A Four-Sided Triangle: A Lucifer Jones story by Mike

Resnick

There wasn’t a whole lot of white folks in La Paz back in the spring of 1937, but them what was there all remember what happened, all the romantic intrigues and double crosses and blazing guns and the like, and they’ve codified it in song and story what’s come down to their descendants and a bunch of scholars who ain’t got nothing better to do with their time, and it’s gotten so famous that these days I think they’re even talking about making a movie or two about it.

So before you get any further misled, I want to tell you my side of the story. As readers what’s been breathlessly following my heroic exploits and encounters in South America will know, I’d just finished waging a secret war of conquest against Uruguay. (In fact, it was so secret that not a single history book even mentions it.) I’d tooken my leave of Buenos Aires and the passenger bus from which me and six street cleaners (well, five active, one unemployed) had launched our lightning strike across the border, and I heard talk of some hidden city called Macho something-or-other up in Peru.

Well, right off I knew it was my kind of place, since the one thing a city named Macho figgered to have in abundance was a bunch of scarlet women what was there to help all the men kind of exert their machoness. I figgered I was less than a thousand miles from it when I ran a little short of funds. Now, I could see that the locals was mostly uneducated peasants and probably couldn’t count up to twenty-one if I was to introduce a complex game like blackjack, so instead I taught ‘em how to play a sporting game with a pair of six-sided cubes that only required ‘em to count up to twelve. Turn out that at least it was right in theory. To this day I don’t know if any of ‘em could count to twenty-one unless the Good Lord guv ‘em an extra finger or toe, but they sure could count up to three, which was how many dice hit the ground when my spare accidentally tumbled out of my sleeve. Which is how I came to spend the next six nights in the calaboose at Cochabomba, which sounds like Bubbles La Tour’s specialty dance at the Rialto Burlesque back in my home town of Moline, Illinois, but was actually this here village what lay directly between me and paydirt, which is to say Buenos Aires and Macho-whatever-its-name-was.

Still, the grub wasn’t all that bad, especially if you had a taste for dirt-flavored salamanders and warm water with stuff floating in it. At least the salamanders was mostly dead and the water was mostly wet, which was better than a lot of hoosegows I’ve been in.

I was still planning on heading to Peru to find a lost empire or two when I sat down to play a game of checkers through the bars of my cell with Diego, who was the sheriff and cook and janitor all rolled into one fat old man with a droopy mustache. He wasn’t no happier hanging around the jailhouse than I was, but he looked a lot better fed.

“You know,” he said, as he moved a checker, “this jail has sat empty for three years.”

“You don’t say,” I answered. “No wonder all the snakes and rats are so lonely and rarin’ for a little companionship.”

“Then,” he continued, “all of a sudden, three men in three weeks–and all of them English speakers.” He lit a cigar and looked like he was thinking of offering me one, and then decided not to. “It would be bad for your health.”

“Ain’t it bad for yours, too?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “But then, I eat a diet that is not guaranteed to kill me, my poor amigo.”

“Getting back to them two other English speakers…” I said.

“It is most unusual,” he said. “Not only that I have had to arrest three in a row, but also that you all practice honorable vocations–a military man, a gentleman farmer, and a minister.”

“What in tunket was an English-speaking military man doing here?” I asked.

“He threatened to kill another man,” said Diego. “I gather it was an affair of the heart.”

It’s been my long and interesting experience that affairs of the heart usually start about two feet lower, but I didn’t feel like getting into no esoteric philosophical argument, so I just allowed that affairs of the heart could be mighty heartfelt and that I hoped he hadn’t been busted a rank or two in his outfit.

“Oh, he is retired,” said Diego. He rummaged in his pocket for a minute, pulled out a crumpled business card, straightened it out, and read it: “Major Theodore Dobbins, late of His Majesty’s armed forces.”

“You want to say that name again?” I asked.

“Major Theodore Dobbins.”

“Got a mustache?” I said. “Always dresses in black–shirt, pants, jacket, tie, socks, probably even his shorts?”

“That’s the man!” said Diego. “I take it you know him?”

“Truth to tell, I’d kind of wished I was all through knowing him. What’s he doing here?”

“He is engaged to married the Baroness Abigail Walters.”

“That don’t sound like a name what goes with that title,” I noted.

“She uses her maiden name, but in truth she is the widow of the Baron Gruenwald von Schimmelmetz,”

said Diego. “That makes her the richest woman in Bolivia, and the biggest landowner as well. They say she is worth eight hundred million American dollars.”

“Now ain’t that amazing?” I said in wonderment.

“That a woman could be the richest citizen in Bolivia?” he asked. I shook my head. “That Major Dobbins could sniff her out all the way from South Africa,” I told him.

“He is a fortune hunter?” asked Diego.

“He’s kind of like Frank Buck,” I said. “He finds a rich widow and he brings her back alive. To start with, anyway.”

“I strongly disapprove of that,” said Diego, with a frown that wrinkled up his big bushy eyebrows.

