A RED-LETTER SCHEME

Casablanca wasn't real popular with tourists and sightseers back in the old days, and I was the only passenger to climb down the gangplank when we docked there. It was so hot and dirty and grubby-looking that I could tell right off why it didn't rank way up there with the Riviera and New Orleans and other places of worldwide renown.

There was a very worried-looking little man waiting on the pier, pacing up and down and working himself into a nervous frenzy. I nodded pleasantly and walked past him, but a minute later he raced after me and grabbed me by the shoulder.

“I beg your pardon,monsieur ,” he said apologetically, “but was there not perhaps a lovely young lady on the ship with you who also planned to disembark at Casablanca?”

“None that I know of, brother,” I replied.

“But this is terrible!” he cried.

I shared his sentiments, especially since I could have used a little company during the voyage, but I merely smiled at him and kept walking.

He was back beside me a moment later.

“Her name was Mademoiselle Rosepetal Schultz,” he said. “Are you sure you did not meet her on the boat?”

“Rosepetal?” I repeated. “Why didn't you say so in the first place, brother?”

“Then she is on the ship after all?” he asked, looking mighty relieved.

“No,” I told him. “As a matter of fact, I used her ticket to get here.”

“But this is dreadful!” he wailed. “She wired me yesterday that she would be arriving this afternoon!”

“Something came up very unexpectedly,” I told him truthfully. “These things happen.”

“But why must they always happen tome ?” he moaned.

“Try reading a couple of chapters from the Book of David,” I said soothingly. “I find it usually settles me down when I've had some bad news.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You know a lot about the Bible?” he asked.

“The Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones at your service,” I said, extending my hand.

“Would I be correct in assuming that you have no place to stay?” he asked.

“I've temporarily fallen upon hard times, brother,” I admitted. “But I've never lost my faith in the Good Lord, Who I know will provide for me.” I stared at him curiously. “What did you have in mind?”

“Room, board, and fifty francs a week,” he said.

“Done, brother!” I cried. “By the way, how much is that in real money?”

Well, it came to about ten dollars, which isn't a hell of a lot unless the economy happens to be in the midst of a depression—and since that was exactly the state my personal economy was in, I decided to take it unless and until something better turned up.

My employer's name was Andre Peugeot, and in all my born days I never saw a man with more nervous tics and gestures. All he would tell me about his place of business was that it was called Bousbir, and he seemed absolutely flabbergasted when I told him I'd never heard of it.

When we arrived, I was pretty flabbergasted myself to find that something like the Bousbir had escaped my attention, because what it was was the biggest whorehouse in the whole wide world. At least, that's what Andre told me. All I knew for sure is that it was the biggest one I had ever seen, and took up about twice as much space as the Banque de Casablanca, which was right across the street from it.

We walked through a series of lobbies and lounges, each covered with plush carpets and velvet wallpaper and containing as tasty an assortment of fine-looking ladies as ever I did see, until we finally reached a small room with a single bed and a sink and toilet in the corner.

“Your room,” said Andre.

“Brother Andre,” I said, “we'd better get a couple of things straight right off the bat. I'm pretty liberal as men of the cloth go...”

“So I noticed,” he said dryly.

“Neverthegoddamless,” I continued, “there are some things that are specifically frowned upon by the Good Book, the law, and various other official governing bodies, most of them pertaining to your male customers, that I am not prepared to do even for money, and especially not for a lousy fifty francs a week.”

“I quite understand,” said Andre. “It is for your unique qualities as a man of God that I have hired you.”

“I reckon you could use one around here, at that,” I allowed.

“Indeed,” he agreed. “It has been one of our greatest needs up to now.”

“Well, Brother Andre,” I said, “I'll certainly be glad to bring such comfort as I can to your poor wayward girls in any way that I think will help and uplift them the most.”

“I appreciate your offer,” he replied, “but I think you misunderstand me. It is not my girls who need your spiritual expertise. Rather, it is my customers.”

“Your customers?” I repeated. “Why don't they just go to church?”

“We sell many things here, my friend,” said Andre. “But perhaps our most precious commodity is fantasy. Do you begin to understand?”

“Not really,” I answered.

“Some of our little pageants need—how shall I put it? —a technical adviser.”

“Brother Andre, the light is beginning to dawn,” I said, shooting him a great big grin.

“Can you do it?”

“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” I assured him. “After all. you're asking me to combine my two favorite vocations. Just leave everything to me and the Good Lord, and I'm sure we'll manage to work things out betwixt us.”

Which we did, at least for a few days. But within a week the customers and even the girls were getting a little jaded and began demanding new material, and I took to wandering through the bazaars during the afternoons, searching for ideas that had nothing to do with cardinals and nuns, or black masses, or maniacal rabbis, or secret Chinese fertility ceremonies, or any of the other similarly pedestrian productions I had been directing and coaching.

