Encounters Read online

  “I've rented the entire floor,” he said. “Have a seat, Doctor Jones. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Not a thing,” I answered him. “Just say what you've got to say and then fork over my money.”

  “All right,” he said, sitting down on a sofa and lighting a thin cigar. “Look out the window and tell me what you see.”

  “The Aegean Sea,” I said.

  “Wrong, Doctor Jones,” he said enthusiastically. “It's a bank, and there's no door on the vault.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I said.

  “I'm saying that we're in similar lines of business these days, Doctor Jones,” he replied. “You're in salvation, and I'm in salvage.”

  “I don't think I follow you.”

  “You save souls. I save treasures.”

  “Treasures?” I repeated.

  “Do you know how many ships lay beneath that calm surface, Doctor Jones?”

  “A few,” I said.

  "Hundreds!" he said, leaning forward. “Warships, trading ships, pirate ships. The treasure they carry runs into billions!” He walked over to a desk, took a diamond necklace out of the top drawer, and tossed it to me. “I picked this up yesterday morning. Take a good look at it.”

  “It looks real,” I said.

  “It is real!”

  “Okay,” I said. “It's real. So you're a rich man. So what do you need me for?”

  “It's not that simple,” he said with a heavy sigh.

  “Somehow it never is,” I said.

  “Let me lay the situation out for you,” he said. “I came here with a lot of money to invest. Some fool bought the elephants’ graveyard from me"—I decided not to tell him that the fool was my former partner, Colonel Carcosa, who was probably still gathering dust in a Mozambique jail—"and I was seriously considering retiring. Then I heard about Mazarati's map.”

  “Mazarati's map?” I asked.

  “Enrico Mazarati, a nineteenth century Italian sailor, spent his entire adult life making a map that marked the location of every wrecked ship in the Aegean, going back to Pericles’ time. At first I thought it was a myth, but it piqued my curiosity, and the more I looked into it, the more I became convinced that the map existed. It took me almost five years to hunt it down, and it took every penny I had to purchase it—but it's mine now! In the two months I've had it, you wouldn't believe what I've pulled out of the sea!”

  “I repeat: what do you need me for?”

  “Well, there's a little problem with the authorities,” he said. “They seem to believe that anything taken out of the Aegean belongs to them, whereas I personally have always believed that possession is one hundred percent of the law.”

  “Not totally unreasonable,” I allowed.

  “Since I haven't been able to win them over to my position, I am unable to sell the treasures I've accumulated until such time as I can ... ah ... covertly remove them from the country,” continued Von Horst. “I'm finding more every day, but given the situation, my cash flow isn't quite what it should be.”

  “You're broke,” I said.

  “Well, not entirely,” he replied. “I can afford my rooms at the hotel, and I have a small boat—but with a major infusion of capital, I could hire the best boat and equipment for the job, and pull these treasures up by the carload rather than one at a time.” He looked at me. “Do you see where this is leading?”

  “Let me see the map,” I said.

  He walked over to a painting of a seascape that was hanging on the wall, turned it over, and there, taped to the back of it, was Enrico Mazarati's map, showing the exact locations of maybe four hundred sunken ships.

  “How do I know this isn't just another scam?” I asked.

  “I show you Mazarati's map and you still distrust me?” he demanded.

  “Anyone can draw up a map,” I said.

  “Take the necklace to any jeweler in town and have it evaluated,” he said. “If it's not legitimate, I'll pay you double what I owe you and never darken your door again.”

  “Let's leave it at that,” I said, getting up and stuffing the necklace in my pocket. “I'll take it around in the morning, and if it's legit, I'll be back here at noon.”

  “Fine,” he said, standing up and walking me to the door. “Once you find out what it's worth, I'm sure you will be tempted to take it and simply leave the country. If you do that, two things will happen: first, I will inform the authorities that you have stolen a priceless relic belonging to the Greek government, and second, you will not be allowed to share in the vast treasure that I've yet to recover.”

