Hazards (11 page)

“I’m from Moline, Illinois.”

“Same thing,” he said, kind of pulling me over to a chair and sitting me down. “You look well, Doctor Jones. How has life been treating you?”

“Just fine until about two minutes ago,” I muttered.

He threw back his head and laughed. “Good old Doctor Jones!” he said. “Always Johnny on the spot with a witty remark.”

“I hope you didn’t come here all the way from England just to bamboozle me again,” I said. “Because if you did, I got to tell you on the front end that I ain’t go no money.”

“When did I ever try to relieve you of your money, my good friend?” he asked innocently.

“Tanganyika,” I said. “Morocco. Mozambique. Greece. England.”

“You may have emerged the poorer party, but you were not the innocent one.”

“We ain’t neither of us innocent of much,” I said bitterly, “but every time we hook up I wind up un-innocent and broke and you wind up un-innocent and rich.”

“Then perhaps you’ll let me make it up to you,” said von Horst.

“I don’t want to hear this,” I said.

“There are millions involved.”

I got up. “I’m going out into the street and challenge Conchita’s brothers. I’ll be safer.”

“The Pebbles of God,” he said softly.

I sat back down.

He grinned. “I thought that would interest you.”

“Only because I’m a religious man, and I won’t have you robbing my Silent Partner.”

“Oh?”

“Well, not alone, anyway.”

“What if I told you that I know who stole them?”

“If I’d known you were in the country, I could have given 500-to-1 odds that I knew too.”

“So…are we partners?” said von Horst.

“You already got ’em,” I said suspiciously. “What do you need a partner for?”

“The police are watching my every move,” he explained. “If I try to leave the city, they’ll stop me and search me.”

“No,” I said.

“No, what?” he asked.

“No, I ain’t gonna try to smuggle them out of the city for you,” I said. “I’m a foreigner too. They’ll search me, find the diamonds, and I’ll rot in some Brazilian jail while you go free as a bird.”

He shook his head. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

“I got faith, and to spare,” I shot back. “What I ain’t got is a death wish.”

“Everything has been arranged,” he said. “You will be able to leave the city right under the nose of the police.”

“And they’ll ignore me, huh?” I said sarcastically.

“No, my dear friend,” he replied. “They’ll
applaud
you.”

“What in tarnation are you talking about?” I demanded.

“It is
Carnival
!” he said. “And you are in a costume warehouse!”

“The most valuable diamonds in the country have been stolen, and you think that anyone wearing a costume can dance right out of town?” I said. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

He shook his head. “No, they’ll search you top to bottom,” he said. “But they’ll never find the Pebbles of God.”

“If they’re that well hid,” I said, “why don’t you take ’em out yourself? What do you need
me
for?”

“While you’re taking them to our appointed meeting place, I’m going to be convincing the police that I still have them,” he explained. “I have been hiding since I stole them, but once you’re on your way, I plan to show myself and lead them a merry chase in the opposite direction, which will take most of their attention away from you, and result in at best a cursory examination. Possibly the police will catch me, possibly they won’t—but even if they do, they will eventually have to let me go since I won’t have the diamonds.” He looked sharply at me. “Your fee will be one-third of the take.”

“Seems to me that the guy what’s carrying the diamonds is taking most of the risks,” I said, “and ought to be making most of the money.”

“All right,” he said. “Fifty-fifty.”

“Sixty-thirty,” I said.

He frowned. “That’s only ninety.”

“God gets ten percent. As His spokesman on Earth, I’ll hold it in escrow for Him.”

He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. “Fifty-fifty or it’s no deal.”

“What about God?” I demanded.

“You can split your half with Him any way you want,” he said. “Now, are you in or out?”

“First show me how you think I’m gonna waltz right by the police and then I’ll tell you.”

“Here,” he said, pulling a glittery toga and a pair of gold sandals out of a pocket. “Put these on.”

He began walking off.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“Just get dressed,” he answered, opening a side door I didn’t even know was there. “I’ll be right back.”

I doffed my duds and clambered into the toga, which truth to tell felt a little drafty down at the south end of it, and then strapped on the sandals. I’d just finished when I heard a snort that sure didn’t sound like von Horst. I looked up, and there he was, leading in a smart-looking chestnut horse what was attached to a gold chariot.

