Henri Charrière - Banco - the Further Adventures of Papillon

"Man, that's a better-than-average racket. So you sell tickets for a Cadillac that isn't yours? Christ, what a nerve! What about the pigs?"

"They're never the same; and seeing as there's no vice in them, it never comes into their heads that maybe the deal's a swindle. If they get a little too interested we give them a ticket or two and off they go, dreaming perhaps they'll win a Cadillac. If you want to make a little money with us, come along and I'll introduce you to my partner."

"You don't think it stinks a little, duping the poor?"

"Never on your sweet life. The tickets cost ten bolivars, so it's only well-off folk that can afford them. So there's no harm done."

Once the partner had checked me out, there I was, all involved with this knavery. It's not very elegant, but you have to eat, sleep and be, if not well dressed, at least clean. And I had to hold on to my reserve as long as possible-the few diamonds I'd brought from El Dorado and two five-hundred-bolivar notes that I hoarded like a miser in my _plan_-a short aluminum tube that I shoved up my ass for safekeeping-just as if I were still in the clink. I'd never left off carrying my _plan_ inside me, for two reasons: my hotel was in a pretty rough part of the town, where I might be robbed; and if I carried money in my pocket, I might lose it. In any case, I'd been storing this tube up my ass for fourteen years now, so a year more or less didn't make much difference, and that way I was easy in my mind.

The selling of the lottery tickets lasted more than a fortnight, and it would be going on still but for the fact that one day a very eager customer bought two tickets and examined every detail of this marvelous car he dreamed of winning. All at once he straightened up and cried, "But doesn't this car belong to Dr. Fulano, the bank director?"

Without batting an eyelid, the Colombian replied coolly, "Just so. He put it into our hands to dispose of like this. He reckons a lottery will bring him in a better price than a straight sale."

"Odd…," said the customer.

"But above all, don't mention it to him," the Colombian went on, still very calm. "He made us promise to say nothing, because he'd find it awkward if it was known."

"I can't understand it; it's really most unusual for a man of his kind."

As soon as he'd got far enough away, moving in the direction of the bank, we whipped off the streamer and folded it up. The Colombian vanished, carrying it, and I went to the door of the bank to tell our partner we were breaking camp. Inside myself I was laughing like a hyena and I couldn't help hanging around near the door so I could catch what I expected would be the sequel. It came off, all right. Three minutes later, there was the director together with the suspicious customer. He was waving his arms wildly and walking so last I knew he was in a real fury.

They saw there was nobody left around the Cadillac, and surprised, no doubt, they came back slower, stopping at a café to have a drink at the bar. As the customer hadn't recognized me, I went in, too, to hear what they would say, for the laugh.

"By God, that was a nerve! Don't you think that was an infernal nerve, Dr. Fulano?"

But the owner of the Cadillac, who, like all good Caraqueflos, had a sense of humor, burst out laughing and said, "When I think that if I had walked by they might have offered me a ticket for my own car! And that sometimes I'm so absentminded that I might actually have bought it. You must admit it makes you laugh."

Naturally enough, that was the end of our lottery. The Colombians vanished. For my part, I'd made close to fifteen hundred bolivars, enough to live on for over a month; which was important.

The days went by, and it was not at all easy to find anything worthwhile to do. This was the period when Pétain's supporters and the men who had collaborated with the Germans started reaching Venezuela from France, on the run from the justice of their own country. Since I didn't know enough about the possible distinction between collaborators and Pétainists, I lumped them all together under the label of ex-Nazis. So I did not associate with them.

A month went by and nothing much happened. At El Callao I had never thought it would be so hard to get myself going. I was reduced to selling coffee pots from door to door; they were supposed to be specially designed for offices.

You look rather foolish walking about the streets with a coffee pot in your hand; and I was doing just that when I bumped into Paulo the Boxer, an old Montmartre acquaintance.

"Why, what do you know? You must be Paulo the…"

"And you're Papillon?"

He grabbed my arm and towed me into a café.

"Well, talk of coincidence-this is a coincidence, all right."

"What are you up to, walking around the street with that coffee pot?"

"I'm selling them: it's a goddamn disaster. What with getting it out and shoving it back again, the box tore just now." I told him how things were with me and then I said, "How about you?"

"Let's drink our coffee. I'll tell you somewhere else."

We paid and stood up; I reached for my coffee pot.

"Leave that where it is. You won't want it anymore, I give you my oath."

"You don't think so?"

"I know it, man."

I left the vile pot on the table and we went out.

An hour later, in my room, after we had tossed memories of Montmartre to and fro, Paulo came to the point. He had a big job in a country not far from Venezuela. He knew he could rely on me. If I agreed, he'd take me on as one of his team.

"It's as easy as falling off a log-it's in the bag, man! I tell you very seriously, there are going to be so many dollars you'll need an iron to flatten them so they don't take up too much room."

"And where is it, this prodigious job?"

"You'll know when you get there. I can't say anything before."

"How many of us will there be?"

"Four. One's already on the spot. I came here to fetch the other. You know him, by the way. He's a friend of yours: Gaston."

"Right. But I've lost touch with him."

"Not me," said Paulo, laughing.

"You really can't tell me any more about the job?"

"Impossible, Papi. I've got my reasons."

I thought quickly. Placed as I was, there wasn't much choice. Either I went on dragging about with a coffee pot or some other goddamn nonsense in my hand or I took up the adventurous life again, with the possibility of making a bundle and making it quick. I'd always known that Paulo was a sober, reflecting type, and if in his opinion there had to be four of us, then that meant this job was serious, too. Technically, it would be a fancy piece of work. And that, I must admit, tempted me, too. So what about it, Papi-banco?

"Banco!"

The next day we set off.

More than seventy-two hours of driving. We relieved one another at the wheel. Paulo took endless precautions; every time we stopped for gas, the man who was driving put the others down three hundred yards from the pump and picked them up afterward.

Gaston and I had been waiting half an hour in the driving rain, waiting for Paulo to come back. I was furious. "You really think all this act is necessary, Paulo? Just look at us. We'll catch our goddamn deaths."

"What a fucking bore you are, Papi. I had air put in the tires, changed a back wheel and filled up with oil and water. You can't do that in five minutes."

"I never said you could. But I tell you I don't see the point of all these precautions."

"Well, I do, and I'm the boss. You may have had a fourteenyear stretch, but I copped ten of solitary in our loving homeland; so I don't think you can ever do enough in the way of precautions. Suppose there's a tip about a car, a Chevrolet with one man in it, say-well, it's not the same as a car with three men in it."