“Perhaps it is just as well that he has a rival for the Baroness’s hand.”

I was about to ask him how he’d figgered it out so fast, since I hadn’t known myself until maybe half a minute ago, but he kept right on talking.

“Yes,” he said, “at first I thought the Australian interloper was a fortune hunter himself, just out to make trouble. After all, when I queried Interpol I learned that he’d been a jewel thief in Hong Kong, a gigolo in Rajasthan, and the owner of a house of ill repute in the notorious Reeperbahn district of Hamburg. Still, he behaved with a courtesy befitting a gentleman of his social class while he was my guest here, and I feel he was genuinely sorry for shooting those three men in a fit of peak.”

“I don’t want to start no argument with you or ruin your high opinion of him,” I said, “but most gentlemen of Rupert Cornwall’s social class spend their last few minutes on earth dancing at the end of a rope.”

“Then you know this Cornwall too?”

“We’ve run across each other a few times,” I allowed. I hoped Diego had confiscated Cornwall’s gun, since I couldn’t be sure he’d forgotten our last couple of encounters, and he’d never struck me as the kind of man what hankered to be first in line to let bygones be bygones.

“Well, since arriving, he, too, is paying court to the Baroness.”

“What does she look like?” I asked, since a man always ought to know that about the woman of his dreams.

“Ah, Senor,” he said sadly, “Nature has not been kind to her. Her eyes do not always look in the same direction. Her nose… well, it reminds one of the proboscis monkey. She is missing her two front teeth on the top, and the Baron shot the only dentist in La Paz six years ago.”

“And the rest of her?”

He shook his head. “She is hard in all the places a woman should be soft, flat in all the places a woman should be round, and soft in all the places a woman should be hard.”

“But besides that, she’s okay?” I said.

“I do not believe you have been listening to me,” said Diego.

“Eight hundred million dollars buys a lot of make-up and padding and corsets,” I said.

“It can’t cover the wart on her nose, or the shrillness of her voice or the evil glint in her eyes (whatever direction they happen to be looking),” he said.

“Tread easy, there, Diego,” I warned him. “You are speaking of the woman I intend to love.”

He just shrugged. “You world-traveling English speakers are all alike. Show you the richest widow in the country, and you descend on her like…”–it was his turn to search for the right word–“like a pack of tarantulas.”

“I didn’t know they traveled in packs,” I said.

“Until recently I didn’t know you did either,” he replied.

“You got it all wrong, Brother Diego,” I said. “I’m the only one what’s descending on the poor loveless lonely widow woman.”

“What about Major Dobbins and Senor Cornwall?” he asked.

“They’re belly-crawling scum what would have to ascend on her.”

“I suppose that makes all the difference,” he said without much sincerity.

“Sure it does,” I said. “Besides, them two ain’t got a chance next to a handsome young buck like me.”

“Young? “ he said, cocking a bushy eyebrow.

I thunk about it for a minute.

“Well, I was young when I started out on this here odyssey,” I said. “I was only twenty-two when I was kind of forcibly asked to leave the U.S. of A.”

“It took you a long time to get here,” said Diego.

“I stopped at a few places along the way,” I allowed. “I think I hit fourteen countries in Africa, before I was invited to depart and never come back. I guess I must have been twenty-six then.”

“Which country asked you to leave?”

“All of ‘em,” I said.

“All of them?” he repeated.

“I don’t play no favorites,” I told him. “Anyway, I tried my hand in Asia next. China, India, Japan, all them other foreign places.”

“How many?” he asked.

“Oh, maybe seven or eight. Could have been ten. Converted a lot of yellow and brown heathen before I left. Hope they stayed on the straight and narrow path I set ‘em on.”

“You could always go back and see,” said Diego.

“And when eight or nine more judges and a couple of kings and sultans and maybe an emperor or two die, that’s just what I plan to do,” I said.

“They kicked you off the whole continent again?” he asked in amazement.

“Nobody kicked nobody,” I said. “They just guv me a train ticket, pointed a battalion’s worth of rifles at me, and wished me Godspeed on my way to Europe.”

“How long were you there?”

“Five years.”

“So you were thrown off three continents by the time you were thirty-one?” he said. “How about Europe?”

“Nice place,” I said. “I was even king of my own country for a few days. I guess I must have visited, oh, maybe eleven or twelve countries. Real nice folk, except for them what wasn’t. Most of ‘em didn’t speak no civilized language, and they were all godless sinners, but except for that we got along right well.”

“And you were there for…?”

“Three years.”

“It only took them three years this time?” he said, his eyes wide with wonder, and I could tell that even a man of the world like Diego was impressed.

“A series of minor misunderstandings, nothing more,” I said. “One of these days I plan to go back and straighten them all out.”

“And where have you been in South America?” asked Diego.

