Blond Baboon by Janwillem van de Wetering Page B

remembered the large apes he had seen in the zoo and in films and how they walked, swinging, resting not only on their feet but equally on the knuckles of their hands. It seemed to him that Vleuten would walk the same way, and he was waiting for an opportunity to confirm his thought when de Gier’s identification card was thrown onto the quay and the launch pulled away at full speed.
    “Did you pick up your card?”
    “Of course.”
    He still couldn’t understand the suspect’s response to their polite approach.
    “Police?” The baboon had a good voice, deep and quiet.
    “Yes, Mr. Vleuten. I am a CID sergeant. My colleague and I would like to ask a few questions.”
    The baboon had taken the card, a respectable weapon in their continuous warfare on crime—the police badge, the state’s authorization decorated with the red, white, and blue of the flag of the Netherlands, an authorization that legalizes police officers to bother citizens, for their own sake, the sake of peace, and the maintenance of the rules of peace. And the fellow had actually had the audacity to throw the card on the street.
    “You aren’t worried about that damned card, are you?” de Gier asked. “What about me? Look at me!”
    “You are wet,” Grijpstra said pleasantly.
    “Wet! I am probably poisoned. I swallowed some of that liquid shit they keep in the canals these days. I could have got killed on some of that garbage that floats around. I could have got drowned! You didn’t even trouble yourself to see what had happened to me. All you were concerned about was your fucking radio.”
    “Now, now.”
    “But I still have my card, that’s all the adjutant wants to know.”
    “You can swim,” Grijpstra said, “and I would have worried about you but I saw you climbing out. And here we are.”
    “Wherer
    “Here. I radioed a police boat. They’re supposed to meet us here. Good, they’re coming already, see?”
    De Gier saw the gray speedboat pushing a fluffy bow wave but he didn’t seem interested. He looked down at his hands and began to wipe them. His right hand had bled a little; the left hand had a long gluey yellow weed stuck between the fingers. He pulled it out and threw it out of the window.
    “He took a risk,” the adjutant said, forcing the car to take a short turn to the right and to dive under a large bridge, Amsterdam’s main thoroughfare, connecting its center to the eastern part of the city. They could hear the bridge’s rumble as a convoy of trucks passed overhead. “I could have shot him easily, but only in the chest or the head. His legs were covered by his boat’s gunwale. Maybe he knows that we only aim for the legs, provided they are not actually attacking us.”
    De Gier was wringing out his trouser legs. “That’s my second suit today, got it from the dry cleaner’s this morning. We’ll have to catch him, Grijpstra. I want him in a cell, a bad cell, the corner cell.” The police launch was waiting and they jumped in, ignoring the water sergeant’s helpful arm.
    “CID, sergeant, go south, we are after a white motorboat, one man in it, man with a white jersey and a cap. A good-looking boat, old but well kept. A wooden boat.”
    The constable in the launch’s cabin shifted a small lever next to the steering wheel. The boat roared and began to cut through the river’s short bright waves, lifting its nose as it gathered speed. Grijpstra stumbled, but the water sergeant caught him by the shoulders.
    “Hold on, your Mend took a bath, did he?”
    “He did. The suspect removed his boat as my colleague jumped.”
    Hands were shaken as the policemen introduced themselves.
    “What’s the chase, Grijpstra? Is your suspect dangerous? Armed?”
    Grijpstra explained. De Gier had gone into the cabin and was checking his pistol, breaking it into parts and drying it with a rag. The constable gave him a fresh clip and de Gier inserted it. “It’ll work,” the constable said, “but you’d better take it to