THE CRYSTAL CITY

"Mebbe, but she didn't say nothing."

"And since she was pla

"So I reckon she didn't see me."

"Or she did but didn't care."

Abe thought about that for a second. "I reckon what you're saying is I oughta look inside this-here wallet."

"You could do that," said Alvin.

Abe opened it up. "I'm jiggered," he said. Of course it was empty.

"You're jug-eared, too," said Alvin, "but your real friends would never point that out."

"So she already got him."

"Oh, I don't suppose she ever laid a hand on him," said Alvin. "But a girl like that, she probably doesn't work alone. She makes big-eyes..."

"And her partner goes for the pockets," said Arthur Stuart.

"You sound experienced," said Abe.

"We watch for it," said Arthur Stuart. "We both kind of like to catch 'em at it, iffen we can."

"So why didn't you catch them robbin' Coz?"

"We didn't know you needed lookin' after," said Arthur Stuart.

Abe looked at him with calculated indignation. "Next time you go to beatin' this boy, Al Smith, would you be so kind as to lay down one extra wallop on my behalf?"

"Get your own half-black adopted brother-in-law to beat," said Alvin.

"Besides," said Arthur Stuart, "you do need lookin' after."

"What makes you think so?"

"Because you still haven't thought about how Coz wasn't the only one distracted by her big fluttery eyes."

Abe slapped at his jacket pocket. For a moment he was relieved to find his wallet still there. But then he realized that Coz's wallet had been there, too. It took only a moment to discover that he and Coz had both been robbed.

"And they had the sass to put the wallets back," said Abe, sounding awestruck.

"Well, don't feel bad," said Arthur Stuart. "It was probably the pickpocket's knack, so what could you do about it?"

Abe sat himself right down on the dock, which was quite an operation, seeing how he was so tall and bony that just getting himself into a sitting position involved nearly knocking three or four people into the water.

"Well, ain't this a grand holiday," said Abe. "Ain't I just the biggest rube you ever saw. First I made a raft that can't be steered, so you had to save me. And then when I sell my cargo and make the money I came for, I let somebody take it away from us first thing."

"So," said Alvin, "let's go eat."

"How?" said Abe. "I haven't got a pe

"Oh, we'll treat you to supper," said Alvin.

"I can't let you do that," said Abe.

"Why not?"

"Because then I'd be in your debt."

"We saved your stupid life on the river, Abe Lincoln," said Alvin. "You're already so far in my debt that you owe me interest on your breath."

Abe thought about that for a moment. "Well, then, I reckon it's in for a pe

"The American version of that is 'in for a dime, in for a dollar,' " said Arthur Stuart helpfully.

"But my mama's version was the one I said," retorted Abe. "And since I got exactly as many pe

"You mean that was cussin'?" said Arthur Stuart.

"Inside me there was cussin' so bad it'd make a sailor poke sticks in his own ears to keep from hearin' it," said Abe. "Pe

All this while, of course, Alvin had been using his doodlebug to go in search of the thieves. First thing was to find Coz, partly because the woman might still be with him, and partly to make sure he hadn't been harmed. Alvin found his heartfire just as he was getting clubbed in the head in a back alley. It wasn't no hard thing to make it so the club didn't do him much harm. Put him down on the ground convincingly enough, so they wouldn't feel no need to give him another lick with it, but Coz'd wake up without so much as a headache.

Meanwhile, though, the woman and the man was strolling off as easy as you please. So Alvin searched them with his doodlebug and found the money fast enough. It was no great difficulty to make the man's pocket and the woman's bag unweave themselves a little, and it wasn't much harder to make the gold coins all slippery. Nor was it so hard to keep them from making a single sound when they hit the wharf. The tricky thing was to keep the coins from slipping through the cracks between the planks and falling into the slack water under the dock.

Arthur Stuart, of course, had enough experience and training now that he was able to follow pretty much what Alvin was doing. That was why he was stringing out the conversation long enough to give Alvin time to get the job done.

In a way, thought Alvin, we're just like that pair of thieves. Arthur Stuart's the stall, keeping Abe busy so he doesn't have a clue what's going on, and I'm the cutpurse and pickpocket. Only difference is, we're sort of unstealing what was already stolen.

"Let's go eat, then," said Arthur Stuart, "instead of talking about eatin'."

"Where shall we go to find food that we can stand to eat?" said Alvin.

"This way, I think," said Arthur Stuart, heading directly toward the alleyway where the coins had all been spilled.

"Oh, that doesn't look too promising," said Abe.

"Trust me," said Arthur Stuart. "I got a nose for good food."

"He does," said Alvin. "And I got the tongue and lips and teeth for it."

"I'll happily provide the belly," offered Abe.

They had him lead the way down the alley. And blamed if he didn't just walk right past the money.

"Abe," said Alvin. "Didn't you see them gold coins a-lyin' there?"

"They ain't mine," said Abe.

"Finders keepers, losers weepers," said Arthur Stuart.

"I may be a loser," said Abe, "but I ain't weepin'."

"But you're a finder now," said Arthur Stuart, "and I don't see you doin' no keepin'."

Abe looked at them a bit askance. "I reckon we ought to pick up these coins and search out their proper owner. No doubt somebody's going to be right sorry for a hole in his pocket."

"Reckon so," said Alvin, bending over to pick up a few coins. Arthur Stuart was doing the same, and pretty soon they had them all. It was quite a bit of money, when you had it all together.

"Gotta carry it somewhere," said Alvin. "Why don't you put it into those empty wallets you got?"

Alvin fully expected that Abe would realize, when he started loading it in, that it was exactly the amount that had been stolen.

But he didn't. Because the money didn't fit. There was too blamed much of it.

Arthur Stuart started laughing and kept laughing till he had tears ru

"So now who's the weeper?" said Abe.

"He's laughing at me," said Alvin.

"Why?"

"Because I clean forgot that you and Coz probably wasn't the first folks they robbed today."

Abe looked down at the full wallets and the coins that Alvin and Arthur Stuart were still holding and it finally dawned on him. "You robbed the robbers."

Alvin shook his head. "You was supposed to think they just dropped your money and ran or something," he said. "But I can't pretend that when you go finding more money than they took."

Abe shook his head. "Well, I'm begi

"I just know how to work with metals some," said Alvin.

"Including metal that's in somebody else's pocket or purse some six rods off."

"Let's go find Coz," said Alvin. "Since I reckon he's due to wake up soon."

"He's sleeping?" asked Abe.

"He had some encouragement," said Alvin. "But he'll be fine."