Hazards (17 page)

Clyde’s trackers got busy reading all the signs, and they reported back that a jaguar with an irritable demeanor and a big appetite had paid the village a visit and dined on a couple of its prominent citizens, and the rest had just hightailed it, emeralds and all, to parts unknown.

“If that don’t beat all,” said Clyde. “Here I kill three hundred jaguars, and I overlook the only one that counts.”

He announced that he was cutting his losses and going on his next assignment, which had something to do with koala bears. As for me, a noble king without no noble country, I figgered that if emeralds were growing on trees (or wherever emeralds grew) in Columbia, well, the sinners in Columbia were probably as much in need of saving and spiritual uplifting as any others, and besides green was always one of my six or seven favorite colors, so I headed north to make my fortune and build my tabernacle.

But that’s a whole other story, and writing can be mighty thirsty work.

Connoisseurs

Some people are connoisseurs of art. Some are connoisseurs of fine wines. More than a few are connoisseurs of exotic women.

Me, I seem to have inadvertently become a connoisseur of jails.

The best grub is in the Cape Town hoosegow. The friendliest jailer was in the Hong Kong lock-up, though there’s a lot to be said for the guards at the Sylvania calaboose. The most comfortable bunk was probably in the jail at San Palmero. The hottest and stuffiest is the Nairobi jail, though the one in Beria, over in Mozambique, runs it a close second. Probably the friendliest crowd to share a cell with was back in Moline, Illinois, though you find the best card games in the Cairo jail and there ain’t no fairer craps game than the one they play in the Madrid lock-up.

Now, when this here story begins, I’d just been introduced to the jail at Bogota, which was on the shore of the Hackensack River in Colombia, though it wasn’t nowhere near the White House and the Congress, which I’m told are also in Colombia, but it must be one of the suburbs because they weren’t within a few thousand miles of Bogota, which was kind of hiding up in the mountains.

I’d wandered north from the Matto Grasso after serving a brief term as King of the Jaguar Men (I think it was forty hours, but it might have been forty-two), and having spent an inordinate amount of time lately with jaguars, anacondas, alligators, and safari ants (who are just like army ants, only smarter), I figgered it was time to replenish my fortune so’s that I could finally get around to building the Tabernacle of Saint Luke, and when I heard that there were emeralds to be found in Colombia, I just naturally migrated up that way.

Truth to tell, I didn’t know much about emeralds, except that they’re mostly green and womenfolk love ’em, and men what love womenfolk and want to impress ’em will spend tons of money for ’em.

Well, I’d only been in Colombia for a couple of days when I realized that there was more to emerald farming than met the eye. By noon of the first day I knew that they didn’t grow wild, and by sundown I’d pretty much determined that they wasn’t to be found in no rivers or streams, not even the Hackensack, which must be a mighty long river since I’d crossed it in New Jersey once when I was taking my rather hurried leave of a house of excellent repute in Passaic. Took another day to learn that they didn’t grow on trees, and when nightfall came I was pretty sure you weren’t likely to trip over ’em in the bush, which is what we adventurous sorts call the wild country, probably because it’s covered with bushes.

Anyway, I figured I’d better hie myself to a city and see if someone could shed any light on where all these here emeralds were hiding, and I got to say that Colombians are the greediest folk I ever ran into, because they kept saying “Mine” before I’d even got around to asking them to share.

So I figgered, well, greed is one of the eleven deadly sins, so Bogota seemed as good a place to raise a grubstake and build my tabernacle as any, which was when the trouble started. I had just given some of the locals a lesson in statistical probabilities dealing with the number twenty-one when I had a little mishap with the number three, which is how many cards I had tucked away in the sleeve of my go-to-meeting frock coat, and before I had a chance to point out the humor of the situation I’d been carted off to jail, which just goes to show that preaching has got a lot more hazards to it than most people think.

The grub was pretty good if you liked charred rodent with greens, and pretty awful if you didn’t. I tried to interest a couple of guards in a friendly game of chance, but I guess my reputation as a card player of skill and sagacity had proceeded me because they just laughed like I’d told ’em the one about the bishop and the dancing girl, and then I was left on my own, except for the fat old guy who snored louder than most locomotives and the young boy who claimed he was really a butterfly and would fly out through the bars as soon as he unloaded his chrysalis, which he kept trying to sell to the guys in the next cell.

I spent three whole days there, and then one of the guards came by and unlocked the door.

