DeKok and the Sorrowing Tomcat (6 page)

Vledder shrugged his shoulders.

“Perhaps the guys who did the hold-up anticipated Pete's blackmail attempt and just got him out of the way to be on the safe side. You know, just as a precaution.”

DeKok bit his lower lip.

“Possibly,” he said, deep in thought, “just maybe. But it does seem rather far-fetched. I mean, kill somebody before he has even done anything? That's … eh, that's just
too
precipitous. There has to be another, more reasonable motive.”

“All right, what?”

DeKok ambled over to the coat rack.

“If you've got trouble sleeping, tonight, meditate upon that question.”

He pulled on his coat, pressed his little, old felt hat on top of his head.

“Come on, we'll go see Mother Geffel.”

Vledder followed without protest.

*   *   *

Ever since her wedding day, old lady Geffel had lived in the small, spotless house on the quiet side of the Lily Canal. The house always smelled of coffee and furniture polish. A rather heavy-set neighbor woman opened the door. She raised her eyebrows with a questioning expression when she saw the two inspectors on the doorstep. DeKok lifted his hat.

“We … eh,” he said hesitatingly, “we want to express our sympathy to Mrs. Geffel about the loss of her son.”

The neighbor pressed her heavy body against the side of the corridor.

“Please come in,” she said, “she's inside.”

There were a lot of people in the small living room. Family, friends and acquaintances with sad faces. Mother Geffel was seated in a chair next to the window. When DeKok entered she looked at him with a teary face. For just a moment it seemed as if she would cry again. But she controlled herself and with surprising strength she gripped both hands of the gray sleuth.

“I always warned my Pete, Mr. DeKok,” she said sadly. “You know that. I always said he would come to a bad end. But he would never listen, not to me, or to anybody. He always knew everything better.”

She shook her head.

“And how much did Uncle Gus Shenk not do for him? Ever since my husband died, he always kept an eye on the boy. But all for nothing. He always thought that life was nothing but a game and all the people in the world were there only to amuse Pete Geffel.”

Her voice sounded bitter.

“Oh, yes,” she went on in a changed tone, “they always did laugh at his jokes, his tricks. They laughed too much you know. That was the problem. It was that way when he was only a kid and he was always the center of attention. We never saw how wrong that could be. First it was Funny Pete, then Handy Pete and finally just Cunning Pete. You see, that's how it happened. It became worse all the time and it's my fault. From the beginning I should have been much more strict…”

DeKok placed one of his large hands tenderly on the shoulder of the old woman.

“I wouldn't blame myself too much if I were you, Mrs. Geffel. There's no reason for that at all, at all. It's
not
your fault and I know that.” He sighed. “How could you have prevented his death? How? You could hardly keep him by the hand all the time. There was no way to tie him to your apron strings. No, Pete was old enough and wise enough to take care of himself.”

The old woman sobbed softly.

“And lately there was such an improvement. I was so happy. After all, you
do
want what's best for your child, don't you? He had met a girl, a nice, kind girl. He would do anything for her. I'd never seen anything like it. He couldn't care less about girls, as a rule. But this one was different. He even contacted an employment agency, looking for regular work.”

DeKok's eyebrows danced briefly across his forehead.

“Work?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, he had serious plans.”

“Marriage?”

“Yes.”

“What's the name of the girl?”

“Florentine … Florentine La Croix.”

“A beautiful name,” admired DeKok.

A vague smile fled across the wrinkled face of the old woman.

“But he didn't call her Florentine. That was too ostentatious, he said. He called her Flossie … just Flossie.” She gestured. “That was my Pete. That was his way. He had a special name for everybody and everything.” She looked up at him, a bit shyly, a hint of a naughty twinkle in her eye. “He had a special name for you too,” she said. “He called you
the Cocque of the walk.
He was so clever. He frenchified your name, you see,” she explained superfluously. “Cocque means
rooster
in French, you see, and thus…”

“Yes, yes,” said DeKok hastily, casting a warning glance at a smirking Vledder. He was well aware of Vledder's opinion regarding the similarity in names between himself and the very late Captain Banning Cocq. “Did … eh,” he continued, “did he talk about me at all, lately?”

