Janwillem De Wetering - The Hollow-Eyed Angel

"Nice name," de Gier said.

"Charlie'll be there," the commissaris said. "At number two. I phoned. He sounded very pleasant."

"Good," de Gier said.

"You know," the commissaris said, "why, according to chief O'Neill, Hurrell didn't visit Charlie at home but just briefly interviewed him at the precinct? Because Tribeca is known for transvestite hookers. Because Hurrell's child died in Tribeca." The commissaris tsked.

De Gier tsked too.

Canal Street displays a seemingly endless array of market stalls on both sides. Food odors float on diesel fumes. Large buses and trucks thunder between overflowing sidewalks when they're not gridlocked between traffic lights. Policemen whistle at honking vehicles willing but unable to get going again.

"Watts Street?" the commissaris asked people of different colors, each dressed differently from the others.

"Vots Strijet?" "Trots Strit?" "Zljotz Striet?" responded the different people.

A new flow of eager buyers pushed the commissaris and de Gier into a corner where they found themselves staring at a display of Chinese-made windup toys. Beetles, mounting other beetles, whirred furiously. Clowns tumbled. Flame-spitting monstrosities danced about. Rabbits tried to climb carton walls, fell back, wagged their tails, seemed to have digestive problems.

A little black girl with bright ornaments in her felted hair strings picked up toys that had stopped and passed them to a boy who turned the toys' keys and handed them back.

At the next stall a soup vendor tended a charcoal fire under large aluminum containers. Brown children dropped wilted vegetables, bloodied bones and fish heads into the containers' bubbling contents.

"Sopa?" the vendor asked, offering a bowl and spoon.

"No thank you, sir. Watts Street?"

De Gier listened to the voices holding forth all around him. The sergeant's linguistic interests were aroused. Hardly anybody spoke English. All these people might be recently arrived. Amsterdam is an international city too and de Gier had learned to distinguish sounds and phrasing to determine origins. He heard Chinese voices, both Cantonese and Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish. Tall women in robes might be Tibetan. Other tall women in robes might be Zulu. Two white shoppers coming by could be Finnish.

"Vot street you vont?" the soup vendor asked.

"Watts."

A woman directed them to a little folding table set up in a doorway where a beautifully bearded man in a turban and flowing robes sold light bulbs. There was the fragrance of quality marijuana mixing with that of incense burning under the oil-painted picture of a guru sitting in the lotus position.

"Watts Street?"

"What street?"

They left Canal, turning south at the next side street, followed an alley without a street sign, then kept turning until they saw the river.

"Maybe here?"

"I'll ask." De Gier strode over to a tall white prostitute in a miniskirt and a silk blouse under an imitation lynx fur coat. "Watts Street, please?"

"Right here." The prostitute's voice was a baritone. "All the way down to the Hudson River, but there's nothing here but warehouses and me. My minivan is around the corner. I work in the car. I could oblige you?"

"No thank you." De Gier looked for numbers. "Number two?"

"Bert and Charlie?" the prostitute asked.

The commissaris stepped closer, looking pleased. "Yes, do you know them?"

The prostitute looked suspicious. "You can't be cops, not with those accents."

"Cops from Holland," the commissaris said. "We're just inquiring. Does Bert Termeer live near here?"

The prostitute shook a cigarette out of a Marlboro pack. "Got a match?"

"We stopped smoking," de Gier said.

The prostitute coughed painfully. "Good for you. I smoke because of the weather but the weather gets worse." He found his own match after digging about in a shiny handbag. He sucked smoke hungrily, coughed, sucked smoke again. "Termeer is dead."

"We know," the commissaris said. "That's why we're here." He put out his hand and said his name.

The prostitute laughed, then excused himself. "What sort of a name is that?" He shook the commissaris's hand. "My name is Teddy."

De Gier shook hands too.

Teddy walked them to a three-story warehouse with a crumbling cement-over-concrete front. Between rows of boarded-up windows apostolic faces, white skinned, black bearded, smiled appealingly. Birds held up banners.

The banners bore a text: give your time do things for God give your money "Give your money to me," Teddy said. "I can use it. I badly need cough drops."

De Gier handed over a twenty-dollar bill.

Teddy thanked him. "Like to see my place on the Bowery? Best whips and chains collection downtown."

"Thank you," de Gier said. "We don't have the time." He pointed at the beseeching smilers, the text-carrying bluebirds.

"Termeer and Charlie put that up?"

Teddy laughed. "No, that was the Good Lord Club. The club didn't survive. The bank foreclosed and Charlie bought the building. There's nothing much here for Goodlorders." He waved at forbidding warehouses up and down Watts Street. "No conversions."

There were two sets of stone steps, each leading to a metal door. The commissaris tried to read a small hand-painted sign next to the left door. His outdated glasses failed him.

Teddy helped out. Bert the Bookseller.

"You knew Bert Termeer?" the commissaris asked Teddy.

Teddy grimaced. "Sure did."

"Did you like him?"

"I like Charlie," Teddy said. "Charlie asks me in when it rains. We eat noodles in the restaurant sometimes." He raised a shoulder. "Just friends, you know? Separate checks. Regular conversation. 'Pass the soy sauce.' I like that. You know? Friendly-like?" He pointed at his pick-up spot on the corner of Watts Street. "The lamppost gets lonely. I take off for lunch. When Charlie wants to eat noodles and he happens to come by we go eat together."

"Termeer didn't ask you in when it rained?"

"Sure," Teddy said. "Oftentimes. Any kind of weather." He looked over his shoulder. A man was waiting at the end of the street. "Uh-oh. Duty calls, gents."

Teddy walked away, on long silken legs, swinging tight hips.

The commissaris and de Gier contemplated the door on the right side of the forbidding building. Charlie's nameplate was a strip of yellowing paper covered by cracked plastic. The writing was in black ballpoint. diaries gilbert perrin

The commissaris pressed an oxidized brass button. A loudspeaker spoke near his ear, uncannily clear of static, transmitting a calm deep voice.

"Nothing needed," Charlie said, "I thank you. Take care now. Okay."

The commissaris said his name.

"Mr. Dutch Police and Co.?" Charlie asked. "Stay right there, folks, I'm coming."

The commissaris looked down Watts Street, wondering how Grijpstra would like this view. Grijpstra might paint it on a Sunday morning, as a change from dead ducks. The commissaris thought that the narrow empty alley-not even cars were attracted to Watts Street- would inspire an artist searching for unusual settings. Watts Street's emptiness seemed intensified, perhaps because of the ghostly light reflected by the shimmering Hudson.

De Gier picked up on the atmosphere too. "An end-of-time street. Nobody here but the dead, sir. But they might be returning."

In the alley's massive gray and brown buildings nothing seemed to go on. Warehouses for stolen goods? Sweatshops where illegal aliens worked for low wages? The structures' formidable steel doors locked curiosity out.

Bolts were turning on the inside of number two.

The man who faced the detectives appeared to be a well-cared-for, friendly, healthy gentleman in his mid-fifties. The muscularity of Charlie's body, mentioned by Mounted Maggie and the desk-sergeant at the Central Park Precinct, hardly showed under a blue turtleneck sweater. Charlie's dark blond hair looked old-fashioned, cut short, shaved around the ears, slicked down, combed neatly. The face was naturally tanned and Charlie had recently shaved meticulously. Brown eyes sparkled behind metal framed spectacles. Charlie's large nose curved slightly. The teeth were strong and clean, with a single gold filling. Charlie's wristwatch might have been bought on Canal Street: a twenty-dollar digital item with a simple metal strap.