The Rattle-Rat ac-10

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "Hysterics, both of them," Ketchup said. "But they're older than we are, and more used to the affliction."

  Wo Hop brought the bill. The cognac wasn't added in. Cardozo checked the price in the menu and put down more money. "It all starts with accepting cognac…"

  "Right," Karate said. "He doesn't bring us any. We always refuse, but he doesn't know you yet. You could accept, of course, but the next thing will be that you're picking up parcels."

  "Parcels?" Cardozo asked.

  Karate related how a nameless colleague had been following a nameless Chinese. The Chinese carried a parcel. As he found it hard to carry a parcel and be followed at the same time, the nameless Chinese dropped the parcel. The nameless colleague picked it up.

  Cardozo watched Adjutant Oppenhuyzen. The adjutant smoothed Chinese questions away, mostly with gestures that were received with grateful guffaws.

  "Well?" Karate asked.

  "Ask what was in the parcel," Ketchup said. "Go on, be a good fellow."

  "Heroin," Cardozo said.

  "And now you should ask," Karate said, "what happened to the parcel."

  'The Chinese got it back," Cardozo said. "The nameless colleague got money. He still had some holidays due to him that he could add to his sick days, and he went to a Spanish island."

  "And he's still out in the sun," Karate said. "The lucky devil. Our sergeant would never let us get away with such a harmless exchange. Narrow-minded, don't you think?"

  "You don't want me to be practical now," Cardozo said, "but suppose you're shortsighted enough not to see that the nameless colleague will end up nowhere, then why should I tell you?"

  "Nowhere in the sun? Served by naked maidens? Surfing between naps?"

  "I went to that Spanish island," Cardozo said, "and shit for two weeks. Tainted mussels. I'm better off up here. Playing my favorite game."

  "Looking for a gas can," Ketchup said. "Let's say you find it. What will it tell you? Esso or Shell? You're nowhere here, and in the wrong climate. The summer is half rained away. We'll never see the sun."

  "Colleague?"

  Cardozo looked up. Adjutant Oppenhuyzen smiled down kindly. He introduced himself and grabbed a chair. The Chinese in the back were also smiling, having rediscovered the joy of detachment. "Good boys," the adjutant said, "but they keep losing their damned papers. I help them a little with their everlasting forms. You can imagine what it's like. They have spent years in the country, making their bowl of rice by working their asses off manufacturing fried chili paste or shrimp crackers, but as they don't know the language and customs, they're always running afoul of our potato-picking authorities. Don't arrest any of them now, you hear? I can vouch for their integrity."

  "That's understood, Adjutant," Karate said. "If, by mis- take, I happen to get one in cuffs, it's because he looks like another."

  "And in the event," Ketchup said, "that I, through sheer silliness-because I can't remember their names, let's say- happen to catch one, it'll be an error that I'll blame on myself. We'll back you up."

  The adjutant wanted to know if he could buy them a glass of this or that.

  "We were just on our way out," Cardozo said.

  "The adjutant is absolutely right," Karate said outside, "but I have this bad habit. I just love catching drug dealers without proper papers. I think I'll catch some now. Why don't you assist us, Cardozo?"

  Cardozo glanced at his watch.

  "Don't leave us when we need you, Symie. We helped you look for the can. You're just what we want. You're looking more civilian than ever. If I didn't know you, and the sergeant wanted suspects again, I would run you in on a charge of vagrancy. We are hindered by our uniforms, and it's hard to get the patrol car through these alleys. Give us a hand. Won't take an hour."

  "Doing what?" Cardozo asked.

  "We give you a portophone from the car, and you walk about in the quarter. Slip into the narrowest passages and look a little at what you see. There are two secret societies about that tend to get on each other's nerves-Hong Kong versus Singapore, it seems. They're always on the verge of becoming violent, and when that happens, we like to be in there too. Right now they're more short-tempered than ever, because we've been kicking their members out of the country and arresting recent arrivals, so their supply lines are all mixed up. They both want all the drugs that are left. If you do notice something, breathe into the portophone and we'll be with you in half a minute."

  "That's understood," Cardozo said.

