The Hollow-Eyed Angel (13 page)

Chapter 15

                                        "The commissaris wants to know about Termeer's background," Adjutant Grijpstra told Detective-Constable-First-Class Simon Cardozo. "The man left this country twenty years ago. For America. Never came back. You're a bright young man, Cardozo. Where do we start?"

Cardozo smirked. "Maybe Termeer played golf?"

Grijpstra patted Cardozo's arm. "You're still annoyed you weren't in on the Crailo Golf Club expedition?"

"I might have pointed out that there is no golf playing in Central Park," Cardozo said. "Furthermore, I would have..."

"Bert Termeer's background," Grijpstra hollered, "you've read the file. I want you to suggest something. Okay?" Grijpstra swung hairy fists over Cardozo's head. He dropped the hairy fists and spoke gently. "Okay."

"Okay," Cardozo said.

"What do we do?" Grijpstra whispered.

Cardozo combed his tousled hair with his fingers. "Find someone who knew old Bert Termeer."

"The Younger Termeer," Grijpstra said, while checking de Gier's notes on his interview with Termeer's nephew. "Old Termeer had a girlfriend, a certain Carolien, his landlady...hmmm...didn't share beds, did they?.. .had their own quarters.. .she liked having sex with the mailman and somesuch..." He looked across the room at Cardozo. "What to you make of that?"

"Maybe an intellectual relationship?" Cardozo asked. "But the lady is dead. Remember? Suicide due to advanced multiple sclerosis?"

Grijpstra wanted positive input.

"Who do we know," Cardozo asked brightly, "who knew Bert Termeer, who isn't dead?"

There was only Jo Termeer, the nephew. Jo Termeer had been questioned by de Gier. The object of that interview was to determine the seriousness of complaint's request. There had been no emphasis on the dead man's past.

"I'll phone," Cardozo said.

Grijpstra checked his watch. "Food first."

They walked over to a sandwich shop nearby at Rose Canal. While Grijpstra ordered shrimp and smoked eel on white buns, soft, hold the onions, no mayo on his French fries, coffee with, Cardozo used a pay phone.

Jo Termeer picked up.

"Good evening, this is Detective-Constable Cardozo. A few routine questions, please. You aren't busy?"

Jo was busy.

"This won't take a minute. It's about your uncle."

Jo said that he had told de Gier everything he knew. He suggested Cardozo replay the tape.

"Your uncle was a member of the bookdealers' society?"

Jo didn't know.

"Hobbies?" Cardozo asked. "No? Affiliation with a church or an investment society? No? He dealt in spiritual books, right? Any Buddhist or Hindu contacts? No? Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Rotarians, theosophical, anthroposophical, astrological interests, associations, friends? No?

"Liked to visit a specific cafe?

"Relatives anywhere, except you, of course?"

"Not that I know of," Jo said. "Goodbye." He hung up.

Cardozo entered the sandwich shop to tell the adjutant that, in his opinion, Jo Termeer was an asshole.

Grijpstra and Cardozo ate the last shrimp the owner said he would ever serve. Now that the North Sea was being fished out, the shop's customers could no longer afford the price. A minimal wholesale order was a bushel. Freezer shelf life was limited. Invest a fortune to eventually feed rats and sea gulls?

The owner wrote the bill and pushed it across his marble counter. "I'm sorry, gents. Order beef tongue next time."

"You still live with your parents, Cardozo," Grijpstra said after reading the total. "You pay."

Cardozo peeled off large brightly colored banknotes.

"And /should have phoned young Termeer," Grijpstra said. "You probably used your high-pitched phone voice again. It irritates the other party."

"Adjutant," Cardozo pleaded, "we're trying to
help
the fellow."

"Poor fellow had a bad day," Grijpstra said. "Young Termeer's client burned his pompadour in the dryer. Or it was dyed the wrong color maybe. Bastard wouldn't pay, raised a ruckus. Wanted Termeer to pay
him
maybe. Charged negligence or whatnot. And in the midst of all that misery you squeak in his ear."

"Here we go all out," Cardozo said, "trying to solve the asshole's problem, and he won't answer simple questions?"

Grijpstra pleaded. "I know him. I taught the man. One year at police school. Three evenings a week. I tell you, Simon, subject is attentive, correct, has a pleasant attitude, is willing to cooperate "

"Please." Cardozo shrugged. "As a student he was motivated to show his better side. He wanted to be a policeman. You were the instructor. You would be grading his papers."

