Dortmunder shook his head. "Is that in Africa too?"

"Oh, you heard of that one."

"No, I didn't," Dortmunder said. "I just guessed."

"Oh." Kelp glanced at the highway. "Yeah, it's another country in Africa," he said. "There was this British colony there, and when it went independent there was trouble, because there were two big tribes in the country and they both wanted to run it, so they had a civil war and finally they decided to split into two countries. So that's the two countries, Talabwo and Akinzi."

"You know an awful lot about this stuff," Dortmunder said.

"I got told about it," Kelp said.

Dortmunder said, "But I don't see any caper in it yet."

"I'm coming to that," Kelp said. "It seems that one of these tribes had this emerald, this jewel, and they used to pray to it like a god, and these days it's their symbol. Like a mascot. Like the tomb of the unknown soldier, something like that."

"An emerald?"

"It's supposed to be worth half a million bucks," Kelp said.

"That's a lot," Dortmunder said.

"Of course," Kelp said, "you couldn't fence a thing like that, it's too well known. And it would cost too much."

Dortmunder nodded. "I already thought of that," he said. "When I thought what you were going to say was heist the emerald."

"But that is what I'm going to say," Kelp said. "That's the caper, to heist the emerald."

Dortmunder found himself getting irritable again. He took his pack of Camels out of his shirt pocket. "If we can't fence it," he said, "what the hell do we want to lift it for?"

"Because we've got a buyer," Kelp said. "He'll pay thirty thousand dollars a man to get the emerald."

Dortmunder stuck a cigarette in his mouth and the pack in his pocket. "How many men?"

"We figure maybe five."

"That's a hundred fifty grand for a half-million-dollar stone. He's getting a bargain."