The Streetbird (18 page)

"Yes, and my grandma said that beyond what we know is the land of the thingamajigs."

Grijpstra groaned.

"Poor Henk."

He wriggled until he was on his side. "You're my dearest, Nellie."

"And you're mine, Henk."

Grijpstra waved his hand. "What's there? Between your lettuce?"

"Where, Henk?"

"That's a turtle," Grijpstra said accusingly.

"The turtle belongs to Uncle Wisi."

"A well-known model," Grijpstra said.

She held on to his hand. "You know, Henk, maybe you're right. I do believe Uncle Wisi is a thingamajig."

"You have too many uncles," Grijpstra said, "and you know too many thingamajigs."

She dropped his hand. "Poor Uncle Jan, he's still in his bath, and I promised him coffee."

"Then you better give him his coffee," Grijpstra said.

Grijpstra looked out of the hammock. He tried to remember what the woman who had been creeping toward Obrian had looked like. The color of her hair? Red, like Nellie's?

I should be able to remember, Grijpstra thought.

\\\\ 22 ////

He rang the bell. The house remained quiet. He tried again and pushed his ear against the door. The bell worked.

The good of a Schmeisser, Cardozo thought—what might that be? The perfect functioning of the weapon?

The door opened and Cardozo nearly fell into the corridor. A slender black woman looked at him kindly. "Yes?"

"Good afternoon, miss," Cardozo said shakily. "Is Mr. Jacobs in?"

"Eliazar is on holiday."

"A pity," Cardozo said. He rubbed his cheeks. My teeth are going to chatter, Cardozo thought, but this is not the right moment. He handed her his card. "I'm a policeman, miss, and I have to talk to Eliazar urgently."

The woman looked at Cardozo's crumpled corduroy jacket, strengthened by leather patches on the elbows, one of which was dangling from a thread. "You are a constable?"

"A detective, miss. But I'm also a friend of Eliazar's, and it is important that I see him."

"Eliazar is on leave," the woman said, "and will be away for at least two weeks. He went to Jerusalem, to cry at the Wailing Wall. He goes there often."

Cardozo's lower lip trembled. She returned his identification. He took a deep breath, to be used in further communication, but his words slipped away and he swallowed instead. He smiled his good-bye.

Cardozo sat on a bench at the waterside, staring at the Straight-Tree-Ditch's rippling surface. His mind functioned somewhat again and he tried to arrange facts into a theory. The weapon, the time, the place, the victim, the motivation. His hand slapped his thigh as the facts moved about, shakily, like Eliazar's head approaching and receding, without touching the wall's surface. Cardozo knew what the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem looked like, from a photograph in a magazine that he had cut out and hung above his bed. He visualized the gray-green stones, square or rectangular, and the solemn black-suited worshipers, their heavy hairy heads covered by wide dark hats, bowing to the wall, crying at the wall, wailing in devotion. Wailing in general, not so much about their private pains—Jacobs wouldn't do that either.

Cardozo no longer trembled. I'm glad I'm crying myself now, he thought, for it removes tension, but the tears also wash my facts away, and the theory I hung them in. It would be better to stop crying perhaps, because it doesn't look good. I'm not in Jerusalem here.

The sobs continued, seeming to form themselves at the lowest point of his spine and pulsate slowly upward. To restrain himself seemed useless. It would be better to let the suffering, or whatever his affliction could be, release itself. Maybe the crying would clean him up, inside, for on the outside he was getting rather soppy. He no longer wiped the tears away and helped the sobs along by nodding diligently.

The music he was hearing fitted in well and he only understood that the sounds took place beyond his own confinement when the ensemble glided past his bench. The musicians manned a good-sized rowboat, moved by the efforts of two young ladies. An upright piano rested on boards placed across the boat's sides; a saxophone player stood in the bow and the drummer in the stern. The music was sad, but underneath its lament rose cheerful undertones as if, finally, reality was about to be properly represented and lies would no longer be necessary. The girls rowed slowly and the boat inched ahead. While the saxophone filled empty caves with voluminous clouds of sounds, the drum thumped softly and helped the piano to supply outlines, with a single discord here and there, placed in the center of space, deliberately overlooked by the saxophone.

