The Corpse on the Dike (9 page)

The Cat was waiting for them in the lobby. Ursula introduced the two men.

“De Gier. Municipal Police. Ursula asked me to drive her here. I have some questions to ask.”

The Cat looked as he had been described by Evelien. He was smiling and shaking de Gier’s hand.

“Diets is my name,” the Cat said, “but call me Cat, everybody calls me Cat. I have to think of my real name sometimes.”

“Listen,” de Gier said, “I am running behind schedule and have to leave. Would it be convenient for you to come see me at Headquarters this afternoon at four-thirty?”

“Sure,” the Cat said; “I’ll be there. What is it about? Tom’s death?”

“Yes,” de Gier said.

“Poor fellow. I don’t know if I can tell you anything but I’ll help as much as I can. Tom was a friend of mine.”

“Good. Good-bye, Ursula; thanks for the coffee and the ride.”

“And the cream?” Ursula asked.

“And the cream.”

“And the pineapple?” Ursula asked.

“And the pineapple.”

“Goodbye, uncle,” the child said.

De Gier left. He stopped a police car and asked them to drop him at a taxi stand. He took a taxi to the dike, collected the VW and drove home. He had an hour to wash and lie on his bed.

Oliver greeted him at the door by standing up against his leg. The cat’s nails were out but his gesture was so slow and gentle that de Gier only felt a vague scratch. Oliver’s eyes were half-closed and he was growling. De Gier scooped him up, turning him upside down, and the cat’s face touched his cheek. The growl changed into a deep purr. Oliver stretched his front paw, spreading his toes, each toe ending in a long razor-sharp claw, and touched de Gier’s nose with the furry underneath. “Careful,” de Gier said and shook the cat. The paw stayed on his nose but the nails were only touching air.

“Oliver,” de Gier said, “would you like a boom-boom orgasm?” The cat purred.

“You wouldn’t know, would you, since I had you castrated? Remember? Fours years ago now? How you got your injection and you fell asleep and when you woke up the balls were gone and the little bag sewn up?”

The cat stopped purring, stretched and twisted himself free, landing on the floor with a soft thud.

“No, it didn’t hurt,” de Gier said. “You were sleepy, that was all. I’m sorry I had it done to you, believe me. Very sorry. A horrible thing. But you were tearing about the flat all the time and hanging on the curtains and yelling and yowling. I couldn’t have kept you like that. Maybe I should never have bought you. Maybe you would have gone to people with a garden and trees and other cats, and birds to chase.”

De Gier began to undress. “I’ll take a shower, get the smell off my body. Petrol, bah. Petrol and sweat and car fumes and the fumes of Ursula and the stink of that child. Horrible child. Are you angry, Oliver, that you don’t know about orgasms?” The cat rolled over on his back and squeaked.

“Can’t you make a normal cat’s noise? Or are you too extraordinary? Because you are Siamese? Because your grandfather came from the Far East? Go on, make a normal noise.” Oliver squeaked again.

“Don’t then. I’ll have a shower; come with me and talk to me.” The cat sat on the threshold and looked at de Gier standing under the shower. The hot water was hitting him in the neck and he was singing to himself. A song about Ursula and Ursula’s beauty.

What would have happened, de Gier thought, if I had brought her home? Oliver would have murdered that horrible child for sure, but suppose the child hadn’t come? Would she have stripped and raped me? Or would she have sunk on the bed and looked at me languorously? Shall I try it sometime? He imagined and got excited. The excitement annoyed him and he twisted the shower’s dial so that the water suddenly changed into a whip of ice. He jumped out of reach of the whip but went back to it and shouted and jumped up and down. He twisted the tap and began to rub himself dry.

The cat snuggled next to him on the bed. There were thirty minutes to go; he set the alarm and fell asleep at once.

5

“S
O YOU ARE THE
C
AT WITH
B
OOTS
O
N
,”
THE COMMISSARIS
said. “We’ve heard a little about you. Just die way you dress and that you used to visit Tom Wernekink.”

“Evelien Dapper told you, I suppose,” the Cat said, “the girl who lives next door to Tom. I have spoken to her but I don’t know her really.”

The Cat was in the commissaris’ office at Headquarters, sitting in the chair reserved for important visitors. Although Headquarters of the Amsterdam Municipal Police was a fairly modern building, the commissaris had managed to create a seventeenth-century atmosphere in the large high-ceilinged room. The antique furniture was his private property but the large Golden Age portraits decorating the walls belonged to the police. He had offered his visitor a cigar and the two men were puffing away, facing each other, with de Gier at a respectable distance, slouched in a chair in the corner, smoking a self-made cigarette. The Cat had arrived on time. He turned toward de Gier. “I hope Ursula didn’t cause you any undue trouble? She is a strange woman. She could have driven the car herself; she has a license.”

“I wasn’t familiar with the car,” de Gier said, “and the child didn’t help much.”

“The child!” the Cat said and laughed. “I gave him a clout on the ear and he was all right after that.”

“Good.”

“What’s all this?” the commissaris asked.

“My cat is being serviced,” the Cat said, “and I asked Ursula, my girlfriend, to pick me up in town where I had some business to take care of. Your sergeant came to find me, and Ursula made him drive the car.”

“And the child?”

“Not mine. Some nasty brat who lives on the dike. His parents don’t look after him and he is always in the street. If he sees anyone he usually tries to go with them.”

“Isn’t he a nice child?”