She looked at him, wondering about the question.

“You mean,” she said finally, slowly, “about you being after him?” Then, in response to DeKok's nod, she continued: “No, as I said, things were going so much better.”

DeKok nodded again.

“Do you know who he hung around with, lately?”

“No, I don't. Anyway, I never knew that. Those sort of things he kept from me, you see. He knew what I thought about his so-called friends.”

DeKok remained silent. His glance roamed the small room, observed those present. He saw a few old acquaintances. There was Old Bill, who he had arrested once, a long time ago, for dealing in stolen goods. And “Uncle” Derek. Uncle Derek Geffel who, despite his sixty years, still liked to get involved in street fights. Just some old, semi-retired ex-cons who were past it. There were no modern criminals present.

DeKok shook hands with the old lady.

“When is the funeral?”

Mother Geffel swallowed.

“Thursday,… this Thursday at Sorrow Field.”

DeKok rubbed his dry lips with the back of his hand.

“I'll try to be there and I'll see if Uncle Gus Shenk wants to come as well. You know how he liked the boy.”

Mother Geffel searched for a handkerchief.

A murmur of agreement went through the room.

*   *   *

DeKok guided the police VW along the Amsterdam canals. He was not in a hurry. His head burst with ideas. Once in while he would look at young Vledder, slouched in the seat beside him.

“What's the matter. Dick?” he asked at last. “Something bothering you?”

Vledder pressed himself more or less into a sitting position.

“It just doesn't compute,” he said, irritation in his voice. “If Mother Geffel is right and if Pete was in the process of changing his lifestyle, well, then his death becomes an even greater puzzle than it is already. For one thing, what's left of a motive?”

DeKok searched for, and found, a stick of chewing gum.

“You never know,” he said somberly. “Perhaps his ‘conversion' is the motive for the killing.” He sighed deeply, clamping down on the chewing gum. “Anyway,” he continued, “keep in mind that a mother usually presents her son in as good a light as possible. I wouldn't take all her statements as Gospel, you know. His reform is nothing knew … it's happened before. Ask Shenk, he'll tell you.”

For a time they drove along in silence. Between them hung the spirit of Cunning Pete. DeKok was the first to break the silence.

“Apart from your brief phone call,” he began, “I haven't heard anything about your visit to Haarlem.”

“Ach,” answered Vledder, irked. “There's not all that much to tell. First I went to the local police station and they provided me with an escort to point out the house. It was a nice house, a big house, in the suburbs.”

“With a garage?”

“No, no, it was an old-fashioned house. No garage. That's why the Simca was parked in the street.”

“What was your impression of Bergen?”

“Oh, a nice guy. He told me of his own accord that he was one of the managers at B&G. He certainly didn't make a secret of it. But … he said: ‘you must not give that any particular significance. The fact that a blue Simca was used during the hold-up and the fact that I happen to own a blue Simca that has been stolen, is no more than a peculiar coincidence of circumstances and you, detectives, must not assume that it is anything more than that'.”

DeKok laughed.

“Did you learn that by heart?”

Vledder smiled.

“Believe me, that's exactly the way he said it. I thought is so beautifully phrased that I remembered it.”

“And what did Mrs. Bergen say?”

Vledder turned abruptly toward DeKok

“My goodness, good thing you reminded me, I'd almost forgotten. Mrs. Bergen made a particularly strange remark.”

“Remark?”

“Yes, she said, and I quote: ‘Bent should never have married for the second time.'.”

“What did that have to do with anything?”

Vledder gestured.

“It had absolutely nothing to do with anything. That's the point. It was just an idle remark, without reason, or purpose. Bergen, quite rightly I think, ignored it. He just gave her an angry look. Obviously he wasn't happy with the remark.”

