BigBug
Chapter IX

Moon went crazy when he found out the rock, his priceless beloved Albatross, the Amsterdam meteorite, had been stolen by Fat Don. Among other extreme measures Moon rang up two ex-comrades of his in Marseilles and arranged to have Fat Don and Suzy Pong put on the Foreign Legion death list. There was only one way to be taken off the Legion death list – a death certificate had to be produced signed by a registered French undertaker and countersigned by a Foreign Legion officer not lower than the rank of Captain. This is what Seamus had to listen to when he owned the pub. The night before Seamus had to physically restrain Moon from going out looking for Fat Don with his treasured Gulf War souvenir a gold plated ex Iraqi Presidential Guard AK 47. Moon said gunfire spoke louder than threats. That’s an old Legion proverb translated directly by Moon himself. Seamus restrained Moon in the old fashioned IRA way by giving him a few large whiskeys and when he became so drunk he could no longer speak or stand up Seamus managed to carry him back to the apartment and throw him onto his bed. So there lay our hero- genius the next morning after the pub quiz. Lying on his pit of sorrows snoring, muttering and grumbling, issuing dire threats in his sleep – and all in Corsica regional French.

“Good morning, Moon.”

No response.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Moon.”

“What’s fucking good about it?” Moon rolled onto his back. His eyes sprang wide open.

“Coffee? Croissants mon ami?”

Moon jumped out of the bed. He was fully clothed and ready for action. “Where’s my AK? Where are the aspirins? I am going to kill that fat bastard. I swear it. I know where he lives. Where is my AK?”

“The AK is back in the EWAB armoury. Sit down and drink your coffee.”

Moon sat at the table and his countenance changed from a picture of dejection, a depleted war zone, to a stubbly landscape filled with joy. A look of pure wonder came over his unshaven, unwashed, ugly, angry, wicked countenance. Happiness oozed out of him replacing his toxic bad egg odour sweat with a fragrant scent.

“The Albatross. It’s here! It’s there! You got it. We have her back.” He lifted up the meteorite from the table and kissed it, many times. He looked at Seamus as if he was his personal saviour and then he glared at him suspiciously. “Where was it?”

“I took it.”

“You took it?” Seamus nodded. “You had it all the time. You’re a sick motherfucker. Why did you let me go through all that? I could have killed someone. I was going to shoot an innocent man. I was going to shoot Fat Don. You rotten wanker. I am supposed to be your buddy.”

“Fat Don is not an innocent man Moon. You do notice that your grenade pouch is missing? Fat Don stole what he believed to be the meteorite but he actually stole a large piece of slag which I rather deftly substituted for the rock when you were all outside smoking class A pipes with your new found buddy.”

“But he was outside with me. He couldn’t have done it. He gave me a pipe of pure opium. Very nice too.”

“I know that and when you were outside that skinny girlfriend of his, Suzzi what’s her name, runs the whorehouse for rich men on the Overtoom. She was in the bar and took off with the grenade pouch.”

“Suzzi – Suzzi Pong I never saw her.”

“She was in disguise.”

“How did you recognise her then?”

“Her nose Moon. I recognised her even though she was in disguise. The nose gives her away. There is only one woman has a nose like that in Amsterdam. A beautiful woman with a rotten nose like that. It must be the prodigious quantities of coke she sniffs.”

“That’s right,” Moon began to chuckle, “the EWAB codenamed her the Hoover and that’s not J. Edward.” He was in a good mood. “I prefer to call her the sawn off. She has two nostrils like a twelve bore shotgun.”

“Just as well I stayed sober wasn’t it?”

“I won the pub quiz, didn’t I?”

“Ah! You remember. I must say your memory is even better than your hearing.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you and Fat Don were outside you missed eight questions but no problem to you Moon – you just came in and filled in the answers regardless and all correct of course.”

“I have great hearing, that’s why I was always picked for the night fighting patrols. It’s not what you can see at night in the desert. It’s what you can hear and smell.” He tapped his nose and began to eat a chocolate croissant.