It was during one such sojourn through the marketplace that I saw a white man who looked vaguely familiar. He had his back to me, and was browsing at a table about fifty feet away, but I couldn't get the thought out of my mind that I knew him from somewhere. I stayed right where I was, pretending to examine some old pottery, until at last he paid for the dates he was munching on and I finally got a look at his face.

It was Erich Von Horst!

Not wishing to cause a scene in public, especially since I didn't speak French or Arabic and I had the feeling that no one around there spoke anything else, I continued to browse until he left the bazaar. Then, being careful to keep out of sight, I followed him for almost a mile until he entered an old, dusty, run-down hotel.

I waited five minutes, then entered it. There was no desk clerk on duty, so I reached over the counter, grabbed hold of the registration book, and began looking at it. There was no Von Horst listed, nor even a Captain Peter Clarke, but it didn't matter: a gentleman named Fritz Wallensack was the only guest currently in residence. I tiptoed up to his room, threw the door open, and walked in.

“Von Horst!” I bellowed. “You owe me two thousand and forty English pounds!”

“Why, Doctor Jones,” he said, looking up from his bed, where he was lying with his head propped up against the moldy wall. “How very nice to see you again. Have you been in Casablanca long?”

“Don't give me that crap, Von Horst!” I snapped. “I want my money!”

“I don't doubt it,” he chuckled.

“Well?” I demanded.

“If I had your money, or indeed if I hadanybody's money, do you think I'd be staying in a place like this?” he said calmly. “You're welcome to search the premises, of course, but I can guarantee that you won't find anything except an exceptionally dirty shirt and a pair of socks with holes in them.”

“What about my money?”

“It was well spent,” he assured me with a smile. “You'd have enjoyed every shilling of it had you been in my place.”

“I wasn't in your goddamned place!”

“Well, yes, I was rather afraid you'd look at it that way,” he sighed.

“Just how soon do you intend to make restitution, realizing of course that I'm going to be your constant companion until that happy moment occurs?” I said.

“As soon as I can work out a few unpleasant details I'll be happy to pay you back, and with interest,” said Von Horst.

“What details?” I demanded.

“My dear fellow, I hope you don't think I'm in Casablanca for my health!”

“Just whatare you doing here?” I asked suspiciously.

“I've been here for two months, working on the biggest deal of my life,” he said, lowering his voice. “But the Casablanca police know who I am, and I haven't been able to make a move without being watched. So here I sit, slowly going broke in this grubby hotel, less than half a mile away from a fortune that I could retire on. And the worst part of it is, there's a time limit on the damned operation! But sooner or later they'll have to relax their vigil, and then...” His voice trailed off.

“Just how much is this deal worth?” I asked with as much lack of interest as I could muster on the spur of the moment.

“At least fifty thousand pounds,” he said without hesitation.

“That much?”

He nodded—and then he stared at me kind of funnylike for a very long minute.

“I wonder...” he said softly, still looking at me.

“About what?” I said.

“You know,” he said, more to himself than to me, “it just might work.”

“What might?”

“Jones,” he said suddenly, “forget about what I owe you. How would you like to make somereal money?”

“I imagine I could be coerced into it,” I admitted.

“Good,” he said. “But we'll have to move fast. Can you be ready to leave the country in two or three hours?”

“Ain't nothing around to stop me,” I replied.

“Well, Jones,” he said, all businesslike, “I'm afraid we're going to have to trust each other, much as I dislike the thought of it. But unfortunately there is no way to avoid giving you the details of the plan. All I can do is assure you that such knowledge will do you absolutely no good without me.”

“Shoot,” I said.

“Three short blocks from here is a small Christian mission, run by two elderly German sisters and their middle-aged nephew. Inside the mission is a speaker's podium. On a shelf inside the podium is a copy of the Bible.” He paused for effect. “Jones, that Bible is a Jacobean Red Letter edition!”

“That's something special?” I asked.

“There were only six printed,” he said. “The sisters don't know what it is, so stealing it should present no great difficulty. But the moment I try to leave the country, or even the city, I'm going to be searched six ways to Sunday, and since I am not known as a religious man, sooner or later one of the gendarmes is going to send some telegrams to various religious organizations or antiquarian bookdealers, and then the shit will hit the fan.” He smiled. “However, no one will question a man of God who carries a Bible with him. You can walk out with it right under their noses!”

“Sounds good to me, Brother Von Horst,” I said.

“You are probably thinking that once I turn the Bible over to you, there is nothing to stop you from selling it and reaping the entire profits for yourself,” he continued.

“Such a notion never crossed my mind!” I protested vigorously while crossing my fingers behind my back.