“Well, let’s see,” I said. “I landed in San Palmero in 1934, and then I hit Brazil, and Argentina, and the Pampas (wherever that is), and, let me see now, Uruguay…oh, and Columbia, and the Lost Continent of Moo, and…”

“The Lost Continent of Moo?” he interrupted.

“Well, it ain’t as lost as it was,” I assured him. “And now here I am in Bolivia, and I was on my way Peru before I heard about the grieving widow woman and my soft Christian heart just went out to her.”

“But you haven’t been to Chile?”

“Nope. Never felt any inclination to go there.”

“You’re sure?” he insisted.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said. “Why?”

He mopped the sweat off his face and leaned back, suddenly all relaxed. “I have family in Chile,” he said.

“Well, I suppose me and the bride could take our honeymoon there, if you got any notes or parcels you want me to deliver,” I said.

“NO! “ he shouted. I just kind of looked at him. “I would not want you to go to the trouble, Reverend Jones,” he added quickly. “They say that Venezuela is beautiful for honeymoons this time of year.”

“That’s right generous of you, Brother Diego,” I said. “And me and the little lady’ll sure consider it. I also want to thank you for this little chat, because if we hadn’t had it I’d never have realized I was getting on to thirty-seven, and while there ain’t no question that I still look like a twenty-four-year-old movie star in his prime, I figger it’s probably time to settle down, build my tabernacle, marry my heart’s desire, and spend my next eighty or ninety years managing her money so she’s free to do the dishes and wash the clothes and slop the hogs.”

“What about your two rivals?” he asked.

“I’m a generous winner,” I said magnanimously. “They can help with the hogs. What’s the minimum wage in these here parts?”

He told me, but it was so small it didn’t translate into dollars and cents, and then we finished our checkers game, and he checked the time–he didn’t have no watch, but when the church bell rang fourteen times he knew it was either two in the afternoon or the bellringer was drunk again–and I’d served my time and I was a free man.

“So where is the Baroness’s house?” I asked.

He pointed off in the distance. “On the other side of La Paz, Reverend Jones.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Next time me and the Good Lord are having a pow-wow, I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Remember: my name is Alejandro Sanchez.”

“I thunk it was Diego something-or-other,” I said.

“I changed it,” he replied quickly. “Remember, when you are talking about me with God, I am Alejandro.”

“Got it, Brother Alejandro,” I said. “And good day to you.”

I headed off toward La Paz, but we was at about ten thousand feet of altitude, and I found that even though I’m a natural athlete what’s in great shape and smack-dab in the middle of his physical prime, I started getting leg-weary.

“Hey, Brother Alejandro!” I called. “I’m exhausted!”

“You have only walked forty paces,” he noted.

“Call me a cab,” I said.

He shrugged. “All right–you’re a cab.”

“Me and God don’t appreciate no backtalking constabularies,” I said. “Get me a horse or a wagon, or you’re going to be cooking me meals for the next seventy years.”

That got a little action, and a few minutes later I was being carted off to La Paz in the back of a hay wagon. (Well, they called it a hay wagon, but I’m pretty sure hay is stiff and grassy and doesn’t smell like pig manure.)

We hit La Paz at about nine o’clock at night, and they didn’t have no drunken bellringers in their church, because at eleven and a half thousand feet there wasn’t nobody with the energy to climb up to the bell. In fact, it’s my own guess that church bells grow naturally in Bolivia, like trees and bushes and such, since no one in their right minds would want to carry one that high. I was more than a little hungry when the wagon dropped me off in town, and I saw from some sign that I was on Matilde Street, which I planned to change to Lucifer & Abigail Street just as soon as we got hitched, and I walked a few paces, which wasn’t no easier in La Paz at night than it was in Cochabomba in the afternoon, but finally, after enormous effort, I came to Bellisima’s Ristorante, which was four buildings down from when I got off the wagon and seemed to have wandered over from Italy by mistake. I looked in a window and saw that all the tables were covered by checkered tablecloths, all the chairs were old and rickety, and all the waiters had thick black mustaches. I figgered I had just enough money to buy myself a meal, and maybe a few quarts of beer to bring out the nuances of its flavor, so I walked through the doorway and who should I see sitting right in front of me than Major Theodore Dobbins, late of His Majesty’s armed forces. I walked right over and pulled up as rickety chair, which was the only kind they had.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I was just passing through,” I said. “Small world, ain’t it?”

“Too damned small,” he muttered.

“And how’s your lovely wife, the former widow Emily Perrison?” I asked. “I ain’t seen her in maybe twelve or thirteen years. Has she changed much?”

“Not in the past decade,” answered the Major.

“Give her my regards.”

“She’s been dead for eleven years,” he explained. “It seems she fell off a boat in crocodile-infested waters with no one to save her or pull her out.”

“Poor thing,” I said. “All alone, was she?”

“Except for me.” He shook his head in wonderment. “To this day I don’t know how the crocs could stand to get that close to her.”

“Ain’t you also got an adopted son?”

