'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 /////
' Are 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 Citroen, 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.
