"That one old drunk looked handsome, can't think of his name now."
De Gier agreed that Holland's vice president was rather photogenic.
It was about time now.
De Gier looked at macrame curtains covering the glass part of the Lakmaker front door.
Grijpstra reread the commissaris's faxed note: Find out what exactly the Lakmakers saw on June 4. Grijpstra checked the day on his watch. "Almost three weeks ago." Ask (the note ordered) why they ignored Sergeant Hurrell's queries left on their answering machine.
"Are we going to interrogate the Lakmakers separately?" de Gier asked. "In different rooms? Catch them later on all the discrepancies?"
Grijpstra didn't think so. "Might annoy them too much."
"They're annoyed already," de Gier said.
"Angry, well-meaning fellow citizens," Grijpstra said. "But don't they have a nice place to live in?" He pushed his car door open. "I attack, Sergeant. Follow me."
Grijpstra and de Gier sat on a couch upholstered in blue velvet and drank coffee from Chinese mugs adorned with hand-painted flowers. A limping white-haired old lady pointed at cargo vessels motoring along the Rhine. Her bald husband checked a plastic file on his deck. It contained maps and leaflets, mementos of the couple's recent American journey.
"That couch you two are sitting on is original Biedermeier," Sara Lakmaker said. "A wreck when I found it. Joop repaired the frame and I upholstered it. It would cost a fortune if you figured in the hours."
"The professional artistic touch," Grijpstra said. He moved carefully, anxious not to damage the couch's ancient springs, which creaked painfully under his bulk.
"The coffee you are drinking comes from Nigeria," Sara said. "It's from Zabar's, in New York. That's the biggest and best deli in the world. In New York you can buy anything. Americans still have the greatest buying power."
"A strong and interesting flavor," Grijpstra said.
"Care to join me here?" Joop Lakmaker asked from his desk. He had unfolded a map. "This is Central Park and this is where we saw the man you are inquiring about now. Just off this path, next to that meadow." Lakmaker changed both his voice and his posture so that he could be a poet, speaking loudly and with a rhetorical effect. "The grass was green," Lakmaker declaimed, "and the gent was dying. The balloon beast was rising"-Lakmaker covered his heart with his hand-"and the children were playing." He looked at Grijpstra. "How does that sound?"
"That sounds real pretty," Grijpstra said.
Lakmaker grinned. "I didn't even have to put in the blooming azaleas. I wanted to be a poet, wear a corduroy suit, live in a mountain cabin, but Sara wanted us to live usefully instead."
"Joop," Sara warned.
"And usefully we lived. A lifetime long. Do you know," Joop asked, "that I was instrumental in lowering the cost of Dutch soda pop?" Joop's bulging eyes looked through Grijpstra. "Isn't that something?"
"You were much appreciated," Sara said. "You did a good job. You raised good kids." Sara smiled. "You collected art." She pointed at three masks hung above the large TV screen. "We already auctioned off two collections and now Joop has started collecting again. Impressive? They are Bolivian. We bought them on a trip. Mine workers make them from beer cans during their yearly holiday."
Grijpstra and de Gier looked at the masks. "Devils?"
"Mine demons," Sara said. "They live underground and come up with the workers, to share their holiday."
The masks sprouted blunt horns, and blood dripped from the eyes.
"Expressive," Grijpstra said.
"I changed my interests and collected Fellini." Joop pointed at stacked videotapes. "I want that included in my obituary."
"Joop," Sara warned.
"Not in the Rotterdam Times," Joop said, "I know I'm not on that level. Maybe in the Nieuwegein Advertiser!" He was rubbing his hands. "What do you think, policeman? You think that my regression from present-day pop art to a nostalgic interest in surrealism, due to reliving World War II horrors, will make good copy?"
"So that poor old man in Central Park was Dutch," Sara said. "He spoke English to us. Amazing. Our running into a Dutchman in Central Park, I mean."
"Nothing out-of-the-way about that," Joop said. "Holland is rich so we Dutch can travel. New York welcomes big spenders. Six jumbos a day on the transatlantic route. 'Step right up, step right up.'" He made inviting gestures. "We're bound to stumble into each other in Central Park."
"Did that poor man survive?" Sara asked. "He seemed to be feeling very bad. The horse kicked him, you know. There he was, spinning and turning. And that uniformed hussy just rode off."
"Uniformed hussy," Grijpstra said. "What uniformed hussy would that be?"
"The policewoman," Sara said. "We had been watching the poor man for a while, you see. So had she. From high up on her huge horse."
"Well," Joop said, "that's what you thought, Sara. We can't know for sure. She was wearing sunglasses."
"To answer your question," Grijpstra said, "yes, the old man died. He was found in the azalea bushes the next morning. So the police horse kicked him?"
"Just a little," Sara said. "There was a lot going on. They had a big balloon beast going up for the kids, on the meadow, some kind of dinosaur."
"Tyrannosaurus rex," Joop said. "Enormous. Made from multicolor balloons stuck together."
"And there was a jazz group playing, on a big bandstand."
"Don't underestimate jazz," said Joop. "Even if I collect classical myself I admit that jazz is a superior art form." He looked at de Gier.
De Gier nodded.
"We had been listening to the music," Sara said. "And watching all the costumed people. There was a contest going on. Look-alikes of famous movie characters. Madonna in garters. Monroe pretending her skirt was caught in a draft. Marlon Brando dancing the last tango. Yves Montand being seduced by Catherine Deneuve."
"Mayor Koch was one of the judges," Joop said. "Odd-looking man but his speech was funny."
"But this man you came about," Sara said. "He was the most impressive. He reminded me of a professor I had when I was studying interior decoration in Utrecht."
"He wasn't part of the contest, was he?"
Sara seemed sure. "Oh no, not at all."
"I can see you are an interior decorator, that you are visually perceptive," Grijpstra said, looking about the apartment, noting open spaces and a different way of lighting. "Could you describe the man, please?"
"A tall majestic old man wearing plus fours," Sara said. "Like mountaineers do. Old-fashioned trousers that tie up half-way between knee and ankle. And a waistcoat and jacket, all dark brown tweed, a matching outfit. White shirt, buttoned down. Plaid tie. Long white beard. High forehead. Sharp nose. Bushy eyebrows. Lovely blue eyes. Polished boots and cream woolen stockings. A full head of hair."
"Sara loves hairy types," Joop said. "He struck me as a performer. He was standing absolutely still when Sara first saw him, but I had noticed the fellow before. He was skipping about then, an unlikely thing for a sage to do."
"Where was I," Sara asked, "when he skipped?"
"Going kootchy-coo at a baby."
"A sage?" Grijpstra asked.
"A kind of Voltaire type. You've heard of Voltaire?" Joop asked. "He had that sort of world-waking aura, but he looked rather like George Bernard Shaw. You've heard of George Bernard Shaw?"
Grijpstra looked at de Gier.
De Gier nodded.
"Yes," Grijpstra said. "He looked like them, did he?"
"Upper-class prophet," Sara said. "That's what he seemed like to me. Not crazy looking, but decent. After the skipping he stood at a crossing-still, like a statue, on one leg, leaning forward. Posing, in an exaggerated attitude, for effect. Very startling. You couldn't help noticing the man, and wondering what he was up to."
"Kids went over and touched him," Joop said. "Making sure he was real." He nodded. "Excellent performer. A showman. You know?"