I took a deep breath and wrinkled my nose.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Your horse smells of fish,” I told him.

He smiled. “That’s not the horse. It’s part of your costume.” He reached into the chariot and pulled out a trident with a pair of fish on it. “You’re Neptune, King of the Ocean.”

“Couldn’t I lose the fish and be King of the Desert?” I said.

He shook his head. “Look at all the fish designs on your chariot. You’ve got to be Neptune. We don’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to you.”

“I’m a gringo riding a chariot, wearing a skirt, and carrying a bunch of dead fish,” I said. “Don’t you that
that
will draw attention?”

“Not in the middle of Carnival,” he said, pulling a phony beard out of his pocket. “Put this on.”

“No one’s ever seen the King of the Ocean,” I said. “How do you know he wears a beard?”

“Maybe he doesn’t,” agreed von Horst. “I suppose it all depends on whether you want every policeman in town to know exactly what you look like.”

Which is how I wound up wearing a beard.

“You seem awfully well-prepared for this,” I said suspiciously. “Why do I get the feeling that you were waiting for me to come along?”

“Because you have a suspicious nature,” he replied easily. “I was waiting for
someone
to come along that I could trust. It was just serendipity that it was you.”

“Okay,” I said. “I look like an idiot and smell like a fish. What has all this got to do with God’s Testicles?”

“The Pebbles of God,” he corrected me. He reached into the chariot one more time and withdraw a glittering gold crown encrusted with diamonds. “Here they are,” he said triumphantly. “You’ll wear them right out of town under the noses of the police. There must be five thousand crowns in the parade, all covered with cut glass. There will be no reason for anyone to suspect that this is what the entire city is searching for.”

I took the crown from him and studied it. “What do you think they’re worth?” I said.

He shrugged. “Three million, four million, who can say?”

“The fence you’re going to sell them to can say.”

“Why guess?” he said. “You’ll be standing right beside me when we make the deal.”

“Where are we gonna meet?” I asked.

“There’s a tavern named Carlita’s two miles south of the city limits,” he said. “Meet me there two hours after sunset.”

“Carlita’s,” I said. “Got it.”

“And don’t forget to feed and water the horse,” added von Horst. “If he dies on you, they’ll probably arrest you for animal abuse, and if you’re in jail for a few days, even these unimaginative minions of the law will figure out that your crown is more than it appears to be.”

“Right. Feed and water the horse, follow the parade south out of town, and meet you at Carlita’s after dark.”

“Two hours after dark,” he said. “If you are late I will assume you have betrayed my trust, and I will report you to the police and claim ten percent of the Pebbles as my finder’s fee. We will both be a lot wealthier if you simply do as we have planned.”

“I am shocked that you could think such un-Christian thoughts about me, Brother von Horst,” I said. “Just see to it that you get to Carlita’s on schedule. If you’re more than a few minutes late, I’m going to assume that the police have picked you up and I’m on my own.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed.

I climbed into the chariot and grabbed the reins. “Has this nag got a name?” I asked.

“Dobbin,” said von Horst.

“How about that?” I said. “We used to have a horse called Dobbin back on the farm in Moline, Illinois.”

“A family pet?”

“Until my father got drunk and mistook him for a moose, or maybe a tax collector.”

I clucked to Dobbin, and he trotted out of the building, and a minute later we were in the thick of things, surrounded by dancers and singers and drummers and a lot of ladies what was dressed for extremely warm weather. I stayed with them for almost a mile, until I was sure von Horst wasn’t following me, and then I turned Dobbin into a side street, pulled him to a stop, and clambered out of the chariot.

If there was one thing I knew, it was that Erich von Horst didn’t have an honest bone in his body. This was the guy who salted the Elephant’s Graveyard in Tanganyika, stole the Crown jewels in London, and otherwise flim-flammed his way around the world, usually taking unfair advantage of innocent trusting souls like myself. But I was onto him this time. I knew if he told me the diamonds were in the crown, that was the one place they weren’t. They looked like cut glass because they were cut glass.

