All the gruesome details.
De Gier's sensitive large brown eyes looked into Maggie's sensitive slanting green eyes.
"So?" Maggie asked.
He grinned. "So what. There's always death at the end. Death never seems to be pleasant. Birth isn't fun either, but there is the quest in between."
He became flirtatious for a moment. "There is the beautiful company."
Maggie said thank you. "You look okay too. Is that mustache real?"
He brought up Termeer again over mochacinos topped with whipped cream.
"I thought I was done with rinding dead old people, that Jagger would lift me out of the misery. He's a nice tall horse." Maggie smiled. He noticed her lips, the sort of lips that could advertise lipstick. "Jagger didn't help at all. On the contrary. Jagger almost hurt Fritz. Jagger, being such a large horse, is usually calm but Fritz was standing still again, looking like Mercury…"
"Mercury?" de Gier asked.
She nodded. "The Roman god. The messenger pose. There's a statue of Mercury on top of one of the buildings way downtown, I don't remember where. A nude guy with one leg up, one arm forward, one arm backward, head raised, winged hat?"
De Gier had slipped into his sympathetic questioning mode. "Yes, the pose must be tiring."
"Your old codger was able to hold it pretty well." Maggie grimaced. "Fritz had Jagger fooled. I think animals have trouble seeing objects that don't move. So suddenly Fritz started running about like some hyped-up toddler. You can't really blame Jagger. Why did Fritz have to spoil such a nice Sunday? We were all having fun." She stared through de Gier, transported back to Central Park that sunny morning. She told him about the wonderful balloon structure, the huge dinosaur, moving every which way in the breeze, making all the kids scream when the big head dipped toward them, and there were the Park Stompers with their Dixieland tunes and old blues, and the movie-character look-alikes on their way to the contest, and suddenly there is horror. Up pops Fritz.
De Gier looked sympathetic.
"Jagger's hoof just grazed him," Maggie said. "I dismounted to check whether he was okay. He kept saying he was fine, not to bother."
Maggie frowned. "I apologized, I even offered to get an ambulance. That's a big no-no, you know, a police horse damaging a civilian. I was prepared to call the precinct on my radio, get someone higher up to check out the scene." She shook her head again. "But Fritz said he was fine."
"No nausea, no shock, nothing?"
Maggie's ponytail swung both ways. "He said he was just fine."
"Then what happened?"
Maggie remembered an old tourist couple, with the same accent as de Gier's, harassing her. She had ridden off but the couple called her back. Fritz was sitting on a bench by that time. He looked a bit tired. She didn't feel like talking to him again and had ordered the couple "on their way."
"That's where I went wrong," Maggie said. "Fritz wasn't okay." Maggie's ponytail bobbed about again. "The investigation at the precinct exonerated me, but I don't feel good about not going back."
De Gier asked about the seeing-eye dog called Kali.
Maggie thought she had seen the dog that Sunday, possibly with a man called Charlie. An older man, muscular, who worked out in the playgrounds. "He drags one leg, but not too badly. He should use a cane."
Maggie didn't know whether Fritz and Charlie knew each other.
She might have seen the dog with Fritz, she couldn't remember. Kali often roamed around by herself, which was prohibited. Dogs were supposed to be on a leash. She had talked to Charlie about that but you know what they're like. "Yes, ma'am…fuck you, ma'am."
Would Charlie say that?
No, he would think that.
Yes, Maggie said now, she was fairly sure she had seen Charlie and the dog on the day Fritz was grazed by the hoof of her horse, Jagger.
After the meal-she insisted on separate checks- they walked about. The weather was pleasant. She walked him along Prince and Spring Streets to look at windows displaying art. They had fancy coffees in a West Broadway cafe. By five o'clock she took him to a videotape rental store.
"Are you free tonight?"
He used the store's phone to reach the Cavendish. The commissaris was lying down after attending his lecture. "You're still with the mounted lady, Sergeant?"
"I can come back," de Gier said hopefully. "Didn't you want to check out Tribeca tonight, where Termeer used to live?"
The commissaris had managed to reach Charlie, after getting a telephone number from Chief O'Neill. "Tomorrow evening, Sergeant. You have tonight off. Enjoy yourself. Keep that lady talking. We might learn something more."
"Are you feeling all right, sir?"
The commissaris felt somewhat better. He would just rest. Try to get his temperature down. The bellhop Ignacio had lent him a book by a Mexican crime writer, "No Happy Ending, by Ignacio Paco Taibo II. A relevant title, Sergeant."
"A Mexican writing in English?"
The commissaris picked up the paperback. "Translated. It's good. The Mexican background makes it even more interesting. Well written too. Would you like to read it in Spanish? Ignacio says there is a Spanish bookstore here. Maybe he should get you a copy."
De Gier sounded tired. "I don't read mysteries."
"Snob." The commissaris raised a correcting finger. "You're missing out on exercises in morality, the tension between libido and superego, the search for essential values-if any, of course-comparisons in relativity, the different, often conflicting, mores of sociologically separated groups, psychological insights, animal studies and tribal customs, the concept of the police as a uniformed mafia, the use of magic in crime…"
"Taibo brings up all that?"
The commissaris patted the book. "Some, Sergeant. Some Quite a bit in fact. There is some connection to our case there, I think, but I haven't finished the novel."
"No Happy Ending? You think our case is not going to end well, sir?"
The commissaris coughed.
"But if you have a fever," de Gier said, "maybe I should come over."
"Just a touch," the commissaris said. "You enjoy yourself. You can come over for breakfast."
"Yes," de Gier said unhappily.
He hung up. "I am free."
"Good." Maggie grinned. "Want to see a movie? My roommate won't be in tonight, she is staying over with her mom in Brooklyn."
Maggie's favorite star was Mel Gibson. She and de Gier checked through the store's stock together. She recommended The Year of Living Dangerously, and de Gier said he would like to see that but then he picked up The Road Warrior and read the cover. Bizarre-Action-The Australian Outback-Surrealistic.
"You want to see that?"
De Gier tried to remember who liked bizarre, surrealistic Australian Outback adventure movies. Johan Termeer. De Gier didn't think he shared young Termeer's tastes. The man was a hairdresser. Gay, too. But also a policeman. Tough. Someone who would take on a Yugoslavian gangster. De Gier hesitated. Why see a dubious movie if there were good movies around? This was Woody Allen country, he had never seen Manhattan.
Maggie said she couldn't possibly see Manhattan again. She rented The Road Warrior. "Good action. I don't mind seeing it again. You'll love it." She laughed. "There's a couple doing it in a tent, and a car roars up and whips off their cover. You should see their faces. And there is a guy eating dog food from a can in a dead tree while he watches the enemy through an old brass telescope. My kid brother was inspired by that scene. He found a telescope too and a crate of Alpo and the fire brigade had to pry him out of a tree."
Chapter 15
"The commissaris wants to know about Termeer's background," Adjutant Grijpstra told Detective-Constable-First-Class Simon Cardozo. "The man left this country twenty years ago. For America. Never came back. You're a bright young man, Cardozo. Where do we start?"