Hard Rain

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "Yes, Dad." Young Jansma backed up the van, turning the unwieldy vehicle cleverly until it almost touched the curb. He grabbed the toolbox and bounded down to the sidewalk.

  A fat, pimply young man opened a window on the first floor. "You better get to it."

  "To what?" Old Jansma asked, lowering himself ponderously from the van'icabin.

  "To the filthy fluids," the fat young man shouted. "Dripping through our ceilings. The old woman upstairs leaks."

  "Would you be paying our bill?" Old Jansma asked. "No? Then shut your mouth, young sir."

  Young Jansma, lugging tools and assorted tubes, joined his elder. He studied the young man's face. "Would that be venereal?"

  "What?" the fat young man shouted.

  "Your facial moonscape," Young Jansma said. "Maybe you should cover it with ointment. Or wear a mask."

  "You see," Old Jansma said, "you don't see yourself. Others do. You might save us having to look at you."

  The window banged shut. Young Jansma rang the doorbell. The door creaked open and the Jansmas looked up a narrow bare staircase. A little old lady peered down from the landing on the third floor.

  "Mrs. Jongs?"

  "You the plumbers? Come up quickly. The sink. . ."

  The Jansmas climbed the stairs. "You're the cops?" the old woman whispered loudly, holding bony fingers behind her ear to catch the answer.

  "At your service, ma'am." Old Jansma briefly held a gnarled little claw protruding from the woman's well-worn shawl.

  Mrs. Jongs led the way to her kitchen. "I empties out the bucket six times." She cackled. "Ain't they complaining downstairs? They're banging on my door just now, but I don't open for nobody but the fuzz. Heehee."

  "Now," Old Jansma said. "My partner will clean up all these puddles nicely, and you and I will have a little talk. What are your nasty neighbors' names, dear?"

  Mrs. Jongs found a mop. "I does it."

  "No, dear." Old Jansma grabbed the mop and handed it to Young Jansma. "Do a good job, son."

  "The fat fellow downstairs is Huip Fernandus," Mrs. Jongs explained in her tiny front room. "His friend is Heul. My, ain't they wicked? Heul ain't home now, he's out shopping, be back in a minute. Buying fancy cans. They can't cook, you know. Coffee? I got it ready. Never thinks you would really come, but I makes the coffee anyways."

  Young Jansma came into the room. "I filled up two buckets and emptied them into your sink. So four buckets of water went down there. Got them good and angry. Fine job, ma'am. Nice start. We'll finish the job."

  Mrs. Jongs poured coffee into cracked mugs. She pointed at the wall. "See that? Them three round spots? Know what that is? That's where my mother's plates is hanging. Breaks on the floor. Comes off the wall because of them noises." She opened the window and looked at the van. "You Jansma and Son?"

  "Can we drop the act now?" Young Jansma asked.

  Old Jansma touched Mrs. Jongs's dried-out hand again. "Adjutant Grypstra, ma'am, assisted by Sergeant de Gier."

  "They're good plates," Mrs. Jongs said. "Antiques, they call them now. Handpainted, with flowers, all different. Bob wants to sell them, but they're my mother's. Bob needs some cash then, I ain't bringing in so much no more. But the plates're my mother's."

  "Bob?" Grijpstra asked.

  "My husband dies of the shakes. Bob sees lizards. They crawls so, he says. First they are snakes but then they got handsies and footsies. Bob tells me all about them lizards. And he is shaking and trembling and moaning and groaning. 'Get the lizards, Annie,' but I never sees them so much."

  "You see them a little?" de Gier asked.

  "No. Just to please Bob. I ain't really seeing nothing. They's big." Mrs. Jongs held her hand about a foot from the ground. "With tongues. They sticks their tongues in Bob's mouth."

  Grijpstra's foot felt nails sticking up out of the floorboards. He stamped them down with his heel. "It's them noises what does that," Mrs. Jongs said. "I got a hammer, but the handle breaks."

  "The noises come every night?" Grijpstra asked.

  Mrs. Jongs's permanent wave danced across bare patches of skull as she nodded eagerly. "Them noises."

  "Tonight again?" de Gier asked.

  "For sure." Mrs. Jongs peered around a curtain. "There's Heul, on the bridge, see? Boy with the paper shopping bags? When they eats here, they makes them noises later."

  Grijpstra sidled up to the window. "Male subject. Tall. Thin. Punk hairstyle, dyed orange. In his early twenties. Something on his T-shirt. Can't see what from here."

