The Japanese Corpse (23 page)

The commissaris spoke again, and Grijpstra listened, his head askew.

"Yes, sir! Thank you. But the idea was Cardozo's, really."

He rang off and grinned. He hadn't been too sure about the film, but the commissaris was in agreement. He thought he had heard some reluctance in the way the commissaris had phrased his accordance. Maybe the old man thought the method was too advanced. But it was proper police procedure, used everywhere nowadays. There had been a long article on crime-association with regard to questioning suspects in the
Police Gazette,
a few numbers back. Maybe the technique had its cruel side, but going fishing with a man and blowing the man's brain out with a .38 revolver... Well.

He looked at his watch. Four o'clock. The cars would leave in an hour's time.

"Cardozo," he said, turning toward the young man who had been scribbling away at his small desk near the door.

"Adjutant?"

"Time for coffee, Cardozo. Got any money?"

"No, adjutant. And the machine is out of order. I was in the canteen ten minutes ago. They have been at the mechanism again, trying to make it work for nothing."

"Then go and borrow some money and get two cartons from the snackbar at the corner."

"The inspector is waiting for this report, adjutant."

Grijpstra pushed his chair back and got up. He had put a little too much force in the movement, and he hurt his knee against a drawer. He was getting red in the face.

"Yes, adjutant," Cardozo said. "Right away, adjutant."

It was four A.M. when Grijpstra came home, and he forgot to look up the distance between Kyoto and Amsterdam in his son's atlas. It had been a hectic night. The drug brigade had set up the raid properly. The detectives had come in through the front door, through the garden door, and through the windows of the top floor, all at the same time. But there had been complications: one detective had sprained his ankle, trying to swing his body into a window while he was hanging on to a rotten gutter which cracked. He had applied too much strength to his swing and had landed badly. And another detective had been knifed by the cook. The knife touched a lung. The cook was behind the counter, and he had got away while the detectives were taking care of their colleague, who was spitting blood. The cook reached his car, and the car got away too, in spite of a roadblock. A middle-aged lady was hurt when she jumped away as the cook's car careened over the sidewalk. The State Police stopped the car eventually, three hours later, cutting it off the road as it was trying to move in between two large trucks. One of the trucks landed up in a field, spilled a load of canned beer, and a State Police Porsche turned over. The sergeant at the wheel dislocated his shoulder. The raid had been planned well, but there wasn't much left of the plan by the time the radios finally gave the all-clear.

Grijpstra had followed the proceedings in the communication room at Amsterdam Headquarters, where excited constables were switching from set to set, and officers had vainly tried to direct the adventure. Some twenty cars had been involved in the chase, for the cook never lost his nerve, and his car, moving at normal cruising speed, had been hard to find. Fortunately he had driven an unusual car, a silver-colored Citroën Pallas. The car was spotted close to the Belgian border by a police airplane and stopped five miles from the frontier. A very close chase.

But the case was wrapped up. Heroin samples had been found in the restaurant, and frisking of the staff had produced three pistols and several long-bladed knives. Fighting knives, not kitchen knives. In Mrs. Fujitani's clothes-chest, a red laquered leather trunk, Grijpstra had found several scrolls. He was hoping the Japanese Embassy staff would be able to confirm that they had been stolen by temple priests. With the death of Nagai and the arrests of the Dutch and Japanese ships' officers the connection ought to be cut.

And when Grijpstra woke up again, three hours later, to go to Headquarters and question Mr. Fujitani, luck was still with him. Mr. Fujitani had put up a fight the night before and had to be dragged to the police van. Now he broke down halfway through the film and smashed the video recorder with a chair. He was trembling and biting his lips, and his small, rather plump body was shaking with sobs. Cardozo, upset by Mr. Fujitani's nervous antics, looked away, but Grijpstra stared stonily until the suspect, still sobbing, confessed to having shot Kikuji Nagai through the head with a revolver, which he had thrown into the pond close to the grave and close to the spot where he had been seen washing Mr. Nagai's white BMW. A statement was typed out, read and signed. A constable took Mr. Fujitani back to his cell, while Grijpstra telephoned the chief constable. He and Cardozo were asked to deliver the statement in person, and Grijpstra's hand was shaken. Cardozo was smiled at.