Although the boat moved slowly, it did float on, and Cardozo got up and walked with the music, placing his feet carefully, until he reached the next bridge and climbed up on it. He bent over the railing, first on one side and then on the other, so that the boat was swallowed up and rebuilt slowly again. Under the bridge the music sounded even more wistful, first accentuated by the drummer's representation of straight grief, then by the saxophone's version of a whispered complaint.

Cardozo shuffled on, watched the boat moor and the musicians clamber ashore. The three young men wore turtle-necked blue jerseys and faded jeans, the girls old-fashioned cotton dresses with flower patterns. The girls landed too, unscrewed a thermos, and unpacked sandwiches from a hamper. Cardozo stood, his head oddly askew, as if he were still listening.

"You're still listening?" the piano player asked.

"Why are you crying?" the drummer asked.

If I tell them, Cardozo thought, that I'm crying because of Eliazar Jacobs, who's taking the suffering of the world upon himself in Jerusalem, eight hours a day, for he is a disciplined man who feels comfortable in a daily routine, then my explanation would probably be quite plausible.

He looked at the girls, because their faces were softer. "I'm no longer crying."

"That's good," the saxophone player said. "Would you like a ham sandwich, or do you prefer sliced chicken livers?"

The hamper contained an apple. "Could I have the apple?" Cardozo asked. "Why are you making music?"

The piano player clarified their motivation later, after the used napkins had been replaced in the hamper, for there was no hurry and Cardozo had taken his time peeling the apple and chewing it well.

"So you are a society," Cardozo said.

"Yes," the piano player said. "The Secret Society Without a Name. We perform unusual acts, so that we may consider the creation from new angles, but we only do that from time to time, so as not to get used to the unusual, because then we would be back where we started. Whatever we do has to be done as perfectly as possible, and to keep thinking of new possibilities is too difficult, and unnecessary besides. This week is exercise week. We're on holiday anyway, so no time is lost."

"You work?"

"We study."

"What?" asked Cardozo.

"Mathematics," the drummer said. "Medicine," said the girls. "Psychology," said the saxophone player.

"And you?"

"Police Academy," the piano player said.

Cardozo took the apple's peel and threw it over his shoulder. He looked around to see what had become of its shape. "A flattened circle," the drummer said. "No, a zero, probably the best shape anyone can throw, for everything fits into nothing."

"Today you made music," Cardozo said. "Just what I happened to need. Thank you. What did you do yesterday?"

"Yesterday we were roller-skating," the saxophone player said. "From midnight to five A.M. We were dressed up in our best suits and carried briefcases. We stayed within the limits of the inner city, along the canals mostly, the experience was quite beautiful, but what it did for us is still unclear. We might discover it later, or never."

"You did not," Cardozo asked, "happen to see a Negro being shot to death?"

"We did," the drummer said. "In the Olofs-alley. We didn't see the actual shooting, but we heard it, and the victim was black, according to the newspaper."

"And you did not, by chance, see somebody leave a burned-out building, corner Seadike and Olofs-alley?"

"We saw her," the piano player said. "A woman. Tall. Black hat, black skirt. Large shoes. A cape half-covering the skirt. She crossed the street and followed the Seadike. We almost skated into her."

"What time?" asked Cardozo.

"Three o'clock," the saxophone player said. "The carillon in the Saint Nicholas church was playing."

"We weren't skating," the girls said. "Because we aren't really members yet. We're still on trial."

"What do you do?" the drummer asked.

"I'm a police detective," Cardozo said, "and if you don't mind, I would like to write down your names."

"We'll have to be witnesses?" asked the piano player.

"Probably not," Cardozo said.

"You were crying about that dead black man?" the drummer asked when Cardozo started his good-byes.

"I cried about everything, I think," Cardozo said, "but the worst is over. Does your society have many members?"

"Thirteen," said the piano player, "and the members who graduate from the university have to leave. After that, daily work will be the exercise, or whatever one happens to be doing at the moment."

"You're already working," the saxophone player said.

"And you're after certain results?" Cardozo asked.

"One has to stay away from that," the drummer said, "for aim-setting defeats the purpose of the whole thing."