“Well, just in case it does, let me tell you that forty-eight hours from now I intend to send a letter to the Moroccan government telling them what the Jacobean Red Letter Bible is, and grossly exaggerating how much it is worth. They will promptly put out a reward for its return worth considerably more than the book itself, and nine dealers out of ten will be more likely to turn you in for the reward than buy the book from you.”

“So where are we going to sell it?” I asked.

“There is an American collector who will be in Algiers exactly seven days from now,” said Von Horst. “He knows he'll be purchasing stolen goods, and is willing to run the risk that entails in exchange for getting possession of the Bible. You do not know his name, and he does not know yours. He will buy only from me. Have we got a deal?”

I nodded, and shook his hand on it.

“Good,” he said. “I will meet you ten minutes after dark.”

“Here?” I asked.

“No. They'll be watching this place.” He lowered his head in thought for a moment, then looked up. “Do you know where the Bousbir is?”

“I'm sure I can find it,” I replied earnestly.

“First lounge to the right, ten minutes after dark,” he said.

I returned to the Bousbir, gave a couple of the girls one last strenuous coaching session, and waited for dark. Von Horst showed up on schedule, panting like he'd been running full speed for a while, and thrust a Bible into my hands.

“That's it!” he said. “Don't try to hide it. Just carry it out in the open and act like it was any other book. I'll be creating a diversion while you escape with it.”

“Fine,” I said, tucking it under my arm. “When and where do we meet?”

“On the waterfront in Algiers is a tavern known as the Fisherman's Reward. Today is the ninth of August. You must meet me there on the sixteenth of August at precisely one-fifteen p.m. If you come early, you may attract undue attention, and if you're even five minutes late our buyer may lose his nerve and depart. Have you a reliable watch?”

“Not since a little card game I got into in Johannesburg,” I admitted.

He pulled a beat-up gold watch out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Take mine,” he said. “And try not to gamble it away.”

“What's that little thing dangling from the chain?” I asked.

“A rabbit's foot,” he answered. “For luck.”

“Well, I hope it brings me more luck than it brought the rabbit,” I said. “I guess I might as well get started now.’

He stuck his head out into the hall, then nodded and gestured that it was clear. A few minutes later I was on the main road out of town, heading toward Algeria.

Just as I reached the outskirts of Casablanca I heard a lot of shooting and sirens and things behind me, but no one bothered me, so I kept right on walking. I stopped in the city of Fez long enough to buy another Bible that looked for all the world just like the Jacobean Red Letter edition, and made it to the Algerian border on the evening of the eleventh. The Moroccan and Algerian border patrols and customs officials searched me up and down and sideways, and spent the better part of an hour jabbering about the tooth of a lion or leopard or something, which made absolutely no sense to me, but they finally let me pass and I bedded down in Algeria.

I hitched a ride on an oxcart into Ouahran and spent a considerable portion of the day exploring the scenic wonders of that exotic city, which didn't look a whole lot different from Casablanca except that it didn't have nothing to compare to the Bousbir. I stopped at the local library just before closing time, found the dustiest, most unused bookshelf in the place, stuck the Jacobean Red Letter Bible up against the wall behind a set of books about French civil law where no one would be able to see it, and continued on my way.

I did a little vigorous preaching the next morning, and so amused a tribe of Berbers that they fed me and let me ride on horseback with them to the outskirts of Algiers, where they pitched their tents. Since I didn't want to show up too early, I spent the next couple of days in the Berbers’ camp teaching them a somewhat sporting form of rudimentary statistical analysis having to do with the number twenty-one, and when I finally took my leave of them I took certain fond gold and paper remembrances with me.

I arrived on the waterfront just before noon on the appointed day and quickly spotted the Fisherman's Reward, a seedy-looking dive with a clientele more in need of salvation than most. I spent the next hour walking around the area, checking Von Horst's watch every few minutes, and practically beating off a steady stream of street urchins who all seemed to be business agents for their older sisters.

Finally, at exactly one-fourteen, I walked into the tavern and took a seat at an empty table in the back. Von Horst arrived about a minute later and joined me.

“Have a good trip?” he asked in low tones.

“No problems,” I said. “Where's our buyer?”

“He should be here any second,” said Von Horst. “He's already put down some earnest money with a confederate of mine.”

We ordered a couple of beers and waited in silence. When no one else had walked in by one-thirty, Von Horst went over to the bar and made a quick phone call. He came back to the table looking very upset.

“Louis Blaine has been arrested,” he said grimly.

“Our buyer?”

He nodded. “The stupid son of a bitch got drunk last night and took a punch at the Prefect of Police.”

“What do we do now?” I asked, starting to feel kind of uneasy around the edges.

