The Snowman (25 page)

“Who ever heard of doing a deal in the zoo!”

“There's a first time for everything. Now, let's go. We've been standing outside this bloody monkey house far too long.”

The customer, a bad case of nerves, was sweating. “Then I'll take a look round the reptile house first,” he said. “I have to feel it's safe, you understand.”

Poor bastard, thought Blum, he's cracking up. Well, I can understand that. Let him. Either he has the money, in which case you can afford to wait a minute yourself, or he doesn't, and then it makes no difference anyway.

“Okay, I'll give you five minutes and then follow you in.”

The customer nodded, straightened his glasses, and went back the way they had come, walking much too fast, going past the enclosures with the beasts of prey
to the reptile house. Blum followed him slowly, an HB in his hand, drawing greedily on it from time to time. The Javanese was now taking snapshots of his fiancée in front of the flamingos. In the rain and the dim haze, he looked the one truly exotic creature in this twilit place full of jungle flora and fauna, but Blum had only to glance at his sample case to know that there could be nothing more exotic than a man of around forty in a wet blazer, walking into the reptile house of Amsterdam Zoo with five pounds of cocaine inside cans of shaving foam, hoping to strike lucky at last. Unless it was his customer, the man of fifty-five with his Trevira suit and his dark glasses, searching the reptile house for hidden hitmen.

A puma from the Andes lay in its cramped cage in the corner, but when Blum stopped in front of the bars it rose and looked around, as if searching for some way of escape. Was it coincidence? There was no coincidence involved in this game. He looked at his watch. Perhaps only two minutes had passed, but never mind – he couldn't wait any longer.

A class of schoolchildren was pouring out of the reptile house, and it took Blum some time to get through the entrance into the low-built, long building. The reptiles were behind glass on one side of it, and on the other side behind bars and lying in basins of water, in a sultry, putrid miasma meant to simulate the atmosphere of alligator swamps and the banks of the Nile. Blum's customer was nowhere in sight. The reptile house was empty except for the man in the beret who had spent so long chatting at the ticket window. A crocodile fan. He was standing by the basin containing the really big ones. Blum went over to it too. The stench was overwhelming. Perhaps the old man was absorbing the swampy climate as a rejuvenation cure,
because he didn't look quite so old now. Blum addressed him in English.

“Did you see a man wearing a hat? He must have been in here just now.”

The man cast Blum a brief glance, but said nothing.

“A friend of mine, you see. We were going to meet here.”

The man glanced fleetingly at Blum's case, and then said, also in English: “Yes, there was a man in here, but he obviously didn't like the air of the place.” He smiled. “A lot of people don't.” The smile disappeared. “He suddenly went berserk. Very regrettable. There were children in here. They took him away.”

“I think you're lying to me,” said Blum.

The man shrugged his shoulders. “What do I care about your friends? I come here to look at the animals.”

He turned his back on Blum and walked slowly on. Blum stared after him, and then examined the basin of crocodiles. Some were drifting in the muddy water, others lying by the verge, crawling over each other, opening their jaws, eyeing each other without moving, waiting – but it was a timeless waiting, a waiting that had lasted 18 million years. Blum turned and left the reptile house.

The rain had suddenly stopped. The sky had actually cleared. The Javanese was standing at the kiosk by the exit buying a stuffed toy tiger as a souvenir for his fiancée. Blum made his way through the turnstile. A man came towards him. That feeling of panic again. The lookout man . . .

“Mr Blum? I was asked to give you this.”

He put an envelope into Blum's hand, and next moment he had disappeared. Blum couldn't have said what he looked like. He opened the envelope.

Will expect you at 20.00 hours tomorrow
Roxy Bar, Ostend
Best wishes, Harry W. Hackensack

When the train crossed into Belgium Blum heaved a sigh of relief. He had had quite enough of Holland for the time being. Even the cows looked more normal in Belgium. The little country railway stations with their rusty ads for Stella Artois and their sooty brick buffets, the railwaymen's housing estates along the canals, where children were fishing and geese walking through the lush grass, the smoke from factories ripe for demolition that merged with the soft grey light to form a misty veil – it might not be Miami, Maracaibo, Macao, but it was what Blum most needed after all this insanity. Sober peace and quiet.

His only companion in the compartment seemed to feel the same way, for it was not until they were over the border that he took off his blue plastic raincoat and put down the book he had been doggedly reading ever since Amsterdam. Then he took a pure white handkerchief from the inside jacket pocket of his black suit, carefully cleaned his rimless glasses, and spoke to Blum in unctuous tones. Blum shrugged his shoulders.

“Sorry, I don't speak Flemish.”

“Ah, you are German! I am delighted, of course.”

“Why of course?”

“The Germans have done so much to spread the word of the Lord. Do you have toothache, sir?”

“Yes, all of a sudden. Like someone exploring the root with an icepick.”

“Well, I am no medicine man, and I can't give you dental treatment, but I can pray for you.”

“I wouldn't like to impose on you.”

“Oh, but why? Prayer, you see, is a force-field linking us to the divine grace. Prayer awakens us to healing, so Duncan Campbell taught.”

“What was his name again?”

“Our teacher Duncan Campbell, the great Scottish preacher, Herr . . .?”

“Schmidt,” said Blum.

The man had a head much too large for his small, thin body, encased in black cloth beneath which he wore a black pullover leaving the collar of a white shirt free. There was not an ounce of fat on his face either, but great energy lay around the narrow mouth and the hard blue eyes. He offered a bony hand.

“And I am Brother Norman.”

His handshake was like a steel clamp. These lunatics were a perfect pest. And this one a cleric into the bargain!

“Where did you learn German?”

“Oh, I've had plenty of opportunity. And we have a large community in Germany.”

