Robert's Market only stocks the staples, some canned food and local produce and flour and so on. Of course many of us have our own vegetable gardens and we keep goats and even cows and have them slaughtered in the autumn to stock up the freezer. And we get fresh lobsters and fish all year 'round, but, still, it isn't the easy life the city people are used to. Only the tough dare to settle here. Don't you agree, Reggie?'
'Sure, Janet.' Reggie looked polite.
Poor fellow, de Gier thought. Dancing attendance on a refined old lady in a palace in the woods must have its drawbacks.
'So you may sell to the other realtor? I wonder if he would be interested. If he is in the next county he may be too far away.'
'I may,' the commissaris said. 'And we may end up accepting Mr. Astrinsky's offer. He also said he would buy the car at sixty percent of the new price.'
'But that's an excellent offer. The hardest thing to get rid of in America is a used car. The banks lend everybody money to buy a new one. Even high school kids can get a limousine these days. Sixty percent, my word! That would be the insurance value. Reggie just wrecked a one-year-old station wagon, bounced it off the road and turned it over so many times that the poor dung was beyond repair. It was a wonder he survived the accident himself. That's what we got, sixty percent of the new price. But Michael always liked Opdijk's car. He even borrowed it a few times. I would advise you to accept his offer.'
The commissaris smiled. 'I am afraid the two offers go together, Mrs. Wash. I don't think he'll take the car if he doesn't get the house.'
'Yes,' Janet said. 'We Americans are tough dealers, and Michael is a true American, although his forefathers were gentle scholars in Poland, I believe. The scholarly part has missed him, but it got through to Madelin. She has an M.A. in philosophy and is working on her Ph. D. now. That's why she came home for the winter. Did you meet her?'
'Yes.' De Gier's affirmation was a little too enthusiastic, and Janet looked up and smiled at him.
'Astrinsky left,' Reggie said. 'I saw him drive to the airstrip just now, as I came back from Robert's market. We stopped to talk. He's off for die Bahamas again.'
'Yes, he said he might spend another week or so there. The slow progress of winter is getting him down and he is engaged in some big deal over mere, I think. Or maybe he is using business as an excuse to loll about in the sun. Good old Michael. I envy him.'
The commissaris coughed. 'So we won't see him again. Will anyone take care of his business while he is away?'
'Madelin. She is a partner in his real estate business. Michael was divorced many years ago. He lives alone with his daughter.'
'I see.'
They stayed for a last drink, then Reggie walked them back to the car while Janet waved from the big double doors. The commissaris asked about the Cadillac.
'Inside,' Reggie said and pointed at a low building in the field bordering the house. 'Locked and chained. The BMF gang managed to steal it last year, or I think it was them. The Cadillac came back undamaged. We found it sitting on the lawn in the morning. But Janet has made sure they won't get it again. We even have an alarm system now with bells that will ring both in the house and in my cabin. The cabin is in the woods, about half a mile from here.'
'The BMF gang,' the commissaris said when they were halfway home. 'Amazing, don't you think, sergeant? A gang in a small, pleasant town like Jameson. I thought that only cities bred gangs.'
'They may get bored around here, sir.'
'Yes, bored. But I did meet that young foxlike fellow with the BMF ONE number plate on his car. Such an efficient and intelligent young man. Perhaps his gang is different from the ones we deal with. Do you know what BMF stands for, sergeant?'
'B is bad, sir. M is mother.'
'And F?'
'A four-letter word.'
Suzanne stirred. The commissaris drove on.
'Ah,' the commissaris said. 'I see.' He tittered. 'How interesting. Twice interesting. To add the prefix 'bad.' Most interesting indeed. To have intercourse with the mother would be the ultimate bad thing to do, I suppose, although the mental attitude behind such a belief seems retarded. Perhaps Americans are retarded in certain ways, in spite of the wealth and the push buttons. They may have developed too quickly and the Victorian fears clung on. Yes, that could be. But to name the worst and then to add bad.' He tittered again.
'Yes,' he said after a while. 'This foxman could be a genius of sorts, like some of the American cartoonists. Did you ever study American cartoons, sergeant? Some of them are really funny, outrageously funny.'
'Bad boys,' Suzanne said.
'What's that, dear?'
'Bad boys, Jan. Not funny at all. You would know if you had been here longer. Pests-Opdijk was afraid of them. In summer they roar about on their motorcycles, and in winter they come in on snowmobiles, still roaring about as if the cape belongs to them. Even Reggie can't deal with them, and the sheriff would never come out. I telephoned several times. They would come into our garden. They have no regard for private property. Once they even cut down a tree and rolled the logs down to our beach and another boy was waiting with his powerboat and took them away.'
'The sheriff? This sheriff?'
'No, the old sheriff. Every time I called he said he didn't have a cruiser available and when the deputies showed up they were always too late. One of the gang is a girl.'
'A girl? On a motorcycle?'
'Madelin has sold her motorcycle. She flies her father's plane now. She buzzed Opdijk when he was fishing last summer. 1 telephoned her father, but I couldn't get through to him. Madelin should know better, but she is as bad as the others, master's degree or not.'
'Madelin,' de Gier said, and his voice vibrated on each syllable of the name.
Suzanne's small head turned around. It seemed she saw the sergeant for the first time.
'Pah!' she said. The exclamation cut through the overheated car.
The sergeant looked guilty; the commissaris had smiled, briefly, for the station wagon skidded again and claimed his attention.
7
No,' the Commissaris said and looked critically at De Gier. The sergeant hung on to the lowest branch of a pine tree growing at the side of the path leading down to the landing. 'This is ridiculous, sergeant. You keep on falling over. Here, let go and then grab me.'
He poked his cane into the snow and reached out. The sergeant slithered down to him. 'There, that's better. We are at a disadvantage here, sergeant, but we can make use of the situation. It's good if things can't be taken for granted. Put on your hat.'
The raccoon hat had fallen onto the snow and the commissaris picked it up with his cane. They walked on slowly.
'Tell me more about the BMF gang, sergeant. If there's anything to tell. That's another disadvantage. It's hard to obtain information. No computer that spits facts at you, no informers in little pubs or on benches in the park, no prisoners who get bored in their cells and welcome company, even our company. Just us, sergeant. The two of us. Well? What do you know?'
'Not much, sir. There is a young man in jail by the name of Albert. Convicted on a charge of reckless driving, but the sheriff claims that the prisoner, on another occasion, deliberately damaged the chief deputy's cruiser.'
The commissaris sat down on a stump. 'Go on, sergeant, details, you must have details.'
He listened. 'That's all?'