He nodded his head. “Horace. An ugly, foul-mouthed little brute if ever I saw one. I finally sent him off to military school.”

“Back home to Britain?” I asked.

“The Soviet gulags. I figured he’d get the discipline he’d need there.”

“You always was the caring sort,” I said.

“And right now I care for the Baroness Walters,” he said. Suddenly his eyes narrowed. “I don’t know how you found out about her, but I won Emily’s hand in marriage when you were my rival and I can do it again.”

“I was young and immature then,” I said. “And let’s be honest: we wasn’t neither of us interested in her hand except when it was signing checks. Besides, I hear you got another rival for the dear Baroness.”

“That scoundrel Cornwall. A man of low moral standing and ill repute.”

“Not like us, huh?” I asked.

“Precisely, my dear Doctor Jones,” he said. “I am glad to see we understand one another.”

“Better than you might think, Major,” I said.

“I assume it has come to your attention that I am paying court to the Baroness Walters,” he said.

“It ain’t exactly escaped my notice,” I told him.

“That blaggard Cornwall is trying to horn in on…let me rephrase that. He refuses to acknowledge my squatter’s right to…um, that doesn’t sound a lot better, does it?” He frowned for a minute. “At any rate, he has no business being here, and as the husband of the wealthiest woman in Bolivia, I would be very generous to any friend who sent that Australian mountebank on his way.”

Actually, I was about to make the same offer to him, but I didn’t see no sense getting into an argument with him when poor Miss Abigail was just wasting away with no one to love her, so I told him I’d sure consider it, and that a little down payment would put me in a charitable mood regarding his intentions, and he right away reached into his pocket and guv me a twenty-pound note. I got up and took my leave of him, since if he was here it meant she was there and doubtless waiting to fall into the arms of any handsome man of the cloth who was ready and willing to sweep her off her feet (always assuming she didn’t top out at more than one hundred and thirty pounds.) I walked out into the street and realized I didn’t know where the Baroness lived. I figgered I’d probably have to wait until daylight, and then head off to some house that probably looked a little bigger than the Chrysler Building, but as I was trying to decide whether to spend the night on a park bench or perhaps find an obliging lady of quality what left her mercenary streak in her other dress, I heard a voice calling to me. I turned to see where it was coming from, and it seemed to me that it was emanating from a tavern called The Gelded Goliath, what looked like it had been built about the time that David whipped the original Goliath in straight falls. I wandered over and went inside it, and the second I entered a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me aside, and a voice kind of hissed: “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You called me over, Brother Cornwall,” I said, because the second I heard his voice I knew it was Rupert Cornwall, even though he didn’t say “Cobber” or “bloke” or “kangaroo” nor nothing else in Australian.

“I mean, what are you doing in La Paz at all?” he demanded.

“Just enjoying the scenery,” I answered.

“It’s night out!”

“I was taking a walk and enjoying the cool night air,” I said.

“We’re at twelve thousand feet and you can barely the air!”

“Would I be correct in assuming you are less than thrilled to see me again, Brother Rupert?” I asked.

“Of the ten people in the world I wanted never to lay eyes on again, you’re at least three of them!” he snapped.

“You got to let go of them bygones, Brother Rupert,” I said.

“Six of those bygones spent an entire afternoon beating the hell of out me in Hamburg!” he bellowed. “I had Lady Edith Quilton all wrapped up and ninety-eight percent delivered back in Rajasthan when you showed up! And thanks to you, I got to spend an extra four months in the Hong Kong jail!”

“But outside of that we’ve always been friends,” I said.

“Those are the only times in my life I’ve ever been anywhere near you!”

“What about now?” I asked.

“What about now?” he repeated. “What are you doing here, as if I couldn’t guess?.”

“Actually, I was just having a friendly chat with my old friend Major Theodore Dobbins.”

“How much did he offer you?”

“Not one red cent,” I said. “I know I seem irresistible, but he hankers after women.”

“He hankers after one woman in particular,” said Rupert. “He’s doomed to be disappointed.”

“Must be quite a looker if you both want her,” I said.

“I think I can truthfully say that there’s not another one like her anywhere in the world,” answered Rupert kind of carefully.

“So I’ve heard,” I said.

“Then you know the woman of whom I’m speaking?”

“Not personally,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Not ever, “ said Cornwall. “I’m warning you, Lucifer–stay away from her.”

“If I was you, I’d be more concerned with warning the Major,” I said. “He seems to think he’s got a prior claim on her.”

“I’ll make short work of him,” said Rupert. “He thinks he’s dazzling her with his credentials, but I happen to know he was cashiered out of His Majesty’s armed forces, and he is wanted for dealing in certain perishable commodities in six African countries. What do you think of that?”

“So the other three dropped their charges, did they?” I replied.

“There were nine?” he asked, pulling out a pencil and a small notebook and starting to scribble away in it.

“Of course, he might have told her a little something about you,” I said.

“I can explain every one of them!” he snapped. Then he paused and frowned. “Of course, the four underaged girls and the dead chicken might cause a little problem.”