"You're right." Grijpstra pushed Cardozo into the street. "Everybody is right.
Nellie
is right." He was raising his voice.

They walked around a large squatting dog. Grijpstra growled at the dog. "Don't do that, it's illegal, where is your boss? Does he have his prescribed shovel and plastic bags? Do you know what the fine is for doing what you're doing?"

The dog growled back.

Cardozo waved at a member of the municipal brigade of Mechanized On-the-Spot Cleaners, which patrols Amsterdam's inner city. The smartly uniformed man rode his gleaming white motorcycle over. He maneuvered it between the penis-shaped cast-iron posts that are set into the edges of sidewalks to prevent illegal parking. "What do we have here?" The cleaner saluted the dog. "Aha." The man pointed the shiny nozzle of his vacuum tube at the squatting dog's backside. He held his finger on the handgrip's trigger.

"Switch it on," Grijpstra said, but the dog wasn't done yet. It looked over its shoulder, baring large sharp canines.

"This thing is powerful," the cleaner shouted over the Kawasaki's steady reverberations. "It could rip out the dog's ass."

The dog, done now, barked happily and loped off. "There we go," the cleaner said. He pulled the trigger behind the tube's nozzle. The vacuum's tube sucked loudly. There was a rumble in the cylinder welded to his luggage carrier.

The sidewalk was clean again, its cobblestones shining mysteriously in late sunlight.

"Big fellows like that scare me," the cleaner said, "although the work is more rewarding. Little dogs are okay. If they're real little I don't wait till they're done." He laughed. "If they fit into the tube...upsadaisy!"

The Kawasaki roared off.

"He was kidding, right?" Cardozo asked.

Grijpstra marched on. "We know that Bert Termeer once operated a street stall in Old Man's Gate on Old Side Canal. Let's ask around. Maybe some oldtimer will remember." He showed his electronic watch to Cardozo. "Can't read this without glasses. It
is
Thursday?"

Amsterdam retail outlets stay open on Thursday evenings.

The detectives caught a streetcar to Dam Square and walked via Dam Street and Old Side Canal to Old Man's Gate book market, a long corridor between ancient gray buildings at the beginning of the Red Light District crescenting St. Nicholas Church.

Tourists and students crowded between the corridor's ornate iron gates, around trestle tables bending under stacks of reading matter. Cardozo leafed through a British Victorian art book. It showed etchings of lesbian positions. Grijpstra talked to a seller operating under a large sign that said "Bieber Birds." The old stooped dealer resembled a bird himself: a great crested blue heron on long thin legs, with a sharp beaklike nose.

Mr. Bieber remembered his colleague Bert Termeer well.

Grijpstra explained his interest after showing his police card. "An inquiry on behalf of the family. Mr. Termeer died in Central Park in New York under not really suspicious circumstances. Heart trouble probably. This is merely routine."

Oh yes, bookseller Bieber knew all about bad health. On your feet in a drafty passage all day—it was amazing he himself hadn't succumbed as yet. Of course he himself lived as restful a life as circumstances permitted. Termeer's lifestyle was always exhausting. The man had spent long hours buying and selling his so-called spiritual books, and then, evenings, during the weekend and so forth, holidays, what have you, hot summer evenings when most people relax, Termeer would be out there in the city, performing his act in front of cafes.

"Act?"

Bieber nodded. "Bone diving, he called it."

Cardozo, at the next table, studying voluptuous female bodies united by dildos, looked up. "A sexual connotation?"

Bieber tittered. "Bone, not boner."

Grijpstra was bewildered. "Termeer dived for bones?"

Bieber said he hadn't understood the term either at first. Termeer's signboard above his table in the Gate said "Bone Diver." It had worried Bieber when Termeer started out. "Divers" are birds, and Bieber wanted no competition, certainly not from a table that adjoined his own.

But it was okay. Termeer dealt in so-called spiritual books, with a sideline of erotica.

"Erotica?"

Bieber gestured appeasingly. "Young acrobats and wrestlers running about. Greek stuff. Pastoral scenes. Little kids cavorting. Girls in the bathtub. All playful-like. Invigorating." Bieber rubbed his hands. "Kept him going, he said."

"Porno?"

"Nah." Bieber waved the accusation away. "You mean the hard stuff? You won't find that in the Gate. Termeer sold so-called spiritual stuff mostly."

Grijpstra raised his heavy steel-wool eyebrows. "So what's the bone-diving bullshit?"

