The Rattle-Rat

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "So it came to an end?"

  "Douwe closed up."

  "I have a home here," de Gier said, "but it's hard to find. I'd better go look for it."

  Joe drove him home, in an old-model Mercedes. "You see how neat I've become?"

  "Where do I see it?" de Gier asked.

  "Check the mileage."

  De Gier read the numbers. "Four hundred eighty thousand?"

  "Old taxi," Joe said. "Found it at an auction for six months of my savings. In the old days I would earn the price of a junker in a week. Here's your street. Any particular number?"

  "Here," de Gier said.

  "I've been here before," Joe said. "A colleague? He's putting you up for free?"

  "The police arranged it. Don't know the man."

  "I do," Joe said. "Collected a Mata Had bill here once. He'd left it on the bar. A while back. Cheng was our barman then, and your colleague would have a cognac with us every now and then."

  "While visiting Cheng?"

  "That's it."

  "And the adjutant didn't have to pay?"

  "Maybe five or six cognacs," Joe said. "We didn't mind so much, for Cheng never had any proper papers, but one night our boss came in and he didn't like Cheng, or maybe he was just teasing him. Saying Mao never knew nothing either. So Cheng threw a bottle at the boss, and then he was all done. Your colleague had been around that night and left his bill again, so the boss thought he should pay."

  "Could you describe my colleague?"

  "Feels cheeks a lot," Joe said.

  "The ladies' cheeks?"

  "His own," Joe said.

  "You're still up?" de Gier asked.

  "That rat," Grypstra said, "rattled about in his terrarium so I got him out and now he's around somewhere."

  "Over there," de Gier said. "Why don't you pick him up?"

  "You pick him up. He tickles with his little hands."

  "Eddy?" De Gier squatted next to the rat. He put his hand out. Eddy rolled into the hand. The rat picked up his tail and wove it between his legs. The long snout rested tragically against de Gier's thumb.

  "That rattling drives me crazy," Grijpstra said.

  "Animals make all sorts of weird noises."

  "Rats don't rattle," Grypstra said angrily.

  "This one does. You're oversensitive. Get any work done tonight?"

  "I thought," Grijpstra said. "Tomorrow I'll be getting hold of Pyr, Tyark, and Yelte."

  "I'll be on the island of Ameland," de Gier said. "On foodsearching business."

  "Out of it for a day?"

  De Gier shrugged. "I thought you wanted me out of this altogether."

  "Correct," Grijpstra said. "Try and keep it that way. You're too outlandish here, you'll be upsetting suspects."

  De Gier climbed the stairs, cradling Eddy in his hands, murmuring endearments.

  \\ 12 /////

  I' M A MINORITY, THE COMMISSARIS THOUGHT, LOOKING down the long conference table headed by the lofty figure of Chief Constable Lasius of Burmania, flanked by the equally tall Colonel Kopinie of the State Police and the even taller Lieutenant Colonel Singelsma of the Military Police. He ignored the other participants, but they were tall too, upright and all in complete agreement. It isn't that their combined forces are against me, the commissaris thought. Maybe it looks that way, but that can't be the case at all.

  "Hello?" the commissaris said.

  The conversation flowed on, in Frisian.

  The commissaris told himself that he should keep quiet, not because the majority were against him, but because he had made a habit of keeping quiet. "The commissaris," those who knew him always said, "is a quiet man."

  "Coffee?" asked the secretary. "Care for coffee, sir?"

  He got up and followed her unobtrusively. But I would like to be obtrusive, the commissaris thought. I would like to shout 'Murder' and 'Fire,' for that's what interests me these days. The secretary was tall too, a majestic figure in a tight tweed suit; she wore high heels to accentuate her height, and had steely blue eyes set off by her long, soft, white-blond hair.

  "Thank you," the commissaris said, holding up his cup. "Ma'am? What's Frisian for 'murder'?"

  She thought.

  "You're familiar with the term?"

  "We don't have much of that here," the secretary said. "Ah, it's come back to me. The word is moard."

  "And 'fire'?"

  "Brân."

  "I'll be shouting that in a minute," the commissaris said. "When I've finished my coffee."