“The Genii Quartet were already suspicious. You made it as obvious as hell someone had given you the answers.”

“Fuck the GQ. I won. I beat the assholes and there is one fundamental thing we in the EWAB know about assholes - it doesn’t matter what age what sex what colour be an asshole but you can be certain of one thing. It is always full of shit and the GQ are prize assholes. Gigantic Dutch dung droppings. They would win the Assholes of the Universe Competition bottoms down. The cheeks of them looking down their noses at me. They stopped us smoking weed in the pub and then they insulted the Legion and got me barred for complaining, and that bastard wheel clamper has the district immobilised. I have won. I beat them all. Who’s the idiot now? All is fair in subterfuge and deception Seamus and good camouflage is everything. Everything. Everything.”

“It was hilarious Moon. It was a night that will be talked about for a long time. You were great.”

“Was I?”

“Yes. Pity you were not really there.”

“I won.”

“We won. It was my plan but you got off your head and almost lost the rock.”

Moon went silent and was pretending to be humble and contrite but he was faking it again. An old Legion survival technique to use if one was captured by the nasty diabolical beheaders or couldn’t pay the bar bill.

“You should never take a pipe from Fat Don of all people. He smokes or sniffs almost pure whatever it is he is doing and you shouldn’t even be smoking weed never mind opium. Remember what the doctor told you? The type of epilepsy you have can kill you.”

“We are all entitled to die. It is the only right they cannot take away from us.”

“You have a duty to look after yourself. There are people who care about you and some even love you. Your mother. You have no right to – “

”Please boss! Don’t start about me ma. I am sorry. Don’t be giving me a lecture. My head is sore.”

“I’ll bust your head Moon with a baseball bat.”

Seamus began to shout at Moon. “You almost lost the rock. Are you fucking crazy? Ok it might be worthless but it might, it just might, be worth millions and you take it over to the pub to let one of the biggest villains in Europe take a look at it? Fat Don is a magpie, a master magpie; he collects things, other people’s things. Have you been in their house? I don’t know how they get away with it. They must have some sort of protection. Their house is just like Aladdin’s cave stuffed full of paintings, ancient statues, gold, antiques and jewellery, other people’s antiques and jewellery.” Seamus grabbed Moon by the T-shirt and screwed it up tight, “The rock stays here, hidden away until I organise a safety deposit box for it. Do not take the rock out for walkies. It’s a rock not a pet. And if anyone asks it’s worthless. We no longer have it. It was stolen out the pub. You are not worried because it wasn’t worth a penny. Nothing. It’s worthless. Agreed?”

Bigbug was listening to all of this. It was not pleased. It had berated Fat Don and Suzzi Pong for stealing a lump of worthless slag and withheld his and Suzzi Pong’s rewards. Bigbug had agreed that in return for Fat Dons cooperation it would remove Big Dons excess fat forever and kit him out with an indestructible liver. Fat Don would be able to eat and drink, smoke and toke, shoot and toot all the food drink and drugs as he wanted and pass out eco-friendly by-products. He would never fail a drugs or alcohol test. Fat Don would also stay thin and play football in the Manchester youth squad. Bigbug was to remove Suzzi Pong’s affliction of a nose, enable her to dance for the Bolshoi ballet and fashion her into the most beautiful woman on the planet. Nothing was too good for Bigbug’s assets.

“They done a switch on me,” moaned Fat Don, “the crooked cunts.”

Bigbug increased Fat Don’s weight and added twenty five spurting septic warts to Suzzi Pongs nose.

