And while the baboon read de Gier’s identification Grijpstra had formed his happy thoughts. A nice man, strange-looking for sure, but nice. And well dressed, in a thick white seaman’s jersey that set out his wide chest. Light blond glossy hair caught under a small cap, the visor bent up. Long hair still showing the marks of a comb. Large calm blue eyes, very long arms that contrasted with the short legs. The body of an ape harboring the soul of an intelligent, kindly man. What had struck Grijpstra most, apart from the man’s receding forehead and the absence of neck so that the head rested immediately on the potent torso, were Vleuten’s arms. He remembered the large apes he had seen in the zoo and in films and how they walked, swinging, resting not only on their feet but equally on the knuckles of their hands. It seemed to him that Vleuten would walk the same way, and he was waiting for an opportunity to confirm his thought when de Gier’s identification card was thrown onto the quay and the launch pulled away at full speed.
“Did you pick up your card?”
“Of course.”
He still couldn’t understand the suspect’s response to their polite approach.
“Police?” The baboon had a good voice, deep and quiet.
“Yes, Mr. Vleuten. I am a CID sergeant. My colleague and I would like to ask a few questions.”
The baboon had taken the card, a respectable weapon in their continuous warfare on crime-the police badge, the state’s authorization decorated with the red, white, and blue of the flag of the Netherlands, an authorization that legalizes police officers to bother citizens, for their own sake, the sake of peace, and the maintenance of the rules of peace. And the fellow had actually had the audacity to throw the card on the street.
“You aren’t worried about that damned card, are you?” de Gier asked. “What about me? Look at me!”
“You are wet,” Grijpstra said pleasantly.
“Wet! I am probably poisoned. I swallowed some of that liquid shit they keep in the canals these days. I could have got killed on some of that garbage that floats around. I could have got drowned! You didn’t even trouble yourself to see what had happened to me. All you were concerned about was your fucking radio.”
“Now, now.”
“But I still have my card, that’s all the adjutant wants to know.”
“You can swim,” Grijpstra said, “and I would have worried about you but I saw you climbing out. And here we are.”
“Wherer
“Here. I radioed a police boat. They’re supposed to meet us here. Good, they’re coming already, see?”
De Gier saw the gray speedboat pushing a fluffy bow wave but he didn’t seem interested. He looked down at his hands and began to wipe them. His right hand had bled a little; the left hand had a long gluey yellow weed stuck between the fingers. He pulled it out and threw it out of the window.
“He took a risk,” the adjutant said, forcing the car to take a short turn to the right and to dive under a large bridge, Amsterdam’s main thoroughfare, connecting its center to the eastern part of the city. They could hear the bridge’s rumble as a convoy of trucks passed overhead. “I could have shot him easily, but only in the chest or the head. His legs were covered by his boat’s gunwale. Maybe he knows that we only aim for the legs, provided they are not actually attacking us.”
De Gier was wringing out his trouser legs. “That’s my second suit today, got it from the dry cleaner’s this morning. We’ll have to catch him, Grijpstra. I want him in a cell, a bad cell, the corner cell.” The police launch was waiting and they jumped in, ignoring the water sergeant’s helpful arm.
“CID, sergeant, go south, we are after a white motorboat, one man in it, man with a white jersey and a cap. A good-looking boat, old but well kept. A wooden boat.”
The constable in the launch’s cabin shifted a small lever next to the steering wheel. The boat roared and began to cut through the river’s short bright waves, lifting its nose as it gathered speed. Grijpstra stumbled, but the water sergeant caught him by the shoulders.
“Hold on, your Mend took a bath, did he?”
“He did. The suspect removed his boat as my colleague jumped.”
Hands were shaken as the policemen introduced themselves.
“What’s the chase, Grijpstra? Is your suspect dangerous? Armed?”
Grijpstra explained. De Gier had gone into the cabin and was checking his pistol, breaking it into parts and drying it with a rag. The constable gave him a fresh clip and de Gier inserted it. “It’ll work,” the constable said, “but you’d better take it to the arms room, there are a lot of little bits and pieces that’ll rust eventually. You plan to shoot your man, sergeant?”
“I’d love to but I wouldn’t be thanked if I did. I don’t even know why he got away.”
“You have a charge against him?”
“He used to sleep with a lady we know.”
The constable wasn’t listening anymore. A towboat had appeared, tugging asthmatically at a line of three gigantic barges. The barges were following unsteadily and the racing police-launch seemed to be attracted by the last vessel’s looming, rusty hull. The little lever on the dashboard was pushed further and the boat’s engines roared a shade deeper.
“Missed her,” the constable said. “That’s a charge, sergeant? Sleeping with a lady you know?”
“The lady is dead. We’re going around asking questions.”
“And you land up in the river. Happened to me too. I was shoved off an ocean liner’s gangway last week. Part of the job. We keep dry clothes in that cupboard. Maybe they’ll fit you. A sergeant’s uniform. It’ll fit your rank if not your body.”
The river was clear, and the constable relaxed and watched de Gier strip. “There’s a towel in there too, and underwear, and I have a pair of rubber boots here somewhere. We keep everything, even a small machine gun I can mount on the foredeck. There’s something wrong with the gun’s breech but it looks most impressive.” De Gier stepped into the boots. “No, thanks, 1 don’t think our man is armed. How do I look, constable?”
The water sergeant and Grijpstra had come into the cabin and de Gier was admired. The uniform fitted.
“Stunning,” Grijpstra said. “I prefer the gold trim to our silver. Why do the water police have gold trim anyway?”
“Because gold is noble and so are we,” the water sergeant said. “The water may be polluted these days, but it can never be as dirty as the shore.”
The sun had found an opening in the low clouds above the city and the river’s wide expanse, dotted here and there by the spotless white of floating sea gulls spread all around them. The launch was skimming over the short waves. The water sergeant unscrewed the top of a large thermos. “Fresh coffee, made less than half an hour ago.” The four men were grinning as the baboon’s boat showed up as a speck near the next bend of the river. “Not a bad life, this,” the water sergeant said, pouring the coffee. “I don’t know why you chaps prefer to work in the city. Narrow streets, no air, people everywhere. The people are the worst, they always want something.”
“Don’t you deal with people?” Grijpstra asked.
“Sometimes, but I usually manage to avoid them. I prefer fish. We do a fair bit of fishing, you know. And there are always the birds. Some of the birds are stupid, especially the ducks, but I would still rather deal with ducks than with people. People, bah!”
Grijpstra looked up. “What happened to that boat? It was right in front of us just now.”
The constable pointed and turned the wheel at the same time, making the police boat knife through the river’s curve. “Over there, moored to the jetty. That’s the baboon’s launch, I thought I recognized it before but I wasn’t sure. Is the baboon your suspect?”
“Yes. You know him evidently.”
The water sergeant had stepped to the dashboard and turned the key, cutting the boat’s engines so that it settled back into the water. “Yes, Grijpstra, we know the baboon, everybody on the water does. But he doesn’t seem to be on board.”
“Never mind, go back a little and drop us off on the dike, out of sight of the jetty if possible. It could be that he hasn’t spotted us. We can sniff around a little. If we don’t catch him today we’ll catch him tomorrow.”
“Sleuths,” the water sergeant said to his constable. “Intelligent hunting hounds. I hope you are observing and learning. We would just go away and take that old boat with us but we don’t have brains. Sure, the suspect will come back to his boat and walk into our friends’ arms.” He turned back to Grijpstra. “Are you certain he’s your man?”
