by Mike Resnick
“Welcome to Rio,” said a uniformed man with a bushy mustache and a toothy smile.
“Glad to be here, Brother,” I said. “Which way to the diamonds?”
“It is the wrong time of year,” he said apologetically. “We do not play baseball during Carnival.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “Just point out the Presidential Palace and I’ll be on my way.”
“I am afraid no one is allowed in or out of the palace since the robbery, Señor,” he told me.
“What robbery are you referring to?” I asked, hoping that it was something trivial, like maybe someone stealing Mrs. President.
“The Pebbles of God, Señor,” he said. “You have heard of them?”
“Once or twice,” I said. “What happened?”
“I do not know, Señor,” he replied. “I have been at my station all day. But we received word about an hour ago that an incredibly brazen thief somehow got past all our security and stole the Pebbles. They are searching the city for him even as we speak, but with Carnival going on….” He shrugged. “Ah, well. We have the finest police force in the world. I’m sure that eventually they will apprehend the thief and recover the diamonds. Now then, Señor, have you anything to declare?”
“Just that I’m as outraged as you are, and that Satan’s probably warming up a seat in hell for him even as you and I shoot the breeze,” I said.
“I mean, have you anything to declare for Customs?”
“No,” I answered. “Us men of the cloth travel light.” I showed him my wallet, which was empty, since I’d put what little money I had left inside my shoe.
“Thank you, Señor,” he said, looking at it and handing it back to me. “By the way, your driver’s license expired nineteen years ago.”
“Yeah?” I said, taking a look. “You know, I could have sworn it was only seventeen years out of date. Thanks for pointing it out to me.”
Before he could answer I was heading through the airport and out into the street, where I caught a double-decker bus and headed off toward the center of town. I figured since the Pebbles of God were no longer available, the least I could do was join the party that seemed to be going on all around me, and maybe share a little carnival knowledge with an obliging lady of quality.
Everywhere I looked people were wearing costumes (or in the case of some of the young ladies, not quite wearing them), and they all were smiling and laughing and dancing the samba, which for them of you what ain’t never seen it is a kind of rhythmic form of palsy where you take a ton of steps but don’t get nowhere.
The bus was slowing down for a corner when my eyes fell on the prettiest morsel of femininity I ever did see. She had long black hair flowing down to her waist, and the kind of figure that made you think she had room for an extra set of lungs, and her hips were vibrating like unto a rattlesnake about to strike. I couldn’t quite figure out her costume, but mostly it looked like a naked lady covered with gold and silver glitter and maybe a set of false eyelashes and not a hell of a lot more.
I hopped off the bus and made my way through the dancers right up to her side.
“Howdy, ma’am,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind this intrusion, but I got to tell you that your beauty done dazzled me from afar, so I thunk I’d come on over and let it dazzle me from close up.”
She flashed me a smile that would have made me bay at the moon if I could have spotted it amidst all the balloons and confetti.
“You are rich Americano, no?” she said in the most beautiful feminine voice.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said, because I figured hitting .500 already put me ahead of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.
“I am Conchita,” she said. “You put me in movies, maybe?”
“Sure, I’ll be happy to,” I said, making a mental note to buy a little eight-millimeter camera the next morning, and maybe purchase some film in a month or two, after all the tourists went back home and the prices began dropping.
Well, we got to talking, and one thing led to another, and before long Conchita had samba’d her way to a little hotel on a side street, and then she samba’d up the stairs, and then she samba’d into the big double bed, and sometime during the night while I was snoring peacefully she samba’d back out and about an hour before sunrise she samba’d in back and brung her six brothers with her. One of ’em looked like Primo Carnera, only meaner, and he was the runt of the litter. She introduced us and asked me to name the date, and I told her I couldn’t rightly remember but I thunk we were in June, or maybe April, or possibly October, and she laughed musically and said that she didn’t mean today’s date, she meant the date for our nuptials.