The Bigbug noted this Seamus human had an odd frame of mind, a deviant energy that emanated from, and was enhanced by, the other strange creature Mr Moon. Mr Moon then consumed the energy that fuelled the Mind Theatre and converted it into a power mighty odd. All subconsciously. Moon was unaware, ignorant of this melding, but their energies coalesced and formed something new and unique. It was easy to walk into the Mind Theatre, almost by nostalgic invitation, but Bigbug could not read Seamus’s mind. It was confined to the Mind Theatre. Data and Bigbug needed to pinpoint the power that created The Mind Theatre performances. It could not, in any way at all, penetrate Mr Moons mind. Hence the use of Bigbug’s human agents Fat Don and Suzzi Pong. Bigbug and DATA needed to question Moon. Where is the DATA rock now? Where did he replace the rock? Are there more? Bigbug would normally enter a human mind, send a tendril in there, and replace out all it wanted to know but not so with Mr Seamus and Mr Moon. There was a great impenetrable firewall there. How was this created? Bigbug didn’t know but it was most mighty odd and very, very, interesting. It was a unique scientific anomaly it and DATA needed to unravel.

Seamus was drilling Moon. “Do you understand? How much is the rock worth?”

“Nothing.”

“Is it a meteorite?”

“We don’t know. It has to be examined. It is probably a piece of iron slag from Ijmuiden. It is worthless. Whatever you say chef. I am sorry.” The lying insincere, scheming, two faced, Francophile plonker.

Seamus released Moon. This was the only time to get through to him. When he was hung over - shout in his face.

“A safety deposit box,” mused Moon, petting the rock and pleased as punch, “you must have heard something good?

“Are you listening to me?”

“Ok, ok. I hear you. Stop shouting at me.” He talked to the rock. “So, you are going to live in the bank, sunshine.” He looked up at Seamus smiling with his impish grin. “She may be worthless to the world but she is worth the world to me.”

“Moon!”

“Alright I’ve got it boss. The rock was stolen and doesn’t matter anyway because it’s not worth anything. It’s slag. I’ve got it. Stolen and worthless.”

“Good,” Seamus handed Moon a mobile,” ring Marseilles.”

“Marseilles?”

“Yes and have Fat Don taken off the Legion death list. I don’t want those croaking Frog psychopath, the government registered Assassin's friends of yours, up here skulking about the place, sharpening commando daggers in the kitchen, and drinking the bar dry. For God’s sake Moon call them off. They said they didn’t need to be paid because they liked killing people and I haven’t been paid all my money yet since the last time they were here.”

“Yes, boss.” Moon made the call. He handed Seamus back the phone. The phone rang. Seamus looked at the number.

“It’s Marjolein.” Seamus listened to Marjolein. “Are you sure?”

Moon could hear the torrent of abuse coming out of the phone. “Yes. I am coming over. I said I am coming over right now.” Moon was looking at Seamus. “Someone threw your grenade pouch with a large piece of slag in it through the front window of Finnegan’s. It would seem Fat Don is not amused and neither is Marjolein.”

Moon thought this was all very funny.

“That will teach him, the cheek of him, thinking he is smarter than us. Thinking he can outwit the Legion. The douche bag is an idiot -”

“Shut up and don’t be talking to me about idiots. He’s dangerous and he is anything but stupid. Neither is that thing he is married to. She got a first class degree in psychology when she was banged up in Berlin with the Bader Mein Hoff gang as cellmates. I better get over there and sort it out. In the meanwhile, stay here and guard the rock. Don’t answer the door to anyone until I get back. We now have a problem with Fat Don and Suzzi Pong. That’s not good Moon. Not good at all.”

Seamus went outside the apartment and scanned the Marnixstraat. All seemed ok but then he saw, he recognised the odour of, across the road in the skateboard park, the wondrous Suzzi Pong. She was sitting on a bench in the children’s play area. She was dressed as a Muslim woman and she had a pram with her. Must be her pram there was no one else there. The pram speculated Seamus was probably full of kilos of something that begins with Category A. Seamus pretended he didn’t see Suzzi Pong. They called her Suzzi Pong because she loved very expensive perfume and used it to excess. It was rumoured she washed her feet with pure Chanel. Excessive compulsives. Take it to the limit. Like everything else in her and Fat Don’s life. One more line, one more time. Seamus circled around Suzzi Pong and crept up behind her in the old fashioned Irish way but minus his shillelagh. It was ten thirty in the morning, rain turning to slush, and a freezing wind threatening snow and ice was gusting in along the canals from the North.