“No,” the Cat exclaimed, “he is a proper bastard with the brain of a full-grown genius. He learns a lot in the street. He’s four years old now but I think he knows more than most children of fourteen. And the damned thing is that he is destructive. He breaks windows and takes hubcaps off cars and throws them into the river; he trips people up and if he can’t do anything physical, he teases. Didn’t he tease you, sergeant?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” the commissaris asked, amused. “And what did he do?”

“There was no petrol in the tank so we got stuck in the middle of the tunnel under the river. He told me I couldn’t drive.”

“Ah,” the commissaris said. “There was a telephone call about that, I meant to tell you. The chief of the tunnel phoned to ask whether you were on duty today.”

“I hope you told him I was,” de Gier said sulkily.

“I did. What was the trouble?”

“They wouldn’t believe me, thought that the Cat’s girlfriend was my wife and the child our child.”

“New regulations,” the commissaris said. “Apparently somebody has been waving his police card around too often and there have been complaints to the chief constable; you didn’t have to pay, did you?”

“No, sir.”

“Just as I thought,” the Cat said sadly, “so she did get you into trouble. She didn’t have any money I’m sure and made you pay for the petrol. How much was it, sergeant?”

“Twenty-five.”

The Cat brought out a fat wallet and peeled a note out of one of its compartments.

“What is your business, Mr. Cat?” the commissaris asked.

“Call me Cat, commissaris, everybody does.” The Cat put the wallet back and turned the ends of his large mustache. “I am a buyer and seller. Odd lots mostly, anything people want to get rid of. I have a warehouse in town that is full of carpet tiles right now—bought them from Sharif Electric where the sergeant found me today. They had an exhibition and had to buy a few square miles of carpet but now it’s of no use to them so they sold it to me.”

“For cash?”

“Always for cash. It’s the only way to buy. Nobody resists bank notes. The wallet and this costume are tricks of the trade.”

“Costume?”

“Yes,” the Cat said. “I know I dress crazy but it gives me the right image. Nobody forgets me, once they have seen me. I give them my card with my photograph, address and phone number, and if there’s anything to sell I usually get first chance. I joke and wave the wallet about and I get the goods.”

“You look funny,” the commissaris said, “but you don’t look like a hippie or a provo or a bird-of-protest.”

“No. I have no quarrel with the world. The world is wrong, of course; anybody who can see and think knows it is wrong. The wrong place and we do the wrong thing. But I don’t mind. I’m not a fighter; I’m a buyer and seller. I make a profit and I spend some of it.”

“Who do you sell to?”

“People come to me. The merchants from the street markets, and the secondhand shops, and the discount stores. I have a lady in the warehouse and she knows the prices. Usually I’m there as well, if I’m not on holiday. I often go away—I’ll go anywhere and usually I manage to buy there as well. The world is full of merchandise; it’s amazing it’s still turning with all that weight attached to it.”

“And Ursula is your girlfriend?”

The Cat nodded. “Yes. I found her in Australia and she wanted to come to Amsterdam; she is half-Dutch, half-Russian.”

“And she is beautiful,” de Gier said.

The Cat smiled. “She is, isn’t she? But she is crazy too. Did she try to make you?”

De Gier looked silly and the commissaris smiled.

“I hope she didn’t succeed, de Gier,” the commissaris said.

“No, sir.”

“There’s a good fellow.”

“She always says she is going to leave me,” the Cat said, “but she hasn’t so far. She is free to do as she likes. I don’t collect anything. My house is like my warehouse: its contents come and go.”

“You want to get rid of her?” de Gier asked.

“No. If she stays, she stays. I like her, and she isn’t a useless type. She’s a good musician and she sometimes plays in town. Maybe she’ll be invited to travel and then, perhaps, she’ll go. She needs to meet other men, men who can handle her. Maybe you could handle her.” He looked at de Gier as if he was weighing him. De Gier didn’t feel comfortable, the large brown eyes seemed to be piercing through his skull. The man’s personality was definitely powerful. The Cat looked majestic sitting straight up now, the wide shoulders sloping slightly, the massive head erect with its mane of hair, the fierce nose pointed at de Gier’s forehead. And he wasn’t dressed so funny after all. The velvet gold-colored suit sat very well on the large body and the boots were elegant and shiny. De Gier noticed a thick, gold earring on the Cat’s left earlobe. A few hundred years back in time and the Cat would have been easy to place: a gentleman-pirate or highwayman, sporting a sword with a jeweled handle. A courageous man, a gallant man.

An immoral man, the commissaris was thinking. A profiteer, but perhaps with a code of honor. Not a man who would betray a friend, or his own people, to an enemy, but still… “Do you have an officially registered business, Mr. Cat?” the commissaris asked.

The Cat took his eyes off de Gier and fixed them on the commissaris; they were pleasant now and the voice drawled. “Yes, sir. Diets Trading Company, registered since 1945. My father started the business; he dealt in hair creams and wigs and combs—things like that. I still have a small trade in that line but my talent is different: I like buying anything that looks cheap.”

“Tom Wernekink,” the commissaris said. “We can have some coffee while you tell us about your friend. De Gier, you can pour the coffee; it’s on the tray over there.”

“Just a friend,” the Cat said in the same drawling voice. “I saw him arrive on the dike and helped to unload the furniture. He interested me. We drank some beer after we had shifted the lot into his house and I kept coming back. He was a strange man, you know. I am really sorry they got him; I like strange people; there aren’t too many around, not even in Amsterdam, which is the lunatic asylum of Holland.”

“
They
got him?” the commissaris asked.

The Cat shrugged. “Somebody did, didn’t he? Or she? Didn’t you lock that van Krompen woman up? She hasn’t confessed, has she, or I wouldn’t be here now.”