Edward Whittemore - Jerusalem Poker

Originally Jericho had been considered as a likely location for the reporting center of the Jerusalem district, but Nubar had personally intervened in favor of the sulphur site on the Dead Sea, despite the heat. It pleased him to know the UIA's most important field station was nestled in the lowest spot on earth, within those grotesque geological formations that were generally accepted to be the natural ruins of Sodom.

Dead Sea Control had evaluated the report as POTENTIAL URINE, which meant it had been written by an informer who had shown enough initiative to be considered a potential Ur anist in telligence e mployee. Beneath the formal title was a descriptive caption, uncommonly cryptic by UIA standards.

Submitted as background material only, to illustrate the difficulties faced by Dead Sea Control in collecting relevant information about Jerusalem, in view of the mythical nature of that city up there on the mountain. And especially in view of the view from down here on the shores of what has been referred to, in an important piece of literature, as the dried cunt of the world. (That very long novel, still banned in most countries as obscene, deals exclusively with a single day, June 16, 1904. Amazing, don't you think? Of course we have a lot of time to read long novels down here.) Nubar snorted. Did his agents think they were getting paid to read long novels? He made a mental note to fire off a cable to Dead Sea Control as soon as he had finished reading the report.

ARE YOU MAD? NO MORE REFERENCES TO CUNTS AND NO MORE OBSCURE

LITERARY ALLUSIONS. STICK TO THE TRUTH FROM NOW ON OR YOU CAN EXPECT

IMMEDIATE DISCIPLINARY ACTION.

NUBAR

SUPREME LEADER

He read on.

Submitted, secondly, to illustrate the difficulties faced in separating interesting, relevant information on Jerusalem from the mass of uninteresting, irrelevant details in which it is invariably encased. And lastly, submitted because the report does have some legitimate curiosity value when read with an open mind.

An open mind? Nubar had an open mind and the idea of reading something with curiosity value intrigued him after all these months of lying in bed all day and sneaking around in the rain all night trying to get someone to take The Boy seriously.

He turned the page.

EYES ONLY Jerusalem to Dead Sea Control.

DATE when information was acquired: August 1933.

DATE when information was forwarded to Control: Halloween 1933. (Delay due to time required to write up report.)

TIME when information was elicited: Several hours on a very hot afternoon in August 1933.

PLACE where information was elicited: The Moslem Quarter, the Old City, Jerusalem.

PERSON from whom information was elicited: Name, race and nationality unknown. A man on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. (They're always coming and going by the thousands, these pilgrims, aren't they, and there's certainly no way to know who most of them are. Now this one happens to remain anonymous throughout the report, on the face of it simply because I was never able to find out who he was. But mightn't there be some larger design beyond that? Could it just be, perhaps, that he was meant to be anonymous in order for him to assume the role of the archetypal pilgrim?

One single part in the narrative, thereby, put forward to represent all the seekers who have sought Jerusalem over the millennia?

Not so farfetched, it seems to me, once you get into the entanglements that are coming.) PERIOD covered by information in this report: From 930 B.C. to August 1933.

WHAT follows initially: Unclassified records (public).

WHAT follows in the middle: Top Secret speculations (private).

AND FINALLY WHAT follows in the all-important end. (A note to agents filling out this form.

You have now arrived at the meat of your report and you are warned, here above all, to be brief and to the point. Your ability to describe your meat succinctly is the only reason anybody will ever read your report, if anybody ever does, which is in no way guaranteed by the hierarchy of the UIA. So summarize ruthlessly, in one sentence, making your case in plain language accessible to all. Extravagant attitudes may be allowed elsewhere, but not here. And the same goes for dabbling in fanciful notions or toying with idle speculations, with taking side trips down curious byways or pausing to explore obscure corners, all of the above and more, in fact any device whatsoever that may creep into your reports elsewhere. That's one thing but this is another, and we repeat, it must not happen here. Your meat of the matter, that's what is wanted now.

All right then, we're there, this is it and good luck. State your end product, what valuable contribution you have today to this crazy business we're all in. Go.): True identities of all major figures who have operated clandestinely in Jerusalem during the period covered by this report 930 B.C. to August 1933).

The first records Nubar came to were copies of documents from a Jerusalem tax office, dated from 1921

to 1933. But there was no indication what significance the records might have, or what was being taxed.

Next there were Jerusalem telephone bills and water bills for the same years, evidently purloined, followed by bills of lading for a cheap but sturdy juice squeezer of Czech origin, the squeezer's lever and cup and strainer all detachable for packing and cleaning purposes.

The bills of lading were dated 1921 and traced the juice squeezer from a factory in Prague, by rail, to an outlet on the Black Sea. By Bulgarian lugger, in a load of general cargo, to Constantinople. By cart, overland to Beirut, and by Greek caique down the coast to Jaffa. Whence by rail up to Jerusalem, the ultimate destination of the juice squeezer.

Nubar put his finger on the last bill of lading and gazed into the dark corners of his subcellar.

Jerusalem. A pattern was beginning to emerge.

He tightened the stockings around his neck against the chill, scratched himself thoughtfully and went back to the report. He had finished with the records.

The next page showed a floor plan of what appeared to be a tiny room. The walls were irregular. There was a door and one window, a counter and two chairs. At the end of the counter next to the door was the emblem of the UIA, §, also the symbol of the planet Uranus. Outside the door in a space marked alley was the number 18 and an arrow with an N at the tip. A scale beside the arrow listed foot and yard.

Nubar measured the room with his thumb and found it to be about eight feet long and five feet wide, narrowing to only three feet at the back.

He turned over the diagram. Now the pages began to be numbered for security reasons.

Page 1 of 407 pages, a report on the Great Jerusalem Poker Swindle.

1. The preceding diagram shows a fruit juice stand. Mine. I squeeze fresh juice by the glass, on order, and customers generally drink it on the premises. Shops in the Old City are often small and oddly shaped.

2. N indicates north.

3. 18 indicates the street number my shop might have if it were on a street and had a number, which it isn't and doesn't, being situated in a narrow alley and cul-de-sac near the bazaar in the Moslem Quarter, the rent there being about as cheap as can be found inside the walls built around the Old City by Suleiman I in 1542.

Good, thought Nubar. Completeness and unerring accuracy was the motto he had adopted for the UIA way back in 1921 when he had first begun hiring literary agents to steal all the known works of the great doctor and master alchemist, Paracelsus, real name Bombastus von Hohenheim.