'So,' Troelstra said, 'they discussed better possibilities and I listened in a bit, for they kept ordering refills. On the cattle market in Leeuwarden…'
'Hey, hey,' the commissaris said. 'And the subjects are professionals?'
'Bank robbers,' Troelstra said.
'But listen here, at the Leeuwarden market there'll be hundreds of dealers, and there are only two of them.'
'It can be done,' Troelstra said. 'Each dealer has a purse, and if you pull the copper chains, they'll snap. Herd them together…'
'Thanks.' The commissaris felt for his wallet.
'No money.' Troelstra crossed his arms.
The commissaris put down a note. 'Not for me, for your customer over there.'
The old man in the dirty coat laughed gratefully. 'It's really quite easy.'
'You're sure now?' the commissaris asked.
'Have a few drinks with me, sir, and you'll know for yourself.' The old man waved an all-explaining arm. 'Drink your ignorant self to the center where the mystery lives. Once you see it, everything becomes clear.'
'And can you stay there?'
The old man winked. 'Follow me.'
'I'd rather go alone.'
'The method is the same,' the old man said. 'I'll guide you a bit of the way.'
'Perhaps later,' the commissaris said, and escaped through the door.
\\ 5 /////
Detective First-class Simon Cardozo, temporarily serving with the Murder Brigade, objected to the easy small talk of his more established colleagues, standing around him in the Headquarters canteen. His colleagues looked down on Cardozo. He was small in size and sitting down. He also looked down on himself. A more powerful and larger-size Cardozo talked to the little one, for he had split himself in two, to simplify the situation, and was engaged in dialogue.
Little Cardozo complained. He was not treated with respect, so he told Big Cardozo. Take this Douwe Scherjoen case, for instance. Was it acceptable to have to look at a file dropped casually on his desk? 'Have a look at this,' Grjjpstra had said. 'Do something,' de Gier had said. And gone they were, to flirt with Jane, no doubt. Jane was important. Jane was abused too, but at least she was treated with respect. She was told good things about herself so that the stupid girl would go to make eyes at the garage sergeant so that the Brigade's old Volkswagen could be repaired again. But he, Little Cardozo-who had to do real work, who had to gather data that would unmask a murderous unidentified madman, who subsequently had to arrest the merciless criminal, and subsequently had to prepare a charge that would hold up in court-he, Little Cardozo, had a file dropped on his desk. 'Do something, Cardozo.'
'Now, now,' Big Cardozo said.
'Don't belittle me,' Little Cardozo said. 'I get enough of that from them. They hang out in some pleasant province, enjoy the sights, live off the fat of the land, while I, the stupid sucker, the shit-upon, under risky circumstances, unprotected…'
'Now, now.'
'You keep on saying that,' whined Little Cardozo. 'And I don't feel well, either.'
'Do your job,' Big Cardozo said. 'Commit yourself to doing. Don't stew over the actions of others. If you do, you'll isolate yourself and your productivity will suffer.'
'Why don't you do something,' Little Cardozo said, 'instead of reading that idiot article in the Police Gazette to me? That's theory for morons.'
'You fret,' Big Cardozo said. 'So you're still temporarily with the Murder Brigade? So what? You want to be fixed? Whatever is fixed can't move freely. Move away, float lightly through the city, think of a theory and find some facts that'll hold it up. Aren't you lucky that you can finally work alone? Others hold hands while they stumble about, but you, carried by your very own cleverness, make your individual moves, relentlessly closing in on the culprit who cowers in darkness.'
'Now, now,' Little Cardozo said.
Both Cardozos joined and got up. The unity left the canteen. It was about to do something. What had Cardozo in mind, while he slouched out of the canteen indifferently, under his untidy uncut curls, in his crumpled corduroy suit, loosely swaggering down the corridor? Coughing. Sneezing.
Just for a moment the unity split again so that Little Cardozo could tell Big Cardozo that he was suffering from flu. He might go home. Nobody would miss him. A temporary Murder Brigade member, left quite alone?
Big Cardozo leaned on Little Cardozo. 'Get going.'
Cardozo had to take a leak. The foaming ray of liquid that connected him to a tiled wall in the toilet made him think of water. His lighter's flame reminded him of fire. The combination of the two associations evoked the file photographs of the remnants of Douwe Scherjoen. Where were the remnants found? In a dory. The dory had been confiscated and should be somewhere in the building.
He found it, stored in a basement corner. The brand name was still visible. LOWE. Cardozo deciphered the serial number pressed into a small copper plate, welded inside the bow. The dory looked old. Would he find out who sold that brand of boat, in a remote past, to some forgotten client? How many times would the dory have changed owners in between? Stolen? Given away? Lost and found? Where had it been found last? In the Inner Harbor. He checked the large wall map near the main entrance of the building. The Inner Harbor ends at Prince Henry Quay. Cardozo's roaming finger rubbed pink quays, extended into blue water. Boats are moored to quays.
He caught a streetcar. He walked up and down all quays, and boarded all vessels attached to the quays. Had anyone lost a dory?
'Not me,' a skipper said, 'but over there, in the corner where the garbage floats, there used to be a dory, and it isn't there now. Filched by the boys who come here to annoy us. Useless dory, damaged, no good to anyone. It was tied up with a bit of red wire.'
So far, so good. The dory in Headquarters' basement had some red wire attached to the bow. He thanked the skipper. 'Righto,' the skipper said.
Cardozo sat on a rotten post. He was the killer. He absolutely loathed Douwe Scherjoen. He closed his eyes to darken his view, so that it might be night, cloudy, pitch black all around. He had shot Douwe a few minutes ago, but he wasn't quite done. Douwe's corpse was in the way. Had he committed murder in a frenzy of hatred? Probably not. Angry amateurs will shoot a man in the chest. He had shot Douwe intelligently, according to a premeditated plan, from the rear, of course. Was the dory so that he wouldn't have to drag the corpse a great distance?
Or had fate played tricks on him and complicated the scheme? Fate's often unreasonable chaos may upset the best of plans. Very well, the dory was here, but he hadn't brought a sufficient quantity of gasoline. No, he hadn't thought of bringing any gasoline at all, and would have to find it now, but where? Suck it from a car's tank through a tube? Where would he get the tube? Nobody ever carries a tube. Had he ripped it off a cookstove somewhere? Cookstoves are found in kitchens. Was his kitchen close by, in his home?
Close by. Cardozo opened his eyes. His gaze wandered over the long row of houses on Prince Henry Quay. There would be a number of side streets too. If the suspect lived in the neighborhood, Cardozo was now faced with a multitude of suspects. Add to that all the skippers of the vessels moored nearby.
Was he getting anywhere? He was getting hungry.
At this stage of an investigation, any point is a starting point, Cardozo thought as he tripped over the high threshold of a small Chinese restaurant called Wo Hop. Mister Hop caught his prospective client and guided him to a table. Cardozo read the specials on the menu. Fried noodles. Fried rice.
'Fried noodles,' Cardozo said. 'Beer.'
The restaurant consisted of a bare room furnished with plastic chairs and tables. Neon light reflected from Hop's shaven skull. The other customers were longhaired louts with skin diseases, silently picking scabs when they
