Janwillem De Wetering - Blond Baboon

He remembered that there was a telephone booth at the end of the street. Grijpstra wasn’t in but he was put through to the commissaris’s secretary. “You are not to go and see Miss Carnet just now but to report to the commissaris later. He has gone away with the sergeant and the adjutant isn’t back yet.”

“So what am I to do?” Cardozo’s voice shot up in indignation.

“Well, I don’t know,” the secretary’s voice said coolly. “Surely you can find some work? The detectives’ city patrols are always short of men, Sergeant Sietsema was asking for you. He’s on duty this afternoon and he needs company.”

“Oh, very well, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Good boy.” She hung up.

“Aren’t I?” Cardozo asked the street. The telephone booth’s door slammed behind him. “Aren’t I? I got what they wanted me to get and I want to tell them about it and they aren’t there. They’re drinking coffee and smoking cigars and passing the time of day.” He glared at the peaceful street.

But Amsterdam is a helpful city, it provides comfort in subtle ways. A woman came past, pushing a perambulator containing identical twins facing each other solemnly from their pink wraps, vaguely resembling Grijpstra in his better moments. An old man with long hair strode on the opposite pavement whistling a Bach cantata. A girl on a red bicycle came around the corner. She wore a sleeveless blouse, un-buttoned, and nothing underneath. A well-shaped girl. Cardozo winked at the girl and she winked back and he began to walk to his car. Not such a bad day after all.

But he felt a little uptight again when he started the Volkswagen. A constable at the next intersection raised his hand. The Volkswagen drove on slowly. The constable whipped out a whistle and blew it. Cardozo’s foot stayed on the accelerator. He crossed the intersection and stopped, watching the constable in his rearview mirror. The constable was running.

“Didn’t you see me?”

“Sure. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I saw you, I saw you giving the stop sign, but I kept on driving. I must be going crazy.”

The constable bent down and peered into Cardozo’s face. “It sometimes happens,” he whispered confidentially. “I see it every now and then. I’ve thought of several explanations. Some subconscious protest, perhaps, or a hidden aggression, something like that. Have you done this before “No.”

“First time, eh? Well, maybe it means nothing. Maybe you’re just tired. But if it happens again you might see a psychiatrist. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a police detective.”

The constable’s eyebrows shot up and he stepped back to study the car. He jumped forward and pushed his head into the window. Cardozo pointed at the police radio under the dashboard and fished out his plastic identification.

“Get away,” the constable said.

“But…”

“Come on, get off. Off!” The constable walked back to the intersection. He was looking at the pavement and dragging his feet.

Wertheym, the plate on the door read, portrait painter.

There was nothing particular about the door and there was nothing to prevent Adjutant Grijpstra from pressing the hell but he didn’t. He stood with his hands folded and waited. He had been enjoying himself so far and he didn’t want to interrupt the steady flow of well-being that had begun to soak into him from the moment he had left his little house that morning. There was a small black cloud at the end of the flow and he meant to keep it away for as long as he could, a process that would be possible if he consciously experienced the small moments that his working day would present The black cloud was his return home. He definitely didn’t want to go home.

His wife, the blob of semi-solid fats, dirty and bad-tempered, that had grown slowly out of the girl he had once married, was gradually filling the two floors of their home, pushing him to the wall, seeping into his peace, the peace he built up during the day. One day he wouldn’t go home anymore. He didn’t want to see her leaning on the kitchen table that squeaked under her weight, leaning on the creaking railing on the stair landing, leaning on the cracked windowsill. It was hard for her to stand now. It was also hard for her to sit down, for the effort of getting up again might break the few chairs that were still in one piece.

But, where could he go if he didn’t go home? He was spending afterhours’ time in his room at headquarters, he was eating out as much as he could, but he still had to go home to sleep. He cursed slowly, articulating the syllables. But then he promised himself he wouldn’t think of the little black cloud; it would come on its own, without him thinking about it. His hand reached out slowly and pressed the bell.

The door opened at once.

“Mr. Wertheym?”

“Yes, I don’t…”

“I am a police detective, sir, here is my card. Just a few questions, may I come in?”

“Certainly, certainly, I thought you wanted your portrait painted. I don’t do men, you see, only women. I was going to tell you that, saves a lot of chatter. Come in.”

The man could only be a painter. His appearance was a perfect combination of the number of attributes that make up the idea “painter” in the average perceptive mind. A small goatee, high forehead, bright eyes, a beret on the gray locks, an apron smeared with assorted colors-Wertheym was undoubtedly an artist. But there was nothing artistic about his house. The furniture had been taken straight from the showroom of a lower-middle-class store. The imitation fireplace with its licking gas flames creeping over iron birch logs complete with bark was in the worst possible taste. A calendar showing a plump girl in a glued-on flowery miniskirt that could be lifted up hung next to a triangular arrangement of plastic and tin replicas of Spanish swords. Different types of paper flowers had been matched into a bouquet that had lost both color and resilience.

Grijpstra’s lips parted in a thin snarl. He also mumbled, “Home sweet home.”

“Pardon?”

“I was just thinking that my wife would like this room.”

“Would she now?” Wertheym offered a chair, one of a set of four, chrome framed and upholstered with strips of shiny green vinyl. “Not too hot for you here? This house is on the cold side of the street, never gets any sun. I keep the fire going but people say it’s stuffy in here, don’t notice it myself.”

“Quite all right, thank you.”

Grijpstra didn’t open the conversation. He almost never did anymore. Deliberate silences formed a new trick that had crept into his arsenal. He was practicing the trick now. He had done the necessary, shown his identification. The other parry should be a little rattled by now. He waited. Something might come up and, then again, it might not.

Wertheym had read the wording on Grijpstra’s card and remembered his rank. “Cup of tea, adjutant? Or coffee? I was just going to have coffee myself.”

“Please.”

“Police,” Wertheym said slowly. “Po-lice. First time I’ve been visited by a police officer, I mink, doesn’t happen in my trade. I just paint portraits, a harmless occupation. I’ve had the taxhounds after me but never the police. The taxman thought I hadn’t been declaring my true income. Maybe I hadn’t, but he couldn’t prove it so he went away again. So what have I done, adjutant?”

Grijpstra didn’t have to answer. Wertheym had darted off but he came back again, carrying a tray with two flowered glasses. “Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess in the kitchen. No cups today, but the coffee’ll taste the same. Instant coffee, hope you don’t mind, adjutant.”

Grijpstra did mind.