  De Gier, hiding behind the curtain in the other window, looked too. "Picture of whale under an atomic cloud. I've seen those shirts before. The slogan says, 'Nuke the Baby Whales.' "

  "That's in foreign?" Mrs. Jongs asked.

  "American," de Gier said.

  The folds in Mrs. Jongs's face crinkled. Her false teeth clacked excitedly. "Americans are good guys. Yanks. Remember?" She looked away from de Gier. "You don't." Her claw pushed Grijpstra's shoulder. "You do. When they rides into town? On them shiny tanks? Chasing the bad Jerries? Ain't that a sight?" She pointed at the shawl knotted around her waist. "I has a little Yank later. Wants him to ride out of me, all glorious-like, but he drops. Can't hold him no more. The Jerries gives me the sickies." Her dentures clicked even faster. "Then Bob gets me, me and the other girlies, but Bob marries me. Have to work for the favor. And then them lizards come . . . and then the old-age cash every month ... but it ain't much, the old-age cash. And now them noises."

  "We'll get the noises," Grijpstra said.

  "Can't pay you nohow," Mrs. Jongs said. "I always pays, but then I gets so old so they laughs at me, can't work them when they laughs."

  "In a little while we leave," Grijpstra said. "Then we slip back again. We'll catch the noises."

  "Don't leave." Mrs. Jongs tried to put her cup on the table, but it slipped from her hand. De Gier caught the cup. "I'm afeared of the noises. Nobody comes now. Cahcarl would come but now the boat is gone. The water fuzz takes the boat this morning. The junkies are dead, I sees the other fuzz carry them out. And there"—she pointed across the street—"Himself's dead too. Himself was my TV. Got no TV myself. I has one but they takes it. Leaves the door open and Jimmy gets it. Or the black one. Not the lady, the lady she don't steal from me."

  "You knew the junkies well?" de Gier asked.

  Mrs. Jongs nodded. "But they need cash when they get sick. Oh, do they ever get so sick. They get shakes too, but the lizards don't get to them. Them junks sneeze too much."

  "Cahcarl didn't take the TV?" Grijpstra asked.

  "No. He don't get sick."

  "And the other cops didn't carry Cahcarl from the boat?"

  "No."

  "Mrs. Jongs?" de Gier asked. He got up and twisted his arms while he walked slowly through the room, dragging a leg. His head rested on his shoulder. "Mmmmissusss Johngsss?"

  "Yep," Mrs. Jongs said. "That's Cahcarl. He's called Carl, really, but he stutters so. When you ask for his name he says 'Cahcarl,' so we call him that. That ain't nice."

  "And he didn't live on the boat?" de Gier asked. "This Cahcarl?"

  "He lives at the Overtoom," Mrs. Jongs said. "Don't know no number." She opened a cupboard. "See? Cahcarl makes that. That's Mouse."

  "Looks more like a dog," Grijpstra said.

  "Yes." Mrs. Jongs shivered in her shawl. "My dog. Mouse, I calls him. A truck squashes Mouse. He's getting old, he can't see no more. Don't hear so good either. So Cahcarl makes Mouse again for me. I keeps him in the cupboard, away from them noises."

  The image was put together from scraps of trash wood, connected with cotterpins and screws. It had a rope tail, and bottlecaps for eyes.

  "You like Mouse?" Mrs. Jongs asked.

  De Gier smiled. "Yes. A chihuahua, was he?"

  "Oh yes." Mrs. Jongs put Mouse back into the cupboard. "Dear little doggie. Cahcarl likes Mouse too.Takes him for walks, but that day I takes him and Mouse goes away. Cahcarl cries. Then he makes him again. Looks just
right."

  "We better go," Grijpstra said.

  "Don't go." Mrs. Jongs took the adjutant's arm. "I got them fears."

  "But if we don't go, the boys downstairs won't make the noises. We've got to hear them first. Look here, Mrs. Jongs," Grijpstra said, stroking Mrs. Jongs's hunched shoulder, "we'll be right back."

  "We'll only be gone a minute," de Gier said. "I'll go down with the adjutant. We'll get into the van, and I'll slip right back into the house. The adjutant will come back later. Don't worry, Mrs. Jongs."

  "Stay here. Them noises ..."

  "Don't worry." De Gier followed Grijpstra downstairs. The van started up and pulled away from the sidewalk. De Gier leaped out of the cab and into Mrs. Jongs's street door, and pulled it shut behind him. He sneaked up the stairs. "Here I am."

  "Good," Mrs. Jongs whispered.

  "They never saw me come back," de Gier said. "We'll just sit here awhile. They can't hear us if we don't move."