"I didn't pity you when you were crying," the one girl said. "That would have been degrading."

The other girl kissed him.

"Thank you," Cardozo said.

\\\\ 23 ////

That the actual authorities were ready too was proved by Grijpstra, who embraced himself with his right arm so that the little finger of his hand could rest on his pistol butt, outlined in the material of his jacket. Jurriaans' arm hung down. The palm of his hand touched his gun, hidden under his tunic. All present were armed, including Adjutant Adèle, whose old-fashioned pistol, with the shortened barrel—the ladies' model—was visible. She leaned back, so as to be able to gaze better at Reserve Sergeant Varé, and the movement made her holster slide down her belt until it hung free from her skirt.

Varé sat in between de Gier and Ketchup, opposite Adjutant Adèle, and contrasted with the others, not so much because of his color but rather because of his relaxed attitude.

Karate grinned at Varé, and the reserve sergeant grinned back. I'm just sitting here, thought Varé. You're just sitting there, thought Karate. Karate was pleased that at least one member of this task force was not quite taken in by current events. One should never overdo anything, Karate thought, even though it could be important that they would arrest, a little later along in the foggy night, the redoubtable Lennie, the third and last revolting head of the scaly monster that had such a terrible grip on the quarter. Lennie, Karate told himself, is the devil, to be caught and removed by us—to be buried in a hole dug by a bulldozer, to be kicked out of an airplane, or to be pulverized, for instance by means of fireworks shoved into his body's openings and lit all at once. But, Karate was thinking secretly, it's also good to know that all this frantic activity does not quite take over, for we are citizens of Amsterdam after all, and shouldn't forget that everything will be fine in the end and that too much concern is both irritating and fatiguing.

Varé was indeed keeping his distance, because he had been scientifically schooled and was used to observing quietly and also because he had just dined well and sat easily and enjoyed the cigar which Grijpstra had just given him, and because de Gier was telling an interesting tale.

Jurriaans interrupted de Gier, "So Gustav does not confess to the Obrian murder?"

"No."

"Naturally," Jurriaans said, "considering that Gustav's leg had just been set and he was still drugged. A suspect filled with morphine feels safe, between clean sheets, with nurses at his beck and call. He can afford to smile at us."

"Gustav was sorry," de Gier said.

"That he pushed Orang Utan into the river?"

"That he hadn't shot Obrian with a Schmeisser. Gustav would just have loved to kill Obrian, but someone else was too quick. So he's sorry now."

"You did give him the full treatment, didn't you?" Grijpstra asked worriedly. "Maybe you should have called me. It's easier when there are two of us."

"I couldn't find you," de Gier said. "And I am able to work by myself sometimes. Gustav knows how weak his position is. His assault on Orang Utan was witnessed by Karate and he'll never break our charges, so he has lost his freedom; there's no doubt in his mind about that. Possession is power, but he no longer owns anything because the tax detectives have gone through his house and come up with proof of undeclared income, by finding German notes, Swiss bonds, and even bars of gold."

"Drugs?" Grijpstra asked.

"Mr. Ober is content. An ounce of heroin, and Gustav's women are telling us about his connections."

"But is Gustav aware of his hopeless situation?" Jurriaans asked. "Suspects tend to be optimistic sometimes, especially when they have listened to lying lawyers."

"Don't lawyers want money?" de Gier asked. "Does Gustav have any left? The tax department is fining him more than they've found."

"Okay," Jurriaans said, "but you say he won't admit to the Obrian killing. What if we push a little? Couldn't we get that too?"

"I hardly think so."

"Why not?"

De Gier smiled winningly.

"Well?" Grijpstra asked.

"I'm sorry," de Gier said, "but I'm quite sure that Gustav is innocent."

"Gustav is a hunter," Ketchup said. "He shoots elephants with a cannon. Why shouldn't he shoot a competitor with a machine pistol?"

De Gier smiled apologetically. "Gustav is a coward."

"A coward?" Karate pointed at the ceiling. "An elephant is that high." He held his fingers along his mouth. "And has big teeth. If all that comes thundering from the bush . . . "

"And your cannon is aimed straight at the poor thing's chest." De Gier asked, "You're in a jeep with an experienced driver at the wheel. The jeep is already in reverse. The safari leader is right behind you and points another cannon. You know that all hunters always return safely to camp. Where the champagne waits in the ice bucket."

