He phoned the brothers, and the half-wit Clemente answered. "Clemente, can you give me the number of the garage's insurance?"

"…"

"What for? Oh yes, I was forgetting. Because the Swiss ambassador's car caught fire. It's just a heap of cinders now."

I don't have to tell you that five minutes later Clemente appeared at a brisk run, waving his arms about and hopping mad because in fact the garage was not covered in any way at all. It took three stiff whiskies and all the charm of Simone's amply displayed legs to quiet him down. Armando only turned up the following day; he was perfectly calm, and this was his charming way of taking it-"Things happen only to people who work. Anyhow, don't let's talk about it anymore; I've fixed everything with the ambassador."

The ambassador got another car, but for some reason we lost his business.

From time to time, while we were living this zestful life, I thought about my little treasure lying there hidden at the foot of a tree in a republic well known for its frozen meat. And I put money aside for the fare there and back when the time came to go and fetch it. The knowledge that I had almost enough to satisfy my revenge had completely transformed me. Because I no longer worried about making money, I could plunge wholeheartedly into our musketeering life-plunge into it so deep that one Sunday afternoon at three o'clock there we were, all of us, bathing in a fountain in one of the Caracas squares, with nothing on but our drawers. This time, at least, Clemente rose to the occasion and had his brother's partners released from the police station where they had been shut up for indecent exposure. By now a good many months had gone by, and at last it seemed to me safe to go and pick up my treasure.

So fare you well, buddies,. and thanks for all your kindness. Then I was on my way to the airport. I got there at six in the morning; I hired a car, and at nine I reached the spot.

I crossed the bridge. Christ above, what had happened? Had I gone mad, or was it a mirage? I stared around, but my tree was not there. And not only my tree but hundreds of others. The road had been made much wider, and the bridge and the stretch leading up to it had been entirely changed. Working it out from the bridge, I managed to more or less pinpoint the place where my tree and my wealth must have been. I was flabbergasted. Not a trace!

A kind of madness came over me, a stupid fury. I ground my heels into the asphalt, just as though it could feel anything. I was filled with an enormous rage and I looked around for something to destroy: all I could see was the white lines painted on the road-I kicked them, as if knocking off little bits of paint could destroy the road.

I went back to the bridge. The approach road on the other side had not been altered, and judging from that I reckoned they must have shifted the earth to a depth of more than twelve feet. And since my loot had not been buried deeper than a yard, it couldn't have lasted long, poor thing.

I leaned on the parapet and for a while I watched the water flow by. Gradually I calmed down, but still the thoughts whirled about inside my head. Was I always going to lose out like this? Should I give up trying to pull things off? What was I going to do now? My knees sagged. But then I got hold of myself and I said, "How many times did you fail before you brought off your break? Seven or eight times, right? Well, it's the same thing in life. You lose one banco, you go and win another. That's life, when you really love it."

I didn't stay long in this country that felt called upon to change its roads so fast. It made me sick to think that a civilized nation didn't even respect ancient trees. And why, I ask you, why widen a road that was quite broad enough for all the traffic it had to carry?

In the plane taking me back to Caracas, I laughed to think that men can suppose they are the masters of their fate, that they imagine they can build the future and foresee what they'll be doing the next year or the year after. All so much bullshit, Papi! The brightest calculator, the cleverest imaginable organizer of his life is no more than a toy before fate. Only the present is certain: all the rest is something we know nothing about-something that goes by the name of luck, misfortune, destiny or indeed the mysterious and incomprehensible hand of God.

Only one thing really matters in life, and that is never to admit you're beaten and to start up again after every flop. That was what I was going to do.

When I'd left, I'd said good-bye for keeps. Because once I'd dug up the loot I meant to go to other countries, not Venezuela, alter the jewels so they could not be recognized, sell them and move on to Spain. From there it would be easy to go and pay a call on Prosecuting Counsel and Co. So you can imagine the terrific uproar when the musketeers saw me turn up at the garage door. Dinner and a party cake to celebrate my return, and Dédée put four flowers on the table. We drank to the re-formed team, and life started off again at full throttle. But still, I was no longer as carefree as I had been.

I felt sure Armando and Deloifre had designs on me that they were keeping back, probably something to do with the coup d'etat, although both knew my position as far as that was concerned. They often asked me to come and have a drink or to eat at Deloifre's place. Wonderful food, and no witnesses. Deloifre did the cooking, and his faithful chauffeur Victor waited table. We talked about a great many things, but in the end the conversation always came round to the same subject-General Medina Angarita. The most liberal of all Venezuelan presidents; not a single political prisoner during his régime; no one persecuted because of his ideas; a policy of coexistence with all other states, all other regimes, even to the point of setting up diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union; he was good, he was noble, and the people so loved him for his simplicity that one day, during a celebration at El Paralso, they carried him and his wife in triumph, like toreros.

Constantly telling me about this wonderful Medina, who walked around Caracas with just one aide-de-camp and went to the cinema like an ordinary citizen, Armando and Deloifre almost persuaded me that only a man with his heart in the right place would do anything to bring Medina back to power. They painted a very dark picture of the present government's injustice and its vengeful attitude towards a whole section of the population; and to make me like their marvelous president even more, Deloifre told me Medina lived it up with the very best of them. On top of that, he was a personal friend, although he knew Deloifre had escaped from jail.

At last, almost won over-mistakenly, as I learned afterward- I began to think of taking part in the coup d'etat. My hesitation vanished entirely (I have to say this because I want to be honest) when I was promised the money and all the facilities I needed to set my plan of revenge in motion.

So this is how it was that one night Deloffre and I were sitting there at his place, me dressed as a captain and Deloffre as a colonel, ready to go into action.

It began badly. To identify one another, the civilian conspirators were supposed to wear a green armband, and the password was Aragua. We were supposed to be at action stations at two in the morning. But about eleven that night four guys turned up in the one horse-drawn cab left in Caracas; they were totally plastered, and they were singing at the top of their voices, to the accompaniment of a guitar. They stopped just in front of the house, and to my horror I heard them singing songs full of allusions to tonight's coup d'etat-allusions as obvious as an elephant. One of them bawled out to Deloifre, "Pierre! Tonight the nightmare comes to an end at last! Courage and dignity, arnigo! Our Papa Medina must return!"