  “What a thing to suggest about a man of the cloth!” I said, working up a good head of outrage and wondering how he'd figured out my plans so fast.

  I find myself a nice old rooming house with lots of character, and the more I thought about it, the more I decided that future generations of tourists would never forgive me if I gave them enough money to cover those beautiful old stucco walls with ugly-looking wallpaper, so I kind of tiptoed out while the desk clerk was on the phone, and then I took Von Horst's necklace up the street to the first jeweler I could find.

  The man looked at it, then blinked a couple of times, looked again, and offered me ten thousand dollars if I could prove I was the owner. I thanked him for his time, told him I'd consider it, and then, because I knew just how sly Von Horst was, I took it to three other jewelers, just in case he'd paid a couple of ’em off. Every one of them assured me that it was authentic.

  This wasn't exactly what I had expected to hear, and it put a whole new light on things. Obviously the Mazarati map was the pure quill, and Von Horst would never have trusted me with real diamonds if he hadn't been sure I'd come back ... which meant that he really did have a cash flow problem.

  And suddenly I saw a way to make enough money to put me and God on Easy Street while paying Erich Von Horst back for all them times he'd duped me back in Africa.

  My mind made up, I grabbed some breakfast, waited until noontime, and moseyed over to his hotel.

  “Well?” he said.

  “It's real,” I said, handing the necklace back to him.

  “Are you in or out?” he asked.

  “In,” I said.

  “Excellent,” he said, shaking my hand. “We'll begin this afternoon.”

  “Well, we got a little problem there,” I said. “My money ain't where I can lay my hands on it. It'll take me a couple of days to move it to Tinos.”

  He frowned. “I hate to wait,” he said. “Every day we sit here is another day that someone else might discover some of the treasure. How much money are we talking about?”

  “Maybe a quarter of a million,” I said.

  “Pounds?”

  “Dollars.”

  “That's fabulous!” he exclaimed. “For that kind of money, we can buy every boat in Tinos. We'll lock the competition out!”

  “They can always go to some other town and buy boats,” I said.

  “By the time they do that and get back here, we'll have pulled up the treasure from all the nearby wrecks,” replied Von Horst, “and without the Mazarati map they'll never find the rest ... and that alone will pay for the boats twenty times over.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  “In the meantime,” he added, “there's no reason why we shouldn't pull a quick ten or twenty thousand dollars out of the sea this afternoon. I've got until sundown on the boat I've been using before the lease runs out.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “Just give me some time to send for the money.”

  “Fine,” he said. “I'll meet you at the docks in, shall we say, an hour?”

  “Make it two, just to be on the safe side,” I said.

  The first thing I did when I left his hotel was go to a local map shop and buy a map of the area just about the same size as the Mazarati map. Then I took it to the library, where no one would bother me, and traced it onto a sheet of blank paper I had bought, so it would look like the aut
hentic Mazarati map. Finally, I marked about four hundred shipwreck locations, just making little X's like the Mazarati map had done. When I was through, I threw the original map into the garbage and folded up the map I'd just made and stuck it into one of my pockets. Then I went to the dustiest, emptiest section of the library, pulled out my wad of money, and stuck it behind a huge copy of Eighteenth Century British Maritime Rules and Regulations, which looked like it hadn't been touched since Queen Victoria was in bloomers.

  I checked with the head librarian on the way out and found that the place was open until six o'clock. Then I went on down to the docks, where I found Von Horst waiting for me by a beat-up fishing boat with a motor that looked like it had seen a lifetime's worth of better days.

  “This is what we're going out in?” I asked.

  “It's seaworthy, and it doesn't attract attention,” he said. “I've got the diving gear hidden under the canvas.” He tossed me a fishing rod. “Here. Let people see you holding this so they think we're just a pair of tourists going out for a little sport.”