"Hunting is hunting."

De Gier smiled unwillingly. "And where was Obrian's hunter positioned? In a burned-out ruin within shouting distance of a police station. He fired and had to leave the very same second, slithering down a rickety staircase. And he was alone."

"Could I interrupt for a moment?" Varé asked.

"Please," Adjutant Adèle said. "You say something too, John."

"I'm a sociologist," Varé" said excusingly, "and occasionally peruse the literature of my discipline. I happened to come across an article on pimps the other day. Pimps live on the proceeds of female lasciviousness, and women have been known as the weaker sex. The hypothesis this article tried to prove was that pimps are not courageous."

"Did it succeed somewhat?" Jurriaans asked.

I'm getting in a foul mood, Grijpstra thought, due to the blackness of Varé and my own racism. Unpleasant but true. I'm surprised because I've obviously always thought that Negroes are stupid by definition. I still see blacks as liberated slaves who should not climb higher than the level of a mailman or a bus driver, but this gentlemen is a scholar, and I, a white man, am neither one nor the other.

"Factual material," Varé was saying, "can be easily misinterpreted, but I would venture to state that the study provided sufficient proofs, based on well-executed tests, to assume that pimps, in general, are cowards."

"So it wasn't Gustav," Adjutant Adèle said. "So what? We still have Lennie. And Lennie is due next."

Varé addressed Jurriaans. "You feel sure that Obrian has been done away with by the competition?"

"Isn't that logical?" Jurriaans asked. "Personally, I believe out theory will hold. We know that the murder has been executed in a sneaky manner, by a mean little man."

"By a mean little
woman?"
Cardozo asked. "Dressed in a cape and a floppy hat?"

"That's what Crazy Chris told you," Grijpstra said. "What was it again? Tall? Black clothes? Slippery gait? Moving along the Seadike, direction Damrak?"

"Crazy
Chris," de Gier said. "Drunken Chris. We saw him in Hotel Hadde. An old toothless bum, blue-skinned from the methylated spirits that he guzzled before socialism."

"Tramps with dissolved brains," Grijpstra said, "are known to hallucinate. Our report says that the shooting took place at three twenty A.M. Perhaps drunken bums don't have their clearest moments at that time."

"Sergeant de Gier?" Cardozo asked.

"Yes, Constable first Class Cardozo?"

"Do you remember what else you saw that morning? On your way to the Olofs-alley?"

De Gier thought.

"Roller-skaters?" Cardozo asked. "Gentlemen on little wheels? Three-piece-suited? Carrying briefcases?"

"So I said. But were they there? Not only bums hallucinate. Grijpstra never saw them?"

"I never turned around," Grijpstra said. "It would have been near the National Monument on the Dam. You were speeding again, and I was looking ahead to see what sort of accident we were about to have."

"I found those roller-skaters," Cardozo said. "They claimed that they heard shooting at three A.M. and that they saw our suspect leave the corner house. They described her as a woman. Their testimony agrees with that of Crazy Chris."

"Tell me more about the phantoms," Jurriaans said. "The witnesses who saw something happen twenty minutes before it actually took place. Three future-gazing roller-skating gentlemen."

Cardozo reported.

"The Secret Society Without a Name?" Ketchup asked. "Roller-skates on Monday, becomes a floating orchestra on Tuesday, what would they be doing on Wednesday? Masturbating in the window of a department store?"

"Interesting," Varé said. "The technique is known, of course. You see it today in Gestalt and E.S.T. and even in Zen. The mystic from Armenia, Guru Gurdjieff, imported it from Tibet. The idea is that you force yourself to execute an almost impossible task under unlikely circumstances. A technique aimed at increasing consciousness. But nothing is new under the sun. In Africa, for instance, the young tribal members are initiated in that way into the secrets of the jungle, and in Surinam the witch doctors have kept the method alive. Material I have been working on lately. Voodoo as practiced by the city blacks, a subject that hasn't been investigated properly."

"Mr. Varé," Grijpstra asked, "what are witch doctors called in your country?"