  Mrs. Jongs held her finger in front of her lips. "Right," de Gier whispered. He pulled a portophone from the trouser pocket of his overalls. "You hear me?"

  The portophone crackled.

  "Hello?" de Gier said.

  "Give me a minute," the portophone replied. "Got to park this thing. It's big, can't find a space."

  "Done," the portophone said two minutes later. "I'm walking on Prince Hendrik Quay now, turning into an alley north, ready to come into the Binnenkant. Okay?"

  De Gier peeped around the curtain. "Okay, they must be inside. Stay close to the wall. You're coming in from the east?"

  "Never know where's east," the portophone grumbled. "I'm coming from the right side. I won't pass their windows. Open the door."

  De Gier slipped into the corridor and pulled the rope that followed the stair railing down to the door's lock.

  "More coffee?" Mrs. Jongs whispered when Grijpstra, no longer in his overalls, tiptoed into the room.

  They raised their cups. Mrs. Jongs sat on a straight chair, Grijpstra and de Gier on a sagging couch.

  "Tell us about Himself across the road," de Gier said, "who replaced your TV. Can you see that far?"

  Mrs. Jongs opened the cupboard again and showed him a pair of dented brass binoculars. "Bob looks through them at me and the other girls, when we work down in the street. They're sharp."

  "Nice guy?" Grijpstra asked. "Your Bob?"

  "No," Mrs. Jongs said. Her dentures snapped shut.

  "But the lizards got him," de Gier said.

  Mrs. Jongs passed him the binoculars. "I always tries to shoo them out."

  De Gier trained the binoculars on IJsbreker's house. "What did you see there, Mrs. Jongs?"

  She cackled and clapped her claws.

  "Nice?"

  "Oh yes," Mrs. Jongs said. "Nice underwears. I never have none. Just regular blue cotton pants I has. Bob saves on clothes." She pointed across quays and canal. "Them stockings and them panties, bras and all, and they takes that off, and Himself with the champagne, and the sniffles."

  "Sniffles?" Grijpstra asked.

  "Off the table," Mrs. Jongs said. "All of them on their knees."

  "Good times, Mrs. Jongs?"

  "Oh yes, the sniffles makes it last. On and on and on. For hours. Three of them sometimes, and Himself, busy with everything, he has two hands."

  "I see."

  "So does I," Mrs. Jongs said. "I sees it all. For hours."

  "But you didn't see Himself die?"

  "That's the thunder night," Mrs. Jongs said. "First them noises and then the thunder too, and me with the fears."

  "Did you see the paintings in Himself's house?"

  "They takes them," Mrs. Jongs said.

  "Who, Mrs. Jongs?" De Gier's nostrils quivered.

  "The junkies?" Grijpstra asked patiently.

  She nodded. "Must have. They takes everything. Jimmy must have took my TV. The black guy gets my bag, in the street. But the cops here don't see nothing."

  "And Cahcarl helped rob Himself?"

  She shook her head. "Not him. Cahcarl never gets sick. The others do, then they need the cash. Oh, that poor lady, she comes here and I makes coffee but she always stays cold and then she goes into the alleys and hustles again. The lady takes Himself's paintings."

  "You saw her take IJsbreker's paintings?"

  "No. She must have, though. And Jimmy, and the black guy too."

  "Not Cahcarl?" De Gier's eyes shone.

  "No." Mrs. Jongs held her head to the side, looking at de Gier.

  "Yes?" deGier asked.

  "You got Bob's eyes."

  "Aha," Grijpstra said.

  "I fight," de Gier said, trying to shake himself from Mrs. Jongs's steady gaze, "in the light."

  "The lizards gets Bob," Mrs. Jongs said, "them lizards with them scratchy hands."

  DZJAAWOOHOOo-ooo ...

  De Gier fell into threadbare cushions on the couch, covering up his ears. Mrs. Jongs's chair jumped off the floor. Grijpstra rose slowly. The floor seemed to come up. The nails that Grijpstra had pounded back into the floorboards popped their heads free again. Amplified guitar jangles tore at the walls and the ceiling. Drums banged and rumbled, making the windows rattle. Mouse danced in the cupboard, delicately, on spindly wooden legs. Pots and pans clanged in the kitchen. De Gier thought he saw Bob's lizards, scratching on glass surfaces with long bony nails. Their fiery tongues rasped through his mouth into his brain. He staggered to the door, pushing Grijpstra ahead of him. Together they tumbled through the corridor and slid down steep stairs into the street, still holding their ears. De Gier tore his gun free and banged the butt on the door leading to the downstairs apartment. Grijpstra leaned against the bell. The cacophony was less loud in the street. It stopped just before the door gave way. The fat youth whom they had seen before gaped at them. His heavy-lidded eyes seemed glazed.