“Nice day to be snooping on your neighbours Suzzi. What the hell is going on?” Seamus could see Suzzi Pong’s nose was not as it was the night before. It was acting up. It did this unexpectedly and no one knew what brought it on. When it did Suzzi stayed at home in her mansion, in a darkened room, fuming in desolation, until the erupting warts subsided. It must be something very important to bring her out when she was in this condition. She had her nose covered up with her burka but it was stuck to her face with the green puss that was still seeping through. Her nose was weird. It did not fit her lovely face. It seemed someone or something had deliberately disfigured this very beautiful woman by sticking a huge broad, twisted and flattened, peppercorny-warts, seeping squirting puss, witchy nose onto her face. It had to be some type of extraordinary medical condition. Seamus was sure this nose went a long way to explain Suzzi Pong's hatred of other people and her bizarre criminal behaviour. Seamus sat down beside Suzzi on the bench and made a conscious effort to ignore her horrible disfiguration. If she was startled she didn’t show it. Seamus was amazed. There was a baby in the pram. A beautiful little black boy, or girl.

“Don is not happy,” she started aggressively, “and what do you think you are at inviting him to examine a stone and then fobbing him off with a different piece of shit? Don had a consultation first thing this morning with a meteorite dealer. Flying in from Morocco and you gave him a piece of slag. Don is not happy and neither am I.” She spoke English with a refined German accent.

“You stole the stone, Suzzi. I saw you take it out of the pub.”

Suzzi became indignant. “How dare you. I am no thief.”

What an enormous fucking liar. Seamus sucked in a big gulp of cold air and stepped back in case God zapped her and turned her into a pillar of shitstone. Even atheists can err on the side of caution. He willed himself to remain calm.

“I had permission to take that rock for examination from Moon. Look it’s still not too late. Give me the stone and I’ll take it to the meteorite dealer and get you a fair evaluation, and then, if you like, we can talk business. If it is what it is Don wants to buy it.”

“It’s probably a piece of slag from the iron foundry at Ijmuiden. That’s what the man at the observatory in Dordrecht said and he knows more about stones than a volcano. It’s probably worthless. “

“Our information is that it could be a Lunar or a Martian meteorite. That’s what Moon is saying and he wants to sell it. He offered Don first refusal and Don has accepted. They shook hands on it. Don’s says you can have a decent deposit as he knows you. A kilo of coke, very nice, Peruvian flake, 94% pure, or five kilos of MDMA crystal.100% pure. Made it ourselves. When we have the rock examined and if it is interesting enough you can pick up the deposit on delivery and, of course, Don would like the option to buy it.”

How kind of you and with whose money? Although, of course, Seamus did not say that being a tactful refined cynic with a highly developed sense of survival.

“The rock is not for sale.”

“The quicker you get rid of it the better for you both.”

“Is that a threat? If it is set up a meeting and I will discuss it with Don face to face.”

“We don’t threaten people, Seamus. We just do a Tommy Cooper on them.”

“Tommy Cooper?”

“Now you see him now you don’t,” explained Suzzi of the Grateful Disappeared. “You need to know what you are dealing with Seamus. If the government replace out, you have a Martian or a Lunar meteorite they will absolutely confiscate it. The Chinese the Indians are all sending probes to Mars and the Moon. NASA has invested huge amounts of money in their latest Curiosity exploration research vehicles that are, as we speak now, trundling about on the surface of Mars. A five-kilo chunk of the Mars or the Moon is a matter of national interest to all of the governments engaged in space exploration. You are going to have all sorts of their spooky creeps in your case. Don’s advice and I agree with him is - get rid of it now. Take the deposit. You do still have it?” She sounded desperate.

“Yes I do and no the rock is not for sale.” Seamus was worried. Suzzi Pong had done her homework and offering such a tempting deposit? “And I don’t want any conflict of interests here, Suzzi. This is my rock, not Moon’s, and no one has any claims on it. No one.”

Bigbug disagreed with this claim.

