Death of a Hawker (15 page)

Other customers came and bought. Cardozo was yelling and waving and de Gier handled the scissors. After a while de Gier was selling too, joking and flirting with an odd assortment of females.

"Maybe we should do this for a living," he said during a short pause. A juggler on a collection of soap boxes was attracting everybody's attention and they had time to breathe.

"We have made more than we would normally make in a week working as policemen," Cardozo admitted, "but we have the right goods. It takes time and money to find this type of merchandise."

"I am sure we could do it."

"Yes, we'll find the right goods and we might get rich. A lot of these hawkers are rich. Abe Rogge was rich, or so you told me anyway. You want to get ricn, de Gier?"

"Perhaps."

"You would have to leave the police."

"I wouldn't mind."

"Right," Cardozo said, trying to smooth down a piece of machine-made lace. "I'll join you if you want to become a merchant, but I don't think you ever will. I think you were born to become a policeman, like me. Maybe it's a vocation."

The juggler came to collect. He had drawn a lot of people to their corner of the market. Cardozo gave him some coins.

"Thanks," de Gier said. Hie juggler, an old man with a sun-tanned bald head smiled, showing a messy array of broken brown teeth.

"Thanks for nothing, buddy," the juggler said. "I'll be performing a hundred yards down now and drawing the crowd away from you again, but maybe I'll put them in a good mood and they'll be free with their money. You'd better hurry up though; we'll have rain in a minute and they'll melt away like whores who have seen the patrol car."

"Did you hear that?" de Gier asked. "He mentioned the police. Do you think he knows about us?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe not," de Gier said, and looked at the sky. It had become very hot and sweat prickled under his shirt. The clouds were lead-colored and low. The street sellers were putting up sheets of transparent plastic and pulling in their goods.

The clouds burst suddenly and cold heavy rain drowned the market, catching women and small children in midstreet, forcing them to scatter for cover. Sheets of water blocked de Gier's view and roared down, splashing up again from the pavement over his feet and trouser legs, dribbling down from the canvas roof and hitting him in the neck. Cardozo was shouting something and pointing at the stall next to them, but de Gier couldn't make out the words. He vaguely saw the old hawker and his wife scrambling about, but couldn't work out what was expected of him until Cardozo pulled him over and handed him a carton of vegetables and pointed at a VW bus parked on the sidewalk. Together they filled the small bus with their neighbor's merchandise, which the old man had stored under his stall and which was now in danger of being swept down the street by the torrent. De Gier was wet through and cursing but there seemed no end to the potatoes, cucumbers, baby squashes, bananas and cab-

Thanks, mate," the old man and his wife kept on saying. De Gier muttered in reply. Cardozo was grinning like a monkey.

"Lovely to see you working for a change," Cardozo screamed right into de Gier's ear, so that it needed rubbing to make it function again.

"Don't shout," he shouted and Cardozo grinned again, his sharp face alight with devilish mirth.

The rain stopped when they had filled the bus and the sun was back suddenly, brightening a dismal scene of floating cartons and cases and sodden merchants splashing around their stalls mumbling and cursing, and shaking themselves like dogs climbing out of a canal.

"Hell," de Gier said, trying to dry his hair and face with a crumpled handkerchief. "Why did we have to help those fools? They could see the rain was coming, couldn't they?"

"Friendship," Cardozo said, rubbing his hands and waving at the coffee girl, who came staggering toward them carrying her tray rilled with glasses of hot coffee and a dish of meat rolls and sausages smeared with mustard. "Love your neighbor, I remembered. There's nothing those old people can ever do to repay us, is there?"

De Gier smiled in spite of his discomfort. Cold drops were running down his back, touching his buttocks, the only dry part of his body. "Yes," he said, and nodded. "Thanks."

"Thanks for what?" Cardozo asked, suddenly cautious.

"For the lesson, I like to learn."

Cardozo studied de Gier's face. De Gier's smile seemed genuine. Cardozo sipped his coffee, shoving his tobacco and paper toward the sergeant, who immediately rolled two cigarettes, placing one between Cardozo's lips. He struck a match.

