The Rattle-Rat (12 page)

The lieutenant had fallen off his stool and knelt toward the counter. He talked. Doris hung over the bartop. "A devout social worker qualified in psychiatry?" Doris asked.

"In the cupboard," Lieutenant Sudema said. 'They shared their togetherness in there, and their joy, and inner longings."

"On a shelf?" Doris asked.

"I'm not going to drive all the way to Dingjum now,"
Hylkje said. "I'm working early tomorrow."

"Dump him in a motel."

"In his condition? They'll never accept him," Hylkje
decided. She knelt next to the lieutenant. "Darling?"

"Beloved?" Lieutenant Sudema asked.

"Doris is closing up. Are you coming with me?"

The lieutenant sneered. "You stock no liquor."

"But I do, I do. A choice. Anything you care to name."

"I'm going all the way, do you have communist vodka?"

"With the label that falls off?"

"That and no other."

"I have it," Hylkje said. "The worst kind. All yours."

"The foulest," Lieutenant Sudema said. "The wickedest.
The shortest path to hell. You sure you have that now?"

"A cupboardful," Hylkje said, narrowing her eyes.

"But that's where they did it." The lieutenant began to cry.

"No, not in a cupboard, on a shelf under my sink. Come along, my dearest."

De Gier pulled the lieutenant up. "You don't have to join us," Lieutenant Sudema said.

"Never. I'm just taking you there. I'll say good-bye at the door. She loves you. I swear."

"He'll rape you," de Gier whispered into Hylkje's ear.

"Promise?" Hylkje asked.

"I don't really mind you," Lieutenant Sudema said to de
Gier. "I'll make sure you get more tomatoes. Come fetch them tomorrow." He grabbed hold of de Gier's arm. "And then you should plan a trip to the island of Ameland. Just the place for you. Speak to the Military Police and ask for my nephew. Same name. Hey-ho!" He didn't have to find his legs again, for de Gier's hold was firm.

"Nephew?" de Gier asked.

"Private Sudema. The copper deal. The AWOL fellow.
Hey-ho!"

Lieutenant Sudema was lowered into the back seat of Hylkje's car.

"In exchange for sole," the lieutenant said. "Don't forget now. Bring the sole back. The Water Police or whoever is around, no need for the ferry. You got all that now?"

Halfway up the stairs to Hylkje's apartment, the lieutenant fell asleep. When he woke up on her bed, he wasn't feeling too well. He wondered if there might be a bucket around. De Gier greeted a passing rabbit. He picked it up.
"Don't," Hylkje said. "That rabbit is loaded."

Small hard pellets ricocheted off the floor and twanged against the lieutenant's bucket. "Messy," de Gier said, "both of them. Yachf He swept up the pellets while Hylkje mopped the floor.

"Never shake Durk," Hylkje said. "He manufactures them so fast, and his tube is always full. If you touch him they'll shake free."

Lieutenant Sudema sat on the bed. "Coming, darling?"
He dropped backward and stretched, rumbling into a snore.
"You undress him," Hylkje said. "I don't know about suspenders and such."

De Gier tucked the stripped lieutenant in.

"I'll take the couch," Hylkje said. "Consider yourself thanked."

"Am I welcome some other time?" de Gier asked, putting
the broom away in the cupboard where Hylkje arranged her mop. Hylkje pushed him away.

"No kiss?"

"Whatever for?" Hylkje asked. "Why did I get into this mess? Let's try again, call me tomorrow."

\\\\\ 10 /////

"
A
RE YOU GIVING IT TO ME OR NOT?" CARDOZO ASKED.

"Never," his brother said. "Buy your own bicycle. Everybody has a bicycle except our Symie. So what does Symie have? A bound edition of the collected adventures of Tintin, the child detective. Sell that bundled nonsense and take the train tomorrow. At the comic-book store they'll give you the price of the ticket."

"Mother?" Cardozo asked.

