told by some grapevine. A dozen, then a hundred, then a thousand. They smelled the gold or the diamonds the way a starving dog smells a bone or an old bit of meat. They came flooding in from every point of the compass. Rough types with no trade who'd had enough of battering away with a pick at twelve bolivars a day for some employer. They got sick of it, and then they heard the call of the jungle. They didn't want their family to go on living in a rabbit hutch, so they went off, knowing very well what they were in for-they were going to work from one sun to the next in a wicked climate and a wicked atmosphere, condemning themselves to several years of hell. But with what they sent home, their wives would have light, roomy little houses, the children would be properly fed and clothed and they'd go to school-even go on with their own schooling, perhaps.
'So that's what a bomb gives?'
'Don't be such a dope, Papillon. The guy that finds a bomb never goes back to mining. He's rich for the rest of his life, unless he goes so crazy with joy that he feeds his mule with hundred-boilvar notes soaked in kummel or anisette. No, the man I'm talking about, the ordinary guy, he finds a few little diamonds every day, even though they may be very, very small. Even that means ten or fifteen times what he gets in the town. Then again, he lives as hard as possible, right down to bedrock; because Out there you pay for everything in gold or diamonds. But if he lives hard, he can still keep his family better than before.'
'What about the others?'
'They come in every shape and size. Brazilians, guys from British Guiana and Trinidad: they all escape from exploitation in the factories or cotton plantations or whatever. And then there are the real adventurers, the ones who can only breathe when they're not hemmed in by the horizon, the ones who will always stake everything for the jackpot-Italians, Englishmen, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Portuguese-men from all over. Christ, you can't imagine the types that come rushing into this promised land! The Lord above may have filled it with piranhas and anacondas and mosquitoes and malaria and yellow fever, but He's also scattered gold, diamonds, topazes and emeralds and such all over its surface. There's a swarm of adventurers from everywhere in the world, and they stand there in holes up to their bellies in the water, working so hard they never feel the sun or the mosquitoes or hunger or thirst, digging, tossing out the slimy earth and washing it over and over again, straining it through the sieve to find the diamonds. Then again, Venezuela has enormous frontiers, and there you won't meet anyone who asks you for your papers. So there's not only the charm of the diamonds, but you can be sure of the pigs leaving you in peace. A perfect place to hole up and get your breath if you're on the run.'
Jojo stopped. There was nothing he had forgotten: now I knew the whole story. I thought quickly and then said, 'You go off alone, Jojo. I can't see myself working like a Trojan. You'd have to be possessed-you'd have to believe in your bomb like you believe in God Almighty to stand it in that kind of a hell. Yes, you go off by yourself. I'll look for my bomb in Caracas.'
Once again his hard eyes pierced me through and through. 'I get it; you haven't changed. Do you want to know what I really think?'
'Go ahead.'
'You're quitting El Callao because it makes you sick, knowing there's an unprotected heap of gold at La Mocupia. Right or wrong?'
'Right.'
'You're leaving it alone because you don't want to muck things up for the ex-cons who are living here in retirement. Right or wrong?'
'Right.'
'And you think that when it comes to finding the bomb there where I said, it's a matter of many are called and few are chosen? Right or wrong?'
'Right.'
'And you'd rather find the bomb in Caracas, wrapped up and prepared, the diamonds already cut-find it in a jeweler's shop or a gem wholesaler's?'
'Maybe: but that's not certain. Remains to be seen.'
'I swear, you're a true adventurer; nothing will cure you.'
'That's as it may be. But don't you forget this thing that keeps eating me all the time-this revenge. For that I really think I'd do anything at all.'
'Adventure or revenge, you still need dough. So come along into the bush with me. It's terrific, you'll see.'
'With a pickax and a shovel? Not for me.'
'You got a fever, Papillon? Or has it turned you into a lemon, knowing that you can go where you like since yesterday?'
'I don't feel that way.'
'You've forgotten the main thing-my name. Jojo _ La Passe _: Jojo the Craps.'
'Okay, so you're a professional gambler; I don't see what that's got to do with this notion of laboring away like brutes.'
