IJsbreker in the fridge. The pathologist came down and had another look too.'
'The one who talks?' de Gier asked. 'Or his disgruntled chief?'
Grijpstra nodded. 'The one who talks. There were powder burns on the corpse's face. The pathologist mentioned advanced cirrhosis of the liver. A hard-drinking man in his late forties, our banker was. Did drugs too- cocaine; his nose is a mess. No heroin- we found no needle marks anywhere. He could have smoked it, of course.'
'So you want the case closed again?'
Grijpstra grinned at the sergeant's suddenly stooped shoulders. 'Why? Because of the powder burns? So someone fired a blank in his face. It's been done before. Subject is shot from a distance and then the scene is changed so it appears he has been shot from close by.' The adjutant raised a lecturing finger. 'We're now assuming murder, and therefore premeditation. Why was IJsbreker shot during a thunder^ storm with hard rain? That storm was predicted, very handy for covering up the sound of a shot. If I had paid attention in that campground, I could have saved Nellie's tent.'
De Gier smiled.
'Good,' Grijpstra said. 'That's my boy. I might have despaired too, if there hadn't been two bullets.'
De Gier looked grim again. 'Only one, Adjutant. The other one is hearsay.'
'Hearsay from a disinterested party.' Grijpstra lit his cigar and sucked contentedly. 'The pathologist who talks has no motive for hampering our job.'
'Except getting his boss in trouble,' de Gier said. 'Our two doctors are rivals who like to trip each other up. The one underneath wants to climb on top. He imagines a nonexistent bullet and spreads the rumor all over the building. The authorities will begin to question the integrity of the top doctor. The top doctor has always been a hard man to work with. Uncooperative, right? Now he loses a bullet and he won't sign a report.'
Grijpstra studied the tip of his cigar. 'Too farfetched. There must have been two bullets. Everybody expected just one. One suicide, one gun, one bullet. The second bullet is almost surreal. There's nothing special about the assistant pathologist; he's your regular pseudo-intellectual, badly qualified, sniveling, backbiting corporate slave.' Grijpstra took a deep breath, but forgot to take the cigar out of his mouth. He coughed through the cloud of smoke billowing from his cigar. 'The fool is quite incapable of imagining the surreal.'
'You don't like the man?' de Gier asked. 'Okay. Two bullets. Want to come to Prince's Island with me? Dally with demons?'
'Why do you always drive on the tramway tracks?' Grijpstra yelled in the car. 'Quicker,' de Gier yelled back.
'Slippery,' Grijpstra protested.
The car, obeying de Gier's pressure on the accelerator, screamed out of a bad swerve. 'You know,' de Gier yelled, ignoring the traffic lights of a busy crossing and forcing the aging Volkswagen through a crack between a bus and a truck, 'we could be lucky. I sent out that message to all stations. James T. Floyd? Student of Chinese? Remember? The guy who fell off his chair?'
Grijpstra tried to stub out his cigar, but the car's jerky movements kept making him miss the ashtray. He threw the butt out the window, but a sudden change of direction make the car catch the cigar again. Grijpstra grabbed it and burned his hand. 'Aaaah!' There was a bicycle ahead now, very much in the way. De Gier missed it.
De Gier slowed down, looking for a parking place. 'That cyclist shouldn't have been on the tracks. Tracks are for trams.'
'We aren't a tram.'
'And for emergencies,' de Gier said.
'We aren't an emergency.'
'We're a continuous emergency,' de Gier said pleasantly, after he'd parked the car and was strolling next to Grnpstra through narrow alleys. 'That's why I joined the police. We're supposed to break rules so that others may learn to obey them. We drive faster in superb vehicles, we apply violence with our super-guns, we think more freely with our superior cerebral equipment, we violate restrictive taboos with our boundless insight into the limitations of morality, we…'
De Gier's strident tenor passed Grijpstra by. The adjutant had absorbed the timeless peace of the antiquity of his surroundings, expressed in the polished cobblestones underfoot, the rows of delicate little houses, each with slight variations in gable design, and the harmonious way the tall windows flanked inset doors. Ahead, a small white bridge curved gracefully upward, and a cluster of floating, bright-feathered ducks, quacking conversationally, produced pleasant reflections in the water of the moat under the bridge.
'Yes,' the adjutant said.
'You agree?' De Gier looked down at his peaceful companion, plodding at his side.
'I could give it up,' Grijpstra said. 'You heard all that muttering in the building this morning? Our colleagues are worried about their job security again. Stupid jobs prop them up. They think the coming investigation may kick them out. I think I would welcome a good kick. I would fly forever-around here, for instance. Why be part of a repetitive rigamarole that keeps you going around in circles? I know'- Grijpstra gestured forgivingly-'that I'm not really an artist yet. Take that painting I'm working on now. I haven't found the right green, but here'-his hand swept toward the moat underneath, its water reflecting the delicate green shades of mossy waterwalls- 'given my freedom… and I think I would take up some drumming again.' The bridge's chains creaked, and Grijpstra put a hand behind his ear. 'Hear that? I could re-create that sound on a cymbal, work it into a composition of my own…'
'Yes,' de Gier said.
Grijpstra looked up. 'I'm glad you hear it too. Now listen to the seagulls. There's something in their cry that you could play on your flute.''
'Not a bad move, eh?' de Gier asked, resting his hand on the adjutant's shoulder. 'Sending that general message out? We need information on those dead junkies. So far we have nothing but their proximity to another corpse, but if we can trace this Jimmy and find out how his routine could have crossed the banker's path… Here's the cafe'
A vague shape stirred behind the worn counter as de Gier held the door open to facilitate the adjutant's ponderous entry. Two other shapes straightened up in the semidarkness of the room. The barman shuffled close.
'Morning,' Grijpstra said benevolently. 'Still this side of death, Bert?'
'Oh, yes.' The old man grinned, showing his toothless gums. 'Looking on, you know. Jenever, gents?'
'Good idea,' Grijpstra said. 'I prefer an early start. A good beginning may last until deep in the night.' Grijpstra and de Gier carried their glasses to the far table. Two young men in jeans and leather jackets got up and shook hands.
'Ketchup,' Grijpstra said.
'Karate,' said de Gier. 'It was you on the phone?'
'Hello,' the detectives whispered, looking over their shoulders.
'Cloak-and-dagger again?' de Gier asked. 'That's all right. Want us to whisper too? Let's have the reason for your call, colleagues.'
'Jimmy the junkie,' Karate said. 'We know everything, but you shouldn't send out inquiries like that on the open circuit. We're under surveillance. The charge is innocence. We're the last innocents in our entire district.'
'And phones are out altogether now,' Ketchup said. 'All phones are tapped by State Detection.'
'And State Detection isn't innocent, either,' Karate said. 'They're the other side too.' His polished fingernails shone in the sparse light of the pub. His made-up eyes gleamed.
'Gay?' de Gier asked.
Ketchup's hennaed hair gleamed too. 'We're promoted now. Our rules prescribe the gay disguise. If one doesn't want to draw attention to oneself, one looks like this.'
'My dear,' Grijpstra said, 'gays don't look like that anymore. Haven't you been told?'
Ketchup offered his tobacco pouch. De Gier rolled a cigarette, having trouble with hard green particles that broke through the paper. 'Dope,' Karate said. 'Here, let me do it. Part of our new I.D. If we aren't stoned, the bad guys aren't supposed to believe in us. We're doped all the time. So are the State Detection cops. We caught two the other night. They were gliding around in their convertible Corvette. We drive an old Camaro, wax polished of course, but not quite the same thing. State Detection is special. So we arrested them on a charge of dealing and