“I see. What's your church, if I may ask?

“The Church of Prayer, Herr Schmidt. As Duncan Campbell taught us, prayer is the unifying force-field in which all the barriers that have separated human beings for so long are removed. Let me see if I have a German edition of our little introductory pamphlet in my case.”

“Oh, please, don't trouble. I travel light, you see.”

“I'm sure a leaflet will fit into your case, Herr Schmidt.”

Wasn't that a rather insinuating look? Never mind, the train was passing through the suburbs of Antwerp, and Blum had to change here.

“As it happens, my toothache's gone away. So you did help me. Pleased to have made your acquaintance, Brother Norbert.”

“Norman. Are you getting out here?”

“Yes, I want to have a look round Antwerp.”

“And where are you going then, Herr Schmidt?”

“Well, I'm on holiday. Just travelling about at random. Goodbye!”

Blum got out of the train and strode off to the station buffet, where he ordered sandwiches and coffee. At about this time two weeks ago he had been going down to St Paul's Bay with the Australian.
Verbum dei caro factum est
. Odd, religion followed you everywhere, it kept on intervening. He took the picture of the Virgin Mary out of his breast pocket. It was rather damp and had a slightly mouldy smell.
Madonna salvani
. Still, it had lasted this long, which was more than you could say of many human beings. He put the little picture away again and patted the sample case affectionately. We'll soon find the right place for you, baby. Blum will look after you. We'll soon be there. He hadn't felt so cheerful in a long time.

As he was making for the Ostend express, he saw Brother Norman waiting on the next platform. Find someone else to preach to. He went to the front of the train and made himself comfortable in a first-class carriage.

On the way through Flanders the sky grew darker and darker. In Ostend a strong wind was blowing, there were showers of rain, and gleams of sunlight over the sea. Blum handed in the case at the left-luggage office. Now he had a left-luggage receipt again. He put it in his wallet with the Madonna. A Sealink ferry was just leaving the dock. The sea air refreshed Blum. He walked past the docks to the
Visserskaai, which led to the promenade. The Old Town lay beyond.

The bars smelled of fish and chips. Tourists stood outside the souvenir shops, holding on to their umbrellas and converting Belgian francs into English pounds and German marks. Blum determined not to let himself be palmed off with Belgian francs. You'd never get rid of them except in the casino. A poster announced a performance by Shirley Bassey, another a lecture on the Bermuda Triangle. Blum felt almost at home. Suddenly there was a heavy shower. Large black mastiffs were racing along the empty beach. Ebb tide. Time for a drink. And there was the Roxy Bar. A reddish neon sign promised real entertainment. It was only five-thirty, but Blum was always susceptible to such temptations.

The Roxy Bar proved to be a shabby hostess nightclub. Dim lights illuminated a long, narrow room like a tunnel. There was a kind of bar at the entrance, and niches on both sides of the long room containing plastic-topped tables, wooden benches with worn cushions, small lamps with plastic shades. On the walls, which were papered in a clerical strawberry red, hung dusty pin-up photos, while the long tunnel of the room ended at a small platform with an old piano on it, and Blum wasn't sure if the two women in aprons and headscarves scrubbing the platform represented Real Entertainment or were cleaning ladies. Intoxicated sales reps and seamen sat in some of the niches, complaining of their fate or of the girls here, who were dozing or telling jokes in loud voices. A jukebox was belting out a hit, and the smell was like the atmosphere of a second-class waiting room.

Blum turned to a grey-haired man in a stained waiter's jacket standing behind the bar, adding up receipts. A long white scar adorned his simple face. A woman somewhere in her mid-fifties looked at him with suspicion. She was in full warpaint, with a large bead necklace around her neck and a Titian-red wig on her head. Her fat fingers with their brightly coloured rings, their nails filed to sharp points, were playing with a cola glass still one-third full of a liquid that looked like a mixture of eggnog and Pernod.

“Excuse me,” said Blum, “I heard this was the best show in Ostend.”

The barkeeper looked up from his receipts. He had just shaved, but had cut his upper lip and forgotten to remove the scab of encrusted blood. He looked at Blum and seemed to like what he saw, for he bared what remained of his brownish teeth, but before he could say anything the woman in the Titian wig placed her hand on his arm, and turned to Blum, speaking in a surprisingly soft and melodious voice. You could tell she was a trained singer.

“You flatter us, mister. But if a man can flatter as nicely as you do nothing good usually comes of it. May I ask who told you so?”

“A friend.”

“I see. A friend. Perhaps we know your friend?”

Blum gave a description of Hackensack. “And he always wears striking hats, and he drinks bourbon like water.”

“No, doesn't mean anything to me. Most Americans wear peculiar clothes, you know, and they all drink spirits like water.”

“Perhaps you'll get to meet him. We arranged to meet here this evening. Can you reserve us a table?”

She let go of the barkeeper and nudged him in the ribs. He beamed.

“Get the gentleman a drink, Joseph! What would you like? Are you an American too?”

“Do I wear peculiar clothes?”

“Well, they're a little lightweight for this climate.”

“Oh, I don't mind that. I'm German. I'd like a beer, please.”

“A beer, Joseph. German beer!”

“We ran out yesterday.”

“I'm happy with Belgian beer.”

“Fine. But if you reserve a table you must reserve two girls as well. Tables only come with girls.”

“Of course. And is there a show this evening too?”

“We have two shows every evening, at nine and eleven.”

“Then I'll reserve a table for both shows.”

He put a banknote on the bar. She took it, giving Blum a rather odd look. “Not going to make any trouble, are you?”

“Madam, I don't know the meaning of the word trouble.”

“I just had a kind of feeling when I saw you come in.”