  What lovely ladies, Cardozo thought, shuffling about in the hushed pink light of the prostitution quarter. No Chinese anywhere-a pity, maybe. He did see Adjutant Oppenhuyzen, who, peaceful and content, lumbered out of a red door while the lady he'd enjoyed only a few minutes ago tore open her curtains and arranged herself diligently on the cushions of her wide windowsill. The adjutant winked and was about to comment cheerfully on his recent excitement, but Cardozo turned away. Policemen have the urge too, he was aware of that fact, and if the adjutant happened to be in Amsterdam and was tricked into a slight deviation from the path, between attending to his duties, well… Not well at all, Cardozo thought. I'm not doing it, so why should he? The hell with the bastard.

  I won't even look at them, Cardozo thought. I don't have the money anyway. I'm also hindered by having to carry a pistol and a portophone.

  He did look a little. No! There She was, not too visible in the rear of a cozy little room, lit from below, in a red glow that warmed her slender shins and billowing thighs. And She returned his stare from one inviting eye; the other was hidden by combed-down thick hair. She wanted him. Her longing made her tremble.

  Just another show. Cardozo walked on.

  When She offered herself again, She was Thai, from the golden country far beyond bis reach. The ocher-tinted skin of the small, lithe body that writhed toward him was covered only in one spot, by a small square orange silk attached to a cord, moving all the time, covering nothing, really. Will you join me, Cardozo?

  And now She was dark, dancing to a rhythm that penetrated through the glass, stretching her long arms, begging him-him, the lover named Cardozo.

  An Egyptian slid past in profile, moving out of tapestry, a temple maiden who had cut her white cotton dress so that the priest could ceremonially possess Her. The priest's name was Cardozo.

  An icy German ordered him in, dressed in jackboots and an army hat, the whip ready in her small but strong hand. She accepted applications from slaves to work themselves to death in her camp, so that the last feelings of guilt might be dissolved in pain. At this moment She was interested in Simon Cardozo.

  Good day to you, Cardozo thought.

  Where could the Chinese be?

  He found a crescent connecting two lesser alleys, where a surrealist had plied his trade. A toilet bowl, mortared into a crumbling wall, housed a sturdy and healthy goldfish. A baby doll with pointed teeth and long eyelashes, with live worms crawling out of dear little nostrils, was being smothered slowly by ivy. In a burned-out shop window a sign was displayed with a neatly lettered text. Balthazar does not bark, but bites when provoked.

  The surrealist himself was available, a trim elderly man in an impeccable three-piece suit, who addressed the passersby. "Please, dear people, can you tell me where the Bardo Todol is? I've been silly enough to lose my way. I'm dead, you see. Should I turn right or left here? Could you direct me, if you please?"

  "Any Chinese around here?" Cardozo asked.

  "Oh yes," the surrealist said. "Next alley. A barber's salon, go right at the fork, can't miss."

  The indicated passage was overgrown with smelly weeds rustling with vermin. A sign in Chinese dangled from a rusty bar. Under the sign a rotten door was hung in a partly broken frame. The cracked window in the door was covered by a dirty cloth. Rough voices shouted inside. The cloth was torn and Cardozo could peek.

  The portophone jumped into his clawing fingers. "Karate? Ketchup?"

  That there was no immediate answer could only mean that
the colleagues had been properly trained. They heard him but didn't acknowledge so that their suddenly ringing voices would not disturb the already delicate situation. Cardozo whispered his position and became active at once. Kicking in the door and jumping ahead, he found himself in a low whitewashed room. Cardozo's pistol pointed at four Chinese in turn. Two sat, two stood. The Chinese tied down in barber's chairs couldn't turn around, but the two who were standing did, following Cardozo's crisp order. They clasped their hands to their necks when he barked at them again.

  "Hello?" Cardozo said. "Ketchup? Karate? Come quickly. I've got them."

  The portophone crackled emptily.

  One of the sitting Chinese was Wo Hop. "Untie me?" Hop asked.

  "Me help you?"

  "That'll be all right," Cardozo said. "Karate? Ketchup?"

  He grabbed a stool with his foot and moved it closer. He sat down. There was a clock on the wall. The minute hand moved once in a long while, creaking loudly. "Hello?" Car-dozo asked after every creak.

  "Hello? Hello? Hello?"

  Cardozo got a little tired. The pistol's weight increased. Flies moved about sleepily. The Chinese facing the wall moved now and then. "Keep still," Cardozo shouted. "Hello? Hello? Hello?"