"Samuel!" Mrs. Cardozo said loudly.

"He wrecked my boat, complete with outboard," Samuel said, "also to restore public order, and now the bicycle will go, to be demolished on the dike. Never. Not again."

"If we all only think of ourselves..." Mrs. Cardozo said.

"He only thinks of himself," Cardozo said. He walked along the rampart of the Old Fortress, in the direction of the Inner Harbor. A detective is irrevocably attracted to where the crime was accomplished. Now where would that be, exactly? Scherjoen could have been shot through the head in any location, and dragged afterward to the slow-moving water of the Inner Harbor. Had there been a mere unfortunate coincidence of negative powers resulting in impromptu manslaughter? Or had the intention been there all the time and had the guilty party simply waited for an opportune moment? Cardozo stopped, weighing and comparing definitions, under the Montelbaen Tower, which pointed at low clouds with its elegant peak, between tall, slender mansions that, leaning forward in an interested manner, observed the contemplator. Murder, to a detective working on Amsterdam's most serious crimes, might be the ideal solution, but the verdict hardly mattered at this time. Who had been manipulated by self-willed fate? This was the way it went:
Scherjoen was forever grabbing the competition's loot, and his victims had decided to minimize future adversity. When and where had they acted? At a time and place that suited them best. Armed, they had lurked on Scherjoen's path.

Now here we have Scherjoen, weakened by alcohol and unsteadily pointed in the direction of his Citroën, parked halfway on the pavement. The avengers touch elbows. It's late, the street is theirs. A shot rings out on the deserted quayside. Scherjoen stumbles and Ms. Is that it? No, Douwe has to be done away with altogether. No corpse, no pursuit.
Whatever disappears completely has never been. Who will miss Douwe? Only Douwe's wife, but Mem had no idea where Douwe could have gone. Where, then, would Douwe's body be looked for? And when? The later the better.

Clever rural types from the far north. What are they doing now? They leer innocently from under their flat caps. They pick up Scherjoen from two sides and walk on. Three rural types from a distant province, the one in the middle heavily under the weather.

Where is a body best disposed of in Amsterdam? In the
water. The harbor's current will most likely push it out to sea. But wait, there's a dory over there. A much better plan indeed. Gasoline is poured on the remains, and a match is scratched to life.

But where, Cardozo thought, did the gasoline come from?
A gun fits into a pocket, but the pedestrian cannot easily lug a gasoline can. Did they have one ready in a car? Did the empty can then go back into the vehicle?

Cardozo looked at the smooth movement of the Inner Harbor's surface. The swell broke up in whitecapped waves.
He walked along the water's edge, found an old broomstick, and moved it slowly through floating debris.

"Got him!"

The detective, jumped from both sides, waved helplessly with his stick.

"In the name of the law," two rough voices growled.
"What's this here? You're behaving in a suspicious manner.
What are you digging in the filth for?"

"Hi, Karate. Hi, Ketchup."

"The Frisian corpse?" The uniformed officers helped in the search, Karate with a branch, Ketchup with a broken fishing rod found on the spot.

"Can I guess?" Karate asked. "You've got the corpse. A gun doesn't float. A gas can, maybe?"

"I know the report on the Frisian corpse by heart," Ketchup said. "I read everything that's around. Nothing else to do anyway. We can't bring in muggers for a while, all the cells are filled, in the city and all municipalities of this province. At the station we read, and out here we pass the time."

"Like now," Karate said "No can in sight," Ketchup said.

"No can in sight," Ketchup said. "Here, a piece of mattress. Here, a cleaning product jar."

"You really do not work now?" Cardozo asked.

"There are always the Chinese," Karate said brightly.

"You've got cells for them, then?"

"There's the large cage at Headquarters," Ketchup said.
"Every time it fills up, the Military Police fly a load to the Far East. Chinese without proper papers, we can catch some if we insist, provided we take them straight to the cage and don't bother our own station."

