Free Blond Baboon by Janwillem van de Wetering Page B

matter with me. I saw you, I saw you giving the stop sign, but I kept on driving. I must be going crazy.”
    The constable bent down and peered into Cardozo’s face. “It sometimes happens,” he whispered confidentially. “I see it every now and then. I’ve thought of several explanations. Some subconscious protest, perhaps, or a hidden aggression, something like that. Have you done this before “No.”
    “First time, eh? Well, maybe it means nothing. Maybe you’re just tired. But if it happens again you might see a psychiatrist. What do you do for a living?”
    “I’m a police detective.”
    The constable’s eyebrows shot up and he stepped back to study the car. He jumped forward and pushed his head into the window. Cardozo pointed at the police radio under the dashboard and fished out his plastic identification.
    “Get away,” the constable said.
    “But…”
    “Come on, get off. Off!” The constable walked back to the intersection. He was looking at the pavement and dragging his feet.

\\\\\ 7 /////
    W ERTHEYM, THE PLATE ON THE DOOR READ, PORTRAIT painter.
    There was nothing particular about the door and there was nothing to prevent Adjutant Grijpstra from pressing the hell but he didn’t. He stood with his hands folded and waited. He had been enjoying himself so far and he didn’t want to interrupt the steady flow of well-being that had begun to soak into him from the moment he had left his little house that morning. There was a small black cloud at the end of the flow and he meant to keep it away for as long as he could, a process that would be possible if he consciously experienced the small moments that his working day would present The black cloud was his return home. He definitely didn’t want to go home.
    His wife, the blob of semi-solid fats, dirty and bad-tempered, that had grown slowly out of the girl he had once married, was gradually filling the two floors of their home, pushing him to the wall, seeping into his peace, the peace he built up during the day. One day he wouldn’t go home anymore. He didn’t want to see her leaning on the kitchen table that squeaked under her weight, leaning on the creaking railing on the stair landing, leaning on the cracked windowsill. It was hard for her to stand now. It was also hard for her to sit down, for the effort of getting up again might break the few chairs that were still in one piece.
    But, where could he go if he didn’t go home? He was spending afterhours’ time in his room at headquarters, he was eating out as much as he could, but he still had to go home to sleep. He cursed slowly, articulating the syllables. But then he promised himself he wouldn’t think of the little black cloud; it would come on its own, without him thinking about it. His hand reached out slowly and pressed the bell.
    The door opened at once.
    “Mr. Wertheym?”
    “Yes, I don’t…”
    “I am a police detective, sir, here is my card. Just a few questions, may I come in?”
    “Certainly, certainly, I thought you wanted your portrait painted. I don’t do men, you see, only women. I was going to tell you that, saves a lot of chatter. Come in.”
    The man could only be a painter. His appearance was a perfect combination of the number of attributes that make up the idea “painter” in the average perceptive mind. A small goatee, high forehead, bright eyes, a beret on the gray locks, an apron smeared with assorted colors—Wertheym was undoubtedly an artist. But there was nothing artistic about his house. The furniture had been taken straight from the showroom of a lower-middle-class store. The imitation fireplace with its licking gas flames creeping over iron birch logs complete with bark was in the worst possible taste. A calendar showing a plump girl in a glued-on flowery miniskirt that could be lifted up hung next to a triangular arrangement of plastic and tin replicas of Spanish swords. Different types of paper flowers had been matched into a bouquet that had lost