Free All Cry Chaos by Leonard Rosen Page A

fragment of a hunch that might take months to formulate and months more to prove. Quito was pointing to a chandelier. "Built in the early 1700s, I should think. The timing's about right. You've heard of the Dutch East India Company, I assume?"
        "Traders," said De Vries. Poincaré could see her fascination with the man, even with his transparent effort to end the interview. She played along. "The architects of Amsterdam's Golden Age," she said. "Dutch children can't finish grade school without learning all about it."
        "Architects would be one description," said Quito. "There are others. Have you any idea of what made all this possible?" He opened his arms to the room. "This ridiculous place and all the Rembrandts and Vermeers and those paintings of plump Dutch burghers in the Rijksmuseum? Dutch wealth and Dutch tolerance were built on the backs of slaves in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, from Curaçao to Madagascar. This ballroom exists because of a carefully planned program of state-sponsored rape. The Spanish, the Dutch, British, French, Belgians, Germans, and Americans: one after the other, they unbuckled their pants and robbed the Indigene of everything sweet and worthy. You summon me here, Inspector, and I see suffering. I hear whip cracks and screams. James saw numbers."
        Poincaré had found his fragment, sooner than he expected. "And this is why your collaboration failed," he said.
        Quito studied him, the gay mask gone: "The Indigene is done asking nicely. What is it that you people want ? An advertisement in Angkor Wat for iPods? The times are too subtle for rape, but nothing else has changed in 500 years. Now you pay us two dollars a day to build your cell phones and televisions. I'm done here. This room disgusts me." He reached for his backpack.
        "Please, another moment," said Poincaré. "Did you and Dr. Fenster discuss your political views?"
        "Why? Our paper was to be an analysis of R omeo and Juliet."
        "You mean to say that your philosophical differences never—"
        Quito looked to the corners of the room; when he turned back to Poincaré, he had mastered his emotions: "The Indigene will be equal partners now, with our own cultures, or we will make your lives miserable until we are. Don't misunderstand," he added pleasantly. "I hold dear the Western love of learning, your willingness to question, to challenge received wisdom. But I really have taken too much of your time. James and I worked together, then we didn't. Our schedules overlapped in Amsterdam, true. He was killed. But unless the rules of logic and evidence have totally abandoned me, you cannot connect one to the other. It's been a pleasure just the same." Quito stood to leave.
        The phone rang. De Vries crossed the room to answer and then motioned Poincaré to his desk. He excused himself to take the call and asked Quito to stay one last moment. There were no private offices in the ballroom, just four desks and a conference table spread across the huge expanse. The only privacy one could hope for was a turned back.
        "Please hold for the director of the Scheveningen prison," a voice said. Odd, Poincaré thought. He believed he had seen the last of that place with his visit to Banović. Possibly he might be called back to The Hague for the trial, but that would not be for months.
        "Inspector Poincaré?"
        By reputation, Roman Skiversky was a humorless administrator for whom a good day meant the prison cages remained locked and no inmate enjoyed himself too thoroughly.
        "I'll be direct," Skiversky said. "Intelligence we cannot acknowledge suggests that prisoner Stipo Banović, whom you visited last Thursday morning and placed in our custody this past January, has put the lives of your family at risk. It's a serious matter, Inspector. Our people just translated a conversation surreptitiously recorded between the prisoner and his so-called attorney, and