Crime

All people who sat within the Palm Grove were hushed, watching Bimi Tal. Fat hands fanning powdered breasts; silk handkerchiefs wiping ox necks; sweat beneath armpits. Still heat. Far away thunder. The stars going by.

Music swelled. Beneath its discord sounded a steady drumming rhythm. The arms of Bimi Tal waved about her head. She shouted for joy of life.

The pale eyes of Dirk, basking in mystery, gleamed into fire, blazed up in fury and hate undying! His dry lips opened. I saw his teeth.

. . .Through the breast-high grasses surge on the two marching men. Their boots sough in the muck. (Softly strums the bass viol.) Something waiting in the marshes! Something with golden eyes and swaying head. Hark! The rattle! Beware, for death is in the path!. . .

On arriving home, my in-laws had opened the cans and found that they had a problem. Over the intervening years, the cans had corroded and begun to leak. Water, containing minerals from the dirt, as well as chemicals from fertilizers and plant food, had gotten onto the bills and stained them considerably. In this condition, they could not possibly have been circulated without arousing a lot of questions that would be hard to answer.

The solution was to literally launder the money—to soak it in a mixture of bleach and mild detergent to try to get as much of the stains out as possible. This succeeded in getting most of the stains out, but it also took out some of the dyes in the ink, and left the bills looking strange and discolored. Passing them in stores would still raise some eyebrows.