"It's fun," Karate said, "because they keep coming back so that our work may never end. Our sergeant likes us to keep active. Take Ping Hop, I've had him three times already.
I even remember his face. 'Hi, Ping,' I say. Does that fellow put in a lot of flying hours! There..."

"... and back," sang Ketchup.

"How about a break?" Karate said. "Dinnertime. We can have it close by. Fried noodles and shrimp?"

Wo Hop was about to close, but because the police came in and inquired about the present address of his nephew Ping Hop, he would be still open for a short while. "No know," Wo Hop said kindly.

'This Wo Hop has papers?" Cardozo asked.

"He has a restaurant," Karate said. "Good grub and reasonable prices. We do have to eat."

"Papers?" Cardozo asked.

"Papers, who cares?" Karate and Ketchup were reading
the menu.

A gent came in, with a red round face above a well-worn but clean tweed suit. "Evening," the gent said.

"Adjutant," Karate and Ketchup said.

"He's learning the language," said Karate. "Doing pretty well. You can hardly hear his Frisian accent."

"What," Cardozo asked, "would a Frisian police officer be doing in our city?"

"Adjutant Oppenhuyzen, Alien Department, trying to block the route to the north," Karate said. "He doesn't want them there, he wants to keep them here."

"You tolerate Frisian interference?"

Wo Hop brought bowls heaped with fried noodles, and a glass of cognac for Cardozo. Cardozo refused. "On the house," Wo Hop said.

"We tolerate just about anything," Karate said. "We can't be helpful to the illegal Chinese, for if we are, the newspapers will accuse us of taking bribes. We still assume that some of the Chinese visitors are okay people. Not too clever, maybe, for they don't understand Dutch red tape. It would be nice if someone could help them fill in their forms. If the Frisian adjutant wants to help, we'll wish him well."

"And he doesn't take bribes?"

Ketchup and Karate ate.

"Hello?" asked Cardozo.

"You don't know what goes on here," Ketchup said.
"When we overhunt the Chinese, they slide up the dike and hang out in Friesland. We recognize two types of suspects, from Singapore and from Hong Kong. They also hunt each other. Let's call it sport. They practice a little karate, some sharpshooting, stick-swinging, artistry with rope. Adjutant Oppenhuyzen is against all sport. He wants them to train here, where there's so much sport already."

"Take last year," Karate said. 'Ten dead Chinese in the city. Who notices ten corpses in a town the size of Amsterdam? The reports have been filed away a long time ago."

In the back of the restaurant, nervous young Chinese men had been arguing loudly. The presence of the burly adjutant seemed to restore their ruffled tempers. "Laid back, isn't he?" Cardozo asked. "Same type as our very own Grijpstra.
Would the rank of adjutant be a common denominator?"

"Hysterics, both of them," Ketchup said. "But they're older than we are, and more used to the affliction."

Wo Hop brought the bill. The cognac wasn't added in.
Cardozo checked the price in the menu and put down more money. "It all starts with accepting cognac..."

"Right," Karate said. "He doesn't bring us any. We always refuse, but he doesn't know you yet. You could accept, of course, but the next thing will be that you're picking up parcels."

"Parcels?" Cardozo asked.

Karate related how a nameless colleague had been following a nameless Chinese. The Chinese carried a parcel. As he found it hard to carry a parcel and be followed at the same time, the nameless Chinese dropped the parcel. The nameless colleague picked it up.

Cardozo watched Adjutant Oppenhuyzen. The adjutant smoothed Chinese questions away, mostly with gestures that were received with grateful guffaws.

"Well?" Karate asked.

"Ask what was in the parcel," Ketchup said. "Go on, be a good fellow."

"Heroin," Cardozo said.

"And now you should ask," Karate said, "what happened to the parcel."

'The Chinese got it back," Cardozo said. "The nameless colleague got money. He still had some holidays due to him that he could add to his sick days, and he went to a Spanish island."

