"You dream better now?" Mamere asked. She rushed off before he could answer. The commissaris sighed. He dreamed worse. The tram driver had been back that night like every night, and the hellish presence was more persistent than ever. Although he felt better physically- the coughing and sneezing attacks had stopped, even his hipbones smouldered less-he dreaded falling asleep, knowing the tram driver would be waiting, talking infantile gibberish while she showed her long legs and pursed her luscious lips. The gibberish was more high-pitched now. The phantom was getting impatient, the sacrifice she needed was long overdue.
The commissaris had to attend one more lecture, and he invited de Gier to accompany him to One Police Plaza. The subject was child molestation. The lecturer was a medical doctor as well as a clinical psychologist. The black Philadelphia-based expert started off with simple cases featuring bruises and broken bones. She progressed to the more nebulous area of strange stories accompanying urinary tract infections and bed-wetting. She spoke about the inability of the victims to testify. She mentioned the customary reluctance of family and concerned parties to cooperate.
"Most of what is out there," the doctor said, "we'll never know about, unless we learn to pay attention."
After the lecture de Gier went off to spend the afternoon with his Papuan statues at the Metropolitan and to see Maggie afterward, and Chief O'Neill and Detective-Sergeant Hurrell took the commissaris out to lunch at a Korean restaurant on Columbus Avenue in the upper nineties.
O'Neill had closed the Bert Termeer case, "if there ever was one." He did regret the way the corpse had been ripped up by raccoons. O'Neill had heard that the Urban Park Rangers meant to start hunting raccoons. He raised his glass. "To the Rangers."
Central Park, Hurrell said, was known for its begging squirrels. Squirrels had learned to sit up for peanuts, and some had even mastered the art of shaking hands.
And Central Park was also known for its rats. Rats looked like squirrels; their lack of plumed tails was not noticeable when they faced little old ladies. Rats liked peanuts too, he said. Rats had learned to join squirrels when little old ladies handed out peanuts.
Rats didn't shake hands, though. Rats bit.
So many little old ladies had been bitten by rats that another admonition was to be added to the park's notice board:
DON'T SHAKE HANDS WITH RATS
The commissaris raised his glass again at the end of Hurrell's topical story.
The commissaris was taken back to the Cavendish. He thanked his hosts for their hospitality and assistance.
"Any time, Yan," O'Neill said.
"Glad to be of help," Hurrell said.
Lying back in his hot bath, the commissaris reconsidered his and de Gier's recent reasoning.
There was sufficient psychological motive to justify accusing Charlie of murder. Termeer's shadow side had disgusted Charlie. Charlie had learned that his tenant didn't just operate the catalogue business but actively participated in perversions.
After he showed them the basement, Charlie had told the detectives that Teddy had complained about Termeer's insistence on sadistic/masochistic acts that, even for good money, were too painful. "The man is a meanie," Teddy said.
Teddy had also seen boys enter by Termeer's separate entrance and had tried to warn them off, but the boys had to finance their habits. Charlie finally learned why Kali whined and growled when Termeer was entertaining company in his part of the building.
Charlie told the detectives that, after having listened to Teddy, he had checked Termeer's premises, using his duplicate keys.
"We heard that you sometimes helped Termeer with his holy book mail-order business," the commissaris said. "But you say you had no idea of what was going on in the basement?"
Charlie said that he hadn't spent much time with Termeer in the last few years, that his fantasy of working with a kindred spirit had come to an end long ago. Termeer, although maybe able to perceive further than most, had turned out to be dour, twisted into himself, hardly civil most of the time, moody, even boring.
"You were unaware of Termeer's dark side?"
Charlie had no idea until he lunched with Teddy at New Noodletown in the Bowery.
"Recendy?"
"Yes."
"How long before Termeer died?"
Charlie calculated. "A week? Ten days?"
"You confronted your tenant?"
Charlie had been considering a confrontation, but then there was no need.
"Where were you when Termeer died?"
Charlie said that he might have been in the park, or else on his way home. The park had been too busy that day.
"Did you see Termeer in the park that Sunday morning?"
"Yes."
"Did you talk to him?"
"No."
"Why did you inquire about Termeer at the Central Park Precinct the next day?"
Because, Charlie said, Kali had been restless all night, pacing and whining. Charlie himself also had a bad feeling. He had let himself into Termeer's part of the building early the next morning. There was no one there, which was unusual because Termeer enjoyed his water bed and liked to sleep late.
"Why," asked de Gier, "did you tell us Termeer's death had to happen?"
Charlie sighed. "Because he couldn't allow his personality to corrupt itself further."
"He didn't kill himself, did he?"
"No."
"He was killed?"
"Yes."
"Did you kill him?"
"No." Charlie smiled. "No, I didn't. I wouldn't kill anyone. I will not defend the world by using violence. I prefer escaping."
"Really?" the commissaris asked. "You don't say. What if you couldn't escape any further? You would jump, would you?"
Charlie smiled. "But of course."
"And you wouldn't take anyone with you? A few bad guys? To feel better?"
"Nah," Charlie said. He shrugged. "Fuck the bad guys."
De Gier was still pursuing his original line of reasoning. "Why didn't you kill Bert Termeer? There was your immense disappointment in a man you had sponsored, there was fury, there was opportunity, you're a very intelligent man, Mr. Perrin, you could have come up with some excellent plan, you…"
Charlie said he had been thinking of calling the cops, of showing them Termeer's basement.
"What if the cops took no action?"
But they would have, Charlie said.
Charlie's fatal attack on his tenant, the commissaris thought in the Cavendish bathtub, would have been planned carefully.
Charlie knew Termeer would be freezing and frolicking in the park that Sunday morning. Charlie would know about Termeer's bad heart. A performing Termeer would be vulnerable. All Charlie had to do was hover about, wait for the crowd to focus its attention elsewhere, grab Termeer, drag him into the bushes, yell accusations in his face, shake Termeer violently, terrify him until he suffered a heart attack.
There were the dentures, found at some distance from Termeer's corpse. The dentures flew out of Termeer's mouth as he was crying, begging for forgiveness…
Good luck comes to those who are lucky, the commissaris thought, letting more hot water into his tub by twisting the faucet with an extended toe. There was Maggie's big chestnut horse kicking Termeer as an unexpected preliminary.
Now came the theory's weak part.
The commissaris agreed with de Gier that Charlie could be excused for wanting to punish a child pornographer posing as a prophet. Shaking and slapping? Okay. Castrating a former friend?
And again, the commissaris thought, good luck comes to those who are lucky. The corpse was robbed by a derelict, then partly eaten by animals.
No witnesses, wounds, clothes, prints, traces.
"Let it go, sir," de Gier had said during the return trip on the subway. "We have no jurisdiction. The local police are hung up on another theory. All the evidence is long gone. Our suspect is intelligent, unwilling to confess, sympathetic. The victim was mad and bad."