The Perfidious Parrot (6 page)

“Ketchup reported they had seen you at Singel Canal,” Cardozo said, “and then later, near Torture Field they noticed the Skeleton Gang hanging out. Two-thirty in the morning, nobody about but their ex-sergeant and dressed up bad boys. K&K went home but came back again, once they considered what might have happened.”

“Back in the car, back to the inner city,” Grijpstra said. “They checked out the alleys and sure enough, there you were being clobbered. What did you do to those poor skeleton fellows? Annoy them in some way?”

“Showing off again?” Cardozo asked.

“Good thing you had some back-up.” Grijpstra smiled.

De Gier started on his residue of raisins.

Inspector Cardozo listed more reasons as to why K&K had not made an arrest. They weren’t on duty. Their private car was not connected to police communications. De Gier seemed to be in need of medical attention. The Skeleton Gang had a reputation for violence. To go after them would have taken energy and time.

Grijpstra also reported that the yacht mentioned by their prospective client, young Ambagt, did appear to exist. Water Police constables saw the
Admiraal Rodney
moored at a quay near Grass Road Complex on the Northern side of Amsterdam harbor. There was even a telephone number that Grijpstra found through Information. Grijpstra called it. He was put through to Carl who promised to pick up Grijpstra and Inspector Cardozo by sloop at Dry Dock Point opposite the Central Railway Station. Grijpstra checked his watch. “Right now. We’re late. See you,” he told de Gier. “Get better. You may be needed.”

De Gier gave his empty porridge bowl to Sayukta. The nurse left the room. “I thought,” de Gier said, “that Detection G&G had refused the job, Henk.”

Grijpstra shrugged. “Sure. But I thought I’d just take a look at the vessel. Curiosity. We
are
detectives.”

“Will we let those bastards force us?” de Gier asked.

Grijpstra stood quietly in the open door.

De Gier touched the bandage covering his chest. “You think this scares me?”

“There is a draft,” the dying man wheezed from behind his screen. “Mind closing the door, gents?”

Grijpstra disappeared. The door clicked behind Cardozo’s back.

“They’re gone, sir,” de Gier said.

“Gone is good,” the dying man said. “I’ll be gone too. The euthanasiasts will be helping out soon. Won’t that be something?” He laughed weakly.

“You don’t mind?” de Gier asked.

The dying man sighed contentedly.

“Aren’t you getting any porridge?”

“No more porridge,” the dying man said contentedly, “ever.” He giggled.

“Want to watch TV?”

“No more TV,” the dying man said contentedly. “TV used to be okay sometimes but now with all the advertising.… First they describe Babywipes and then the next spot sells chocolate. And they expect you to keep watching?”

“Your family?”

The dying man grunted happily.

“Is your family coming to see you?”

“No more family ever,” the dying man said contentedly.
“Would you mind calling the exotic lady?” He giggled. “Nice nurse?”

De Gier pressed his red buzzer.

“Ain’t she something?” the dying man asked after Sayukta had come and gone. “I didn’t need to spit, you know, I was pretending. I wanted to feel her arm around my neck again.”

Constable First Class Karate, impeccably uniformed, carrying a plastic report file, entered the room smartly. “Everything hunkydory, sergeant?”

Rage made de Gier speechless.

Karate, his back perfectly upright, his legs parade-parallel, sat on the straight plastic chair. “Ketchup and I did save your life. You could maybe be grateful?”

De Gier’s rage continued.

“Okay,” Karate said, “Something else. Remember what you said about Hieronymus Bosch? That wasn’t nice you know.”

De Gier forced his mouth to form and emit words. “As soon as I get out of here I’ll throw you off Easter Dock.”

“Comparing us to Hieronymus Bosch imagery,” Karate said.

“Ketchup too,” de Gier said. “Off Easter Dock, unless I can find filthier water.”

Karate opened his file. “Ketchup,” Karate said, “is off duty this morning. Instead of sleeping in, he researched Bosch in the public library. This here is a portrait of Hieronymus himself. Photocopied out of the encyclopedia, enlarged and laminated; no skimping on energy or money. This is for you. First we save your life, then we bring you presents.”

“This is Bosch?” de Gier asked. He studied the kind old-man’s face. “The one who created all those horrors?”

“Authentic,” Karate said. “A portrait done by a contemporary artist.”

De Gier held the picture at arm’s length. “Where did this honeybun find my monkish confrontation? Where, in his sweet pure mind, did Bosch see an old whore on her moped, and her starving hyena hound?”