“So will the fact that you got the entire Greek and Turkish armies after you,” I said. “First time they stopped shooting at each other in thirty years.”

“I’ll just tell her I made peace between those two warring nations,” said Cornwall with a shrug. “Why bother her with unimportant details?”

I agreed that there wasn’t no reason for him to recite all them details to the Baroness, since I planned to tell her about ‘em first anyway, and we chatted about this and that, and finally he asked me how long I planned to stay in La Paz.

“Well, I’m really just on my way to this Macho place over in Peru…” I began.

“Macchu Pichu?” he asked

“The very spot,” I said. “But I’m a little short of funds, so I guess I’m going to have to stick around La Paz until I can raise a grubstake, or maybe find a kind-hearted sponsor.”

“Look no farther,” said Cornwall. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled twenty, which he handed to me. “Have a safe trip. Be sure to write. Boy voyage. You might as well start now; there are no jaguars up this high.”

“Why, that’s right generous of you, Brother Cornwall, and I’d be less than a Christian gentleman of modesty and humility if I waited another second to start my trek to this here not-quite-lost empire.”

And with that, I stuffed the bill in a pocket and headed out the door. Now, it ain’t generally known, but your body eventually adjusts to altitude, and after six days in Cochabomba and a night in La Paz, I was back in my vigorous prime and could walk almost a block without getting winded. I spotted a donkey hitched up in front of a bar, with a guy sitting on the wood sidewalk just in front of it, so I mosied over and asked how much he wanted for the donkey.

“It is not mine to sell, Senor,” he said.

“I didn’t ask whose it was,” I told him. “I asked how much you wanted for it?”

His whole expression changed, and a kind of happy glow came over his face.

“Ten dollars American, Senor?” he said hesitantly.

I shook my head. “It’ll have to be twenty. I ain’t got nothing smaller.” Then I thunk on it for a minute.

“For the other ten, you can tell me how to get to Baroness Walters’ house.”

“You mean her palace, Senor,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” I said. “Slip of the tongue.”

He told me where she was, unhitched the donkey and guv me the reins, and held out his hand for the money, and a minute later I was on my way to the biggest farm I ever did see. The fields didn’t look like much, just a bunch of bushes with ugly leaves and no flowers nor corn nor anything interesting, but it spread out for miles. It took the donkey a good hour to make it up to the house, which might have been smaller than Buckingham Palace or that big art museum in Paris but I wouldn’t bet on it. A tall young guy with slicked down coal-black hair and matching eyes, and wearing a uniform that didn’t seem to belong to no army I’d ever heard of, opened the door.

“Yes?” he said.

“Good morning to you, Brother,” I said. “Is the Baroness in?”

“It is the middle of the night,” he answered.

“It is?” I said. “How time flies. Especially up here, where it ain’t got much air to hold it down.”

“Who are you?” he said.

“I’m the Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, just back from curing a leper colony in Upper Volta.”

“There are no lepers in Upper Volta,” he said.

“Well, maybe I heard wrong and it was next to a leopard colony,” I said. “Whatever it was, they was in a bad way until I comforted ‘em with the Word of the Lord.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “We have no lepers in La Paz.”

“That’s because they’re afraid to come a-callin’ when Lucifer Jones is on the job, passing out heavenly amnesty and salvation right and left,” I said. “I’ve come to see the Baroness.”

“I don’t know if she’ll see you,” he said.

“She’s been struck blind?” I asked. “Then we ain’t got no time to waste. I’ll recite the Psalm of Fifi over her, and lay my hand on her eyes and she’ll be seeing normal again in no time. Well, in six months, anyway.”

“The Psalm of Fifi?”

“My own updating of the Psalm of Sheba,” I told him.

“I’m afraid you misunderstand, Doctor Jones.”

“You mean she can see?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

That was a relief, because if she really had been struck blind she’d never be able to see how much better a figure I cut than the Major or Cornwall. In fact, it was such an open and shut contest that they probably should have made me wear a mask or something, the way the best racehorse has to carry extra weights.

“What’s your name, son?” I asked him.

“Julio,” he said.

“Well, Julio,” I said, “why don’t you take me to the Baroness right now? All I got’s a hundred dollar bill, but if the Baroness can make change I’ll catch you on the way out.”

He led me to a staircase that could have held the whole London Philharmonic Orchestra, with room left over for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and we stared climbing it. I had to stop three or four times to rest, but eventually we made it all the way up to the second floor, and we went down a corridor for maybe the length of a football field, and finally we came to a door that probably wasn’t no more impressive that anything one of them Henrys or Louies ever hung on the royal bedroom, and Julio stopped and knocked on it.

“Come,” said a voice that sounded kind of like a bullfrog in his death throes.

