“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 don’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?”