shouldn’t I be sorry for the slob, sir? He is in about as perfect a mess as Job on his garbage pile. Bergen has lost it all, hasn’t he?”
The commissaris suddenly tittered and Grijpstra’s eyebrow stayed where it was. “An absolute fool, adjutant. The man must have a special talent for connecting misunderstandings incorrectly. That medical report didn’t indicate cancer, it only said there might be something somewhere. Doctors like to be explorers, especially when they have a lot of expensive equipment around that can be used in their explorations. All they have to do is instill a little fear in the patient’s mind and they can switch on their electronic gear and work up a bill of a few thousand guilders. And the insurance pays.”
“But there could be a tumor in Bergen’s head, sir.”
The commissaris shrugged. “Surely, and in my head and in yours, but we haven’t thought of that possiblity yet. Bergen has.”
“So you don’t think there is any link between his paralysis and whatever they are looking for in his head?”
“Not necessarily. What Bergen has now I’ve had too, Bell’s palsy, a harmless affliction that will go away by itself. I didn’t want to tell Bergen that. I’m not a doctor and perhaps he is in serious trouble. I’m only saying that the man is overworrying, about everything.”
“His divorce and the bank letter?”
“Exactly. Calamities are only calamities if you define them as such; in reality there are only events and all events can be useful.”
Grijpstra’s eyebrow came down.
“You should know that simple truth,” the commissaris continued. “You’ve been in the police a long time now, adjutant. We always deal with people, suspects or victims, who have managed to channel their thoughts in such a way that they see no acceptable way out anymore. They think they are suffering because of all sorts of reasons-their rights haven’t been respected, they’ve lost something, they’ve been robbed or slandered or treated badly, and so they’re justified in behaving in such a way that they break the law and meet us. But usually they are drowning in a poisonous pool of their own making. But they’ll never blame themselves. Never.”
The Citroen was waiting for a green light.
“Sir.”
“Ah, thank you. No, Grijpstra, I won’t pity our friend Bergen. Pity won’t do any good, anyway. Let’s hope he can get shocked out of his present state of mind and steer himself into a course that may lead to a little more freedom. And it’s time to eat. And Cardozo wants to be telephoned. He must be brooding on the information he collected from his visit to Gabrielle.”
The commissaris parked the car at the edge of the old city and, after calling Cardozo from a public telephone booth, they set out for the restaurant on foot. A brightly lit store window attracted the commissaris and he stopped to look in. He was still lecturing on the lack of awareness that causes illusion and misconstruction and didn’t appear to notice what he was looking at.
Grijpstra cleared his throat.
“Yes, adjutant?”
Grijpstra pointed at the window. “I don’t think this display is of much interest, sir.”
The commissaris grinned and they walked on. The window had shown a number of different types of vibrators arranged on a ground of artificial grass that was fenced off by a row of plastic penises.
\\\\\ 14 /////
The fat God was grinning at the mongrel but the mongrel didn’t care. She was lying on the floor of the cheap Chinese eating place, half hidden under a table, which everybody who knew the restaurant avoided because it wobbled, and was noisily licking her swollen private parts. She was a particularly ugly mongrel, small and hairy and spotted, but she did own some endearing features, such as large expressive eyes and a tail with a stiff curl that pointed at the spot where her neck should have been. De Gier’s foot came out and nudged the dog. She looked up.
“Don’t do that,” de Gier whispered. “People are trying to eat here. The food is excellent but they won’t taste it if you keep on making that blubbery sucking noise.” The dog’s tail quivered. She bared her teeth in an effort to be friendly and rolled over, showing her naked pink belly. De Gier’s foot rubbed the belly softly and the dog whined ingratiatingly. The restaurant was empty and the owner, a tall thin Cantonese with the face of a philosopher, was resting his back against the counter; he hadn’t moved in the last ten minutes.
The dog rolled back and went on licking and de Gier’s eyes wandered up to the portrait of the fat god, a portly gentleman being crawled over by seven well-dressed slit-eyed toddlers equipped with similar smiles. The god of wealth and health, sitting on a cushion that in turn sat on a hilltop that overlooked a valley planted with dark green crops stretching to the horizon.
The restaurant’s glass door swung open and Cardozo entered, followed by four street prostitutes coming in for a late dinner. Cardozo held the door and they thanked him politely. They were off duty now and had lost their inviting smiles and prancing mannerisms. De Gier knew them alclass="underline" he had listened to them many times, he knew their favorite subjects. They never talked shop when they ate their fried rice or noodles. They liked to talk about knitting and the defects of their cars and about taxes, and they would linger over their meal, unwilling to go back to the street, where tourists, usually a little drunk, were ambling about restlessly, waiting to purchase their services.
“Evening,” Cardozo said sadly.
De Gier muttered his reply and moved over to the corner chair so that Cardozo could sit next to him.
“Have you ordered?”
“No, I’m waiting for the commissaris, he should be here in a few minutes. We can have a beer.”
He waved to the philosopher and put up two fingers. The Chinese bowed, pushed himself off the counter, and slid behind it, grabbing the handle of the beer pump before he had reached his proper station. His other hand swept two glasses off a shelf and caught them deftly; he had them in position as the first stream of frothy golden liquid poured out of the polished spout. The beer was on their table before de Gier’s arm had come down.