  She laughed down on him, but that wasn't polite. She bent her legs. "Murder," the secretary said, "isn't a contemporary word. I am very contemporary. I'm only in my twenties. We used to have a lot of murder in these parts. It was always committed by forces from outside. We're rich here, and the outside people were after our wealth. They sent mercenaries, to commit murder and arson. The outside greed was a plague on the land. Friesland has some horrifying history that I was taught at school. Will it begin all over again now? With the visit of Bald Ary and Fritz with the Tuft?"

  The commissaris replaced his cup. He turned about. He took a deep breath. "Moard!" the commissaris shouted. "And brân!"

  The gathering looked up.

  "Could we discuss those subjects for a minute?" the commissaris asked.

  "In respect to what?" the chief constable asked.

  "Murder and fire, to which Douwe Scherjoen was subjected. The purpose of my visit here. Who's in charge of the local detectives?"

  "That's me," a tall man said.

  "And what do you know that can be beneficial to my inquiry?"

  "Nothing," the tall man said, and introduced himself. "Chief Inspector Sipma. Nothing at all. I state my information simply, as is the custom in this province. My computer is connected to yours at Amsterdam Headquarters, and the machine malfunctions. When I switch it on, I see only a small green square, trembling a little. The trembling is caused at your end, I'm told. Douwe's remains are kept at your end. The crime was committed in your city. Both cause and effect are well outside my files. Float well outside my files." There was polite laughter all around the table.

  "A joke?" the commissaris asked.

  "An architect from The Hague," Chief Constable "An architect from The Hague," Chief Constable Lasius said. The laughter increased in strength.

  "Another joke?" the commissaris asked.

  "Our files," Chief Inspector Sipma said, "were hosed down by the fire brigade; the boxes are still afloat in our basement. The firemen came to douse the flames, which had been lit by a suicidal prisoner as a protest against outside influence."

  "Quite," another tall man said, and introduced himself. "Commissaris Colmjon. We should never have surrendered, but what can we do if the threatening masses keep running us down? We had to subject ourselves to authorities from below the dike. They sent us an architect from The Hague— The Hague, of all places, that cemetery filled with floating ghosts—and he designs a cube that's supposed to house us. Well away from the city, of course. We're Municipal Police, but we're no longer in the city. A fact that was lost on the foreigner who only learned how to draw ninety-degree angles at school. Police above, suspects below, all boxed in by squares. Contact between the law and the lawless is never smooth, but once we pour it in mathematical cement, the misery increases. So where does this lead? To a burning mattress in a dungeon. The fire brigade puts it out. Then where do we go?"

  "Downstairs," Chief Inspector Sipma said. "To see our files floating in the basement." "who

  "Foreigners," Chief Constable Lasius snarled, interfere."

  "Who destroy," Colonel Kopinie said.

  "Who encumber," Lieutenant Colonel Singelsma said.

  "Who endanger," Commissaris Colmjon said.

  "Moard," said the commissaris.

  "At your end," the colonel said. "In Amsterdam. If Douwe had stayed in Dingjum, on his estate, in his country mansion, the pride of the region, his mind would still be sound, in a healthy body. Foreign greed sucked him away f
rom here, from under the poplars where blue herons nest, from his greenhouses and his crop of grapes, from his pond filled with goldfish and covered with ducks. All the Frisian glory was Douwe's to enjoy. So what does the asshole do? He allows himself to be sucked into Amsterdam, where his peace of mind is interfered with."

  "Destroyed."

  "Encumbered."

  "Hopelessly endangered."

  "And so it goes on," Colonel Kopinie said. "My Lieutenant Sudema is going down too. A nervous breakdown. Sick leave and all. Can we never defend ourselves from the wickedness from without?"

  "You'll have to live with the rest of the world," the commissaris said. "I did, and I'm from here."

  "From here?" sang the chorus.

  "I was born in the city of Joure."

  The statement impressed the majority, but not for long, for what about Ary and Fritz now? They were due tomorrow, when they would scout the cattle market. How could the attack be withstood?

  "And my moard?" the commissaris asked.

  Nothing to do with them, they kept telling him.

  "Remember the Japanese student?" Commissaris Colmjon asked. "Found in a chest, chopped up, bobbing in one of your Amsterdam canals? Remember what you did? You went to Japan."

  "Spending some funds," Chief Inspector Sipma said. "That could be done in the past, when there were still funds."

