'You are too,' Grijpstra said, 'for you will be staying with me. Do try to be tidy, for it's most kind of Adjutant Oppenhuyzen to let us live here for free. He forgot Eddy. Mrs. Oppenhuyzen just telephoned about Eddy.'
De Gier walked into a long corridor. 'How police-like to forget your own son. Confirms my theory. Police- people do not function well within normal society. They therefore allow themselves to be cast out. Once they're cast out, they turn on society. The police are criminal in essence.'
'Not his son,' Grypstra said. 'His rat. The rat lives upstairs, I haven't seen him yet. Let's go look together. You'll have to take care of Eddy.'
'A pet rat?' de Gier asked. 'My hypothesis stands confirmed. Only the perverted will pet a rat. Cast out because of perversion, the policeman attacks the society in which he does not fit.'
'Don't carry on so,' Grijpstra said, dragging his feet on the staircase. 'The adjutant was ill. Something wrong with his face. He kept grabbing at his cheeks. His wife was all worried. They suddenly had to move to their summer house, and they had to get everything together in a rush; surely the circumstances permitted forgetting a mere rat.'
De Gier wandered in and out of rooms. 'Too many roses on the wallpaper, and I don't care for the furniture either. Bought at sales throughout the centuries. Can we get rid of it? Stack it in the garage? Okay if I whitewash the walls? This jumble of colors should be an insult to your painter's perception. Where is this rat?'
'Here,' Grijpstra said. 'In the terrarium. By the way, he lives on a diet of Frisian cheese. Adjutant Oppenhuyzen has already phoned me twice. He left a pound of cheese. You think he got away?'
De Gier studied more wallpaper.
'In the sawdust?' Grijpstra asked, lifting the glass top of the terrarium and digging about with his finger. 'Hey!' He jumped back.
A white pointed snout protruded from the sawdust. Red eyes peered out shyly. Long yellow protruding teeth extended beyond a receding bald chin. Ragged mustache hairs trembled. 'And we've got to hold that?' Grypstra asked nervously.
'Hi, Eddy,' de Gier said.
'Got to hold him once in a while. Mrs. Oppenhuyzen's instructions. Put the top down.' Grijpstra's voice broke into a squeak.
The rat rattled.
De Gier lifted Eddy from the terrarium, turned him over, and held his ear to Eddy's belly. 'He must be hungry.'
'Let go of that beast,' Grypstra said. 'I don't want to engage in a relationship with a rattle-rat. I'll make a phone call. The Oppenhuyzens are in Engwierum. Has to be around here somewhere. Drop the rat and cover the terrarium. They'll have to pick him up.'
'It's hunger that makes him rattle. Here, listen for yourself.' De Gier held Eddy close to Grijpstra's ear. Grijpstra backed up against the wall. 'Nice little animal,' de Gier said, and buried his nose in Eddy's fur. 'You come along with your Uncle Rinus.'
Eddy hung over de Gier's flat hand. De Gier carried him downstairs, and together they looked into the refrigerator. Eddy waited on the table while de Gier sliced the cheese. 'Here you are.' Eddy ate. 'You see?' de Gier asked. 'Ravenous, the poor little sucker.'
'You take care of the beast,' Grijpstra said. 'And of the plants. I've got a list here. All plants are numbered, and each plant has different watering times. The required quantities are listed in cubic centimeters, right here. You have to pour carefully, not slosh the water into the pots; there's a note to that effect. The plants marked with an A are fed crystals from this can, and the?'s are fed from the can over there.'
'What?' de Gier asked.
'And here are cleaning instructions,' Grijpstra said. 'What cleaning product does what, and where the containers can be found. And here's some paper for the administration of our expenses. Make careful notes, for we can claim them afterward.'
'We can't claim anything,' de Gier said, 'compliments of the commissaris. New regulations for out-of-town police officers on the job. It doesn't matter where we operate. No declarations.'
'What?' Grijpstra asked.
De Gier stroked the rat.
'Leave the varmint alone,' Grypstra said. 'Rats are loaded with disease. Ah, that's another thing, we've got to wash him too.'
'Consider it done.' De Gier turned on a faucet. The rat rattled excitedly. 'You like that, do you?' De Gier mixed soap suds with hot water in a bowl. 'Can you get in by yourself?' Eddy clambered into his bath. His head hung over the edge while de Gier kneaded the wet little body gently. The rat's rattle became louder.
'Now what?' Grijpstra asked. 'He just ate a quarterpound of cheese. Hungry again?'
'Limited program,' de Gier said. 'Probably expressing positive emotion now. Rats can't talk, you know.' De Gier dried Eddy with a dishcloth and took him to the living room, where he jumped on the couch.
'Are you going to cook now?' Grijpstra asked. 'And do some shopping first?'
'Will you be doing something too?'
Grijpstra prepared for a nap on the couch, after shooing Eddy away. The rat climbed a chair, wrapped his naked tail around his bare feet, and sighed contentedly. The sigh contained a vague shadow of a rattle.
'Rats are supposed to squeak,' Grijpstra said.
'Maybe a cold?' de Gier asked. 'Cardozo is suffering too. He found Scherjoen's car, a Citroen like the commissaris's, and there was an old-model Mauser in the door pocket, loaded but clean.'
Grijpstra opened an eye. 'Douwe didn't feel safe?'
'And drove an expensive car,' de Gier said. 'My conclusions are as limited as yours.'
'Let's hear more.'
'The car was parked halfway on the pavement. Locked.'
'I often park halfway on the pavement,' Grypstra said.
'When you're in a hurry?'
'Nah,' Grijpstra said. 'When I feel like it. Lazy. Don't feel like parking the vehicle properly between others. Why bother? Nobody bothers in Amsterdam.'
De Gier tickled Eddy's head.
'Do hurry up,' Grijpstra said. 'The stores are about to close.'
De Gier came back with canned pea soup, bread, and butter.
Grijpstra opened the door. 'I can't sleep with that rat.'
They sat at the living room table. Eddy stood on a cushion placed on a chair, so that he could lean his head on the table.
'Can he go home now?' Grijpstra asked. 'He's got a home. Take him upstairs.'
'No,' de Gier said. 'Three is a party. Things are looking up again. I was about to get depressed. On the dike the exhaust fell off the car, and the traffic was clogged up again because of checkpoints stopping trucks suspected of transporting animals carrying the plague.'
Grijpstra ladled out thick soup. 'So what made the change?'
'Corporal Hilarius,' de Gier said. 'Remember her? With the hoarse voice and the golden hair under the orange helmet? She showed up again and guided me through the checkpoints and along to her father in the town of Tzum.'
'Tzum,' Grijpstra said. His knuckles beat out a rhythm on the tabletop. 'Tzam. Tzom.' The rhythm sped up, holding several patterns of a fairly complicated beat. De Gier sang and whistled in turn. Eddy's chin trembled as he rattled in the pauses.
'Tzum?' Grijpstra's hands stopped in middair.
'Her father runs a garage and was willing to exchange favors. The exhaust is back on the car again.'
'What was your favor?'
'Admiration of his daughter. Some woman, that corporal. Did you hear her voice, added to a multitude of other charms?'
'That mechanized robot at a hundred and fifty miles an hour?'
'Okay,' de Gier said, 'she is that too, but she's mostly beautiful and female. She'll be taking me out later tonight, to a beer house-that's what they call cafes here. I'm sure she's well formed under all that leather.' De Gier