"No," Cardozo said. "I don't trust you, sergeant."

"What
are
you talking about?" de Gier asked pleasantly.

"Ah, there you are," Grijpstra said. "Loafing about as I expected. I thought you were supposed to be street sellers. Shouldn't you be trying to sell something? If you hang about in the back of your stall drinking coffee and exchanging the news of the day, you'll never get anywhere."

"Cardozo," de Gier said. "Get the adjutant a nice glass of coffee and a couple of sausages."

"Don't call me adjutant down here, de Gier, and I'll have three sausages, Cardozo."

"That'll be five guilders," Cardozo said.

That'll be nothing, take it out of the till. You must have collected some money this morning while we were running around catching Turks."

"Turks?" de Gier and Cardozo asked in one voice.

"Turks, two of them, shot them both and took them to the hospital. I hope the one fellow won't die. He got a bullet through the left lung."

"Run along, Cardozo," de Gier said. "What's with the Turks, Grijpstra?"

Grijpstra sat down on a bale of cloth and lit a small cigar. "Yes, Turks. Silly fools held up a bank using toy pistols, beautiful toys, indistinguishable from the real thing. The one had a Luger and the other a big army-model Browning, made of plastic. The bank has an alarm and they managed to push the button. A sixteen-year-old girl pushed it while she was smiling at the robbers. The manager was too busy filling his pants. I happened to be at a station close by and got there on foot, as the patrol cars arrived. The fools threatened us with their toys and they got shot, one in the leg, the other in the chest. It was over in two minutes."

"Did you shoot them?" de Gier asked.

"No. I had my gun out but I didn't even have time to load. The constables fired as soon as they arrived."

"They shouldn't have."

"No, but they lost a man some months ago, remember? He stopped a stolen car and got shot dead before he could open his mouth. These were the dead man's friends. They remembered. And the toys looked real enough."

"I thought those toys weren't sold anymore in the shops?"

"The Turks bought them in England," Grijpstra said, and shrugged. "Some happy shopkeeper made a few shillings in London and now we have two bleeding Turks in Amsterdam."

Cardozo came back and offered a plate of sausages. Grijpstra's hand shot out and grabbed the fattest sausage, stuffing it into his mouth in one movement.

"Vrgrmpf," Grijpstra said.

"They are hot," Cardozo said. "I would have told you if you had waited one second."

"Rashf," Grijpstra said.

"Has he come to help us, de Gier?"

"Ask him when he has finished burning his mouth."

Grijpstra was nodding.

"He has come to help us, Cardozo."

"Are you selling this stuff or are you just showing it?" an old woman with a face like a hatchet was asking.

"We are selling it, dearest," de Gier said, and came forward.

"I am not your dearest, and I don't like that lace much. Haven't you got any better?"

"It's handmade in Belgium, lady, handmade by farm women who have done nothing but lace-making since they were four years old. Look at the detail, see here."

De Gier unrolled the bale, holding the material up.

"Nonsense," the old woman said. "Rubbish, that's machine-made. How much is it anyway?"

De Gier was going to tell her the price when the wind caught the underpart of their canvas roof and pushed it straight up. Several bucketloads of ice-cold water shot off the top, and all of it hit the old woman, soaking her, frilly green hat first, black flat-soled clumpy shoes last.

Grijpstra, de Gier and Cardozo froze. They couldn't believe their eyes. What had been an aggressive body of sharp-tongued fury had changed into a sodden lump of wet flesh, and the lump stared at them. The old woman's face had been heavily made up and mascara was now running down each cheek, mixing with powder in reddish black-edged streaks which were getting closer and closer to her thin chiseled lips.

The silence was awkward.

Their neighbor, the vegetable man, had been staring at the woman too.

"Laugh, lady," the vegetable man said. "For God's sake, laugh, or we'll all cry."

The old woman looked up and glared at the vegetable man. "You..."