“Wait out here,” I said to Julio, walking in and closing the door behind me. I found myself in a study what had a huge desk and a bunch of fancy furniture with curving legs, all of it painted bright gold, and there was velvet wallpaper, and the kind of curtains you usually see as blankets in certain select New Orleans locations, and a ceiling about forty feet high, and a bunch of chandeliers, and standing by the desk was the Baroness Abigail Walters. I tried to think who she reminded me of, and finally it came to me: she looked exactly like a gorilla I saw in the Congo, right after he’d lost a disagreement with a family of lions. Which ain’t exactly true neither, because his eyes stared straight ahead and he didn’t have a wart the size of a walnut on his chin. Probably his arms were a little longer and his legs a little straighter, too, but I wouldn’t bet serious money on it.

“What can I do for you?” said the Baroness.

“Good evening to you, ma’am,” I said. “I’m the Right Reverend Lucifer Jones–”

“If you’re here to fix the stove, it’s downstairs,” she said.

“No, ma’am, I definitely am not,” I said.

“The leaky faucet, then?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I could play guessing games all night, but I have a business to run,” she said. “What are you here for?”

I’d come prepared, and I was ready with my fanciest lingo. “I’ve come to blight my troth, and sweep you away on a sea of passion,” I said.

She just stared at me without saying a word.

“I realize you’re awestruck, me being a handsome young buck what ain’t never come courting before, but when you compare me to Major Dobbins or Rupert Cornwall, why, ma’am, I just know you’ll throw yourself in my strong manly arms and beg me to take you away from all this.”

“From all what?” she asked. I thought she kind of frowned, but with that low forehead of hers I couldn’t be sure.

“From all this stuff you’re growing. I walked by it on my way here, and you ain’t got no corn nor wheat nor barley, just a bunch of stuff with leaves on it. That ain’t no way to increase our family fortune, ma’am.”

“Those leaves are the basis of my fortune,” said the Baroness.

“Ma’am, I can tell you like a joke as much as the next Baroness, but I’m being serious here,” I told her.

“You’re in La Paz, and you really don’t know what they are?” she said, looking about as surprised as a gorilla that’s also an elegant Baroness can look. “Why, we’ve fought three wars over these leaves in the past five years. The American companies keep trying to drive me off my land.”

“For a bunch of leaves?” I said.

“Coca leaves,” she said.

“Cocoa?” I repeated. “Are you trying to tell me that all this fighting is over some hot chocolate franchise?”

“No, coca.”

“That’s what I said.”

She shook her head. “You get chocolate from cocoa nuts. You get cocaine from coca leaves.”

“Are you sure of that?” I asked her.

She just stared at me.

“And you’re only worth eight hundred million dollars?” I continued. “Ma’am, I think it’s more important than ever that you marry someone what’s qualified to run your business. Being a man of the cloth, I could marry us first thing in the morning, or even tonight if you ain’t all-fired anxious to sit down and sew yourself up a wedding gown.”

She just kind of stared at me, pretty much the way that gorilla did before he lumbered off into the bush. “I must say that your approach is more novel than my other suitors, Reverend Jones.”

“You can just call me Lucifer,” I said. “Or Honeybunch, if you’ve a mind to, now that we’re gonna get hitched. I know Rupert and the Major think they’re engaged in a love triangle with you, ma’am, but I’m presenting myself as the fourth side of that there triangle.”

“Are you always this direct and to the point?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am, I am,” I said. “Sloth is against the Eighth and the Fourteenth Commandments.”

“There are only ten in my bible,” she said.

“You probably got the condensed version,” I told her. “It goes easy on all the begatting, too, but I’ll give you the benefit of my vast worldly experience.”

“Why do I get the feeling that I should check up on your worldly experience?” she said.

“A sweet young thing like you shouldn’t worry your pretty little head over such matters, ma’am,” I said.

“If you’re really concerned, I’ll check up on me and give you a report.”

“Is this the way you sweep them off their feet in America?” she asked.

“Why, ma’am,” I said in injured tones, “that implies that I ever lost my heart to anyone else, whereas in truth I’ve been saving it just for you.”

“What about your vast worldly experience?”

“Apples and oranges, ma’am,” I explained. “I’m talking about hearts and you’re talking about bodies.”

“I do believe you are quite the most remarkable suitor I have ever had, Lucifer,” she said.

“Why, thank you, Abigail,” I said, bowing low, which guv me a chance to inspect the Persian rug I was standing on.

“Baroness,” she corrected me.

“And now that we’ve reached an understanding, Miss Abby–”

“Baroness,” she kind of growled.

“Baroness,” I corrected myself, “I’ll just invite them other two suitors to hit the road and I’ll be back for your hand”–I guv her The Look–”and everything that goes with it.”

I figgered that ought to at least get a happy little giggle from her, but instead she looked like she’s just eaten some bad chili, and I made up my mind to restrict her diet to a couple of fruits and maybe a tomato or two, especially since she’d never miss a quick eighty or ninety pounds and it might even straighten up them legs a bit.

