Janwillem De Wetering - The Hollow-Eyed Angel

"He needs help," Grijpstra said.

The commissaris had planned to see, and to interrogate if possible, the mounted female officer whose horse had been in contact with the older Termeer, and to pay a visit to Termeer's neighbor Charlie, but the codeine had worn him out and he had trouble getting up. His dreams had been bothersome again. He dragged himself to Le Chat Complet where Mamere served him coffee instead of the tea he ordered, saying, "You mess too much with tea, monsieur." She brought him crisp croissants and fresh strawberry jam. He was told to have patience regarding the boiled eggs he had ordered.

While eating his breakfast he reflected on his nightly adventures. His dreams the previous night seemed more complicated than before. Once again the tram driver played the leading part. The commissaris was a little boy, on his way to school. He wore short pants and a jacket that were hand-me-downs from his older brother, Therus The boy-commissaris was carrying his lunch in a foldable metal lunchbox, closed with a red band of elastic. The tram driver wanted to share his lunch, after asking him, via the tram's intercom, to come over and sit next to her "Little boy in the hand-me-down clothing, come and sit up here with me," hidden speakers in the car said. It was embarrassing. It also made him jealous. He didn't want to share the tram driver's wonderful presence with his fellow passengers.

The commissaris remembered that, in the dream, the tram driver's voice was deep and husky. He wondered what this could mean. Was he feeding a demon or a goddess? The sharing of his cheese sandwiches and apple with the long-legged creature had been erotically interesting, despite the fact – or maybe because – his dream companion stared at him with empty eye sockets. The commissaris remembered that, as a young boy, adult women, when they displayed their legs, often drove him mad with desire.

What could the symbol of the blond tram driver's legs have to do with his present quest?

Cats were passing the restaurant's windows and the three musicians behind the counter were harmonizing their song, much encouraged by the cafe's clients.

The commissaris concentrated on the painting of the youthful and naked Mamere and her tongue-lolling dog under the palm tree of her native Haiti.

"You like?" the real Mamere asked when she finally served the eggs. He nodded. She pointed at the huge painting. "That was dreamtime when I got my sons." She named the men behind the cafe's counter. "Dieudonne, Zazeu and FilsTrois," Mamere said proudly. "I very fertile then."

"Beautiful voices Dieudonne, Zazeu and FilsTrois have," the commissaris said.

"You better accent in French than in English,"

Mamere said. "What you do for profession?"

The commissaris said that he was a policeman from Amsterdam, investigating the recent death of a countryman, another Hollandais, near Central Park West.

"Ah," Mamere said noncommittally, then rushed off to pour more coffee.

Back in his suite the commissaris still had a few minutes before he was to be picked up. He looked down at the park. There were benches there where people kept sitting down and getting up. Young men on roller skates whizzed around at high speed. The commissaris noticed a system in the complicated movements, a well-organized activity. He concluded that, possibly, drugs were being dealt. He watched a young woman, dressed in a neat suit with a tailored blouse: an office worker, a secretary maybe. She made signs at one of the roller skaters. She raised her left hand, made a fist, then made her thumb pop up. Then she got up and sat down on another bench. The roller skater sped by the vacated bench and scooped up a green piece of paper. Another roller skater passed the waiting woman and dropped something in her lap.

There was a knock at the door. Chief O'Neill came in. "How're you doing, Yan?"

Yan was doing fine. He showed O'Neill 'what was going on below.

O'Neill nodded. "The roller skaters are members of Trevor's gang. Small stuff. Dime bags. Retail bullshit. We're after Trevor for the murder of Maggotmaid. Or, rather, Hurrell is after Trevor." The chief smiled. "We all have our hang-ups."

O'Neill talked about Trevor while he drove the commissaris to the lecture. Traffic was congested, but they had ample time. The commissaris learned why Hurrell was particularly interested in Trevor E. Lee, an oil heir from Houston who had wasted his fortune and was now going all out to make up for his losses.