"Don't say it, lady," Grijpstra said, and jumped close to her, taking her by the shoulders and carrying her with him. "Go home and change. We are sorry about the water but it was the wind. You can blame the wind. Go along, lady, go home." The old woman wanted to free herself and stop, but Grijpstra went on pushing her, patting her shoulder and keeping up his monologue. "There now, dear, go home and have a nice bath. You'll feel fine afterward. Get yourself a big cup of hot tea and a biscuit. You'll be fine. Where do you live, dear?"

The old woman pointed at a side street.

'Til walk you home."

She smiled. Grijpstra was very concerned. She leaned against the big solid man who was taking an interest in her, the first man she had been close to in years, ever since her son had died and she had been left alone in the city where nobody remembered her first name, living off her old age pension and her savings, and wondering when the social workers would catch her and stick her into a home.

"There you are," Grijpstra said at the door. "Don't forget your hot bath now, dear."

"Thank you," the old woman said. "You don't want to come up, do you? I have some good tea left, in a sealed tin, I have had it for years but it won't have lost its taste."

"Some other day, dear," Grijpstra said. "I have to help my mates. The sun has come back and we'll be busy this afternoon. Thanks anyway."

"You saved us all," de Gier said when Grijpstra returned. "The old cow would have murdered us. She had a wicked-looking umbrella."

"She never bought the lace," Cardozo said.

They were busy all afternoon, selling most of the cloth they had brought. Grijpstra and de Gier wandered about, leaving Cardozo to do the work, only coming back to the stall when the young detective's screams for help became too frantic. Grijpstra talked to Louis Zilver and de Gier followed up on their contact with the vegetable man. The hawkers were talking about Abe Rogge's death and the detectives listened but no new suggestions were given. There seemed to be a general feeling of surprise. The street sellers had all liked Rogge and were telling tall stories about him, stories which showed their admiration. The detectives were trying to find traces of envy in the conversation but there didn't seem to be any. The hawkers had enjoyed Rogge's success, success as a merchant, success with women. They mentioned his good breeding and his knowledge. They talked about the parties he had thrown in bars and at his home. They had lost a friend, a friend who had lent them money in times of stress, who had drawn customers to their corner of the market, who had listened to their troubles and who had cheered them up by his funny stories and extravagant way of behavior.

"We ought to do something tonight," the vegetable man said. "Have a few drinks together in his honor. Least we can do."

"Shouldn't we wait for the funeral?" the vegetable man's wife asked.

"The body is still with the police," Louis Zilver said. "I phoned them this morning. They won't release it for a few more days."

"Let's have the party tonight,'' the vegetable man said. "I live close by. You can all come at about nine o'clock if my wife is willing. All right, wife?" The fat little woman agreed.

"We'll bring a bottle," Grijpstra said.

"Yes, It'll be in your honor too then," the vegetable man said. "You helped me out today and I hope you'll keep on coming here. I'll ask all the others around here It'll be a big party, forty or fifty people maybe."

His wife sighed. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I'll help you clean up, darling, and we won't work tomorrow. We have cleared our stocks and we shouldn't work every day."

"Right," the vegetable man's wife said, prodding him affectionately.

"Right," Cardozo said and lifted the remnants of a bale of cloth with a gesture of exuberance, but he overdid it and the end of the bale knocked a glass of coffee over, spilling the foaming liquid into the tin till which de Gier was about to close, having counted its contents.

"No," de Gier said.

"Silly," Grijpstra said as he bent down to survey the damage. "There's close to two thousand guilders in small notes in there. I have counted it too. Police money."

"No," de Gier said again. "We'll never get it dry and if it sticks together too much the bank won't accept it. You're a fool, Cardozo."

"Yes," Cardozo said. "You are right. You are always right. It's very annoying for other people, you know. You should learn to be wrong sometimes."

"You did it, you fix it," Grijpstra said. "Take it home and dry it somehow. You're still living with your parents, aren't you?"

"What's that got to do with it, adjutant?"

"Your mother may know of a way to dry it. Hang it on a line maybe, in the kitchen, with clothes pins. Or she can put it in the dryer. You've got a dryer at home?"