“It’s not us you have to worry about. It’s them.” Suzzi Pong pointed up the Marnixstraat and handed Seamus a small high powered viewing device with which she had obviously been watching Seamus’s apartment. “That Post Office van.”

It was a long way up the street not really visible from the apartment.

“It was here when I arrived. It hasn’t moved.” Seamus looked through the lens. Perfect focus. The spooks were likely using the same equipment. He had a clear close-up view of the two cheese heads in the front of the VW van. Security service has written all over them. “They will have an electronic surveillance unit in the back listening into your phones and your house until they establish something more permanent like cameras on your house and car and a dedicated probe inside.” One of Suzzi Pong’s interests was a share in a very successful private detective agency working mainly in divorce. She was very adept at resolving emotional blackmail cases to her advantage.

“Wonderful! I am getting my true recognition at last, but Suzzi, what’s this business chucking rocks through the window of Finnegan’s?” He handed Suzzi back her optic. Seamus was being flippant but he was rattled. She knew something he didn’t. What had Moon said to arouse such serious interest? Why were the Dutch secret security services involved? More to the point – who involved them? What rotten rat was feeding them information?

“You know what Don’s like. He doesn’t like to be mucked about. He is just returning what he don’t want. We are honest people.” Seamus stared at Suzzi Pong in disbelief. She was very beautiful with a stunning figure but this huge deformed nose moulded onto this picture of beauty did not belong there. Was it a chronic case of cokeynosey? It was disturbing and unsettling.“ We are, at the end of the day, very honest people.” What an enormous bare faced big nosed fucking liar. She and Fat Don were completely crooked at any time of the day. It was most unlikely they could even sleep straight. Seamus took another step back and looked up at the heavens. Even the baby began to cry in protest. “You broke your word. You gave the meteorite to Don and now you have taken it, stolen it, back.”

It was no use arguing with her. It was no use pointing out that she had tried to steal the rock. She and Fat Don had their own set of values and beliefs that summed up might me ‘what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own.’

“The rock is not for sale, Suzzi.”

“Is that your last word?”

“No. Where did you steal the baby?”

“Possession is nine tenths of the law.” She tickled the baby. “I borrowed it from someone owes me.” She smiled and became enthusiastic. “It’s a prop but it’s lovely” She smiled at the child. “They are great for getting in and out of places, collecting this and delivering that. Give them a bottle and a fluffy toy you can do anything with them. I might adopt it. The Old Bill love them. Don will be in touch about the broken contract. You need to negotiate. Watch your back, Seamus.” She pointed up the street at the surveillance van. “Those creeps are very dangerous. They are a law unto themselves. They can do whatever they want. You can’t.” She walked off in a miff wheeling the borrowed baby. The baby began to scream and cry.

“Shut up you little cunt.”

Bigbug hovering above the skateboard park watching and listening intently into the conversation was relieved to hear the Seamus human still had the meteorite. It was still upset that it’s human assets, Fat Don and Suzzi Pong, were unable to retrieve the rock from Finnegan's pub the night before. A failure for which they would pay in anguish and pain. Bigbug watched Seamus sit on the bench. He was deep in thought and Bigbug did not know what he was thinking. This was intolerable. Bigbug with all its formidable intellect and resources did not know what a human was thinking. A formidable fucking firewall, an FFF. DATA was not pleased. Bigbug watched Suzzi Pong make her way back home. Suzzi Pong and Fat Don lived in a renovated eighteenth century Amsterdam mansion, set in its own grounds, secluded away behind discreet security fencing, situated between the Overtoom and Vondel Park. Bigbug was sitting in the front living room of the mansion waiting for Suzzi Pong to come back. Fat Don was rolling around the floor. His pain was so great he was unable to scream or beg for mercy. Bigbug had increased Fat Don’s weight by fifty kilos and inflicted super gout on all his joints. Every joint was a huge roll, a tormenting tyre, of swollen pain. Bigbug sat on the Louie 14 chaise lounge and sipped bugjuice. It was dressed in the uniform of a captain in the US cavalry from the 19th century. It spoke calmly. It was the Duke.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn ya, mister. When ya took this post you took on your duties, duties which you have to carry out as best a man can. What did ya do, Mister Don? Ya decided to go and hold up a jewellery store, at Christmas, when you were full of liquor. And it ain’t as if you needed the money. No, sir.” Bigbug looked around it for emphasis at the furnishings, the paintings, the tasteful arty artefacts in the opulent room as Fat Don writhed in agony trying to say something.