Still, he wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if he had the diamonds on his person, so they had to be here somewhere. I knelt down and pulled the hubcaps off each wheel, but there wasn’t nothing to be found. I went over the chariot with a fine-toothed comb, but I couldn’t find no diamonds. Then I thunk of checking Dobbin. I went over every inch of his bridle and harness, checked his teeth for shiny fillings, even pried off his shoes in case von Horst had hid the diamonds there, but I kept coming up empty.

I’d wasted an hour and still hadn’t found the diamonds. The sun was getting a little higher in the sky, the day was warming up, and the smell of the fish was making me sick. I figured as long as Neptune had a trident he didn’t need no fish on it, and I was about to pull ’em off and toss ’em to a couple of stray cats that had moseyed over to admire ’em close up…

…and then it hit me. What was the one place von Horst was sure I wouldn’t look for the diamonds? Inside the fish, which were getting so high and off-putting that he figgered I wouldn’t want to have nothing to do with them, but I was just a little too smart for him.

I pulled one of the fish off the trident. The cats started meowing up a storm, figgering I was about to toss it to them, but instead I manipulated the trident and cut the fish’s belly open with one of the tines, and sure enough, out fell half a dozen perfect blue-white diamonds. I tossed the empty fish to the cats, cut open the other one, picked up another six diamonds, and gave what was left over to the cats.

I knew I couldn’t bring the diamonds out of town with me, because von Horst would be waiting at Carlita’s. I looked around and realized I was standing next to a lamppost. I moved Dobbin right up against to it, climbed up onto his back, removed the top of the lamp, and put the diamonds there, where they couldn’t be seen from the street. The guys who lit the lamps at night did it with these long-handled candles, so none of them ever climbed up there or got a close look, and I knew the diamonds would be safe until I got the opportunity to come back and collect them.

I got back down on the ground, hopped into the chariot, and turned Dobbin back in the direction of the parade. When we passed a fish market a little farther down the street, I stopped, bought a pair of fish that smelled almost as bad as the two I’d left behind, and stuck ’em on the trident.

Then it was just a matter of joining the revelers, who never seemed to run out of energy, as they danced their way through the streets of Rio. I even saw a couple of Conchita’s brothers, but of course they never thought to look at Neptune, so we didn’t have no unpleasant or deadly encounters. In midafternoon I struck up a conversation with a mildly naked young lady what was dressed as a harlequin from the neck up and the ankles down. I invited her to join me in my chariot so’s we could get to know each other a little better, and for a minute there I thunk she was going to oblige, but then she wrinkled her nose and said that she was happy to share the chariot and other things with me, but not with the fish. It was a tough decision, but I couldn’t be sure I’d pass another fishmonger before we left the city, so I reluctantly bid her farewell. I never saw a gorgeous underdressed lady look so surprised in all my born days, and I’ve had some pretty surprising encounters with a passel of ’em.

In late afternoon I let Dobbin graze on a pair of fruit stands what’s owners were off dancing. Pretty soon it started getting dark, and I realized that first, I was about three miles from Carlita’s, and second, I was getting powerful sick of samba music, so I turned Dobbin south onto the exit road. I let him stop and munch on some grass and flowers and the like, and we pulled up to Carlita’s almost exactly two hours after sunset. I didn’t want von Horst examining the fish too closely while I was still around, so I laid ’em down on the floor of the chariot, hopped out, tied Dobbin to a hitching post, and walked into the tavern.

There was so much cigar smoke that I almost didn’t see the sultry girl doing kind of a slow dance in the corner. She was barefoot, she had a cigarette dangling from her mouth, and she was kind of doing a solo rhumba in slow motion. The bartender was maybe 400 pounds and drenched in sweat, but just the same he never rolled up his sleeves, unbuttoned his shirt, or loosened his bowtie. There were half a dozen tables, most of ’em filled by people who looked like they either didn’t know it was carnival week or didn’t much care.

I sat down at an empty table. A couple of friendly young ladies wandered over from the bar, but before they could reach me von Horst entered the place, carrying a brown paper bag, and walked right over to me, waving them away kind of disdainful-like.