'I don't either,' Joe said, 'but that's what they would sing outside my window. 'Jacques Ferrouche,' I called myself. I rode a racing camel. I sailed a yacht on the Mediterranean with braid on my cap and a girl who was built like this.' Joe indicated the dimensions. 'And it still wasn't enough, I still wanted to go somewhere to do something, but then I had to go. And now I want to repair bikes and take the dog for a walk. You think that'll be okay?'
'I think so,' de Gier said.
'You got a dog?'
'A cat,' de Gier said. 'Nothing special. Ugly, too.*
Beer foamed out of Joe's beard. 'Nothing special!' His fists hit the counter.
'That's funny?' de Gier asked.
'Nothing special can be fun,' Joe said. 'You know that? Take my girlfriend, she teaches embroidery at school. You should see what she gets together at home. Regular landscapes, but if you look they go on forever. There's a difference, but I can't place it. You wanted me to be there, you told me to try something else, nothing special. You remember that you said that?'
'Joe,' de Gier said, 'would anyone be selling heroin here?'
'Didn't you want me to do nothing special?'
'Heroin,' de Gier said. 'Is it dealt here?'
'Two assholes,' Joe said. 'They come in once in a while. Junkies. Half a gram or so. Crumbles.'
'And where do they buy the crumbles?'
'From the Chinese.'
'The Frisian Chinese?'
'Never,' Joe said. 'The Amsterdam Chinese. Amsterdam is close enough. The dike goes down. Put one foot on the dike and you slide easily enough. Takes a long time to get back here sometimes. Have you noticed?'
'Not yet,' de Gier said.
'I have,' Joe said. 'Homesickness, maybe? Or the power of seduction? That sometimes bothers me.'
'Does the name Douwe Scherjoen mean anything?'
'Saw it in the paper,' Joe said. 'Dead in Amsterdam's Inner Harbor, and none too soon.' Joe smiled.
'No-good shithead?'
'Absolutely,' Joe said. 'Good friend of mine worked for Douwe for a bit. Had to collect the payments. Douwe was a shark.'
'Tell me,' de Gier said.
'You didn't know that? Scherjoen would advertise in the paper here. 'Need money? You'll have it today.'' Used to keep an office here in town, my friend worked there. You could borrow up to three thousand, at thirty percent. The interest was deducted straightaway, and then you paid three hundred a month for ten months. My friend picked up the payments. He was supposed to lean on the victims if they were a little slow.'
'Didn't work out well?'
'No,' Joe said. 'Frisians don't like to be leaned on so much. My friend fell into a canal and was in the hospital for a while, and Douwe wouldn't pay for the stitches.'
'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
