The Third Man

Today as I turned on my mobile I had an interesting voicemail from Reinout.

“Hey Love, with me. It’s reeaaally amazing…so I’m driving to the bank and I need to find a gas station. So I drive to the gas station, but guess what it wasn’t there but there was something else… a police control. So they take me. And ask me to do an alcohol test. Which I do. Then they look in the back of my car, where I all my wine and whiskey bottles are (about 20). So I say this is what I drunk last night. They look at me suspiciously but let me go.

So I go to the RAI as I still need to find that gas station. And guess what – caboom, another police station. So I say I just got stopped by your colleagues. They reply, “Do you have any outstanding warrants, fines?” I said “fines could be, warrants could be but if it’s not in the the system then hey”. So I had to do the alcohol test again and of course open my trunk…”

The line breaks off. End of messages. This is very typical of Reinout. For some reason the police always pick on him. Perhaps not so strange, given his semi-suspicious looks (this is a compliment though…continue to read).

Less than 20 minutes later I hear him coming upstairs. He is amused. He’s waiving an article from FEM. It’s a a feature article about his previous company. Looks good I say and turn the page.  I see a familiar picture….Reinout, titled “The Third Man”.
For those of you that are not equally obsessed with film noir as I am, “The Third Man” by Graham Greene (a favourite author of mine….read Brighton Rock and you will know why) is the classic film with Orson Welles playing Harry Lime in post-war Vienna.  I am not sure if it was a lucky strike by the journalist or in fact he did do his homework, because as someone who (marginally) knows Reinout, I must say the Third Man is a striking epithet.

The Third Man, in four incarnations