“We wait,” said Von Horst. “He ought to be out in a couple of weeks, and we'll try to set up another meeting with him. In the meantime, we'll live on his down payment. Have you got the book with you?”

Well, as you can imagine, I wasn't in any hurry to let Von Horst spend two weeks examining the particular Bible I was toting around, so me and the Lord held a quick pow-wow to devise a course of action.

“I don't want to wait,” I announced at last. “You know what these jerkwater countries are like. He could be in jail for years.”

“There's really no alternative,” Von Horst replied. “I wasn't kidding about writing the Moroccan government. Right now that book's too hot to try to sell elsewhere.”

“Well, it just don't seem fair that I should be stuck in this hellhole because your buyer went and did something stupid,” I said. “After all, I fulfilledmy part of the bargain.”

“I don't know what you expectme to do about it,” he replied irritably. “I'd pay you if I could, but I don't have the money.”

“You've got the down payment,” I said. “How much was that?”

“Five thousand pounds,” he answered kind of grudgingly.

“That's more than twice what you stole from me back in Dar-es-Salaam,” I said. “Give it to me and we'll call things square. I just want to get the hell out.

“It's a deal!” he said enthusiastically. “Let me have the Bible.”

“Let me have the money first,” I said.

He shrugged, pulled an envelope out of his pocket, and handed it over to me. I opened it, thumbed through the wad of bills, nodded, and stuck it inside my shirt.

“Here it is,” I said, pulling the Bible out of my shirt and giving it to him. I held my breath as he gave it a brief look, but it was too dark in the bar for him to notice that it wasn't the Red Letter edition.

“You're crazy, Jones,” he said, placing the Bible on the table next to his glass. “Within two weeks, three at the most, he'll be out and you could have had twenty-five thousand pounds.”

“The Good Lord frowns on greed,” I said piously.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. “Could I borrow some money from you, to get me through to ... ah...?”

“Why not?” I said with a smile, giving him some of my Berber money. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks,” he said. “It's a pleasure to do business with you, Doctor Jones.”

“Same here,” I said, rising and shaking his hand.

“By the way,” he added, “do you suppose a rich man like yourself would mind giving me my watch back?”

I chuckled, handed it to him, and left the tavern. The second I got out the door I took off like a bat out of hell for the nearest ticket office, booked passage on a boat that was leaving Algiers in ten minutes, paid for it with my Berber winnings so as not to flash the five thousand pounds Von Horst had given me, and raced up the gangplank without being seen.

As soon as we were safely out to sea I hunted up a deckhand and found out that I was aboardThe Dying Quail , bound for the Cape after going through Gibraltar. It wasn't exactly my first choice of destinations, but with five thousand pounds in my pocket I wasn't too upset about it. And, along with the money, I still had the Red Letter edition of the Bible, which I figured on returning for in a year or two, when the gendarmes were a little less sensitive about such things.

After spending a few minutes walking around the deck convincing everyone that I was perfectly calm and had nothing to hide, I went back to my cabin, locked the door, and pulled out the envelope. As I removed the money prior to putting it in orderly stacks and admiring it a little before dinnertime, a small folded piece of paper fluttered down to the floor.

I picked it up, opened it, and read it as follows:

11th August, 1923

My Dear Doctor Jones:

As you may very well have guessed by now, there is of course no such thing as a Jacobean Bible, let alone a Red Letter edition of it. I apologize for having fooled you, but since you have doubtless hidden it somewhere and substituted another totally worthless Bible in its place, I must confess that I don't feel quite as guilty as I otherwise might.This entire affair began when I first saw you back in Casablanca. I was under constant surveillance by the local police—that much, at least, was true—and I needed an accomplice who could take something out of the country for me. You really are not the most observant person I have ever encountered; I must have wasted five afternoons in that incredibly boring marketplace before you finally recognized me—and even then I almost lost you a couple of times while you were shadowing me back to my hotel.

If you have read this far you have doubtless figured out that there never was a Louis Blaine. He is, of course, one of my professional identities, and I hereby will him to you, to use whenever you wish. He was, however, absolutely essential to the success of this operation, for without him you would have had no reason to show up at precisely one-fifteen, and thus I would have had no reason to give you my watch. Hidden in the rabbit's foot is the Lion's Tooth, the largest and most valuable diamond in Africa. I thank you for delivering it in such excellent condition.

If you are reading this for the first time, I must assume that you have not yet spent any of the five thousand pounds I allowed you to swindle me out of. My advice to you is that if you must spend them you do so very carefully, as the print job is of an inferior grade and they are worth, if anything, even less than the Bible.

Your obedient servant,

Erich Von Horst

About ten seconds after I put the letter down I got violently seasick for the first time in my life.