“What next?”

“Nothing next. I tried to get the conversation on the subject of Bent, I tried several times. But without success. Bergen didn't give me a chance. After his wife's remark he firmly kept the trend of the conversation under control. It was almost as if he was afraid she would say anything else. Of course, I could have directed a number of pertinent questions at her, but I didn't want to be obvious.”

DeKok nodded his understanding.

“Time enough for that.”

He parked the car along the sidewalk.

“You're home,” he said. “Get a good night's sleep and then, in the morning, off you go to Seadike. I want you to personally acquaint yourself with the facts. Especially the technical details are important to me, you know, footprints, fingerprints, special characteristics of the weapon … There must be a lot of detail that simply wasn't included in the telex message this morning.”

Vledder smiled. DeKok would insist on calling a fax a telex. He got out of the car.

“What's your next step?” he asked from the sidewalk.

DeKok shook his head.

“I think I'll just stop by the office for a moment, on my way home, just to double check on new developments, if any.”

Vledder nodded.

“And what about Mrs. Bergen's remark?”

DeKok smiled.

“We take it at face value. Perhaps Bent
shouldn't
have married for the second time.”

*   *   *

DeKok proceeded at a snail's pace in fourth gear. The old engine in the VW protested vehemently. DeKok ignored it. Engines were not a passion with him and he felt even less sympathy for transmissions. Quietly he bounced along.

When he spotted a phone booth at the corner of the Roses Canal and the Wester Market, he suppressed with difficulty the malicious impulse to call the Commissaris out of bed. He would have liked to tell him that he was, after all, going to get involved with Pete Geffel's murder. He grinned softly at himself, then reflected that it would be bad manners to disturb the well deserved rest of the old man and passed the phone booth with a soft glow of inner righteousness.

He parked the car behind the building and walked toward the front of the station house. Suddenly he heard the unmistakable tick-tack of high heels behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw a beautiful blonde girl, dressed in a long, black cape.

“DeKok?”

He nodded, hesitatingly.

“With … eh, with kay-oh-kay,” he answered, almost mechanically. Another beautiful blonde, he thought. And then, with an inner shrug, he thought, what else can you expect in Holland? Curiously he looked at the young woman.

She gave him a sweet smile.

“I'm Flossie.”

6

DeKok leaned his elbows on the desk. From over his folded hands he looked with approval at the young woman across the desk from him. His first impression had been correct, he determined. She
was
beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful. She had sparkling blue eyes, a clear, open face and an ivory skin. Her long, blonde hair came down in luxurious waves and contrasted pleasantly with the black cape.

At first he had estimated her to be younger, but now, in the detective room, under the harsh lights of the neon tubes she looked to be about twenty-four, maybe twenty-five years old. He tried to remember if he had ever met her before, but again he thought, not without irony, that fate had led a lot of beautiful blonde women to cross his path. It was almost an occupational hazard, he reflected ruefully. His experiences were mixed. Beautiful women showed a sometimes frightening willingness to get involved in all sorts of difficulties. But that was definitely the only objection DeKok had against beautiful women.

“I waited a long time for you.”

She had a deep, sultry voice that echoed softly and pleasantly in the room.

“I'm sorry,” sighed DeKok. “After all, I wasn't to know that…”

She waved his apologies away.

“I take it you know who I am?”

DeKok swallowed.

“Flossie … isn't that what you said?”

With a nonchalant gesture she shrugged off her cape, shook her long hair and adjusted the hem of her skirt. Her long, slender legs were stunning.

“Florentine La Croix. Flossie … Flossie is just for my most intimate friends.” She smiled at him sweetly and pulled her chair a little closer. “So to you … I'm Flossie.”

DeKok took refuge in his puritanical, civil servant soul and braced himself for what was to come next. He decided, no matter what, not to succumb to the undeniable attraction of the young woman.

“Flossie.”

His voice sounded strange to him. To hide his inner confusion he rummaged in a drawer, then sat back.