"Did you hear that?" de Gier asked. "He mentioned the police. Do you think he knows about us?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe not," de Gier said, and looked at the sky. It had become very hot and sweat prickled under his shirt. The clouds were lead-colored and low. The street sellers were putting up sheets of transparent plastic and pulling in their goods.
The clouds burst suddenly and cold heavy rain drowned the market, catching women and small children in midstreet, forcing them to scatter for cover. Sheets of water blocked de Gier's view and roared down, splashing up again from the pavement over his feet and trouser legs, dribbling down from the canvas roof and hitting him in the neck. Cardozo was shouting something and pointing at the stall next to them, but de Gier couldn't make out the words. He vaguely saw the old hawker and his wife scrambling about, but couldn't work out what was expected of him until Cardozo pulled him over and handed him a carton of vegetables and pointed at a VW bus parked on the sidewalk. Together they filled the small bus with their neighbor's merchandise, which the old man had stored under his stall and which was now in danger of being swept down the street by the torrent. De Gier was wet through and cursing but there seemed no end to the potatoes, cucumbers, baby squashes, bananas and cab-
Thanks, mate," the old man and his wife kept on saying. De Gier muttered in reply. Cardozo was grinning like a monkey.
"Lovely to see you working for a change," Cardozo screamed right into de Gier's ear, so that it needed rubbing to make it function again.
"Don't shout," he shouted and Cardozo grinned again, his sharp face alight with devilish mirth.
The rain stopped when they had filled the bus and the sun was back suddenly, brightening a dismal scene of floating cartons and cases and sodden merchants splashing around their stalls mumbling and cursing, and shaking themselves like dogs climbing out of a canal.
"Hell," de Gier said, trying to dry his hair and face with a crumpled handkerchief. "Why did we have to help those fools? They could see the rain was coming, couldn't they?"
"Friendship," Cardozo said, rubbing his hands and waving at the coffee girl, who came staggering toward them carrying her tray rilled with glasses of hot coffee and a dish of meat rolls and sausages smeared with mustard. "Love your neighbor, I remembered. There's nothing those old people can ever do to repay us, is there?"
De Gier smiled in spite of his discomfort. Cold drops were running down his back, touching his buttocks, the only dry part of his body. "Yes," he said, and nodded. "Thanks."
"Thanks for what?" Cardozo asked, suddenly cautious.
"For the lesson, I like to learn."
Cardozo studied de Gier's face. De Gier's smile seemed genuine. Cardozo sipped his coffee, shoving his tobacco and paper toward the sergeant, who immediately rolled two cigarettes, placing one between Cardozo's lips. He struck a match.
"No," Cardozo said. "I don't trust you, sergeant."
"What are you talking about?" de Gier asked pleasantly.
"Ah, there you are," Grijpstra said. "Loafing about as I expected. I thought you were supposed to be street sellers. Shouldn't you be trying to sell something? If you hang about in the back of your stall drinking coffee and exchanging the news of the day, you'll never get anywhere."
"Cardozo," de Gier said. "Get the adjutant a nice glass of coffee and a couple of sausages."
"Don't call me adjutant down here, de Gier, and I'll have three sausages, Cardozo."
"That'll be five guilders," Cardozo said.
That'll be nothing, take it out of the till. You must have collected some money this morning while we were running around catching Turks."
"Turks?" de Gier and Cardozo asked in one voice.
"Turks, two of them, shot them both and took them to the hospital. I hope the one fellow won't die. He got a bullet through the left lung."
"Run along, Cardozo," de Gier said. "What's with the Turks, Grijpstra?"
Grijpstra sat down on a bale of cloth and lit a small cigar. "Yes, Turks. Silly fools held up a bank using toy pistols, beautiful toys, indistinguishable from the real thing. The one had a Luger and the other a big army-model Browning, made of plastic. The bank has an alarm and they managed to push the button. A sixteen-year-old girl pushed it while she was smiling at the robbers. The manager was too busy filling his pants. I happened to be at a station close by and got there on foot, as the patrol cars arrived. The fools threatened us with their toys and they got shot, one in the leg, the other in the chest. It was over in two minutes."
"Did you shoot them?" de Gier asked.
"No. I had my gun out but I didn't even have time to load. The constables fired as soon as they arrived."
"They shouldn't have."
"No, but they lost a man some months ago, remember? He stopped a stolen car and got shot dead before he could open his mouth. These were the dead man's friends. They remembered. And the toys looked real enough."
"I thought those toys weren't sold anymore in the shops?"
"The Turks bought them in England," Grijpstra said, and shrugged. "Some happy shopkeeper made a few shillings in London and now we have two bleeding Turks in Amsterdam."
Cardozo came back and offered a plate of sausages. Grijpstra's hand shot out and grabbed the fattest sausage, stuffing it into his mouth in one movement.
"Vrgrmpf," Grijpstra said.
"They are hot," Cardozo said. "I would have told you if you had waited one second."
"Rashf," Grijpstra said.
"Has he come to help us, de Gier?"
"Ask him when he has finished burning his mouth."
Grijpstra was nodding.
"He has come to help us, Cardozo."
"Are you selling this stuff or are you just showing it?" an old woman with a face like a hatchet was asking.
"We are selling it, dearest," de Gier said, and came forward.
"I am not your dearest, and I don't like that lace much. Haven't you got any better?"
"It's handmade in Belgium, lady, handmade by farm women who have done nothing but lace-making since they were four years old. Look at the detail, see here."
De Gier unrolled the bale, holding the material up.
"Nonsense," the old woman said. "Rubbish, that's machine-made. How much is it anyway?"
De Gier was going to tell her the price when the wind caught the underpart of their canvas roof and pushed it straight up. Several bucketloads of ice-cold water shot off the top, and all of it hit the old woman, soaking her, frilly green hat first, black flat-soled clumpy shoes last.
Grijpstra, de Gier and Cardozo froze. They couldn't believe their eyes. What had been an aggressive body of sharp-tongued fury had changed into a sodden lump of wet flesh, and the lump stared at them. The old woman's face had been heavily made up and mascara was now running down each cheek, mixing with powder in reddish black-edged streaks which were getting closer and closer to her thin chiseled lips.
The silence was awkward.
Their neighbor, the vegetable man, had been staring at the woman too.
"Laugh, lady," the vegetable man said. "For God's sake, laugh, or we'll all cry."
The old woman looked up and glared at the vegetable man. "You…"
"Don't say it, lady," Grijpstra said, and jumped close to her, taking her by the shoulders and carrying her with him. "Go home and change. We are sorry about the water but it was the wind. You can blame the wind. Go along, lady, go home." The old woman wanted to free herself and stop, but Grijpstra went on pushing her, patting her shoulder and keeping up his monologue. "There now, dear, go home and have a nice bath. You'll feel fine afterward. Get yourself a big cup of hot tea and a biscuit. You'll be fine. Where do you live, dear?"
The old woman pointed at a side street.
'Til walk you home."
She smiled. Grijpstra was very concerned. She leaned against the big solid man who was taking an interest in her, the first man she had been close to in years, ever since her son had died and she had been left alone in the city where nobody remembered her first name, living off her old age pension and her savings, and wondering when the social workers would catch her and stick her into a home.