“Julio!” she hollered, and her houseboy showed up in about two seconds, still decked out in a jacket what was covered with braids and them little things what goes on the shoulders–paulines, I think they call

‘em, doubtless after some gorgeous dancer who also shook whenever she moved.

“Yes, Baroness?” said Julio.

“Show this gentleman out, please,” she said.

I put my hand over my heart. “Until tomorrow, my love,” I said. Then I figgered I ought to say something tender and romantic for her to remember me by, and I recollected a delicate love story Diego guv me to read while I was stuck in the calaboose, and I said, “My loins ache for your hot, pulsating flesh.”

“Sounds painful,” she said thoughtfully.

“Follow me, please,” said Julio, leading me back down all them stairs and out the door. “We fed and watered your donkey,” he added when we were outside.

“That’s might thoughtful of you,” I said, “but he could have just grazed at roadside on the way back to town.”

“The last donkey who grazed at this roadside attacked and ate a pack of wolves,” said Julio. So, since he was going to be my servant too, and I wanted us to get off on the right foot, at least until I could replace him with some French maids in them cute little outfits I use to see in the mail order catalogs before the government shut them down, I thanked him for all his help and courtesy, let him boost me onto the donkey, and in another hour I was back in town.

Now that I’d met the future Mrs. Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Jones, I figured there was no sense sleeping in a park or on a bench, so when I hit Paseo El Prado Street, I pulled the donkey up outside the Sucre Palace Hotel, told the doorman I was donating him to the hotel, and went inside to get a room and charge it to the Baroness.

The lobby has a carpet, which was mighty rare in La Paz, and had been painted since the turn of the century, which was even rarer. A few guests were sitting on chairs and couches, their noses buried in newspapers.

“I thought you were leaving,” said a voice with an Australian accent, and I turned to see Rupert Cornwall sipping a glass of something that could have been wine and might have been tequila and was mostly wet. He was sitting on a chair in the lobby, and I walked over to him.

“Howdy, Brother Rupert,” I said. “I just came back from meeting the apple of your eye.”

“And?” he said suspiciously.

“You’ve really and truly been smitten by Cupid’s capricious arrow,” I said. “You made her sound even prettier than she is.”

He looked right relieved at that. “So you’ll be on your way now?”

“Well, I could be, I suppose,” I said. “But I thought you might need a second.”

“A second what?” he said.

“Major Dobbins has challenged you to a duel to the death,” I said.

“Oh, he has, has he?” said Cornwall. “When and where?”

“Sunrise, in that big empty field I crossed on my way here from Cochabomba.”

“The one just south of town?” he asked, which was mighty useful information, since I’d been sleeping in the back of the wagon and didn’t wake up until it dumped me in the center of town.

“The very one,” I said.

“I accept!” he said. “Pistols at dawn!”

“I’ll tell the Major the good news,” I said. “Do you know where I can find him? I ain’t seen him in a few hours now.”

“He’ll be at the Plaza de Lago, over on Aqua Millagro,” said Cornwall.

“Plaza de Lago,” I repeated. “They ain’t got no lakes nor plazas in La Paz.”

“The restaurant next door advertises edible food,” he said. “Signs in this town aren’t always held to the highest standard of truth.”

I thanked him, wished him good luck, and mosied over to Aqua Millagro, which didn’t have no aqua and no millagros that I could see, and hunted up the Plaza de Lago, where the desk clerk directed me to Major Dobbins, who was sitting on a stool in a bar what had seen better days and probably better centuries.

“I’d rather hoped I had seen the last of you,” he said glumly.

“I’m just here on an errand of mercy, Major,” I said.

“Oh?” he said, kind of suspicious-like.

“Yes. I think it’s a good idea for you to leave town pronto, and maybe not stop until you’re on a ship bound for Europe or some other island where you can lose yourself in a crowd.”

“What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“It seems that no-good Rupert Cornwall has challenged you to a duel at sunrise in the field south of town,” I said. “If I was you, I’d be on the first horse, donkey, or wagon out of here.”

“I absolutely will not run from a fight with that scoundrel!” announced the Major.

“I ain’t telling you to run,” I said. “I think you should ride. You’ll make better time.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “What does he want–guns, swords, or fisticuffs?”

“Pistols at twenty paces, last I heard.”

“Tell him I accept,” said the Major.

I told him I’d do so, and wandered out into the street, feeling like I’d done a good night’s work. I’d met the woman I was going to try to fall in love with at some far future date and marry a lot sooner, I’d tooken care of two sides of the love triangle, leaving just my side and the Baroness’s side left, and it wasn’t even midnight. I decided I might as well stop at a bar what wasn’t frequented by no potential rivals for the Baroness’s hand, and I entered the first one I came to, about half a block up from the Major’s hotel–and who should I bump into but Diego?

“You’re a long way from home,” I said. “You after some notorious thief or killer?”

“I’m after some good liquor,” he answered. “The stuff we get in Cochabomba is awful, Senor.” He paused. “Have you run into your two old friends yet?”