  His arm began to hurt.

  "Friends no come?" Wo Hop asked. "Untie me now?"

  "Hello?"

  "Symie?" Karate asked. "You there? Over."

  Cardozo cleared his throat.

  "Nothing doing, right, Symie? We're signing off and will return to the station. Join us there. We're off now. Buy you a drink?"

  "Hello!" Cardozo yelled.

  "You're there," Karate said. "See you in a minute. Over and out."

  "Come here!" Cardozo yelled.

  The portophone creaked.

  "You hear me?"

  "Quiet," Karate said. "Mind my eardrums. Where are you?"

  "Here." Cardozo gave his position. "Hurry up. Bring any assistance you can find. Every cop in the station. Do hurry. Emergency."

  "Understood," Karate said.

  Cheerful sirens tore the air near the Inner Harbor. Jolly running footsteps cut the silence in the passage outside.

  "Hurrah!" Karate shouted.

  "Victory at last!" Ketchup shouted. "Four fried noodles. Two double fortune cookies. Step right up. Take your pick."

  The assistance, eight officers in uniform and four in jeans and leather jackets, untied the prisoners and handcuffed all four suspects. A minibus transported the catch to the station. An inspector, raised from his bed, patted Cardozo's shoulder. "Two counts of deprivation of liberty, two counts of illegal firearms, one plastic bag containing a hundred grams of high-grade heroin. Nobody seems to have the proper papers. Good work, detective."

  "Sir?" an officer in a leather jacket said.

  "Let's have it, old chap."

  "I'm Drugs, sir. Something about this heroin."

  "Not the real thing? Don't disappoint me."

  "Good quality, but not Chinese."

  "And how do we know?"

  "Packing, sir."

  "And what do we notice when we study the packing?"

  "Chinese heroin, sir, is never supplied in this type of thick yellow plastic wrap."

  "No disturbing details now," the inspector said. 'Tomorrow, maybe. I'll be reading the reports. Have a good night, the lot of you." The inspector went home.

  "Turkish heroin," the expert explained. "Coarse grains, see?"

  Cardozo was invited to type out his report. Wo Hop was sent home. There was no need to detain his mate, either. The two other Chinese were lodged in a small cell.

  Karate and Ketchup changed clothes. "A drink, Car-dozo?"

  Why not? In Jelle Troelstra's bar, a stone's throw away. "I can't stay long," Cardozo said in the street, "for tomorrow I bicycle to Friesland."

  Wo Hop's mate was trailing them, but neither Karate nor Ketchup nor Cardozo paid attention, for they were now off duty. "Bicycle?" Karate asked.

  "I'll go up the dike," Cardozo said.

  "Why?"

  "I don't really care to discuss that now," Cardozo said. "It's late and I'm tired."

  "You'll bike up there?" Ketchup asked. "That dike is thirty kilometers long. All the way to Friesland? It'll take you a day. Whatever for? You want to lose weight?"

  "I'll be leaving at 6:00 A.M." Cardozo said.

  Troelstra was closed, but he opened up.

  Wo Hop's mate waited outside.

  Cardozo explained, once settled behind a small glass of jenever, that he needed Douwe Scherjoen's's portrait because the photographs of the corpse were useless; they showed only bits of skull and a semi-burned spine.

  "But bicycleT Karate and Ketchup shouted. Jelle saw no reason to get upset. He remembered times when almost no one owned a car, and a trip along the dike could be quite an adventure. A bicycle is slow enough to afford the rider a view. And, besides, the trip was supposed to be useful. Yes, sure, they too were prepared to exert themselves when on duty, Karate and Ketchup said-certainly, no question about it-but to be exploited was something else again. If the State would not pay for elementary expenses, criminals could go free. Criminals were driving about in silver cars. The commissaris had just been issued a silver car too, Cardozo admitted. Yes, for the higher-ups no cost was too little either, Ketchup and Karate said, while common folk could be abused, their comforts ignored, their well-being unconsidered.

  "Can't we rise above the common folk?" Karate asked.

  "This eternal complaining, does it get us anywhere? Suppose we surpassed ourselves, made use of all that's given to us, conquered our weaknesses, would there be no reward?"