That evening Grijpstra took his young assistant to a small pub in the old city, made him drink four brandies while he had six himself, and paid the bill. But they didn't talk much while they drank. Joanne Andrews was still walking through the silent forest where the trunks of pines and spruces drew black lines against the soft greenness of alders and maples. And Kikuji Nagai's skull gleamed and his half-eaten lips smiled, as a State Policeman's gloved hand gently tugged the corpse out of a wet black hole in a lush meadow.

\\\\\ 20 /////

T
HE CHIEF MAID BROUGHT THE VISITING CARD, LYING IN the exact center of a rectangular bamboo tray. The commissaris had dozed off, and de Gier reached out and read the card, woo SHAN, the card said, MERCHANT, and, underneath, an address in Hong Kong, in microscopic script.

"I'll go and see," de Gier said, and followed the maid. He found the visitor in the inn's front room. A tall elderly Chinese, standing awkwardly on the tatami in his stockinged feet, holding a flat shiny attache case. De Gier bowed, but the Chinese shook the sergeant's hand solemnly and inquired in good English whether the old Dutch gentleman with the unpronounceable name happened to be in. De Gier said he was.

"And you are the gentleman's assistant?"

"I am."

"I have important business to discuss," Mr. Woo said sadly, and de Gier asked him to wait and rushed upstairs. The commissaris woke up, but he hadn't shaved yet, so Mr. Woo was asked to wait a few minutes and de Gier made polite conversation. And finally Mr. Woo was asked to proceed upstairs and given tea and a small cigar while the commissaris sat quietly on his cushion and rubbed his legs. Mr. Woo didn't take long to come to the point. More art had been delivered and was stacked in a corner of the room, waiting to be transferred to a vault in a nearby bank, where the Daidharmaji treasures had already been stored. Dorin had suggested that they should keep up the farce, and brought in more priests from several temples who were willing, at the Daidharmaji high priest's command, to lend them valuable objects. In order to make the show even more realistic, priests from other temple complexes in different parts of Kyoto had been persuaded to join the game, and they had even managed to find a really corrupt guardian who had sold them a small wooden statue of Buddha, fairly precious, for a small amount in cash, enough to keep the man in liquor and women for a few weeks. The guardian had been easy to find. He had appeared in the inn one day, asking the maid to be allowed to see the foreigners who might be interested in buying antiques.

"I have been told that you gentlemen are setting up a direct link in the art business," Mr. Woo said, smiling politely without changing the expression of his large dark eyes, "and have found a way to stall the organization which, so far, had the monopoly." Mr. Woo stressed the word "had" and repeated the last part of his message to make sure that it would get across.

The commissaris nodded sleepily.

"I am referring to the yakusa," Mr. Woo said, biting off the word.

"Yes," the commissaris said, "the yakusa. Competition is part of the free world. We live in the free world."

"Indeed?" Mr. Woo asked.

The commissaris yawned.

"Are you in the art business too?" de Gier asked, after a quarter of a minute had slowly ebbed away.

"No. I have other merchandise for sale, merchandise the yakusa used to buy through me, but I don't think they will want to buy now. Their business went through Amsterdam, but something has happened and the channel is blocked, temporarily perhaps, for a long time maybe."

"Really?" the commissaris asked.

"Yes. I am well informed. And so are you, I think."

"Something has happened," the commissaris agreed. "A friend told me about it on the telephone. It is very easy to telephone these days. News travels quickly."

Mr. Woo had been resting on his knees and he shifted his position, but he still wasn't comfortable. He smiled painfully. "Living on the floor is a custom I am not used to," he explained slowly. "In China we have chairs."

"I am sorry," de Gier said, "this is a Japanese inn. No chairs. But sit down any way you like. Perhaps you can rest your back against the wall. I do that all the time. It's not very polite, I believe, but foreigners are easily forgiven."

Mr. Woo thanked him, took the offered cushion and found an easier way to sit. He opened his case and held up two little plastic bags filled with white powder.

"Heroin?" the commissaris asked.

"Heroin, best quality, samples, free samples for you gentlemen. I have ten kilos ready for shipment in Hong Kong. I am asking a reasonable price. If you pay me here I will telephone my agent who can deliver to your agent. But the delivery will be in Hong Kong, and once the goods are in your hands they travel at your risk."

"I see," the commissaris said, and picked up one of the bags, holding it against the light. "And the price?"

"In Germany American soldiers will pay thirty dollars for a small teaspoon filled with these pure crystals. I will charge you a price which will allow for an unheard-of profit. You will be very rich, your organization will be very powerful. The supply is plentiful and the origin is the most reliable country in the world."