“You got something to say, mister?” Bigbug relented and let Fat Don speak.

“I couldn’t resist it, I am strung out on watches, high-end quality watches,” he screamed and began whining “I am sorry.”

Bigbug silenced him by turning up the pain amplifier. Fat Don writhed silently in his contortions. “Dereliction of duty cannot be excused by an apology, mister. I had you released from prison early to come and carry out this mission and what did you do?” Fat Don tried to answer but Bigbug would not let him. It continued the torture. “You failed. You recovered a lump of common iron slag and left billions of my comrades in the hands of the barbarians. Failure will not be tolerated in this bug’s army, mister.” Bigbug listened. The door opened and Suzzi Pong entered the room wheeling the baby in the pram. She threw herself prostrate on the floor in front of Bigbug. The baby was screaming.

“Master he would not accept the deal.”

“I already know that, mam. The thing is if you had carried out your orders, both of you, we would not be in this situation. The mission would have been a success. You would have been decorated and rewarded. And now what the hell do I tell the president?”

Suzzi Pong tore off her burka exposing the horrible mutilation and began to scream hysterically. “I cannot work like this. He cannot work like that.” Her huge nose was studded completely with black green warts. “I will do anything you want but please, I beg you, master, take them away.” She started to sob her cries drowning out that of the baby in the pram.

Bigbug then began to speak in the voice of your average political domineering control freak. “You have been endowed, with a control programme, the Emperors Affliction, both of you, and when you fail the penalty is to increase the affliction. In your case, you were sentenced to fifty extra warts. Strictly speaking, they are not warts but large genetically modified peppercorns that weep, and on occasions, spurt puss.” Bigbug pointed its finger at Suzzi Pong’s nose. The one hundred or more warts there spurted out lines of bad yellow puss with such force they hit the antique gilt mirror.

Suzzi Pong smashed the mirror with a small bronze. “Let me kill myself,” asked Suzzi Pong in a soft voice, “she sat on the floor saturated with puss, “I beg you. I cannot bear to live as this. Let me kill myself.”

“Pain-free oblivion? Not in the contract,” replied Bigbug. It had its wasp ringed cock out now and was feeding, sucking bugjuice out from the slit on top of the knob with its long toot tube, and trembling. A sadistic jelly creature. It was satisfied with the pain and terror it was inflicting on the humans. Fat Don looked as if he were going to explode. “Ok,” decided Bigbug, “I do believe I have your attention.” It stood up and squirted a few drops of bugjuice onto Fat Don and Suzzi Pong.

“Rub it well in,” advised Bigbug. Suzzi Pong's penalty warts disappeared and Fat Don shrank to a manageable one hundred and thirty workable kilos and no super gout. Bigbug put its feeding organ away and stood up. “You have everything you need here. You both have more money than a human can spend in ten lifetimes. You are protected by the authorities. You lead a charmed life,” it shouted at Fat Don, “except when you do something completely silly, spontaneous or otherwise.” It calmed down. “You have a chance, a one, and only chance, to redeem yourselves. Obey my instructions to the letter. I will keep my part of the contract. If you do not I will cover your entire body with warts and you,” it pointed at the terrified Fat Don, “will be king of The Painfilled Freaks. The advanced behavioural training you have received today will seem like kindergarten.” It spoke in the voice of an American marine sergeant, “Gentlemen, I shit you not.” It went over to the pram and pulled the exhausted baby out, dangling it by the leg.

“You promised me I could keep the baby,” gasped the relieved Suzzi Pong.

“I am taking it into care.”

