Janwillem De Wetering - The Rattle-Rat

"I wasn't heroic," Cardozo said. "I was hiding in a ditch and out of reach. Nothing could possibly have happened to me. The commissaris was around, and the Military Police, and all the bad guys were mowed down in the end."

"You were shooting?" Samuel's friend asked. "I thought a commissaris never used a gun. They just like to travel a lot. I read that in the paper. It said that commissarises travel to the ends of the earth, using special funds. Tax money well spent."

"I had forgotten my pistol again," the commissaris said. "The new model is too large for me. I don't want to keep leaving it at home, but unconsciously I never seem to take it along." He scratched his chin. "What do you do for a living?"

The friend made manikins.

'To play with?"

No, the friend was employed by Madame Tussaud's Museum of Wax Manikins.

"Mother," Samuel said, ''why is Simon wearing that weird suit?"

"Now he notices," Simon said. "I could paint myself green and he would notice next week."

"I think you look cute," Mrs. Cardozo said. "When you were little, I made you a suit out of corduroy once. You were such a little darling, and I always washed your hair. It used to shine, just like it does now. Oh, my little Symie."

"A mishap," the commissaris said. "He was covered with the stuff."

Mrs. Cardozo's eyes grew round. "Blood? Was he bleeding?"

"Shit," Simon said. "Frisian."

"What were you doing in Friesland?" Mrs. Cardozo asked angrily. "You should stay away from the country. I raised you in the city. The country smells. Stay here where you belong."

"And who do the cute clothes belong to?" Samuel asked.

"To a corpse," Cardozo said angrily.

"A corpse's suit," the commissaris said thoughtfully to Samuel's friend. "Tell me, young sir, are you good at making those wax figures that Madame Tussaud's exhibits?"

"I'm gifted that way," Samuel's friend said. "I've just finished the Libyan colonel, and our prime minister, but I'm not happy with our top official. He's a good guy, and I prefer to make the other kind, I'm good at showing up evil."

"Good at evil," the commissaris said thoughtfully.

"I'm working part-time," Samuel's friend said. "Madame Tussaud's thinks that there's enough horror about nowadays."

"And you're an idealist too?" the commissaris asked, "like your friend Samuel, I mean?"

"Certainly," the friend said. "Labor Party, that's me, but I don't labor much these days. Through no fault of the party. It's the reactionaries again."

"Yes," the commissaris said. He got up and shook the friend's hand. He sat down again. "I do admire idealism."

"How do you mean that?" Samuel's friend asked.

"I mean," the commissaris said, "that in these difficult times we are short of funds. The funds you kindly mentioned just now have all been spent. If we upholders of public order ask for help these days, we cannot pay for such service."

"I gathered you were aiming that way," Samuel's friend said. "What can I do for you? I would like to perform some labor."

"Cardozo," the commissaris said, "let's see that album with the snapshots of Scherjoen."

Cardozo brought the album and opened it on the table.

"Nice old bird," Samuel's friend said. "Much too nice for what I'm gifted for."

"Not so nice," the commissaris said. "Look a little closer. What we have here is an evader of taxes and a usurer at thirty-percent interest. If you " The commissaris smiled warmly and went on, "But this may be quite a tricky project- if you feel you can't do it, you can say so at once-if you could distill the evil from these images and dress them in the suit that Simon is wearing right now, and if you used, instead of a proper head, a burned skull that we'll provide you with, and if you found some skeleton hands that could extend from the jacket's sleeves, and if you made those hands hold something-what, I don't rightly know now, but we may think of a suitable object…" The commissaris felt his chin.

"Yes," Samuel's friend said. "Absolutely. The very thing. I can do it. I want to do it. You have some goal in mind?"

The commissaris asked if he could smoke. Mrs. Cardozo nodded and shivered. "How terrible, sir."

"It has to be terrible," the commissaris said. "You see," he pointed at the album, "this man may not have been a likable gent, but he was cruelly murdered, and we have four suspects, but nobody is talking. I'm not saying that the suspects are not as innocent as they profess to be, but I would like to be sure. If they escape from our grasp, we'll look for something else, but at the point where we are now, the four suspects are in my way."

"You plan to shock them loose?" the friend asked.

"I don't like the method," the commissaris said, "but I don't like any method in our branch. Threats, manipulation, interference with liberty, all our tricks are the same, in essence. A quick shock might be best."

"So my manikin has to be nasty," the friend said. "I can use lights? Some movement? I do have some skills. Do I have some time? Can I do a good job?"

The commissaris looked at his watch. "No hurry. Can you deliver by tomorrow?"

The friend shook his head sadly.

"Don't put yourself out," the commissaris said. "All we need is an impression, a glimpse, nothing fancy."

'Tomorrow," the friend mumbled.

"You can come with us now," the commissaris said and got up. 'The skull is at Headquarters. Cardozo will give you the suit, and I'll make sure you have a room in the building where you won't be disturbed. Tomorrow afternoon I'll bring in my suspects. Four little meetings, and we're all done."

"I need help," Samuel's friend said. "And we need something bad that our creation can hold out to the audience. Can you think of something? Simon?"

Cardozo leered and rubbed his hands.

"My Symie," Mrs. Cardozo said. "Did I bring you up for this?"

"Hen heh," laughed Cardozo.

"Miss Terpstra," the Commissaris said, "I'm truly sorry to disturb you, but it's sometimes necessary to inconvenience people when we're facing a horrid crime. I hear your sister stayed with you during that ghastly night. Was I informed correctly?"

Miss Terpstra did look a little like Mem Scherjoen, but she had to be less intelligent, the commissaris thought. The cause would be in the arrangement of the Terpstra genes, in the way the microscopic seeds of father and mother had embraced each other a long time ago. He thought of his brother, who looked rather like him, and had grown from the same genes as his own, but in quite a different combination. My brother is very intelligent too, the commissaris thought, but he makes a different use of his brilliant mind and merely became rich so that he could retire in Austria, buy himself a chalet, and pour rare wines for his friends. In my case the genes mixed in a more useful manner, for I serve humanity and pay no attention to personal comfort. Intelligence can be applied stupidly too. It's all so tricky, and no one, perhaps, can be blamed. Human development is probably terminally determined at the moment of conception. But my brother and I share the same arrogance, the com- missaris thought, for we both assume that we really matter, a basic mistake that's not simplifying our lives.

Miss Terpstra's face was sharper than her sister's, and her attitude decidedly stiffen Her apartment in the dignified eastern suburb of Amsterdam was furnished with a straight simplicity at odds with two pairs of porcelain dogs that faced each other on the windowsills. The dogs mirrored each other. "Lovely little dogs," the commissaris said, for Miss Terpstra said nothing.

"You think so?" Miss Terpstra asked coldly.

"In excellent taste," the commissaris said. "You collect porcelain dogs?"

"I brought them from Ameland," Miss Terpstra said. "My great-grandfather started the collection, the whoremonger."