"My country is the Netherlands," Varé said. "My passport is Dutch, but privately I try not to be bothered by nationality. Freedom provides more space to work in."

"But what are they called," Grijpstra asked, "these witch doctors in Surinam?"

Varé loosened his lips from his cigar. "Let's see, now, they come in various types. The so-called good ones are obeah men and their opponents are known as wisi-men. But good and bad are haphazard terms. When we analyze we always try to reserve room for nuances."

"Goddamnmystupidsoulforeverafter," Grijpstra said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Excuse me," Grijpstra said. "I had to curse for a moment. You do know the terms, obviously. Obrian's first name was Luku. What does Luku mean?"

"Well," Varé' said, "there are several variations. Lukumen in general are psychically gifted. Some can predict the future, and the gift is often coupled to hypnotic power. Lukumen are always talented, but only the wisimen know how to manipulate the force. One could say that a wisiman starts off as a luku, but how the talent is used is up to a number of factors."

"Brr," Adjutant Adèle said, "there's a draft here."

"Shall I close the window?" Cardozo asked.

"No, because then it'll get too smoky."

"So the luku becomes an apprentice of the wisiman?" Grijp-stra asked.

"Yes," Varé" said. "Wisimen need disciples and attract the lukus. The luku may not even want to be influenced by the wisi, for he'll have to surrender himself to a possible
keenu,
the curse that always accompanies training and becomes effective when the luku breaks the taboo the wisi will include in his treatment. You see, the luku has his gift, his talent, and the wisi will do everything to develop that power in his disciple, but certain rules will need to be adhered to. Each development is fraught with taboos—with conditions, one might say."

"Yes yes yes," Grijpstra said.

Jurriaans looked up. "Thank you, Varé, but there's still work to do, and we should be about ready to leave now. De Gier, did Herr Sublieutenant Roder contact us today?"

"I spoke to him this afternoon," de Gier said. "He was due to arrive at Amsterdam airport tonight and didn't want to be met since he knows his way about here. He's staying in the American Hotel and will report here at midnight." He checked his watch. "It's ten after twelve now. He's probably waiting downstairs."

"Just a minute," Grijpstra said. "How is the attack on Lennie planned?"

Jurriaans walked to the rear wall of the room and pulled down a map. "Here is the Catburgh Canal, where Lennie's luxury brothel floats. You and de Gier will be going there in a minute and pretend to be partying clients. Roder will go there too. He has the main part in our charade; he's got to provoke trouble, while you and your sergeant should stay to one side."

"Isn't that boat rather exclusive?" de Gier asked. "We might not even be admitted."

"You have an introduction. Slanozzel will take you in. He should be waiting in his Maserati now, on the Newmarket."

"Slanozzel is acquainted with Lennie?"

"He goes there often."

"Poor fellow," Grijpstra said. "He won't be so welcome after tonight. Isn't the man taking unnecessary risks? Imagine if we cause distress?"

"You
will
cause distress," Jurriaans said, "but Slanozzel claims that he owes us, and it isn't charitable to refuse all gifts."

"Why don't we just march in?" Cardozo asked. "Rush the joint, pistol in hand? If we pull that ship apart, we're bound to find everything we're looking for, provided the contraband is kept aboard."

De Gier sat on the table. "Simon, my boy . . . "

"Wrong again?" Cardozo asked.

"Right," Jurriaans said. "And clever, but what you suggest is not appropriate under the circumstances. Raids are out of fashion in the quarter. Why, I wouldn't know with any degree of certainty, but raids always take us into empty space. We have changed our tactics. We sneak rather than crash."

"With nothing to support us on the outside?"

"I'll be on the other side of the window," Jurriaans said, "and glass breaks easily. Look at the boat's position. The Catburgh Canal is the vertical line in the T and the horizontal is the Dike's Canal. If Lennie decides to run for it, he'll escape across the water and there'll be a boat of the Water Police here and my boat will be there."

"The Water Police have been advised?"

"They will be, at the last moment. When they arrive, I'll already be in position, with Karate and Ketchup at the oars."

"And where will I be?" Cardozo asked.

"And I?" asked Adjutant Adèle.

"Can't I join the party?" asked Varé.