But Bluebeard had once again overlooked something, namely the most important detail of this horrific still life.
I turned away from Purple and looked with reproach at my limping friend.
"He wasn't above fun and games," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"As old as he was, he still wanted to immortalize himself."
"Immortalize himself?"
"Well, have children."
"What? Purple and screwing? Now I've heard everything. Why don't you say that there's no such thing as satisfaction in old age? It's out of the question. At his age, most people would be happy if they could decipher the word erection with two pairs of eyeglasses and a magnifying glass, not to mention delight the ladies with one."
"Come up here and see for yourself."
"No thanks. Today is the only day in the month when I get liver. And I'm not wild about having my appetite ruined by a dead, dirty old man. Besides, it's pretty damned hard for me to waste even one tear over a jerk like him."
Yet I could see that something was bothering him: "You really believe that Purple was a secret one-man breeding star? That's too much, just too much. The world is crazier than I thought."
Why, I asked myself, should he think that? And what in fact was the mysterious connection between the murder victims—if indeed any connection existed among them at all? Thoughts spun wildly through my mind like electrons around a nucleus. Nevertheless, a disciplined procedure had to be followed, and all the clues had to be put in the correct sequence. The most prominent characteristic of the murders was the fact that they were sex related. Of course, I couldn't disregard the possibility that this was a psychotic murderer killing at random. But the psycho theory could be largely ruled out. Psychotics don't really exist in the animal realm, and if they do, then they don't get very far; they usually enter the eternal happy hunting grounds right after childhood. On the other hand, it could have been pure coincidence that the bogeyman had only struck out at horny brothers up to now. If, however, it was no coincidence, then someone (A) had something against screwing in general, (B) was himself horny and had strange views on competitive fighting in territories, or (C) did not want a very special lady to be coveted by others.
In the end, after thinking it over, I had to admit to myself that it was so senseless, there had to be a psychotic at large.
"I still think that it had to be a goddamned can opener," Bluebeard growled below. "Shit yes. I mean, for what idiotic reason would one of ours make such an awful mess? You don't have a logical explanation either, do you? That disgusting jerk would probably have kicked off in a month anyway, whether he still could have gotten it up or not."
"Well, I'm dealing with the same mystery you are. But let's not kid ourselves. This bloody hole we're looking at is a wound caused by a bite, not an ice pick. Anyway, it looks like it's high time for me to find out more about our local disaster and its pitiful inhabitants. And you can help me in this regard, Bluebeard."
"Oh, and I will, Inspector?"
"Sure you will, if it's as important to you as it is to me that this nightmare come to an end. So how shall we proceed?"
"Well, I'll introduce you to someone. He knows what's going on here better than I do. Besides, he wasn't exactly born yesterday. You're not the only wiseass in this fucked-up neighborhood of retards, you know that?"
"Right now?"
"Hell, no. I'm sick and tired of playing detective today. Besides which I don't want to miss my rendezvous with that liver. I'll take you to him first thing tomorrow morning, to the Professor."
I jumped down from the motorcycle seat, stood beside Bluebeard, and looked up once again at Deep Purple. He seemed like a sacrificial victim that had been butchered in honor of an evil demon on an altar consecrated with blood and lightning. To placate the spirits, it was called. Blood still flowed down over the chrome of the bike and dripped down into a pool that was already drying up. Looking at Deep Purple now, I felt sorry for him. I imagined that he had given many, particularly humans, pleasure and joy not only through what he did but also through what he was. He should have had a better death, I thought. Probably a better life, too. But wasn't that true for all of us?
3
In the night I had two more nightmares. Only during the second one, I was wide awake!
After the bizarre postmortem examination, Bluebeard and I went our separate ways, and I returned home in a thunderstorm that had just broken out. The torrential rain and fierce lightning had scared all the local residents away from the gardens so that I was spared a further confrontation with Kong and company.
On this subject, allow me to note on my behalf: so that I may be spared the reproach of snobbery or of being a know-it-all, I would like to admit here and now that thunder and lightning scare the hell out of me too. And not without cause. People, particularly those in the industrialized part of the world, tend to see the "noble savage" in nature—indeed, they see something similar to the Indian whom the white man poisoned with his gift of alcohol. They regard the manifold forces of nature as old-fashioned sideshow effects that at best can inspire feelings of contemplative awe. This, however, is a mistake that only certain soft-headed beings are capable of making, beings whose knowledge of nature is limited for the most part to glossy photos from National Geographic or to certain repeats of that imperishable television series, Daktari. But Mother Nature is in
