The Hollow-Eyed Angel Read Online Free Page B

was brushed up. He ambled gracefully about in a striped cotton kimono. Mister B movie, Grijpstra thought kindly: our Action Hero, momentarily at rest, between fighting and fucking.
    "How is Whatshername doing?" Grijpstra asked when de Gier pushed tea, anchovy toast and napkins, tastefully arranged on a dented silver tray, across the table.
    "I don't understand Whatshername," de Gier said.
    "I do understand Nellie," Grijpstra said, feeding fish to de Gier's cat, Tabriz. "Nellie wants me to move in but her hotel is too noisy." He brushed crumbs off his pinstripe suit. "I still prefer Living Apart Together."
    "I prefer Nothing At All," de Gier said.
    Grijpstra had heard inactivity proclaimed as solution, mere hours ago, by the junkie-burglar. But the junkie allowed for exceptions. There was the needle of course. "There could also be," the junkie had suggested respectfully, "direct divine connection via pussy."
    "You dare to do away with your sexual quest?"
    Grijpstra asked.
    "Man may dream," de Gier said.
    "Of liberty?"
    "Yes, by means of doing nothing. Don't you believe in total negation?"
    "I believe," Grijpstra said, "and he who believes is not sure and therefore condemned to keep trying."
    Both detectives, in the continuing dialogues, brought up the commissaris as their ultimate authority. The commissaris kept trying to approach the mystery via activity, useful work.
    Serving the common good.
    Why else would the commissaris go to America now?
    Grijpstra sang "When the Saints Go Marching In."
    De Gier reached for his trumpet and played the phrase on his instrument. He put the trumpet back.
    Grijpstra explained what he knew of the case so far.
    "Jo Termeer mentioned that tune?" De Gier stretched his foot toward the cat who rolled over on her back expecting a massage. "How did Jo know the Saints were marching while Uncle Bert was dying? Jo wasn't there, he was here, cutting hair in this very suburb, in Outfield."
    Tabriz meowed pleasurably, but loudly, while her master's toes kneaded her bare belly. De Gier kneeled next to the cat. He circled Tabriz's mouth with thumb and index finger, and tightened his grip rhythmically. Tabriz meowing became structured into a musical "wah-wah-wah."
    "I spent most of the afternoon questioning Jo Termeer," de Gier said. "If I am collaborating on this case I would like to be properly briefed. I wasn't told about the Saints. I could have caught Termeer in a contradiction."
    He frowned at Grijpstra.
    "Termeer's information is based on double hearsay," Grijpstra said. "Uncle Bert's neighbor, landlord and part-time help, Charlie, told Jo that the song was being played when Uncle Bert was seen last. Charlie was told by passersby who were there at the time. Charlie is no witness either."
    "Did neighbor Charlie interview possible witnesses to Uncle's death?" de Gier asked.
    "Musical saints supposedly marched," Grijpstra said. "Not only that, an elderly couple was seen—foreign tourists—pointing out an alleged corpse to a mounted policeman." Grijpstra shook his head. "A policewoman, I should say."
    "Aha aha," de Gier said, "all news to me, friend. So you kept the information hidden so as to hear from me what Jo would come up with when I questioned him."
    "Jo Termeer didn't mention an elderly tourist couple? Middle class? Foreign?"
    "No," de Gier said. "Young Termeer reported he called at the Central Park Precinct and saw the desk-sergeant. The cop only knew about a dead derelict, found under a filthy blanket, a homeless person dressed in rags, and told complainant that an investigation was in progress."
    "Embarrassment of corpses?" Grijpstra asked. "America the violent? Dead bodies galore?"
    "Same body," de Gier said. "Charlie had identified the corpse as his dead neighbor. Termeer also saw a Sergeant Hurrell at Central Park Precinct. There 'was the language barrier again. Hurrell may have said that he would keep Termeer informed."
    "No sense," Grijpstra said sadly. "It never makes sense. It never