Karate didn’t listen. “You told us we were black-winged minidevil’s henchmen, drawn by Bosch.”

De Gier studied Bosch’s long strong tapered fingers, quietly resting on a drawing board. “Miles Davis had such hands.”

Karate spoke with some intensity. “Bosch was a good citizen, paid his taxes, an important man in his town, he organized religious processions, he helped support the poor.”

“Nice face,” de Gier said, caressing, with his fingertips, the smiling old eyes of the medieval painter.

“A God-serving thinker,” Karate said. “Like me and Ketchup. Me and Ketchup celebrate mass Sundays. The Virgin Mother has her niche in our house. We burn candles.”

De Gier reached for his water glass and pain pills. His sore ribs moved. He groaned and fell back against his pillows. Karate passed him the glass and pills.

“Thanks to corrupt cops like you,” de Gier said tonelessly, “crack gets dealt to kids.”

“That makes us black-winged horrors?” Karate asked. “We are having the best time possible, considering the circumstances and our talents. What would you rather have us do? Watch goldfish in the constable’s room, in between comparing numbers of open warrants and available cells? Lament politics? Collect guilders for the next birthday party of some worthless
colleague? Join the Criticizers Club for coffee and cake at headquarters each Sunday?”

“Your cooperation with criminals,” de Gier said, “kills kids.”

“You know,” Karate said, “there is a serious kids-surplus in Holland. Kids grow up and buy cars. Ever consider the slowing flow of traffic? Will that get better when the population doubles?”

“We won’t take the Ambagt job,” de Gier said.

Karate looked at his motionless hands, perched on his knees.

“You know,” de Gier said, “that Grijpstra and I retired.”

Karate got up, marched to the door, came about face, stood to attention. “Do your job,” the constable barked. “Your shingle at Straight Tree Ditch says nothing about doing nothing. It says ‘detection.’ ”

“Bye,” de Gier said.

Karate banged the door. The dying man sat up. He smiled at de Gier. “How silly of me,” he said, “all my life I wondered about it and I could have seen it if I hadn’t been keeping myself so busy.” His voice was both hoarse and deep. “It’s both beautiful and simple.”

“What?” de Gier asked, but the dying man had died.

“Where is the sloop that was supposed to pick us up?” Grijpstra asked Inspector Cardozo at the quay at Dry Dock Point near the Central Railway Station.

Cardozo waited patiently, on the legal side of the harbor’s sign,
ONLY OWNERS AND CREWS ALLOWED
. Grijpstra looked at the moored sailboats. He remembered that de Gier liked to stop off here, in the past, in the midst of duty. The sergeant would admire foreign flags, weathered sails, frayed ropes, exotic types sucking bent tobacco pipes and sporting massive earrings. The sergeant would prattle about the mouth of the Orinoco river, the East Coast of Papua New Guinea, the Russian peninsula of Sakhalin, even the Dutch North Sea islands. Setting up desires, Grijpstra thought now. A process that was now proving to be painful. Cracked ribs and hospital beds? All due to long ago’s daydreams. And he, old-buddy Grijpstra, got sucked along with them. But was that bad?

The spring day, observed by present-day Grijpstra, was
pleasant. Crested grebes, their pointed heads crowned with tufted feathers, flirted as they swam around each other. A great blue heron winged by slowly. A finch chanted from within weeds sprouting between the quay’s cobblestoned walls. Young women in tight shorts and T-shirts were raising sails on a yacht. Grijpstra enquired about their destination. “We’re going to win the Inland Sea race today,” a girl said. “Men are losers now. You won’t be needed.”

“There,” Cardozo said.

A sloop rowed by six uniformed sailors approached smartly. A boatswain, wearing a hat with visor, stood in the bow and saluted. “Mister Grijpstra and Inspector Cardozo?” the boatswain asked smartly.

The beautifully crafted wooden sloop slid across the waves of the river IJ. The passengers shared a caned bench between the rowing sailors and the commanding boatswain. The sailors, muscular young men with sparkling teeth, pulled long oars.

“Hur-rah,” the boatswain sang. “How-de-do,” the sailors responded.

Inspector Cardozo thought how wonderful life could be and how his life was not. How he still lived with his parents and took a bus to work every morning. How he looked forward to Thursdays because his mother didn’t cook on Thursdays. Thursday nights he sneaked out for sushi. Simon Cardozo thought about the brand new three-storied super yacht towering above them, with a gleaming streamlined steering tower in front of a shiny helicopter clamped to the aft deck.