"It's kind of personal," O'Neill said. "Hurrell has just got to get Trevor. I don't like that much but I think we better give in a bit, for the sergeant's peace of mind." O'Neill grinned. "If there is such a thing. A contradiction in terms. How can something as essentially restless as a mind be peaceful?"

"Just before falling asleep," the commissaris said.

O'Neill laughed. "Or when it isn't working." He tapped the commissaris's arm. "Here is the deal with Trevor. Trevor killed Maggotmaid, we're sure of that. He got her up for the party, plied her with heroin, got her on a table for a sex show and discovered she was male. Or had been male. She'd had the operation. Russo didn't mention that at the lecture."

"Oh dear," the commissaris said. "And you can't arrest the suspect?"

"Not with the kind of prosecutors I have to deal with," O'Neill said. He looked grim as he raced the car to beat traffic lights. "And not with the kinds of mistakes our detectives are making. Tom and Jerry-again-somehow managed to mess up the glass. The glass on Maggotmaid's clothes and the glass in the broken door in Trevor's apartment matched, but the evidence got mixed up. You ever have shit like that happen?"

"Oh yes," the commissaris said, "but we're short of cells, so arrests aren't welcome."

O'Neill frowned furiously. "We have the same problems. Quality-of-life offenses? Pickpocketing? Forget it. Overcrowded jails, overcrowded dockets. So Trevor walks. But Hurrell will find a way to kick him into the slammer sometime soon."

The commissaris muttered as the big Chevrolet hurled itself between two buses.

"How?" O'Neill asked, touching his horn playfully. "It's more like why. You see, Hurrell's only child went bad. Young Henry Hurrell became Henriette. But there was no operation. The parents weren't too thrilled and I guess they made the kid miserable. So did the other kids. A nail that sticks out gets hammered sometimes. So Henriette comforted herself with drugs. Mrs. Hurrell left the scene. She divorced Earl and the custody of the youngster went to the father. Mother transferred to a quiet sunny town in Arizona where everybody is so old that the worst they can do is sue each other. The former Mrs. Hurrell couldn't cope with a fourteen-year-old prostituting herself for heroin."

"Himself," the commissaris said.

"Nah." O'Neill shook his head. "I sort of knew the kid, ran into her a few times, and she was definitely female, never mind what her sexual organs looked like. She had a female personality, soft and gende, but that must have changed because she looked like a scarecrow when they found her with the garbage."

"Garbage," the commissaris said. "Right. Sergeant Hurrell seemed bitter about 'garbage.' 'Human garbage,' he said."

"A cold night." O'Neill shook a friendly fist at a yellow taxi closing in, trying to cut him off, but not quite managing it. "Bet you that cabbie is from Ghana. Probably had his driver's license printed up special." He shook his head. "You know, we laugh at those guys, and curse them, but can you imagine what it is like to get thrown into this city and nothing makes sense and you're supposed to drive a goddamn taxi?"

"A cold night," the commissaris said. "You were talking about Hurrell's transvestite child."

"Right. Human garbage. The kid doesn't go home anymore, is living on the street. Hustles like crazy to keep the opium monkey fed. Picks up the disease from a dirty needle, gets pneumonia. God knows what assortment of deadly diseases those junkie whores collect during the course of one day." O'Neill looked sideways at the commissaris. "But the body persists. Think of the German death camps-bodies lived through that for quite a while sometimes. Abuse, starvation, it looks like we humans like to suffer. One early winter morning the kid faints. Next thing she freezes solid. We don't have too many real cold nights in New York but we do have a few killers. Gets rid of a lot of the homeless." O'Neill raised his voice. "Goddamn homeless, I hate them. You know why? They scare me shitless. Here we are, the most powerful country on the globe and we have human wrecks messing up our recreation areas, crapping around statues, pissing up public transport, dragging their sodden bodies about everywhere. If we can't cure their insane uselessness why don't we just warehouse those wrecks in some nice warm camp somewhere, with lots of TV and junk food and innocuous games to play? But no, sir, we need more aircraft carriers, for we've got to bomb holes in brown people's countries."