hummed as they filled orders shouted by waitresses darting about between the tables. The feet of passersby were visible in the high windows, occasionally the feet and legs of dogs. When a complete cat showed itself the cooks broke out into song.
'Le chat complet…'
There was also instrumentation: percussion on cowbells and what sounded like a sock cymbal, hidden under the counter. One of the cooks, in between breaking eggs and spearing sausages, played the xylophone on a row of labelless bottles.
The commissaris, waiting for his order of French toast and bacon, a menu item discovered during a previous visit to the USA (he also asked for fries, a potato dish he had tried to get Katrien to make, but she couldn't), compared the model in a painting with a little old lady bustling about the restaurant. The painting, three by four feet, dominated the cellar. It showed a naked black woman, in her thirties, with large firm breasts, reclining on a cane couch under palm trees. The woman was about to bite into a red apple. A black dog stared up at her. A blood red tongue lolled out of the dog's mouth. There were purple mountains in the background of the painting.
The commissaris was sure the old lady refilling coffee cups all over the restaurant was an older version of the luscious woman in the painting. Even in her white apron and red butterfly necktie she showed the same immoral attitude, an irresistible abandon, as in her earlier projection. He wondered where the painted scene was set.
'Haiti,' the little old lady said when she came by to check his tea. 'We from Haiti. The country. La campagne.' She bent down to peer at his cup. 'What you do to your tea?'
The painting had required all the concentration he had been able to muster for he had put both lemon and milk in his tea. The resulting fluid curdled in his mug.
'Stupide,' the woman said. 'Mamere bring you fresh tea. No charge. Because this my restaurant and you are stupide.'
The commissaris took his time over breakfast. The cellar filled up and he had to share his table. He hoped that another cat would set off the jazzy musical he had enjoyed before. No cat showed.
An unmarked police car driven by Sergeant Hurrell picked him up at the Cavendish and dropped him off at One Police Plaza in what, considering the distance and heavy traffic, seemed a surprisingly short time. Hurrell, who had guided the commissaris into the rear seat of the car, evidently wasn't looking for talkative company. He drove silently, scowling at black or turbaned cab drivers who wiggled fingers at him and smiled. Apparently there was a way for the drivers to recognize Hurrell's car as police. The commissaris cleared his throat and was about to ask for an explanation when Hurrell looked at his passenger via his mirror. 'It's the type of antennae we use. Or maybe they can smell me.'
In the reception hall there were speeches and coffee. The commissaris recognized colleagues from European countries. He waved and shook hands. German heels clicked. French hands flourished. A British detective chief smiled affably. Only the American hosts wore uniforms.
Dr. Russo was a handsome slim man who looked like he worked out regularly. His lecture was enthusiastic. Gory slides illustrated his subjects. The first slide showed a skull with a ragged hole in it. Russo explained that the human remnant was found in a pit dug to hold pillars that would support yet another super-tall building. The hole indicated foul play. 'Someone bashed our friend,' Russo said happily, 'but he did so a very long time ago. My guess is four hundred years. We found other skulls nearby- keepsakes dating back to Indian executions.'
There was the same picture, but now in color, and showing more detail, that the commissaris had faxed to his assistants in Amsterdam and that Adjutant Grijpstra, after deliberation, had not shown to Sara. The commissaris, studying the way the Central Park animals had consumed all of the belly, the genitals and part of the upper thighs, reflected on the unacceptability of identifying human existence with the body. Could this mess be what we are?
'Bodies definitely don't last.'
He had said so aloud and an Oriental man sitting next to him, an official from Seattle, nodded agreement. 'We had the same thing in a wooded area right next to a suburb. Just one night and pffftt… hardly enough for identification.'
'Heart attack in Central Park,' Dr. Russo said brighdy. 'A crowd of a thousand people probably within shouting distance. This man must have fallen down and crawled about for a bit, ending up under flowering azalea bushes. There is some evidence that he was hit in the chest, possibly by a rotten branch. He was under a maple that had been struck by lightning a long time ago. A branch was torn off by strong winds that night. Subsequent research and inquiries reveal that subject was well dressed and nicely groomed when the heart attack occurred. At some time he was found and robbed, probably by homeless people, judging from the clothes swap. Maybe his feet stuck out of the bushes then. We found some signs that the body had been dragged further into the underbrush.'
The pathologist clicked a dozen slides through his machine. Some slides showed the body remains from different angles. One slide focused on Termeer's beard. The dentures were shown. 'Classy,' Dr. Russo said. 'There is gold in those dentures. They were found at some distance from the other remains.'
The commissaris raised his hand. 'How far away from the corpse, Doctor, please?'
Russo checked his notes. 'Four feet from the body.'
'Do you have prints from the robbers' feet?'
'No,' Russo said. 'I was hoping for that but there was too much disturbance. The animal tracks blotted out all human prints. The feeding frenzy must have made the varmints hyperactive. Pity. Human footprints can be conclusively identified.' He shook his head. 'But we could get no clear impressions.' He looked at the commissaris. 'You have a special interest, sir?'
The commissaris said he was looking into a complaint.
'I remember,' Dr. Russo said. 'Chief O'Neill mentioned you. You're from Amsterdam, right? Call my office anytime, we'll be happy to be of assistance. I think we can reassure your complainant that the unfortunate incident was an act of God or rather'-Dr. Russo smiled-'an unfortunate combination of a number of divine doings.'
The audience laughed, like a taped background on a sitcom, the commissaris thought, as he found himself smiling assent politely.
The Seattle policeman spoke up. 'Couldn't it be that whoever took the subject's clothes and possessions murdered him first?'
'Aggravated or even caused the heart attack by pushing the victim around, you suggest?' Russo said. 'But there would have been no need. I can't show you all the scars of the bypass operation, because part of the chest area is missing, but the marks are there. We also have testimony from a neighbor that the subject was operated on within the last two years and told to take it easy. It seem that he did not do so. We have reports of the man running about the park.'
'Thank you,' the Seattle chief said.
'A subtle point,' Russo said. 'Morally, of course, we can argue that manhandling a dying person is a criminal act, especially when the activity involves robbing that person, but in such an instance it's hard to come up with a charge of murder.'
'Suspect will say that he thought the victim was drunk,' a voice said.
'Criminal negligence or recklessness,' another voice said, 'very hard to make that stand up in court.'
'We have no suspects,' a voice, which the commistsaris recognized as O'Neill's, said clearly. 'Whoever robbed the victim is now hidden somewhere in a shelter. We tried but it would take too many hours to check all the homeless people in Manhattan.'
'More questions?' Dr. Russo asked. 'No? Then let me tell you about Maggotmaid.'
'The commissaris's leg pains had come back in full strength but he forced himself to listen to Dr. Russo's lecture, knowing that the pain would be reduced to an inconsequential throb for as long as he could keep his mind focused on another subject.
The slide shown was the cover picture of the leaflet that had announced this police convention in New York. It showed the still, dead face of a young attractive woman. The slide was in full color. A white substance showed in the corners of the mouth. Spitde? No. Maggots. Russo seemed to take professional pleasure in clicking on other slides, magnifications of the whiteness. Each slide's higher magnification made clearer that the audience was looking at living matter: crawling maggots.
'The gal was found in the trunk of a brand-new Cadillac, parked in the hot sun in front of a deli.'
The police chiefs listened as the pathologist enthusiastically described the smell of rotten flesh wafting