'Nor do I,' he said, doubling up with laughter.
'How come? We aren't going to the mines to dig up diamonds? Where do we get them from, then?'
'Out of the miners' pockets.'
'How?'
'By shooting craps every night, and by sometimes losing.'
'I get it, mac. When do we leave?'
'Wait a minute.' He was very pleased with the effect of his words. Slowly he stood up, pulled a table into the middle of the room, spread a blanket over it and brought out six pairs of dice. 'Have a good look.' Very carefully I examined them. They were not loaded.
'No one could say those dice were loaded, could they?'
'Nobody.'
He took a gauge out of a felt case, gave it to me and said, 'Measure.' One of the sides had been carefully filed and polished, reducing it less than a tenth of a millimeter. All you could see was shine. 'Try and throw seven or eleven.' I rolled the dice. Neither seven nor eleven. 'My turn now.' Jojo deliberately made a little wrinkle in the blanket. He held the dice with the tips of his fingers. 'That's the trick,' he observed. 'Here we go! And there's seven! And there's eleven! And eleven! And seven! You want six? Boom, there's six! Six with four and two or five and one? There you are. Is the gentleman satisfied?'
I was fascinated, utterly fascinated. I'd never seen such a thing: it was extraordinary. You couldn't make out the slightest false move.
'Listen, mac. I've been shooting craps forever. I started on the Butte when I was eight. I've risked shooting them with dice like that, and you know where? On the crap table at the Gare de l'Est, in the days of Roger Sole and Company.'
'I remember. There were some very tough customers there.'
'You don't have to tell me. And among the regulars, as well as the tough guys and the pimps and the burglars, there were cops as famous as Jojo-le-Beau, the pimp cop from La Madeleine, and specialists from the gambling squad. And I took them as well as the rest. So you see there's no way to lose if you shoot these craps in a miners' camp.'
'True enough.'
'But get this: the one place is as dangerous as the other. At the Gare de l'Est the crooks were as quick on the draw as the miners. Just one difference: in Paris you shoot and you light out as quick as you can. At the mine, you shoot and stay put. There are no pigs; the miners make their own laws.' He paused, slowly emptied his glass and went on, 'Well now, Papillon, are you coming with me?'
I reflected for a moment; but not for long. The adventure tempted me. It was risky, without doubt; those miners would not be choirboys-far from it; but there might be big money to be picked up. Come on, Papillon, banco on Jojol And again I asked, 'When do we leave?'
'Tomorrow afternoon, if you like: at five, after the heat of the day. That'll give us time to get things together. We'll travel by night at first. You got a gun?'
'No.'
'A good knife?'
'No knife.'
'Never mind. I'll look after that. _Ciao_.'
I went back to the house, thinking about Maria. She'd certainly rather I went into the bush than to Caracas. I'd leave Picolino with her. And then tomorrow, on my way for the diamonds! And seven! And eleven! _Once, siete! Et sept, et onze!_ I was there already; all I had to do was learn the numbers in Spanish, English, Brazilian and Italian.
I found Jose at home. I told him I'd changed my mind. Caracas would be for another time; at present I was going off with an old white-haired Frenchman called Jojo to the diamond mines.
'What are you going with him as?'
'As his partner, of course.'
'He always gives his partners half his winnings.'
'That's the rule. Do you know men who've worked with him?'
'Three.'
'Did they make plenty of money?'
'I don't know. I dare say they did. Each one of them made three or four trips.'
'And what about after those three or four trips?'
'After? They never came back.'
'Why not? Did they settle down there at the mines?'
'No. They were dead.'
'Is that right? Fever?'
'No. Killed by the miners.'
'Oh. Jojo must be a lucky guy, if he always got out of it.'
'Yes. But Jojo, he's very clever. He never wins much himself: _he works it so that his partner wins_.'
'I see. So it's the other man who's in danger; not him. It's good to know. Thanks, Jose.'
'You're not going, now that I've told you that?'
'One last question, and give me the straight answer: Is there a chance of coming back with a lot of dough after two or three trips?'
'Sure.'
'So Jojo is rich. Why does he go back there, then? I saw him loading the mules.'
