Janwillem De Wetering - Blond Baboon

“Mrs. Elaine Carnet,” he said and sipped from the glass. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Yes. She is dead. Was in the paper this morning. And I painted her portrait, last year. She didn’t model. I painted it from a poster, hell of a job it was. The poster was old and torn, a tear right through the face. A French poster. She used to sing in Paris, she said. I did the portraits and she paid cash and she left. Never saw her again. Nice woman, didn’t quibble about the price-they often do, you know. Amazing, their vanity gets in the way of their greed, but I’m greedy too and I never drop my price. The hell with ‘em, I always say. And if they argue, they’ll pay in advance, all of it, or I won’t touch the job.”

“Portraits?” Grijpstra had moved and some coffee had spilled on his trousers. It was seeping through to his skin. He put the glass down and rubbed the stain. “Portraits, you said? More than one, you mean?”

'Two portraits, identical-well, they differed a little, they were handmade, after all. She wanted two so I made two. Silly work, I mass-produced them. Little blob of blue on the one canvas, little blob of blue on the second canvas. I had never done that before, it was amusing in a way. It gave me ideas but nothing came of them. I specialize in female faces, you see, never do buildings or anything like that. If I could do buildings I could pick a particularly good one and do a whole series of them, just line up a lot of canvases and dance around, fill in the browns, then the reds, and so forth.”

“Yes.” Grijpstra hadn’t listened. “So you did two portraits? Why?”

“I never ask why, adjutant. Why should I? Why should they want their portraits done anyway? There isn’t one portrait I have done in the last ten years that I would want on my own wall. The ladies are all ugly as sin. I beautify them, of course, or I would have no business. In a way Mrs. Camet’s portrait was the best of them all: the poster showed her as a young woman. Young women aren’t as ugly as old women.”

“Thank you,” Grijpstra said. He left his almost full glass on the table. He had only taken two sips but the taste of the vile brew hung on in his mouth. He remembered that he had promised himself that this would be a good day. Fine, so he would find some real coffee somewhere. There were some pleasant sidewalk cafes in the vicinity. He would locate one and sit around for an hour and rid himself of the portrait painter’s sickening fumes. There was plenty of time. Cardozo couldn’t possibly be finished yet, he had been given a sizable job. He would make contact with Cardozo later and they could have more coffee while they thought of the right approach. They had to question Gabrielle Carnet again, and he didn’t know what the suspect had answered to the commissaris’s questions. Cardozo would have to fill him in. It would all take time. No hurry today.

His face looked placid as he ambled in the direction of the old city, careful not to hurt his toes against the uneven cobblestones and walking as close to the water of a narrow canal as the parked cars would permit. There had been a squall of rain, but the sun had come out again and now lit up a formation of seagulls patrolling the water for spoils and conversing raucously. A small boy was steering a homemade raft that was bumping crazily on the choppy waves in the wake of a barge.

He passed several cafes until he found one with the right conditions. It had a view of the canal, the waiter was an old man with a kind face, there was a fresh smell of coffee, and its terrace had already attracted several beautiful women. Fate seemed intent to disprove the portrait painter’s harsh remark, for more beautiful women came just after Grijpstra had sat down. He looked around approvingly. An Oriental girl with a small finely chiseled face, long straight legs, and a tight bosom had draped her self in the opposite corner. Two blond girls, of that very light blond that originates in Scandinavian countries, were exposing their faces and a good portion of their bodies to die wanning sun, and three black women, so stunningly well-shaped that they had to be models or ballet dancers, were talking to each other in the throaty melodious voices that he knew from de Gier’s jazz records. He took in as much as he could stand and closed his eyes. The vision started almost immediately and he concentrated to hold it.

The six women were in a pond, set in a luscious tropical landscape. They were naked, of course. The Scandinavian and the Oriental girls were swimming, turning their lovely bodies through the clear water, the black ladies were climbing out, drops glistening on their ebony skin. There were rosebushes on the banks of the pond and beyond, a forest of fruit trees. The fruit trees didn’t look right and changed into huge palms, their leaves rather similar to the commissaris’s fern. Grijpstra himself was in the vision too, both as an objective substantial form and as an observer. He was riding a camel, circling the pond. The camel ride gave the adjutant the double pleasure of being able to look down into the pool and participating in the animal’s sensuous sway. There was a close-up of the earners feet sinking into high grass and lifting up again. A beautiful beast, incongruous to the scene but fitting all the same. The vision became more involved and less lusty. He noted many details in the girls’ bodies, but they were of color and shape only and abstracted into a line play that got caught in the earners slow dance. He smilingly drifted away into sleep when the commissaris entered the vision, running through the tall grass and waving.

The adjutant awoke and grunted. He left some change on the table and went into die cafe” proper. There was a telephone.

“Ah, adjutant,” the commissaris’s secretary said in her grating voice. “I was waiting for your call. Cardozo has reported. He found witnesses to the attempt of dog poisoning and obtained statements. As we hadn’t heard from you I told him to report for patrol duty, and he is with Sergeant Sietsema in a car now.”

“No,” Grijpstra said.

“Well, we can’t let him hang around, can we? But I just had a message from the radio room. It appears that Cardozo forgot to check out a ring, he said you would know about it. The ring is on his desk and you’ll have to go to the morgue with it.” Grijpstra looked at the phone.

“Adjutant?”

He growled.

“And the commissaris and the sergeant have gone to the Pulitzer Hotel to talk with a Mr. Pullini, they will visit a Mr. Vleuten later today.”

“Everything topsy-turvy as usual,” Grijpstra said. “I need Cardozo to go and talk with Miss Camet.”

“Shall I get him back to headquarters, adjutant?”

“No. I’ll take care of that damned ring first. I’ll call you later.” He slammed the phone down before remembering that this was going to be a good day.

You can go back to bed if you like.” there was A fatherly note of concern in the commissaris’s voice. Francesco Pullini’s almond-shaped dark eyes stared at the little old man unbelievingly.

“Police?”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant de Gier and I are police officers investigating the death of Elaine Carnet. May we sit down?”

Francesco gestured dumbly. He undid the knot of the tasseled belt around his dressing gown and tied it again. The commissaris and de Gier had sat down. The room in the Pulitzer Hotel was well furnished-it should be, at the price Pullini was paying. The room was quiet and spacious, high enough not to be bothered by the traffic murmuring below on the canal’s narrow quay. An enormous double bed showed a slight dent where Francesco’s slim body had been resting.

Francesco had had time to line up some thoughts. “Police, what for you come here?”