“Which one of you is Lucifer Jones?” he asked.

“I’m the Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones,” I said, getting to my feet.

“Well, come on out, Right Reverend,” he said. “Your bail’s been made.”

“Son of a gun,” I said. “I didn’t think anybody know I was in town.”

“Guy claims to be an old friend of yours,” said the guard.

“He did?” I said. “What’s his name.”

“Vander-something,” he replied. “Maybe Vanderhorst?”

I stood stock-still. “Von Horst, perhaps?”

“Could be.”

“Erich von Horst?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

I pushed him out of the cell and slammed the door shut. “I’m happy right where I am,” I said.

“But your bail’s been paid.”

“Give it back to him,” I said. “I’m safer here.”

“He says you’re old friends,” said the guard.

“He’s got a peculiar notion of friendship,” I said. “Leave me alone. Come back in five years.”

The guard scratched his balding head. “I don’t know what to do. No one’s ever refused bail before.”

“No one’s ever had a choice between Erich von Horst and jail before,” I told him. “Tell him I died of a disfiguring social disease and anyone who comes in contact with my body will catch it.”

“He seems like a friendly sort,” said the guard.

“I’ll bet Eve said that about the scorpion.”

“Wasn’t it a snake?” he asked.

“Only in the King Henry edition,” I said. “Now go tell von Horst that Greta Garbo and I both want to be left alone.”

He peeked into the darkened corners of the cell. “Is Greta here?” he asked. “Why wasn’t I told about this?”

“Get rid of von Horst and I’ll get you a date with her,” I promised him.

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “This is too confusing for me.” He unlocked the door. “Come. I’ll take you to the magistrate.”

So he handcuffed me, and led me through a maze of corridors until suddenly we were in a courtroom. The judge was a pudgy, balding man with a bushy mustache, wearing a black robe and keeping a deathgrip on a gavel. There was no one else in the courtroom except for Erich von Horst, natty as ever, sitting in the first row and smiling like a cat what was dining on a slew of canaries.

“Here he is, your honor,” said the guard. “He refuses to be bailed out.”

“This is most unusual,” said the judge. He turned to me. “You understand that Mr. von Horst here has generously agreed to pay your bail?”

“I’m happy where I am,” I said.

“You are?” said the judge, surprised. “I’ve never visited the jail myself, but I am given to understand that it is filthy, foul-smelling, and infested with vermin.”

“I’ve seen worse,” I said. “I’ll just serve out my thirty days or whatever the sentence is, and be on my way.”

“The sentence is ten years,” said the judge.

I glanced over at von Horst, who seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. “Make it five years,” I said, “and I’ll plead
nolo compadre.”

“Come, come, Doctor Jones,” said the judge. “What can you possibly have against this angel of mercy who has offered to save you from durance vile?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Well, then?” he said.

“Judge, this here angel of mercy has flim-flammed his way across the whole wide world,” I said. “And when I said I had nothing against him, it’s because nothing is what I’ve been left with every time I’ve run into him.”

“Unlike someone else in this courtroom, Mr. von Horst has not broken any laws in Colombia,” said the judge. “Now make your decision, Doctor Jones: allow him to pay your bail, or prepare to spend the next ten years in your cell.”

It was a tough decision, but I mulled it over for a couple of minutes, while the judge kept urging me to make up my mind, and I finally figgered that von Horst was the lesser of two admittedly unpalatable alternatives.

“All right,” I said at last. “He can make my bail.”

“I’ve never seen such a lack of gratitude in my life,” muttered the judge as they led me away to pick up my goods, which consisted of three dollars, two decks of cards, a fishhook, a pair of dice, and my well-worn copy of the Good Book. I didn’t see von Horst nowhere, but I knew my luck wouldn’t hold, and sure enough, as I walked out the front door, a free man, he walked up to greet me and I felt a little less free already.

“My dear Doctor Jones,” he said, “how nice to see you once again.”

“Get a good eyeful,” I said, “because I’m on the next train, bus, car or mule out of here.”

“Really?” he said. “Where are you going?”

“Anywhere you’re not,” I said.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t dream of stopping you,” he said. “It’s a pity, though. You could have traveled in luxury with fifty thousand dollars in your pocket.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” I said.

“Certainly,” he said. “After all, you have three dollars. That should get you from here all the way to the next block.”

“That three dollars will get me a cross and some garlic,” I said. “If you don’t leave me alone now, you will then.”