"And he's still out in the sun," Karate said. "The lucky devil. Our sergeant would never let us get away with such a harmless exchange. Narrow-minded, don't you think?"

"You don't want me to be practical now," Cardozo said,
"but suppose you're shortsighted enough not to see that the nameless colleague will end up nowhere, then why should I tell you?"

"Nowhere in the sun? Served by naked maidens? Surfing between naps?"

"I went to that Spanish island," Cardozo said, "and shit for two weeks. Tainted mussels. I'm better off up here. Playing my favorite game."

"Looking for a gas can," Ketchup said. "Let's say you find it. What will it tell you? Esso or Shell? You're nowhere
here,
and in the wrong climate. The summer is half rained away. We'll never see the sun."

"Colleague?"

Cardozo looked up. Adjutant Oppenhuyzen smiled down kindly. He introduced himself and grabbed a chair. The Chinese in the back were also smiling, having rediscovered the joy of detachment. "Good boys," the adjutant said, "but they keep losing their damned papers. I help them a little with their everlasting forms. You can imagine what it's like.
They have spent years in the country, making their bowl of rice by working their asses off manufacturing fried chili paste or shrimp crackers, but as they don't know the language and customs, they're always running afoul of our potato-picking authorities. Don't arrest any of them now, you hear? I can vouch for their integrity."

"That's understood, Adjutant," Karate said. "If, by mis- take, I happen to get one in cuffs, it's because he looks like another."

"And in the event," Ketchup said, "that I, through sheer silliness—because I can't remember their names, let's say— happen to catch one, it'll be an error that I'll blame on myself.
We'll back you up."

The adjutant wanted to know if he could buy them a glass of this or that.

"We were just on our way out," Cardozo said.

"The adjutant is absolutely right," Karate said outside, "but I have this bad habit. I just love catching drug dealers without proper papers. I think I'll catch some now. Why don't you assist us, Cardozo?"

Cardozo glanced at his watch.

"Don't leave us when we need you, Symie. We helped you look for the can. You're just what we want. You're looking more civilian than ever. If I didn't know you, and the sergeant wanted suspects again, I would run you in on a charge of vagrancy. We are hindered by our uniforms, and it's hard to get the patrol car through these alleys. Give us a hand. Won't take an hour."

"Doing what?" Cardozo asked.

"We give you a portophone from the car, and you walk about in the quarter. Slip into the narrowest passages and look a little at what you see. There are two secret societies about that tend to get on each other's nerves—Hong Kong versus Singapore, it seems. They're always on the verge of becoming violent, and when that happens, we like to be in there too. Right now they're more short-tempered than ever, because we've been kicking their members out of the country and arresting recent arrivals, so their supply lines are all mixed up. They both want all the drugs that are left. If you do notice something, breathe into the portophone and we'll be with you in half a minute."

"That's understood," Cardozo said.

What lovely ladies, Cardozo thought, shuffling about in the hushed pink light of the prostitution quarter. No Chinese anywhere—a pity, maybe. He did see Adjutant Oppenhuyzen, who, peaceful and content, lumbered out of a red door while the lady he'd enjoyed only a few minutes ago tore open her curtains and arranged herself diligently on the cushions of her wide windowsill. The adjutant winked and was about to comment cheerfully on his recent excitement, but Cardozo turned away. Policemen have the urge too, he was aware of that fact, and if the adjutant happened to be in Amsterdam and was tricked into a slight deviation from the path, between attending to his duties, well... Not well at all, Cardozo thought. I'm not doing it, so why should he? The hell with the bastard.

I won't even look at them, Cardozo thought. I don't have
the money anyway. I'm also hindered by having to carry a pistol and a portophone.

He did look a little. No! There She was, not too visible
in the rear of a cozy little room, lit from below, in a red glow that warmed her slender shins and billowing thighs. And She returned his stare from one inviting eye; the other was hidden by combed-down thick hair. She wanted him. Her longing made her tremble.