  Grijpstra pushed young Fernandus aside. De Gier ran inside. A tall young man tried to stop him. De Gier ran the obstacle down, yanked him up again, turned him around, pushed him into a wall, forcibly pulled his arms together behind his back, and clipped his wrists together with handcuffs.

  Grijpstra thumped young Fernandus in the belly. "You're under arrest." He slapped his face. "Turn round."

  "What?" mumbled Fernandus, his face pushed against the wall. A second pair of handcuffs snapped shut.

  Grijpstra faced de Gier, breathing deeply. Heul turned around. De Gier pulled back his fist. "That's enough," Grijpstra shouted. "Don't, Sergeant." De Gier's fist trembled and dropped.

  "It's all right," Grijpstra said. "You got him." He closed the door behind him with a careless kick of his heel. "Lead the way, boys."

  Fernandus and Heul stumbled into the room.

  "Sit down."

  "What?" Fernandus snarled. "What's this for? That's breaking and entering. You got a warrant?"

  "My father is on the City Council," Heul squeaked. "Huip's dad is an attorney. You can't treat us like this."

  "Police," Grijpstra said. He looked around the room. "All this gear is confiscated. You've been harassing a helpless old lady."

  "She poured water on us," Fernandus said. "You told her to do that? That's harassment. You're illegal. I want to phone Dad."

  "I'll get the van," de Gier said. "We'll throw all that stuff in." He walked around the room. "Where do these wires go?"

  "Up," Grijpstra said. "Check them out."

  De Gier ran out of the room and up the stairs. He came back in a moment. "They've got loudspeakers screwed against Mrs. Jongs's floor. Nice charge, Adjutant. We can prove intent."

  "Let's prove more," Grijpstra said, pushing the fat young man back into his chair. "What's your full name?"

  "Huip Fernandus, my fathej is Willem Fernandus. He'll have your ass for this."

  "Let's see some dope," de Gier said. "You're both full of pot. Huip, give us the dope or we'll tear the place apart."

  "I want to see your warrant," Heul squeaked. "We've got rights. My father is on the City Council."

>   Grijpstra unfolded a paper and held it in front of Heul's eyes. "Okay. Where's the dope?"

  "There's the phone," de Gier said. "Go ahead." He picked up the receiver. "Here."

  Young Fernandus dialed slowly.

  "Busy," Huip Fernandus said. "Let me try again."

  "Phone my dad," Heul squeaked.

  Huip dialed again. De Gier held the phone to Huip's ear. "No answer."

  "They're out," Heul said. "I forgot."

  De Gier put the phone back. "Pity."

  Grijpstra picked up the guitar and smashed it against the wall. "No dope in the guitar?"

  "Willful damage," Huip Fernandus yelled.

  "Accidents will happen," de Gier said. "I'm sorry."

  "Now," Grijpstra said, "what next? The drums? I don't really like to destroy drums. Shall I try the amplifiers first?"

  "Wait," de Gier said. "Over there, that floorboard is loose. Stamp on this side. Over here. Go on."

  Grijpstra stamped on the floor. The opposite end of the board flew up.

  "Well packed," de Gier said, squatting down, lifting plastic bags from the hole under the board. "Hashish. That's nice. Pound bags?"

  "Five bags," Grijpstra said. "We'll have that."

  De Gier picked up two pairs of ear protectors. "You bastards. Got these on while you made your racket, eh?" He yelled into Heul's ear. "You hear me?"

  Grijpstra shook his head. "He's crying." He yelled into Fernandus's ear. "What's he crying for?"

  Fernandus held up his cuffed hands. "Hold it."

  "Let's get the van," Grijpstra said. "We'll have you strip-searched at Headquarters. Find a little coke, maybe. Let's see your arms now. You boys inject too?"

  "Hold it," Fernandus said. "You're overexcited. Good music does that to lower minds. We've seen it before. Drives the audience wild. Okay, calm down. We don't want trouble. Take the dope. Keep it. There's some money there. Money is good stuff. We'll lose this time. Sometimes a man has to take a loss. Right, Heul?"

  Heul nodded, swallowing sobs.

  "We'll take the speakers down," Fernandus said. "We'll practice nicely from now on. Got to practice. We're musicians. We play for the Society for Help Abroad. We help feed the foreign poor."

  "You don't want trouble with the Society," Heul whimpered bravely. "That's big shit. You want your ass kicked, cop?"