  "And the murder had been committed by French students," Lieutenant Colonel Sipma said. "The Japanese was curious about heroin and was given an overdose. Foreign filth again, concentrated in your city. So what can you be looking for here?"

  "Simple case," Colonel Kopinie said. "Douwe's murder is another repeat. When we wander about outside, we invite the worst of troubles."

  "We'll deal with Ary and Fritz first," Chief Constable Lasius said, "and then you'll have your turn."

  The meeting continued. A large number of subjects were brought up: the commando post in the market, the machinery that would be required, how to dress the detectives, coordination with the Arrest Team that had been ordered from the Military Police, where to house the officers, and the central kitchen and bar.

  "Can I phone for a cab?" the commissaris asked.

  Why did he need a car? What had happened to his own? The commissaris had lost his car? Between the Well and the Gardens?

  "Poor fellow," the chief constable said. "We'll find it for you. This meeting is over." The commissaris was. guided along plasticized corridors to a gleaming metal elevator.

  "What do you think of the building?" the chief constable asked.

  "Modern?" the commissaris offered.

  The elevator hummed efficiently, the door hummed open. More corridors stretched away. A ghoulish scream tore itself from below and hung above the company, in a hall lined with artificial marble.

  "Douwe, screaming for revenge?" the commissaris asked.

  "A prisoner," Chief Inspector Sipma said. "They all become hopelessly neurotic after a while. The cells look like this hall, but they're considerably smaller."

  "And will my suspect be locked in there too?" the commissaris asked in a frightened whisper.

  "Suspect of what?"

  "My murder?" the commissaris asked.

  "You won't find him here."

  "I hope not," the commissaris said.

  "You won't."

  "I may."

  "Stubborn, aren't you?" the chief constable said. "A Frisian trait. Shall we go look for your car now?"

  "I'm stubborn," Grijpstra thought the next morning, after he had dropped de Gier at the Military Police barracks, where the sergeant was met by Private Sudema, nephew of Lieutenant Sudema of the State Police. A nice break for the sergeant, Grijpstra thought kindly. Enjoyment of nature. I'll be stubbornly at work. I'm not a foreigner, like silly de Gier. I can see what goes on here from the inside out.

  Grijpstra, in his Frisian jersey and his Frisian cap, lost his way between the villages where his suspects lived. He flagged down a State Police Land Rover and was escorted, but lost his way again. I'll never give in, Grijpstra thought, I'll untie the Frisian knot.

  Pyr Wydema, Tyark Tamminga, and Yelte Prik, exporters of sheep, grown into their gleaming, smelly jackets, with their caps pulled over their leering eyes, denied all charges in all languages available to them. They denied them in High and Low Frisian, in the dialect of Leeuwarden, and even in Dutch. "My parents were born in the Frisian port of Harlingen," Grijpstra kept saying.

  The suspects wanted to know if they could be arrested at this stage of the inquiry. They could not. They ordered the adjutant to leave. They brought out No Trespassing signs and untied their dogs. Their wives interfered and confiscated their shotguns and poured coffee for Grijpstra, who sat exhausted under the gnarled old trees, cooled by a breeze from the sea, surrounded by dainty church towers penetrating the peaceful greenery all around. Grijpstra sighed when he saw the brown sails of fishing boats on the lakes. He listened to the rustling of corn at the end of fertile meadows. How pleasant the landscape, how hard his task.

  "Off with him," Pyr, Tyark, and Yelte shouted at their wives. "There's work to do. The cattle market is tomorrow. Will he never be gone?"

  The Volkswagen circled small dikes and was lost again. The calm expanse of the sea was on Grypstra's left. Wasn't he supposed to go south? He turned the car again, aiming for the capital and missing Leeuwarden once more.

  "Where are you headed now?" a State Police sergeant asked from the window of his Land Rover.

  "Leeuwarden," Grijpstra shouted furiously.

  "A break for coffee?" the sergeant suggested. In the pub, other colleagues mentioned the presence of another lost soul, a commissaris from Amsterdam in a silver Citroen. "We kept setting him right and he keeps coming back at us again."

  "What might you be doing here?" the sergeant asked.

  Grijpstra explained the nature of his visit, mentioning his three suspects.

  "Pyr?" the sergeant asked. "Tyark? Yelte? How could they ever be suspected? Surely you know better. Didn't you say your parents came from Harlingen? Ah, I see," the sergeant slapped his brow. "You're on official leave of absence."