Different ways to deal with a lifetime.

What he faced here, Cardozo thought, was a heavenly floating castle for billionaires who were offering his former
superiors a million dollars to take care of an exciting Caribbean problem.

Small-timer Simon Cardozo wondered about other people’s big time.

“Could this be that houseboat the little fellow was talking about?” Grijpstra asked. “Big, eh, Simon? Must be something to keep that tub clean and going. Nicely turned out though.”

“Careful please,” the boatswain said, helping them step on the gangway that had been lowered by the ship’s automatic hydraulic crane.

Carl Ambagt, dressed in a tailored merchant marine officer’s uniform, welcomed his guests. “Now you believe me? You think the Tax Office owns toys like this? Want the ship’s tour?

“Agile like a shark,” Carl said, “Strong as a whale.” He walked ahead on the deck of sandpapered teak, across the main cabin-suite’s Tibetan rugs, guiding the way through the living quarters for the owners, past a bar room decked out in white marble, a gallery of modern art, a gadget-equipped kitchen.

“Crew’s quarters are below,” Ambagt said. “Furnished oriental style—tatami-matted floors, brightly colored lacquered furniture, lots of fans and gongs and pipe racks.” He indicated a door. “Cup of Chinese tea for the gents?”

“Your mother is aboard too?”

“Who?” Carl asked.

“Is she alive?”

Carl gestured widely. “Do you know that the
Admiraal Rodney
measures three hundred and fifty tons? Cruises at thirty kilometers an hour, sails seven thousand kilometers without taking on fuel? That, if we leave tonight, we could be in the Caribbean in a mere eight days?” He addressed Grijpstra. “And
that de Gier and yourself will meet us there? On St. Maarten? To start up your quest?”

“No,” Grijpstra said.

“Oh yes,” a gruff voice said. Skipper Peter Ambagt, in a stained admiral’s uniform with bedraggled braid, leaning on a gold tipped invalid’s steel tripod, greeted his guests. In contrast to his diminutive son the man was a giant. Father and son had the same square faces but the skipper’s large nose was bulbous and obscenely purple. His scraggly eyebrows hung down dismally and his long sideburns needed brushing.

“You smartasses are going to recoup our loss on the old tank tub,” Ambagt Senior said, slurring his speech in between hiccups. “I am glad to see you’re here to clinch the deal, Mister Clever.”

“I was just curious,” Grijpstra said. “Your son mentioned your houseboat and we wanted to take a look.”

“Houseboat? Trying to be funny now?” The old man tried to focus his eyes. His unsteady hand pointed at Cardozo. “And you are the fuzz here?”

“Inspector Simon Cardozo,” Grijpstra said.

“And you are in charge here,” Cardozo said, looking at the gold ornamentation on Ambagt Senior’s hat.

The old man, without turning around, addressed the servant standing behind him. “A cold one, my dear.” Ambagt Senior lowered his body into a deck chair. “Carl and I hold Liberian captain’s papers.” His long yellow teeth showed in a wide smile. “That’s in Africa.” He pointed at decorations pinned to his tunic—silver monkey heads, trailing multicolored ribbons. “Issued by the Head Honcho there. He personally pinned them on, just in time, a day before His Excellency was executed.” He
stood to attention for a moment, then noticed his visitors again. “Cardozo?”

“Sir?” Cardozo asked.

“Your name is familiar.”

“It is?”

The skipper snapped his fingers. “St. Eustatius cemetery, that’s where I saw that name. Your ancestors made good deals on that island. Jewish Amsterdam merchants with Portuguese names because that’s where they came from. Inquisition time. Remember?”

“No, Skipper Peter.”

“So
now
you know.” Ambagt Senior dabbed his swollen nose with the tip of a blood stained handkerchief. “St. Eustatius, The Golden Rock.” The skipper looked over Cardozo’s head. “The golden past, alas.” He looked at Grijpstra. “One million smackaroos for you and your partner, ten percent up front, balance to be collected when you recover the
Sibylle
loss.” His cane fell while he bent his cadaverous body toward Grijpstra. “Is that a deal, Lucky Fatso?”

Cardozo picked up the cane and gave it to Skipper Ambagt.

He wasn’t thanked.

Grijpstra said “No.”

The sloop, wind pushing, sailors pulling strongly, crossed the IJ river on the return trip to Dry Dock Point. Grijpstra enjoyed the sea breeze. Cardozo looked nervous. “You know,” Cardozo said, “Ketchup and Karate planned the attack on de Gier.”