"Communist China?" the commissaris asked softly.

"The very best," Mr. Woo agreed. "Steady prices, prompt delivery and never a broken promise."

He took out his pocketbook and peeled a hundred-dollar bill out of its back compartment, tearing it in half. "Here. You take one half, I keep one half. You send your half to your agent, I send my half to my agent. They will meet in Hong Kong. As soon as you pay me I will telephone my agent in your presence. He will be in the company of your agent, and you can speak to your agent. Delivery will be made at once. But only ten kilos the first time. It will be a trial for you and a trial for us. Then, when the connection has been proved and you want more merchandise, I will be on your path, wherever you want to find me. I travel quickly."

The commissaris puffed on his cigar and checked its burning end, peering at it with one eye. "I am an art dealer," he said, and looked at the white wall opposite him, "and the drug is not my article. However, it can be tried. Perhaps the drug can use some of the channels we have established for other purposes. And I know many Americans, most of them stationed in Europe. I might give it a try, if my associate is willing."

De Gier took his cue. There was greed in his large brown eyes when he turned to offer his smile to Mr. Woo.

"I have some friends too," de Gier said, "in Amsterdam itself. There is some demand for the drug in our city. I could take care of that market while the chief (he bowed into the commissaris' direction) goes for Mr. Big and Mr. Super."

"Good," Mr. Woo said. "So we make a try. I will come back in four days' time. You give me money and I will telephone."

The commissaris took the half note and the little piece of paper on which Mr. Woo had written the amount involved in the transaction. He read the numbers and nodded.

"Right. But I won't be ready in four days' time. We have other appointments to keep. Next week, same day, same time."

Mr. Woo was on his feet and on his way to the door. De Gier jumped up and saw him out of the room and walked down to the hall with him.

"Next week, same day, same time," Mr. Woo said, as he laced his shoes. "And perhaps there should be no tricks. Tricks work once but then death follows. Always. I have seen it several times. Death has a bad face."

"I have met the power myself," de Gier said, and grinned. "Death has no favorites, it has worked for us too. Have a good day, Mr. Woo."

But Mr. Woo wasn't listening. He had knocked his head against the low beam at the entrance and was rubbing his bald crown, muttering something in Chinese.

De Gier grinned again. He had knocked his head against the beam too. Almost every day so far, and they had been staying at the inn for more than two weeks.

When the sergeant came back to the large quiet room, he stopped with surprise. The commissaris was capering around the low table, waving his arms and singing the end line of a nonsense rhyme which had been a hit on the Dutch TV and had caused a lot of comment in the conservative newspapers of Holland, although the song had contained no dirty words or sly allusions. It was pure idiocy and its last line was
Mother there walks an eagle.

"Sir?" de Gier asked.

'"Mother, there walks an eagle,'" the commissaris sang, and stopped and stared and pulled up his eyelids so that his eyes became round and large.

"Sir?"

"You know what this means, sergeant?" the commissaris whispered, putting his finger on de Gier's nose and pressing it. "You know what this means? This means we don't have to go to Kobe to rush about and find the drug supply. We can sit here and work it all out, the way we want to work it out. It's all coming our way. Just for once, just for the hell of it. Things are tricky and awkward and the other way round and upside down for eight hundred seventy-six times, and then, suddenly, just one time, things are right. RIGHT. You hear? Hehehe."

De Gier stepped back and rubbed his nose.

"'Mother, there walks an eagle,'" the commissaris said. "I always knew what that line meant. A little boy looks out of the window of an apartment of the ninth floor somewhere in Amsterdam North, one of those big gray buildings made of leaky concrete, and he sees the eagle walking about on the balcony. A big eagle (the commissaris gestured wildly). Crest of feathers on the noble head. (The commissaris spread the fingers of his right hand and held it on his head.) Polished golden beak. (The hand changed shape, fingers tight together and bent down, the back of the hand rested against his nose.) Wings spread. Strutting about. Like this. (The commissaris walked up and down, arms spread, body hunched, head erect.) The boy always knew it would happen one day. There is no need to tell his mother. She doesn't know anything, but he teUs her all the same. She is his mother after all, and she is in the apartment with him. But she just nods and won't even get off the couch. It doesn't matter. The eagle is there, on the balcony. The little boy's dream is there. A big eagle, life-size. Walking around. On the balcony. Hehehe."