"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 his 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?
"Bodies definitely don't last."
He had said so aloud and an Oriental man sitting next to him, an official from Seattle, nodded agreement. "We had the same thing in a wooded area right next to a suburb. Just one night and pffftt… hardly enough for identification."
"Heart attack in Central Park," Dr. Russo said brighdy. "A crowd of a thousand people probably within shouting distance. This man must have fallen down and crawled about for a bit, ending up under flowering azalea bushes. There is some evidence that he was hit in the chest, possibly by a rotten branch. He was under a maple that had been struck by lightning a long time ago. A branch was torn off by strong winds that night. Subsequent research and inquiries reveal that subject was well dressed and nicely groomed when the heart attack occurred. At some time he was found and robbed, probably by homeless people, judging from the clothes swap. Maybe his feet stuck out of the bushes then. We found some signs that the body had been dragged further into the underbrush."
The pathologist clicked a dozen slides through his machine. Some slides showed the body remains from different angles. One slide focused on Termeer's beard. The dentures were shown. "Classy," Dr. Russo said. "There is gold in those dentures. They were found at some distance from the other remains."