"The dryer may shred it," Cardozo said and dug about in the mess with his fingers. "It's all soddy now, it's only paper, you know."

"Your problem," de Gier said cheerfully. "You take care of it, constable. You can go home now and take the tin. We'll take care of the van. See you tonight at the party. Off you go."

"But..." Cardozo said, using the whining voice which he reserved for desperate occasions.

"Off," Grijpstra said. "Shoo! You heard what the sergeant said."

"He's only one rank over me. I am a constable first class."

"An adjutant is telling you too," de Gier said, "and an adjutant is two ranks above you. Off!"

"Yes, sir," Cardozo said.

"Don't cringe," de Gier said.

"No, sir."

"He always overdoes everything," Grijpstra said as they watched Cardozo's small shape, the till clutched in his arm, strutting away into the crowd.

De Gier agreed. "He hasn't been in the police long enough. The police underdo things."

"As long as they are ruled by a democratic government."

De Gier turned around. "I thought you secretly preferred communism, Grijpstra."

"Ssh," Grijpstra said, looking around him stealthily. "I do, but the communism I like is very advanced. By the time society is ripe for it we won't need any police."

"You think the day will ever come?"

"No," Grijpstra said firmly, "but I can dream, can't I?"

"What will you do when the dream comes true?"

"I'll paint," Grijpstra said, and heaved the last bale of cloth into the gray van.

They were driving through Amsterdam's thick late-afternoon traffic when Grijpstra touched de Gier's forearm.

"Over there, on the right, near that lamppost."

A man was staggering about, trying to reach the wall. As de Gier watched he saw the man going down on his knees, crumpling up on the pavement. The man was well dressed, about fifty years old. They were close when the man's head hit the ground. They saw the top plate of his dentures fall out; they could almost hear the click when the plastic teeth touched the stone tile.

"Drunk?" de Gier asked.

"No," Grijpstra said. "He doesn't look drunk. Ill, I would say."

De Gier felt under the dashboard for the van's microphone and switched the radio on as Grijpstra put up its volume. The radio began to crackle.

"Headquarters," de Gier said.

"Headquarters," the radio voice said. "Come in, who are you, haven't you got a number?"

"No. We are in a special car, on special duty. Van Wou Street number 187. A man has collapsed in the street. Send an ambulance and a patrol car."

"Ambulance alerted. Is that you, de Gier?"

De Gier held the microphone away from his mouth.

"Stupid bugger," he said softly, "knows my name.

I've got nothing to do with this."

"Yes, de Gier here."

"You take care of it, sergeant. We don't have a patrol car available right now. The traffic lights in your area aren't working properly and all available men are directing traffic."

"O.K.," de Gier said sadly, "we'll take care of this."

They could hear the ambulance's siren as they double-parked the van, obstructing traffic and drawing shouts from bicyclists who had to try to get around it.

"Park the van somewhere else," Grijpstra said, opening his door. "I'll see to this and you can join me later."

The man was trying to get back to his feet as Grijpstra knelt down, supporting his shoulders.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," the man said, slurring his words. "Felt a bit faint, that's all. I'll be all right. Who are you?"

"Police."

"Leave me alone, I don't need the police."

The man picked up his teeth and put them back into his mouth. He was trying to focus his eyes but Grijpstra's bulky shape wasn't more than a blurr.

"What do we have here?" the health officer was asking, bending down to sniff the man's breath. "Haven't been drinking, have we?"

"Don't drink," the man said. "Stopped years ago, only a glass of wine with my meals, now. Felt a bit faint, that's all. Want to go home."

The health officer felt the man's pulse, counting and looking at Grijpstra at the same time.

"Police," Grijpstra said. "We happened to see this man staggering about and then he fell. What's wrong with him, you think?"

The health officer pointed at his heart and shook his head.

"Serious?"

The health officer nodded.

"You'd better go into the ambulance, sir." Grijpstra said.

"Never. I want to go home."

"Can't take him if he doesn't want to go, you know."

"Hell," Grijpstra said. "He is ill, isn't he?"

"Very ill."

"Well, take him then."