“What are you going to do with the baby?” Suzzi Pong was horrified.

Bigbug sniffed the baby. “It is a girl child. It will be a treat for one of the troops. Blood break, snack.” The dangling baby began to scream again. Bigbug whacked the baby’s head off the wall. “Be quiet, you will make a fine marine.” It turned its gaze onto the traumatized couple and spoke in a cheerful encouraging voice. “Pay attention children. Let’s reapply ourselves. Let’s reboot. Rescue the rock and all will be as it ever was.” It paused listening to someone or something. “I must away now. Remember earthlings I can read your thoughts before you can even think about them. You will receive your orders by telepathic programme as per usual. Do not fuck up.” It walked to the door dragging the unconscious baby behind it.

“Please master,” begged Suzzi Pong. She was a human and a woman. “Leave the child with me.”

“You are an unfit mother.”

Seamus waited a couple of minutes and walked over to Finnegan’s. The glazier was already at work replacing the window. The big lump of slag and Moon’s grenade pouch was sitting on the bar. Marjolein came in from the kitchen at the back of the pub. She did not look pleased. Before she could start dispensing grief and abuse, and no coffee, Inspector Dick Inkhuizen the local community police sergeant walked into the bar and behind him also walked in three muscular gentlemen wearing gray suits. Suits and ties. Dutch Security service personnel who had left their clogs at home. The two younger ones Seamus recognised from the Post Office van.

“Good morning, Seamus,” says Dick Inkhuizen. Seamus knew him well from pub and neighbourhood business.

“Good morning Dick. What can I do for you?”

He addressed Seamus and Marjolein. “I am investigating reports of an attack on the pub here. What has happened?”

“I don’t know,” said Marjolein. “I arrived this morning to prepare for opening up and found the window smashed by this.” She pointed at the piece of slag up on the bar. “I rang the police and the insurance company.”

“Why would anyone do this? Do you have an idea as to who it might be?” Inkhuizen feigned interest and surprise.

Marjolein looked at Seamus and shrugged. “No idea.”

“And you Mister Mulgreavey?”

Seamus also shrugged and said,” No idea.” If you are going to lie mimic someone who is telling the truth.

“Then you don’t mind if we take this rock away for examination,” said the elder of the suits. It wasn’t a question.

“Examination?” says Seamus pretending to be a policeman’s dream person, gullible, trusting, ignorant of the law and destined for destitution and jail.

“Yes. We need to examine it for fingerprints.” The elder suit put on a pair of white gloves put the slag into an evidence bag and then he put the evidence bag into a large leather briefcase. The other two suits said nothing. They looked to be minders of the elder suit.

“You will bring it back?” Seamus asked.

“Of course,” shrugged Officer Dick Inkhuizen. “This is just for police routine analysis.”

“What do you know about this rock?” asked the elder suit.

“It was just sitting there on the bar as a kind of ornament I suppose. Looks like some idiot took it out the bar and then came back and chucked it through the window. Might be someone who lost a lot of money on the gambling machines.”

“It’s your rock then?”

“Yes and if you don’t mind I would like the grenade bag back and a receipt.”

There was a bit of a silence. The elder suit nodded. He handed over Moon’s cherished legion army bag.

“But of course,” said officer Inkhuizen smoothly, “it has to be logged as evidence. And neither of you know why anyone would do this?”

“No, not at all,” says Marjolein.

“No, not at all,” says Seamus. Who art he to disagree?

“Ok then I will make an appointment for you,” he was speaking to Marjolein, “and you can come down to the Leidseplein Police station and make a statement. I will have a receipt for you then. Within 48 hrs. Is that ok?”

Marjolein nodded but she was giving Seamus the evil eye.

“Ok,” says Inkhuizen, “then we are done here.” They all left with the elder spook suit clutching his heavy briefcase to his chest.

“What the hell is going on here,” Marjolein shouted at Seamus.

“I wish the hell I knew,” Seamus shouted back, and although he was lying about some things, on the whole, he was being truthful and sincere.