Turtle heightened the rhythm of his dancing feet and shaking shield.
"Too Zen for me perhaps," the commissaris said. "Even now, when my working life is almost over. Who am I fooling? Career does matter to me. I'm in this to win. I insist on being admired." He bent down to the dancing reptile. "We're Dutch, my dear. The Dutch are basic traders. Nothing is for free. And there has to be some profit."
Turtle slipped down his rock and waddled underneath a thorn bush.
"Not that I would mind being free of all that," the commissaris told the moving bush.
"And what was the oracle's advice today?" Katrien asked when the commissaris limped back into her kitchen.
The commissaris grinned. "I think he's holding out for more lettuce."
Chapter 4
New York received the commissaris pleasantly enough, after a first-class ride on the roomy top deck of a large airplane. He had eaten, dozed and dreamed about the hollow-eyed tram driver/angel. The dream was probably caused by the stewardess who served him, a tall woman with blond hair. There were many of these in Holland now: a new archetype.
Immigration and Customs waved him through. He didn't have to join the long line for cabs; a large burly man in a red waistcoat guided the commissaris to a brand-new minivan. It was illegal, of course. No husding for rides at Kennedy Airport. He had seen posters in the airport's waiting areas, warning passengers.
"Isn't this illegal?" the commissaris asked the man shooing him along.
"Been doing it for years now," the soft-spoken driver said pleasantly enough. "Mind if I rustle up a few other passengers? It'll make the ride worthwhile. Some music while you wait? I'll give you the seat of honor."
The driver switched on his radio, tuning to a classical music station, determining his choice after a glance at the little old gentleman sitting quietly in the high passenger seat. A well-modulated male voice announced a piano concerto by Albeniz, after suggesting that listeners avail themselves of the services of an investment broker. The commissaris didn't catch the sponsor's name. The announcer interrupted after the first movement. "By the way, Gillette is a good buy today. A free tip from your favorite station. Gillette. A debt-free company about to launch an important new product. When the product sells, shares will go up." Music again, remarkably clear, piping in through speakers in the minivan's four corners. It died away briefly.
The announcer spoke gendy: "Remember now, never wager your wad."
The commissaris thought he would like to wager his wad now. Go for broke. All or nothing. As there was little or nothing he would be able to do with All now, victory would amount to nothing anyway. He would solve the case, retire and be forgotten. All = Zero. He thought of the reptile oracle in his Queens Avenue garden, back in Amsterdam. Turtle would agree with such radical thinking. The commissaris, feeling he was on the verge of true insight, smiled happily. Euphoric feelings floated on the lovely Albeniz composition. But he might just be ill. Flu was going around, especially within the enclosed air circulation of airplanes. He was probably infected. An oncoming fever would alter his perception.
The commissaris, shivering, paged through the police convention brochure while he laid out his plans. He would spend the rest of today in his Cavendish suite, looking down on the magnificent trees of Central Park for comfort and entertainment. Tomorrow he would attend a lecture on modes of death by Dr. Steve Russo, pathologist and assistant chief of the NYPD's Crime Laboratory, and make an appointment to meet with Detective-Sergeant Hurrell of the Central Park Precinct. For now all he had to do was lean back and listen to the music.
The driver, when he came back, herding two thirty-year-old businesswomen in suits and lace blouses, talked golf while he drove his catch into town. The commissaris watched the Manhattan skyline against an expanse of glistening blue marked by just a few little white clouds. The music was Bach now, the Italian Concerto. The announcer mentioned Gillette again.
"Make a bundle, play golf in Florida for the rest of your life," the driver was saying. He had done that for some years: long fairway shots between unusual water hazards, lagoons filled with alligators, Key West. Those were the days. But the trick was not to listen to the jokers interrupting the classical music. The driver nodded disdainfully toward his door's speaker, where the announcer had just made a suggestion.
"What does he know? Shit-eating wiseass… Oh dear, ladies present. Sorry, ladies."
The ladies were talking. They might not have heard.
"No more golf, eh?" the commissaris said.
The driver said no more golf. A bad investment on margin, lost his wad, back to a leased van, back to the merry-go-round of collecting fares to make the payments, I-owe-I-owe-ofF-to-the-airport-I-go, Kennedy-Manhattan-Kennedy forever.
The commissaris rembered that Katrien had mentioned a golf ball. He didn't know about sports. Of all the balls he could visualize, only the golf ball might be a weapon.
"So are you a good golf player?"
He wasn't bad, the driver said. He missed winning money and drinks at the club house. There were golf courses around New York too, but play on them was not so relaxed as in Key West, and-except for the few crowded public courses-a lot more expensive.
"Public? In parks?"
The driver, bad-tempered now, reflecting on his greed and stupidity, turned nasty although he didn't show it. He smiled at his client. "Sure, sir. In some parks."
"Now," the commissaris said, "suppose I were to be in a park, not paying attention, and I got hit with a golf ball, a good long fairway shot, as you said just now, Would there be some force there? Say I got hit in the chest, for instance?"
"Kill you stone dead," the burly driver said.
So far, not so good. The commissaris felt worse when he was taken to his hotel suite. He telephoned Room Service for a pot of tea and plain cookies. He arranged his medicines: aspirins and codeine pain pills. His thermometer showed he had a fever, not too high yet. His rheumatism was definitely acting up; red-hot worms crawled about in his hipbones. The shower relaxed his body somewhat but he ended up dizzy. His throat was sore. There seemed to be crushed glass in his lungs, moving slowly every time he breathed.
He took multiple medications. While he wandered about his spacious sitting room in a cotton bathrobe, nicely ironed by Katrien, the codeine took effect. Generic acetaminophen might lower his temperature and also give pain relief. He sucked an antiseptic lozenge to reduce the sandpaper feeling in his throat, while he looked down on the tops of ash and maple and chestnut trees, admiring their full foliage. He followed birds in flight, bending sideways so he could peek at the roof of the Metropolitan Museum. He planned to visit there. De Gier had been talking about the Rockefeller wing, with its Papuan artifacts imported from New Guinea. The commissaris himself was interested in New Guinea, mainly because it seemed to be the furthest place on earth, an enormous, hardly inhabited island surrounded by exotic archipelagos.
Papua New Guinea is an island second in size only to Greenland. Much of the interior is still a vast unknown. De Gier wanted to go there "to experience primitive insights." The commissaris wouldn't mind joining the sergeant's quest. He also fantasized about trying the other side of things, even engaging in soul-testing head hunting, or ritual cannibalism perhaps. Too old, too feeble now, he dreamed about using de Gier's effort as a projection. Get the dear boy to report regularly, to write from his mystical summer camp, to provide vicarious entertainment for sickly stay-at-homes.
His phone rang. "Had a good flight, sir?"