Janwillem De Wetering - The Mind-Murders

Grijpstra's frown dissolved.

Fortune smiled. "The endless circle, but not quite, as I found out on the mattress in the other room. To think that I quarreled with Rea because I refused to sell the circle. To consider that someone, a colleague who lives on the next canal, would buy my garbage on behalf of his company-a hundred times the size of mine, he doesn't own it but he's a director-would offer to free me, and I actually refused." He shook his head.

"At the right price?"

"A little more."

"Your wife wanted you to sell?"

"She did and I wouldn't agree. My colleague invited me to dinner at Beelema's, Rea was asked to come too. Borry Beelema likes to serve meals at request. He serves himself, and Zhaver and Titania dress up as cooks. Beelema believes in perfection. Caviar and champagne. Hyme, my colleague, must have discussed every detail of the party. It was meant as a trap, but I hadn't learned yet how to be caught in order to become free, FREE, damn it! They may not have known how to approach me. I'm a quiet man, or used to be. I worked, and that was all. Hyme sidled up along conventional lines and wined and dined me to soften up my resistance."

"The price?" asked Grijpstra.

Fortune told him.

Grijpstra whistled. "You could retire."

"And I didn't want to."

They had left the kitchen and stood alongside each other, gazing out of the windows. Below them a sea of irregular roof tops was contained by a row of warehouses. A thrush, perched on the head of a gargoyle, initiated a fairly complicated statement. The silver Mercedes with the German number plate that de Gier had seen before slithered to a stop before the striped awning of the Hotel Oberon and the same fat German slammed his car door and waddled across the street.

"You refused outright?"

"No, I asked for time to consider the offer. I was alone, under attack by a wicked monstrosity, horribly eager to rob me of my safe routine, or so I thought. I pretended to laugh a lot, became angry, and went home."

"With your wife."

"Yes, then we fought."

"Did you hit her?" Grijpstra asked pleasantly.

"No. I repeated myself. We didn't sleep that night. She wanted to buy a car, a country house, furnish it in style. She said I could read books. I told her that I manufactured books."

"You don't read?"

"I do, but not too often. I told her I was being useful to society. She tore me to pieces. She proved I wasn't, that the other company could publish my trash better than I."

"Was she right?"

"Of course."

Fortune thought.

"You would sell now?" Grijpstra asked.

Fortune grinned. "Yes, I will. I've been looking at my products again. Goat-wool socks, hallucinating mushrooms, UFO wisdom, Mr. Hyme can have it."

"UFOs may exist."

"Sure, but what do my authors know? They know how to spread ignorance on two hundred pages. They fantasize or lie outright and connect nonsense with fabrication."

The thrush sang on.

"Rea was right, but for the wrong reasons," Fortune said. "And she didn't care. I care now, and I disagree with her motivation. All she wanted was wealth, happiness, some short-range goal like that. She's a silly woman really."

"You won't take her back?"

"No."

"Divorce?"

"Yes."

"What will the neighbors say?" Grijpstra asked solemnly.

Fortune lit another cigarette and puffed placidly.

"Mrs. Cabbage-Tonto? She's the only neighbor I know and she never liked Rea. Sure I'll divorce Rea, but she'll have to show up or write to me through her lawyer. 111 return her money to her; she brought a fair sum into the marriage. I invested it in the business. I'll pay her back with profits."

"You're angry with her?"

Fortune dropped down on the mattress.

"No."

"And what do you plan to do?"

Fortune yawned. "Nothing much. Think more out of the circle, right here. This is a good place to think. Go on a trip afterward, find a quiet place, build my own cabin. I can't do that yet, but somebody may teach me."

"Will you have a car?"

"I'll have to learn to drive again. I could when I was in the army, that's twenty years ago. I don't have a license."

"Your wife can't drive either?"

"No."

De Gier swirled his coffee. "The dog, do you think it will come back again?"

"It did come back and I can't understand where it went. I'm sure I locked the door. It's Saturday today, yesterday I was in the canal, Rea left Thursday. I come home and it's all gone. I fall, Mrs. Cabbage takes me to the doctor. I do some shopping. Babette is at the door when I come back, pleased to see me, yapping, affectionate. I go in with the dog. On Friday I leave the dog in the house. It isn't there when I come home."

"The dog could only leave through the door?"

"Door, communal staircase, front door, there's no other way."

De Gier pointed at a wall built out of rough bricks. "Solid wall."

"Yes, the building used to be a warehouse, everything is solid. You see the holes in that wall? I drilled them and drove in cast-iron bars to support my book shelves. She even removed the bars."

"Do you miss your books?"

"Not really. A few perhaps but they can be replaced. Books become stuffing after a while, something to collect; another circle."

"What subjects did you read yourself?"

"Some novels, travel, horror."

"Any particular horror?"

"Poe."

"Poe," Grijpstra said helpfully. "I've heard of him. What's he like?"

De Gier pressed his hand against the wall. "I'll tell you a Poe story. There was a couple. They weren't happy. They lived in the country on an estate. It cost them all they had to keep the estate going. The estate wasn't profitable and the lady couldn't buy what she wanted. She would screech at her husband and one evening he picked up the poker and brained her."

"That was bad," Grijpstra said.

"Not too bad. It solved the squire's problem. But the corpse was still there, he had to remove that as well. Wait, I almost forgot, they also had a cat. The cat was around. Okay. The gentleman was a handy fellow and he got some tools and made a hole in the wall. A big hole, big enough to hold the corpse. He put the corpse in the hole and closed it up again."

"I've never done any masonry," Fortune said.

"But the squire had, you see. He was handy, as I said just now. He did an excellent job. Another thing about this gentleman, he had a sense of humor. He waited a couple of days, a week maybe, and invited the local constable for a glass of wine. Wait, I forgot that cat again. The cat disappeared. The squire looked for the cat but it had gone. Right. The constable comes and gets his wine and the squire pours himself some, too, and tells jokes. After every joke he laughs, loudly, haha, hoho, and knocks on the wall with the poker. Harder and harder." De Gier hit the brick wall with his fiat hand. "like this. The squire kept on laughing, haha, hoho." De Gier shouted. A reaction on the roof became audible. There were screeches and cackles, a rustling and a flapping.

"Sea gulls," Grijpstra said.

"And crows," Fortune added. "There are always crows on the roof, but they are noisier now than usual."

"Let's have a look."

Fortune showed de Gler a trap door and the sergeant stepped into Grijpstra's hand and hoisted himself nimbly through the hole.

"How does that story finish?" Grijpstra asked Fortune. "Or don't you know how it goes?"

"Yes, I know the tale well. When the squire banged the wall with his poker, something inside the wall screeched back at him. An earsplitting screech, unnerving him and the constable. The constable had the wall opened and found the lady's corpse standing up. On her disheveled head sat the cat, the cat that your colleague kept forgetting. The cat was alive, and it screeched."

De Gier's head popped back. "Come up here, I found something."