  Well, I spent a couple of minutes playing with the rod for the benefit of any onlookers, and then we hopped into the boat and Von Horst started the motor, and when we were maybe a mile off the shore he pulled out his map and checked his compass, then turned about two hundred yards to his left.

  “We should be right over the wreck of the Isadora,” he said.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It's an old Spanish galleon that theoretically carried grain and fabrics, but actually trafficked in stolen gemstones.” He pulled back the canvas to reveal a deepsea diving suit. “I'm afraid all I could afford was one. We'll take turns using it. You can go first.”

  “Me?” I said. “I ain't never been in nothing like that. How do I breathe?”

  “The same as always,” he said. “I'll pump the air while you're beneath the surface.”

  “Just a minute,” I said. “Who pumped the air for you before I showed up?”

  “A lovely young lady of my acquaintance who thought we were looking for shells,” he said. “The diving outfit was too heavy for her to manipulate, so she never dove down and hence never knew about all the sunken ships.”

  I climbed into the deepsea suit, and as Von Horst was adjusting my helmet, I said, “You realize that if you stop pumping air, two things are gonna happen: first, I'm gonna die, and second, you ain't never gonna see a penny of that quarter million.”

  “I swear I never met such a distrustful man,” he said.

  Well, he lowered me down, and I turned on the light at the top of my helmet. There were enough fish to feed the whole of Hong Kong with maybe enough left over for Tokyo, but finally they cleared away and suddenly I could see this old, rotting Spanish ship. It took awhile to learn how to maneuver, but eventually I landed on the deck, and walked into a couple of the rooms, which didn't have nothing in them except old rotting furniture.

  But when I hit the third room, I tried the top drawer of a dresser that hadn't rotted apart yet, and inside it was a bunch of bright, glittery stuff. I picked it up, stuck it in a pouch on my outfit, walked back out to the deck, and signaled that I wanted Von Horst to pull me up.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked when I was finally back on the boat.

  I reached into my pouch and pulled out one of the objects.

  “A diamond tiara!” he said. “Fit for a queen—or a reputable fence. What else do you have?”

  I emptied the pouch, and we counted up two sets of diamond earrings and a pearl necklace.

  “Not bad, partner,” he said. “Did you ransack the whole boat?”

  “I just tried three or four cabins,” I said. “There must be fifty ’em.”

  “I think I'll go down and have a look for myself,” he said. “If you don't mind climbing out of the suit.”

  It took about ten minutes for me to get out of the outfit and him to get back in, and then he was down inspecting the ship and I was pumping air to him. I figured an experienced treasure hunter like him would stay down half an hour or so, but less than a minute later he jerked on the line, the signal that he wanted to come up. I hauled him to the surface, and then, just before dragging him up out of the water and onto the deck, I took the phony map out of my pocket and substituted it for the Mazarati map, which I removed from his coat and tucked inside my shirt.

  “That was mighty fast,” I said.

  “Sharks,” he said, removing the helmet and starting to climb out of the outfit. “One of them looked like he was thinking of biting right through the air hose.”

  “Well, we made a pretty decent haul anyway,” I said. “I suppose we can come back when my money arrives.”

  “Still,” he said, “it seems a shame to waste the rest of the afternoon. I can find another location on the map.”

  “It ain't necessary,” I said.

  “It's no problem,” he insisted. “The map's right here.”

  “I'm all tuckered out,” I said, since I didn't want him doing no close inspection of the map. “I ain't used to walking around underwater like unto a fish.”

  “You're sure?” he said, walking over to his jacket. “It's no trouble to find another ship.”

  I grabbed my stomach and moaned. “I think I'm getting a case of the folds.”

  “You mean the bends?”

  “Whatever,” I moaned. “Let's just pack it in and go on home.”

  “Whatever you say,” replied Von Horst, turning his attention from the map to the engine, and about half an hour later we were parked at one of the docks.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked when we got back on dry land.

