“He left and didn’t say where he was going, and he appeared to be very upset. My nurse says that the patient kept on patting his pocket and that it’s possible that he was carrying a firearm.”
“Go on, doctor.”
The doctor’s report was clear. Bergen had arrived mat morning at eight-thirty for his final test. The test was designed to determine whether or not the patient’s skull held a tumor. The patient’s blood had been colored and the blood’s flow through the brain had been checked. The result was negative, no tumor. The patient had been asked to wait in a small room adjoining the doctor’s study. The door between the two rooms was ajar so mat Bergen could see what the doctor was doing. Dr. Havink had been looking at the results of another test, nothing to do with Bergen. The results of that particular test had been positive, a case of brain cancer in an advanced state. While Bergen waited, Dr. Havink had telephoned a colleague to discuss the other patient’s test.
“Ah,” Grijpstra said. “I see, and Mr. Bergen could hear what you were saying on the telephone.”
“Yes, most unfortunate, I should have made sure that the door was closed. It usually is, but it wasn’t this morning.”
“Go on, doctor, what did you tell your colleague?”
Dr. Havink’s meticulous voice described the course of events. He had told his colleague that the test’s results were of such a definite nature that he didn’t think that the patient had more than a week to live and that an operation would be useless. The conversation had taken about five minutes, and during that time Bergen must have left the small waiting room and gone back to the main waiting room, where, according to the nurse, he began to pace about and talk to himself in a loud voice.
“And pat his pocket,” Grijpstra said.
Yes, and pat his pocket. Mr. Bergen talked about the police, about money, and about killing. Then he left. The nurse tried to stop him but he pushed her aside. And so Dr. Havink called the police.
“I see, I see. So we may assume that Mr. Bergen understood that your verdict referred to him. He wasn’t aware that you were talking about another patient.”
“Yes. I am sorry about this. It’s an occurrence that has never happened before but it could have, obviously, for it has happened now. My arrangement here is faulty. The door between my office and the little waiting room should have been closed, and I should have told Mr. Bergen that I would be discussing his case with him in a minute but that I had to take care of something else first. The whole thing is pathetic, really. There is nothing the matter with Mr. Bergen. We did three tests on him and they were all negative, although the X-ray did show a small calcification, but mis is nothing unusual. Still, we continue checking in such a case, routine, simple routine. All Mr. Bergen has is a facial nerve infection that will cure itself; his face should have some movement again soon, in a few days, I would say. But I didn’t have a chance to tell him.”
Grijpstra sighed and looked at de Gier. De Gier was shaking his head.
“Yes, doctor. Thank you for letting us know. We’ll see if we can find Mr. Bergen. Do you happen to recall what he was wearing?”
“A dark suit, crumpled as if he had slept in it, no tie, open shirt. He hadn’t shaved.”
“Thank you.”
De Gier had put his telephone down and was standing next to the adjutant. “An alert, don’t you think? A general alert. Bergen will be running around somewhere. He wouldn’t have gone home or to his office, but I’ll check.”
Bergen’s home phone didn’t answer. A secretary at his office said he wasn’t there. “Miss Gabrielle Carnet?” Gabrielle hadn’t arrived yet. De Gier telephoned the Carnet house. No answer.
“O.K., an alert, for what it’s worm. The patrol cats never see very much, their windows are all steamed up.”
Grijpstra telephoned the radio room. He described Bergen and added that the suspect was in a state of mental breakdown and probably armed. When he put the phone down he was smiling.
“What?”
Grijpstra prodded de Gier’s stomach. “Crazy situation, don’t you think? As the commissaris said, there is nothing wrong with the man, but Bergen has imagined himself into a terminal position, a good-bye maybe, or a complete breakdown mat he hopes will leave him senseless. He must have slipped a pistol into his pocket before he went to Dr. Havink’s clinic mis morning. A pistol is a very violent instrument. He could have bought sleeping pills-he has a house of his own and a bed.”
De Gier was scratching his bottom. “Sleeping pills are never very dramatic.”
“Quite.” Grijpstra was still smiling.
“But what’s so funny?”
“Don’t you see? The fellow has made all the mistakes he could make. He gets a letter from the bank mat must be negotiable in some way. Banks always threaten, but if you owe mem enough their threats don’t stick; they can’t afford to break your business, for if they do you can’t pay mem. But Bergen insists that his business is finished. His wife sends him a lawyer’s letter and he cracks up. Can’t he sit down and figure out whether he really wants her? If he doesn’t want her there’s no problem, he can sell his house and find a good apartment somewhere, or even a few good rooms. With his money he can find a woman to go with the rooms and state his terms. But if he really wants his wife back, well, he can find her and talk to her, can’t he? There may still be an opening for an approach, but no, he chooses to rush around and mess up his house and ruin one of his cars and burn holes in the carpet.”
“Very funny, what else?”
“This paralysis, of course. You heard what Dr. Havink said. It’s a minor affliction, a nothing. It will go away if he has the patience to wait a few days. But he doesn’t even have the patience to wait for the doctor to come out of his office, for he has already convinced himself that he is suffering from brain cancer and has a week to live and he has rushed out into the street, screaming.”
“Hilarious. And now we have him wandering around, a raving lunatic with a deadly weapon. Does he have a car with him?”
“Probably. We saw a new Volvo in his driveway last night”
“So he may be anywhere by now.”
The loudspeaker in the garage’s ceiling croaked again. “Adjutant Grijpstra.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” But the adjutant turned and marched back to the phone.
The radio room constable apologized. “We know you’re busy, adjutant, but the commissaris isn’t here and die inspector is out on an urgent call and I can’t raise him. We have a call from a patrol. They were asked to go to an address on the Amsteldijk, Number One-seven-two. Neighbors heard a shot in the top apartment, first an angry male voice, then a shot. The constables broke the apartment’s door and found blood on the floor but no one is mere. The apartment belongs to a Mr. Vleuten. I have been trying to find Adjutant Geurts, he’s probably out having coffee somewhere. Shall I ask him to go to the Amsteldijk when he comes in?”
“No, we’ll go.”
“Siren?” de Gier asked.
“No.”
Grijpstra was sitting behind the wheel, the engine idling.
“Hospitals?” de Gier said. “The baboon is wounded. He isn’t the sort of man to wander around. He has a car, perhaps he can still drive it.”
“University Hospital,” Grijpstra said. “That’s where I would go if I lived on the Amsteldijk and got shot. Maybe the Wilhelmina is closer but you get stuck in traffic. Let’s have that siren.”
The small car dug itself into the heavy morning traffic, howling furiously. A large white Uzzi motorcycle appeared, and de Gier shouted at the constable riding it.
“University Hospital, lead the way.”
The constable saluted. The motorcycle’s siren joined in, and the Uzzi reared and shot away with the Volkswagen trailing its gleaming suave form while cars stopped and bicycles fled to the pavement.
“Easy,” de Gier shouted as the Volkswagen’s fender ground past a streetcar’s bumper, but Grijpstra didn’t react. He sat hunched behind the wheel, twisting it to make the car follow the motorcycle. The car’s engine whined and die sirens howled on gleefully.
The dented Volkswagen swung into the hospital’s parking lot and came to rest next to the baboon’s Rolls- Royce, shining in splendid isolation between a row of mud-spattered compacts. The motorcycle cop waved and rode