"If you say so," the health officer said, "and I'll want to see your identification."

Grijpstra produced his wallet, searched about in it and found his card.

"Adjutant H. Grijpstra, Municipal Police," the health officer read.

"What happens if we leave him here?"

"He may die and he may not. Most probably he will die."

"As bad as that?"

"Yes."

The man was on his feet now, looking perfectly all right.

"You are sure?"

"I am sure he is in very bad shape."

"Into the ambulance with you," Grijpstra snapped at the man. "I am ordering you to go into the ambulance. I am a police officer. Hurry up."

The man glared. "Are you arresting me?"

"I am ordering you to get into the ambulance."

"You'll hear about this," the man snarled. "I'll lodge a protest. I am going into the ambulance against my will. You hear?"

Together with the health officer Grijpstra pushed the man into the car.

"You'd better follow us in case we have complications," the health officer said. "You have a car with you?"

"Yes. What hospital are you taking him to?"

"Wifoelmina."

"We'll be there."

De Gier turned up and together they walked to the van. They arrived at the hospital a quarter of an hour later. The man was sitting on a wooden bench in the outpatients' department. He looked healthy and angry.

"There you are. You'll hear about this. There's nothing wrong with me. Now will you let me go home or not?"

"When the doctor has examined you," Grijpstra said, sitting down next to the man.

The man turned around to say something but seemed to change his mind, grabbing the back of his neck with both hands and going pale.

"Doctor," Grijpstra shouted. "Help! Nurse! Doctor!"

The man had fallen over his lap. A man in a white coat came rushing through a pair of swinging doors. "Here," Grijpstra shouted. The man was pulled to his legs with a nurse supporting him. The shirt was ripped off his chest and he was thumped, with all the force the man in the white coat could muster. He was thumped again and again and life seemed to return briefly before it ebbed away completely.

"Too late," the white-coated man said, looking at the body, which now slumped in Grijpstra's arms.

"Dead?" de Gier asked from the other corner of the room. The white-coated man nodded.

But another attempt was made to revive him. The body was roughly lifted and dumped on a bed. A cumbersome apparatus appeared, pushed in on wheels.

The man's tatteredshirt was torn off completely and the machine's long rubber-lined arms connected with the man's chest. The white-coated man turned dials and the body jumped, flinging its limbs away and up and down. The face seemed alive again for a brief moment but when the dial was turned again the body fell back, the eyelids no longer fluttered and the mouth sagged.

"No good," the white-coated man said, looking at Grijpstra. He pointed at a door. "In there, please. There are some forms to be filled in, about where you located him and how and so on. I'll see if we can find them. You are police officers, I assume."

"Yes!"

"I won't be a minute."

But he was several minutes, close to half an hour in fact. De Gier paced the room and Grijpstra studied a poster showing a sailboat with two men in it. The photograph was taken from a helicopter or a plane for it showed the boat from above, a white boat in a vast expanse of water. De Gier came to look at the poster too.

"Some people sail boats," de Gier said. "Other people wait in rooms."

"Yes " Grijpstra said slowly. "Two men in a boat. It looks as if they are in the middle of the ocean. They must be good friends, very close. Depending on each other. The boat is too big for one man to handle. A schooner, I think it is."

"Yes?" de Gier asked. "Are you interested in boats?"

"I am interested in solving our case, " Grijpstra said. "Do you remember that painting in Abe Rogge's room? We saw it two days ago when we were taken by his sister to see the corpse. There were two men in that boat."

"So?"

The white-coated man came in with the forms and they filled them in carefully, signing them with a flourish. "The man was a lawyer," the white-coated man said. "We identified him from the papers he had in his wallet. A pretty famous lawyer, or infamous if you prefer because he handled nasty cases only, charging a lot of money."

"Died of natural causes, did he?" de Gier asked.

"Perfectly natural," the white-coated man said. "Weak heart. Started to fibrillate. May have lived a heavy life, overworked perhaps and too many rich meals and expensive wines."

"And callgirls," de Gier said.

"Could be," the white-coated man said.