“Funny you should mention it,” I said. “They’re having a duel to the death at sunrise. Let’s spend the rest of night drinking, and then you can go arrest the winner.”

Since he’d already gotten a head-start on the whiskey he allowed as to how that was a right practical idea no matter whose jurisdiction they killed each other in, and then he poured me a glass, and we spent a few hours reminiscing over old times, which was kind of strange because we only had six days of old times to reminisce about, but we made do, and finally I heard a rooster cock-a-doodling which either meant that the sun was about to come up or he’d sat on something really cold. We left the bar and headed off to the field where the big gunfight was going to take place. When we got there, I saw thousands of white crosses planted in even rows.

“What the hell happened here?” I asked.

“This was the battlefield for the Chaco War three years ago,” said Diego.

“I never thunk one lone Marx Brother could do so much damage,” I said, looking at all the crosses.

“You misunderstand, my friend,” said Diego. “This was a war between Bolivia and Paraguay, and…”

He might have droned on about for another hour, but just then the Major approached from the east and a minute later Rupert Cornwall began walking toward us from the west. They stopped about five feet from each other, glaring and snarling.

“All right,” said the Major. “We have to set the ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” scoffed Cornwall. “There are no ground rules in a duel to the death.”

The Major suddenly had a gun in his hand and pointed it between Cornwall’s eyes. “What the hell,” he said. “Have it your way.”

“Wait! “ shouted Cornwall. “I’ve just reconsidered! We can have rules!”

“Damn!” muttered the Major, lowering his service revolver. “All right, what are they?”

“We stand back-to-back, walk ten paces, turn, and fire,” said Cornwall.

“I agree to your rules,” said the Major.

“I’m not done, yet,” said Cornwall. “Since this was your challenge, you have to wear a blindfold.”

“It was your challenge!” snapped the Major.

“Liar!” yelled Cornwall.

“Blaggard!” yelled the Major.

“Take that back!” snapped Cornwall.

“Never!” bellowed the Major.

“I challenge you to a second duel,” said Cornwall. “Just in case you live through the first.”

“I accept!” said the Major. “And after I kill you with my pistol, I’m going to take great pleasure killing you with my sword.”

I turned to Diego. “I seen these guys in action,” I whispered. “We’d better move a little farther away.”

“They’re that deadly?” he replied, kind of awestruck.

“None deadlier,” I said, increasing my pace until we came to a couple of huge old trees. “We ought to be safe standing behind these.”

I looked behind me, and saw that the Major and Cornwall were already standing back to back, each holding a pistol in his hand, and I could tell by the bulges under their coats that the Major had two more in criss-crossed shoulder holsters and Cornwall had one in his pants pocket and another tucked in his belt.

They agreed to take ten steps, turn, and fire, but they must have forgot how tired they’d get at this altitude, because the Major stopped at eight paces and turned, his gun blazing. But Cornwall must have got himself winded even sooner because he was already shooting. Me and Diego hid behind our trees until they’d each emptied all their weapons.

“How can they still be standing?” he whispered to me as the last shots echoed through the thin air.

“Nobody provided ‘em with chairs,” I said.

“I mean, aren’t they riddled with bullets?” he asked.

“Well, something must be riddled with bullets,” I said. “Let’s go take a look.”

So we did. The final score was 23 dead llamas, two dead donkeys, eleven dead birds, and a badly crippled tree. Diego arrested them both and carted ‘em off to jail until he could wire the S.P.C.A. to pick

‘em up for crimes against Nature, which differed from the usual crimes against Nature that make such interesting reading on hot summer nights.

As for me, now that my rivals were out of the way, I hopped the first llama I could find that was still breathing and intact, headed him toward the Baroness’s farm, and an hour and a half later I was walking up to her house.

A different young man answered the door.

“Are you here for the celebration?” he asked, and I noticed that there was a ton of cars, horses, and donkeys parked around the side of the house.

“News sure travels fast in these here parts,” I said. “So she heard already?”

“You misunderstand, my friend,” said the man. “This is her wedding day.”

“Right,” I said. “And I’m the happy bridegroom.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “You Americans have such a wonderful sense of humor!”

“We do?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “She just married Julio half an hour ago.”

“Just how the hell many sides did this here triangle have?” I muttered.

“I don’t understand,” said the man.

But me, I understood all too well. I’d opened my heart to the Baroness, and instead of reciprocating by opening her bank account to me, she’d married this mere child what didn’t know nothing about business and was probably preparing to sell her latest crop to some soft drink company instead of certain select families what knew how to treat a negotiation with respect.

Once more the fickle finger of Fate had flang down its gauntlet, and once more geometry had triumphed over love. I stayed just long enough to fill my pockets with grub to last me five or six days, and then I proceeded on my lonely way to the lost kingdom of Macchu Pichu, where I figgered to overcome my broken heart by setting myself up as Emperor, corral a few naked High Priestesses, and plunder the treasury six ways to Sunday.