The whole family seemed mildly upset when I explained that offering to buy a cheap camera didn’t constitute a bonafide proposal of marriage back where I came from. Then she started crying, and her brothers began ripping the room apart and looking like they was about to leave the room alone and start in on me, so I kind of rushed out the doorway and down the stairs. By the time I hit the main floor I realized I didn’t know how to get in touch with Conchita in case she wanted to go out on another date at some point in the future when everyone had calmed down, but them brothers were thundering down the stairs so fast that I figured that it was better to have loved and lost than to have loved and been dismembered, so I took off down the street and tried to lose myself in the crowd, which was still there and still dancing, even though the sun was thinking of coming up.
“There he is!” yelled a voice, and I saw that one of Conchita’s brothers—the one with steel teeth and hobnailed boots—had spotted me. I raced down an alley, turned onto the next street, damned near bumped into the brother who carried a hand axe for comfort, spun around, and headed off in a new direction. Before long all six of ’em was hot on my tail, and the only thing that saved me was that the crowd was getting thicker and thicker, and none of us could make much headway.
Finally I spotted a big building where a bunch of gents in sparkling white suits and ladies in sparkling pink skins were gathering, and I made a bee-line for the door. I don’t think Conchita’s brothers saw me, because they were no more than fifteen seconds behind me, and no one entered the place for the next half minute. I looked around, and saw that I was in a warehouse, and that this was where a bunch of men were getting into their costumes and a bunch of ladies were getting out of them, so to speak. I figgered the best way to become incognizant was to put on some of the duds the men were wearing, but they seem to have brung their own, because big as the place was I couldn’t find no spare costumes hanging on the walls.
Finally I walked up to one of the men and offered him five dollars for his sequined tuxedo.
“Ten,” he said.
“Okay, ten.”
“And a date with Jean Harlow,” he added.
“I don’t know Jean Harlow,” I admitted.
“Then the deal’s off,” he said.
“Hang on a minute,” I said. “I know a right friendly local girl named Conchita.”
“Conchita with all the brothers?” he said. “You and 500 others.” He crossed himself. “Those brothers made short work of at least 490 of them.”
“That’s why I need a disguise.”
“You need a priest.”
“I am a priest,” I said desperately. I held up my well-worn copy of the good book.
“Really?”
“Well, a minister,” I said. “The Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones. Same position, different league.”
“If you’re a minister, what were you doing with Conchita?” he asked me.
“Showing her what sins to avoid if she wants to move to the head of the line at the Pearly Gates.”
“I think I may convert,” he said with a great big grin. “Will you bless me, Father?”
He still had the wrong religion, but I didn’t have no time to argue.
“Domino nabisco, my son,” I said. “Now help me find some duds before them brothers of hers bust the building down.”
Suddenl
y a trumpet blared and everyone began rushing to the door.
“I am sorry,” he said apologetically. “My group is beginning our march through the city now. We must continue our discussion later.” As he reached the door he turned and yelled back, “If I see Conchita, I’ll give her your regards.”
Then he was gone, and I was all alone in the building. At least I thought I was when I heard a very cultured, very familiar voice say, “I see Fate has brought us together once again, Doctor Jones.”
I kept my eyes on the door, because I didn’t want to turn around and find out for sure that the voice belonged to who I thunk it belonged to.
“Have you no word of greeting for an old friend?” it said.
“Show me an old friend and I’ll let you know,” I said.
“But it’s me, Erich von Horst,” he said, walking into my line of vision, looking as trim and elegant as ever, kind of like a headwaiter without a hair out of place.
“So it is,” I said, walking around him and heading to the door. “And it’s sure been nice seeing you again, but I got urgent business elsewhere.”
“I overheard what you were saying,” he replied. “If you go outside, you’ll run into the girl’s brothers.”
“The worst they can do is bust my arms and legs and maybe break my back and gouge out my eyeballs,” I said, still walking away from him. “That makes it an easy choice.”
He grabbed my arm. “I believe the heat has gotten to you,” he said. “You really should start wearing a hat. You know what the vertical rays of the sun do to Englishmen.”
“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.”
&n
bsp; 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.”