  "Sell our souls for silver Citroens?" Ketchup asked. "I wouldn't mind doing that. Citroens are good cars."

  Cardozo sipped his drink, frowning and growling that mere materialism never got anyone anywhere. The trick was to step aside and still do your very best. Who cares for results?

  Had he thought of that himself? Ketchup and Karate wanted to know. Sergeant de Gier had been known to come up with bullshit like that. Now look at the sergeant-wasn't he just another sucker, by accident provided with impermanent good looks and the ability occasionally to win a fight? Where had that got him? The saintly sinner, adored by Car-dozo?

  Troelstra kept filling up their glasses. "Would you know a certain Adjutant Oppenhuyzen?" Cardozo asked. "Aren't you Frisian too?"

  Troelstra nodded benignly. "Not a bad fellow, comes in for a beer every now and then."

  "He is a bad fellow," Cardozo said. "Pushed over by evil. Trying to squeeze personal good out of a bad situation."

  Shouldn't accuse so easily, Karate and Ketchup said. Never guess the worst about the character of a colleague.

  Cardozo stated that he would guess what he liked, and voice his theories without making exceptions for possible traitors. Colleagues? Ha! Weren't there colleagues who weren't on the portophone when they should be? Weren't there colleagues who had left him in danger, who had made him hold a heavy pistol for an hour or so, while he was surrounded by gangsters?

  They were sorry, Ketchup and Karate said, but they had been busy; drunk and belligerent German tourists had to be wrestled to the ground, and before you know where you are, an hour is gone.

  And why, Cardozo wanted to know, was Turkish heroin found on Chinese dealers?

  Ketchup and Karate said that they really had to be leaving now, and that any situation is built up out of a large number of unknowable details. You can never get to the bottom of anything. They elbowed Cardozo. "But isn't it fun?"

  "Not right now," Cardozo said.

  He walked home, fuming jenever vapors.

  Close to his home, a suspect mounted a bicycle. Cardozo, breaking into a sudden trot, managed to grab hold of the suspect's sleeve. "Where are you off to? That bike should be in the corridor by now."

  "Since when," asked the Hider of Bicycles, "can't I be riding my very own bike?"

  "Bring it into the house," Cardozo said. "At once. Give me the ke
y to the lock."

  The suspect dismounted. He struck while he turned. Wo Hop's mate watched from a doorway. It had been a long night for him-caught and bound, liberated and arrested, temporarily released and still up and about, in the early hours.

  The suspect's fist was caught by Cardozo, who had passed only a few days ago, the examinations of the Unarmed Combat class. Cardozo twisted and pulled the suspect's fist across his shoulder, and turned. The suspect was forced to follow the compelling movements, and lost his footing, fell, got up again, and attacked with a kick. His foot was hooked away by Cardozo's ankle. The suspect again fell.

  "Ouch," the suspect said. "You don't fight fair.'*

  "You shouldn't be fighting me," Cardozo said. "Would your name happen to be Cain? Am I, perchance, called Abel?"

  "You're so right," Cain said. "Will we never learn? The Age of Aquarius is already upon us, and it'll be raining in a minute. From now on we'll practice true brotherly love and fight only to defend ourselves against the enemy from outside."

  Arms linked, Samuel and Simon walked home; Samuel pushed the bicycle along. Simon helped him to carry the bicycle up the stairs. He was given the key. A thunderclap confirmed their mutual decision to cherish their mutual benefit, forever after.

  Wo Hop's mate returned to his cheap lodging in the Red Quarter, but first he checked with the boss of bis triad, the venerable Wo Hop.

  "So Mophead fought with another Mophead?" Wo Hop asked. "Amazing. And the first Mophead will be cycling to Friesland tomorrow, by way of the dike? Suprising."

  "And your decision?" Wo Hop's mate asked humbly.

  Wo Hop closed his eyes and mumbled, no longer in fluent Cantonese, but in the ancient language of forgotten lore. He lit incense sticks, bowed, threw coins, and was instructed by the book from the past.

  "You," Wo Hop said, "and the two others of your selection will be bicycling on the dike too, tomorrow at six, which is in just a few hours, tomorrow being today and all time being illusion."

  The mate found the two others and passed the order. The maid of the lodging house brought in tea, and her ears. A little later she telephoned another cheap lodging house, on the other end of the dike.