“Come, come, Doctor Jones,” he said, “what have I ever done to you?”

“You mean beside robbing me in Dar es Salaam and Casa-blanca and Greece and Mozambique and London and Rio?”

“Youthful impetuosity,” he said.

“You ain’t been youthful nor impetuous since your permanent teeth grew in,” I said. “Leave me alone.”

“But I wish to make amends, my dear Doctor Jones.”

“Do I look that dumb?” I said. I saw he was seriously considering it, so I added, “Don’t answer that question.”

“As you wish,” he said, sighing deeply.

“What I wish is to see the last of you, and the sooner the better,” I said.

“Too bad,” he said. “The fifty thousand was just a down payment against your share of the emeralds.”

“Emeralds?” I said.

“It’s all right,” said von Horst. “I’ve no wish to offend you further. I’ll just have to find someone else who is more interested in instant wealth.”

“It always starts out being
our
instant wealth,” I said, “and it always winds up being
your
instant wealth.”

“If that’s the way you feel, say no more,” answered von Horst. “After all, how hard can it be to find someone who wants half a million dollars’ worth of emeralds? I would have preferred rewarding you for our continued association, but I will simply have to find someone else.”

“Fine,” I said. “Go find someone else.”

“Fine,” he said. “I shall.”

“How many emeralds are there in half a million dollars?” I asked.

“It depends on the size and quality of the emeralds,” he said.

“I don’t want to hear about it,” I said.

“Whatever you say,” he replied.

“How soon could we get our hands of them?” I asked.

“On what?” said von Horst.

“On the emeralds.”

“I thought we weren’t talking about them.”

“We ain’t,” I said. “I just got an epidermal curiosity about them.”

“You mean an academic curiosity,” said von Horst.

“That too,” I said.

“Why don’t you come back with my to my hotel, and I’ll lay the details out for you?”

I shook my head. “Not a chance.”

“My dear fellow, it’s a four-star hotel, which is about as elegant as one gets in Bogota in this day and age.”

“Someplace else,” I insisted. “I want neutral ground.”

“Well,” he said, “I suppose we could always go back to your jail cell.”

Which is how I came to be sitting on a chair in his suite at the Casa Medina.

“These here are mighty nice surroundings you’ve bought yourself with what was supposed to be
my
money,” was how I opened the conversation.

“You really should try to control your residual bitterness,” he said. “If you hadn’t tried to swindle me on each occasion…”

“But it never worked, so it doesn’t count!” I yelled.

“We’ll let bygones be bygones,” he said. “You’ll feel better when we’re dividing up the emeralds in Medellin.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but ain’t Medellin about a hundred miles from here, give or take?”

“That’s right.”

“Then are you saying the emeralds are in Medellin?”

“No, they’re right here in Bogota.”

I frowned. “Then what in tarnation has Medellin got to do with anything?”

“I see I shall have to put my cards on the table, Doctor Jones,” he said. “Just as well. There should be no secrets between partners.”

I tried to count how many times I’d heard von Horst say that in the past, but I ran out of fingers first.

“Doctor Jones,” he continued, “I will be blunt: I am almost in possession of at least a million dollars worth of emeralds.”

“Almost,” I repeated. “You mean they’re in the next room?”

“No.”

“The hotel safe, then?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“I could play guessing games all night,” I said. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

“Well, there’s the rub,” said von Horst with a grimace. “I
can’t
tell you, for the simple reason that I don’t know.”

“In a long lifetime of hearing whoppers,” I said, “I ain’t never heard one bigger’n that.”

“But it’s the truth,” he insisted.

“Erich von Horst,” I said, “you are a lot of things good and bad, mostly bad, but I ain’t never known you to be so careless that you misplaced a million dollars worth of emeralds, or any other kind of gem now as I come to think on it.”

“I guess I’d better tell you the whole story,” he said.

“I reckon you had,” I said. “Or I’m out the door and making a beeline for the nearest border. I’ve had my fill of this country.”

“I thought all you’d seen of it was the jail and my hotel suite,” he said.

“One’s got vermin and the other’s got you,” I said. “Just stick to the subject, and tell me about the emeralds.”

He lit a cigarette and learned forward. “Have you ever heard of the Pebbles of Jupiter?”

“Ain’t that a resort in the Caribbean?” I said.

He shook his head. “It is the most magnificent emerald necklace ever created. Twenty-six perfect stones, each of them worth a minimum of fifty thousand dollars. Together, who knows?”