  "I am?" Grijpstra asked.

  "Stress," the sergeant said. "I read the Police Gazette. A common affliction in Amsterdam. Your superiors must be trying new cures. Sending you off on odd errands to more restful locations."

  "Is that right?"Grijpstra asked furiously.

  The sergeant patted the adjutant's arm.

  "Just stay around. After a while you'll feel much better."

  \\ 13 /////

  CARDOZO CYCLED. IT WAS THE RIGHT DAY FOR SPORTING activity, with a sunny sky and hardly any wind—a day for a bike ride, but biking from Amsterdam to Dingjum was lunacy, he granted that much. He defined his behavior as childish, caused by his own hotheaded insistence on getting ahead, and he even considered his own appearance childish, dressed as he was in shorts and a touristy shirt, and especially because of his equipment—a tin lunch box strapped to the luggage carrier in the rear, containing cheese sandwiches and an apple. Moreover, he was breaking a promise. To break promises one made to others could be excused, but when the promise was made to oneself, some respect was due. All those years he had biked to school, always with the wind pushing him back, beaten by rain, with a painful crotch, pulled to and fro by cowardly obedience to teacher and parent, he had looked forward to the day when he would be free of the heavy bike. When school was over, he'd thrown the bicycle into the canal, and after that he had used only engine-driven transport, like real people use. So what was he doing here now, on Samuel's dated contraption?

  Next to him, cars raced along, and on the other side the green dike flowed slowly up, topped by high grass where seagulls stalked about. On the Inland Sea, a fishing boat bobbed slowly. Against shreds of fog the sails of a flatbottomed pleasure yacht emerged from the pure blue swell. In the yacht, holiday makers would be lounging about. I'm not living properly, Cardozo thought, pedaling with force. If I were as intelligent as I thoug
ht I was, I would be doing something pleasurably clever now.

  Did a hunch get me here? Cardozo thought. Do my hunches ever work? Why did I forget about practical cooperation? Am I not part of a team? He could have telephoned the commissaris. "Sir, I'll be bicycling to Dingjum today." "Don't do that," the commissaris would have answered. Wouldn't that remark have saved him insane trouble? And shouldn't he be covered? Some risk is involved in the work of a police detective. Wasn't he hunting a dangerous fiend who thought nothing of putting a bullet through a fellow being's head and setting fire to his remains? Suppose the psychopathic demon knew that Cardozo was now cycling up the dike?

  One of the handlebars on Samuel's bike carried a rear view mirror. In the mirror, three Chinese could be seen. The Chinese cycled in line. The nearest Chinese looked unhappy. The nearest Chinese's pedal ground past the chain case with an irritating, repetitious, squeaky moan; unmusical, probably also to Far Eastern ears. The farthest Chinese cyclist was Wo Hop's mate, unrecognizable at that distance. Wo Hop's mate was tired. The various stages in his recent career had convinced him that he was indeed a Rotten Egg. How could he ever have allowed himself to be riding a low-quality bike to an ever-extending nowhere?

  Isn't it about time, Cardozo thought, that I got off my bicycle to eat an apple? While he contemplated the possibility, three more Chinese cyclists appeared, coming toward him. A coincidence, Cardozo thought. To be followed by three bicycling Chinese, to be confronted by three bicycling Chinese—anything is bound to happen if life lasts long enough. The occurrence could even be turned about. It should be possible for a Chinese to cycle on a Chinese dike and be followed by three Dutchmen on bikes and approached by three more Dutchmen. But if I were that Chinese, Cardozo thought, I would get off my bike, peel an apple in some quiet spot, watch all those Dutchmen until the horizons swallowed them up, and hope never to see any of them again.

  Cardozo slowed and jumped off his bike. The Chinese followed his example. The Chinese produced pistols. Cardozo clawed his way deep into the grass.

  The Chinese opened fire. Cardozo rolled into a shallow ditch left by a careless bulldozer driver, filled with flowering weeds. Nettles stung him, reed stalks scratched his ears, disturbed ants sank their jaws into his flesh, and a bullet cut off a leaf. The Chinese kept shooting, aiming at each other now. They weren't bad marksmen. Not every shot was successful, and two Chinese remained, crawling toward each other. They kept firing as they crawled.