  “Better,” I said.

  “If you're up to dinner, we'll celebrate today's finds with the best meal in town. My treat.”

  “I don't think I could look at food tonight,” I said. “I'll just go back to my room and lay down. I should be fit again by the morning.”

  “Take all the time you need to recuperate,” he said. “As long as your money won't arrive for a couple of days, and my lease on the boat has run out, you might as well spend tomorrow in bed regaining your strength. I'll meet you the day after tomorrow.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  “Take care now,” he said. “I'd hate to lose you before the money arrives.”

  Well, that sounded like the Von Horst I knew, so I bade him good-bye and started staggering off, with the Mazarati map, the tiara, the necklace, and the earrings all safely tucked away on various parts of my person. When I was sure I was out of sight, I straightened up and resumed my normal gate and rushed over to the library, when I retrieved my money.

  Then, while Von Horst ate his fancy dinner and went back to his suite to relax, I went down to the docks and bought every boat in town. Most of the here sailors and fishermen drove mighty hard bargains, but by dawn I owned every boat in Tinos and still had about two thousand dollars left, which as far as I could see left Von Horst out in the cold and made me the sole owner of the treasures on Mazarati's map.

  Then, bright and early the next morning, while Von Horst was still asleep, I went down to the docks, found the boat Von Horst had leased, and hired a little Greek feller to pump my air for me. I pulled out Mazarati's map, pinpointed the Isadora, and steered the boat until we were directly over it. Then I changed into the deepsea gear and went down to find some treasure.

  Well, I must have spent three hours going over the Isadora, and I couldn't find so much as a tie pin. Finally I went back up to the surface and took the boat back to shore, where I figured on having lunch before setting out to spend the afternoon going over the rest of the Isadora.

  I was sitting down eating a sandwich in a little taverna when a heavyset, bearded feller who smelled of fish walked up to me.

  “You are Lucifer Jones, are you not?” he asked.

  “The Right Reverend Lucifer Jones at your service,” I said.

  He pulled up a chair and sat down across the table from me. “I wonder if you co
uld answer a question, Reverend Jones,” he said.

  “If it's within my power, I'd be right happy to, Brother,” I said. “What particular question did you have in mind?”

  “What is so valuable about our boats that you paid so much for the entire fleet?”

  “Let's just say I'm a kind of collector,” I told him.

  He leaned back and scratched his head. “I didn't know anyone collected old fishing boats,” he said. “I guess Mr. Von Horst was right.”

  “Von Horst?” I said. “What's he got to do with anything?”

  “When he bought our fleet two days ago, he told us that if we were patient, a collector would come by sometime within the next week and buy the whole fleet for at least ten times what he paid for it.”

  “But I didn't buy the boats from him,” I said, with that old familiar sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I bought ’em from you guys.”

  “Oh, no,” he corrected me. “They have been Mr. Von Horst's boats for two days. But he was very generous: he paid us each a fifteen percent commission to sell them for him.”

  “Where is he now?” I demanded.

  The man shrugged. “I don't know. He collected his money while you were out fishing this morning, and that was the last I saw of him.”

  I raced out of the restaurant and didn't stop until I came to a jeweler, one of the few I hadn't visited with the diamond necklace the day before.

  “Quick,” I said, slapping the tiara, the earrings, and the pearls down on the counter. “What are these worth?”

  He just looked at them without even putting on his little eyepiece, and then turned to me. “The same thing they were worth when I sold them to Mr. Von Horst last week,” he said. “About three dollars. Well, make that two—they almost look like someone has been keeping them in salt water. See how the gold paint is pitted here?”

  “You mean you only deal in costume jewelry?” I demanded.

  “Of course not,” he replied. “I deal in whatever the market will bear. In fact, if you'd like a truly beautiful piece of authentic jewelry, perhaps I can interest you in this diamond necklace that Mr. Von Horst just returned after renting for a week.”