Bieber shrugged. "Something mystical maybe?"

"A koan," Cardozo said. "Like in Zen. Some strangely phrased riddle. There's lots of allegory here." He pointed at the corridor's gates. "Pass through the gates of learning, dive for bones of wisdom."

"My erudite assistant was selected for intelligence," Grijpstra said to Bieber. "To me this sounds farfetched."

Bieber said farfetched terms attract the curious. People would come over to ask Termeer about his giant carved-in-oak sign, hanging from squeaky chains above the table loaded with Eastern wisdom. Yoga and so forth. Buddhism. The Tao. The meaning of Sufi dances.

"No Christian material?"

Bieber said, "Maybe early Christian. Nothing simple." He scowled. "But Termeer never explained anything." He cheered up again. "Termeer's acting aimed at making you guess what he was up to. So people would look at me, behind the next table, paying attention to what Termeer was going to pull, and ask me about this 'diver' thing and I'd get a chance to show my waterfowl pictures. "Like this, see?" Bieber opened a picture book and turned pages. "Here. Know what these are?"

Cardozo tried. "Giant uncrested grebes?"

Bieber tittered again. "Wiseass. You, sir?"

Grijpstra thought the birds were sea geese.

Bieber nodded. "Red-throat divers, pearl divers, ice divers—not too many of those left nowadays—yellow-beaked divers. No bone divers, but what the hell." He winked. "Thing is to get clients interested. You don't want to stand around passive-like all the time. Got to pull 'em in and make them buy. Get some action. Most folks like to buy bird pictures." Bieber waved his coat sleeves like a heron waves its wings before stumbling into flight. "Birds are special."

"Apart from refusing to explain his bone diver sign," Grijpstra asked, "what else did your colleague do to attract attention?"

"He was different," Bieber said. "Altogether." He looked hopefully at the adjutant, as if expecting understanding from a peer. "You know?"

Grijpstra knew, but he wanted Bieber to expand his knowledge.

Bieber's theory, based on observations made during years of watching Termeer's antics, ruled out craziness. The used-book trade is too marginal to allow for madness. Bieber therefore theorized that Termeer fit the "surrealist niche."

Bieber showed his false teeth in a helpful smile. "Fitting regular things together differendy to get something different across? Different knowledge?"

Grijpstra was patient. "So what regular things did Termeer fit together differently, Mr. Bieber?"

"Like how?" Cardozo asked.

"Well," Bieber said, "there was the sign, there were the animals.

"Termeer," Bieber continued, "owned a mongrel that was so smart he knew when to look stupid. The dog would grab people by their coats and drag them over to Termeer's trestle table.

"There was also the macaque." Bieber liked the dog but he never cared for the monkey. Monkeys defecate anywhere. This one preferred bird books.

"The monkey brought in clients too?"

Bieber nodded. The macaque danced ahead of people and pulled faces and pointed at the so-called spiritual books.

So Bert Termeer invented ways to get through to people to impart different knowledge?

"Right," Bieber said. Termeer would insult his clients. He might recommend books and then refuse to sell them, charge outrageously, even tear books up. He might give a book away and then run after the client and try to get it back.

"Lots of funny old ladies hanging around that table, I bet," Grijpstra said.

No, Bieber said. Bert Termeer wouldn't deal with so-called spiritual old ladies. He would shoo them away.

"And he still sold well?"

Oh yes, Bieber said. People would come from all over. Americans. British. There was the mail-order side too. His catalogue did well.

Cardozo interrupted. "You keep saying 'so-called' spiritual, sir. You mean...?"

"Listen," Bieber winked, beckoning Cardozo closer, "can anyone write, print, read the truth about meaning? Or origin? Or the future? Or the present for that matter?" Bieber cackled diabolically. "You want peace of mind?" Bieber squeezed Cardozo's cheek. "Can the mind be peaceful? Aren't minds filled with thoughts? You want to read in more thoughts?"

Bieber pointed his beaklike nose at the sky and flapped his sleeves, looking more like a heron than ever. "That's the infinite out there. The great secret." He poked a wing at Cardozo. "You think you can put infinity into books?"

Grijpstra said, "But that was Termeer's living. He lived a lie?"

"Who doesn't?" Bieber asked.

So how to become truthful? Bieber asked Bieber.

Maybe by creating seemingly crazy circumstances, Bieber answered Bieber. By creating a crack in the regular world regular folks build up for themselves. Then slip through it.