Under the Lake

by Stuart Woods

  “No, no, I don’t think he’s like that, I really don’t.”

  “Listen, getting mixed up in big drugs has a way of making a murder or two seem a reasonable thing. I’d better straighten him out pretty quick on why I’m here.”

  “You do that, and you’ll blow me,” she said, gravely.

  “So, you’re blown. That’s better than me getting blown away.”

  “Come on, now, John, you used to do this sort of thing, you know. I’ve read your stuff; I’ve read your book. There’s something going on up here, and I want it. You’d want it, too, in my place, you know you would.”

  “Listen, don’t pull that old newspaperman’s camaraderie bullshit on me,” he said, banging his beer on the table. “Why should I have to spend all my time up here looking over my shoulder so you can work on something so flimsy that the paper wouldn’t even assign you? I don’t think you’ve had enough experience with these country sheriffs to know how territorial they are, how dangerous they can be. Bo Scully is a very powerful man right here on his own turf, and I don’t need him on my back.”

  “Oh, come on, he’s not going to mess with you. Your brother-in-law is Denham White; you’re married to the daughter of a man who was one of Eric Sutherland’s closest friends. Bo isn’t going to do anything to annoy Sutherland.”

  “I’m not so sure Sutherland would be all that annoyed if something happened to me. I’ve only met him once and…” He thought of that meeting. “Jesus, I’ll bet he must think I’m investigating him. He behaved that way, anyway.”

  “Why would Sutherland worry about being investigated?” Scotty asked.

  “I wonder,” Howell said. “I guess you know why I’m up here.”

  She grinned. “You mean that cock-and-bull story about writing a book?”

  “Now listen…”

  “Oh, we hear all the local news in the sheriffs office. Bo likes to know what’s going on.”

  “Well, he got my story this afternoon. I thought we were just having a man-to-man chat, but he was pumping me, because he thought I was you.”

  “Just what is your story, anyway? Last I heard, you were quitting to write the great American novel.”

  “Well, publishers have less taste than I thought. It didn’t exactly get snapped up. And what’s your story? Last I knew, you were writing bad house and home stuff and shaking your ass around the newsroom.”

  “I finally got a shot at something gritty, and it worked out.”

  "The highway bid-rigging thing?“

  "Right, and I didn’t get the assignment by shaking my ass.” She grinned. “If I’d done that, I’d be city editor by now.”

  He laughed. “Well, at least you know your strengths.”

  “Listen, buster, my strength is investigative reporting, and I’m going to find out what’s going on up here, I promise you.”

  “If I take the heat from Scully for you.”

  “I have to believe you’re gentleman enough to help me,” she said, arranging her features into a semblance of vulnerability.

  “Don’t pull that horseshit with me. You’ve been coming on like Walter Winchell all evening, and now you’re making like Scarlett O’Hara?”

  She banged her glass on the heavy table. “Oh, godammit, can’t you see what a terrific story this could make? A country-fried drug operation that nobody knows about? You’ve got your Pulitzer, now give me a shot at mine.”

  “Even if I have to give Bo Scully a shot at me?”

  “You saved his life this afternoon. It would violate his dumb macho code to hurt you now.”

  “What’s so dumb about that?”

  “Oh, you know what I mean. He’s seen too many Clint Eastwood movies.”

  “Don’t you think for a minute that Scully isn’t bright. He’s in the catbird seat up here, and he didn’t get there by being stupid. You sniff around him too much, and you’ll get a nose full of hot buckshot.”

  “Jesus, I know he’s not stupid. Neither am I. Look, just go along with me for a while on this. Let’s see what happens.” She stared at him worriedly across the table.

  Howell shoved a cracker into his mouth and chewed it silently.

  “Besides,” she said smugly, “now you’re just as curious as I am. Once a reporter…”

  He washed down the cracker with cold beer. “Now that’s the first smart thing you’ve said. Why didn’t you try that tactic first instead of all that other crap?”

  She laughed. “Because I didn’t know it was true. I thought you really had become the novelist, but under that cruddy sport shirt beats the heart of an old newspaperman.”

  “What do you mean, cruddy? It’s a damn fine sport shirt. And what do you mean, old?”

  “How old are you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I’d say, forty, ah…”

  “I was thirty-nine last month, and I look thirty-five, tops. And you? You’re just a snot-nosed cub reporter on your first undercover…”

  “I’m twenty-four, and I’ve got three years on a major metropolitan daily, and who told you you look thirty-five? Jesus, you look older than my father, and he’s forty-six! Oh, if we cleaned you up a bit, got you a shave and combed your hair over the bald spot…”

  “I’m only balding if you’re taller than I am and stand behind me. You wouldn’t come up to my belt buckle if you stood on tiptoe… you could walk under tables… what’re you, four-ten, four-eleven?”

  “I’m nearly five-two, and I’m probably stronger than you are. Want to arm wrestle?”

  “Let’s see who can piss farthest – that’s what this is all about isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be so sure you’d win, buster. You going to blow my cover on this one, or you going to do the right thing?”

  “Oh, hell, all right, but I hate to do this to Scully; I sort of like him.”

  “So do I; he’s a very attractive man.”

  “He thinks you’re cute, too, but you’re too close to home for him. He suggested I give you a call.”

  She started for the kitchen with the dirty dishes. “Why don’t you?”

  “Taylor’s Fish Camp tomorrow night?”

  “You’re on.” She grabbed her jacket.“ ”You’d better soak in a hot tub and get to bed.“

  “Join me?”

  She laughed. “I don’t think you’re up to it.” She skipped down the stairs and headed for her car.

  He watched her drive away. It had been a long time since he had made a dinner date with a girl. He felt foolishly happy about it. He thought about Elizabeth, but she seemed terribly far away. While he was married, he hadn’t done a lot of fooling around, but he didn’t feel married anymore, somehow.

  Scotty drove slowly back to the room she had taken at the home of an elderly widow, Mrs. McMahon. She could not believe how well this was working out. When John Howell had walked into the office that afternoon, she had nearly peed in her pants, but now it was going to be okay. It was going to be better than okay, because now Bo had a visible reporter to worry about.

  She had gone way out on a limb with the paper on this one. They had always thought she was reckless, and maybe she was, a bit, but that got results. Still, she had problems; when she wanted the police beat, she got the society page; when she wanted to do investigative work, she got the second-string job at the state capitol. It annoyed her greatly that they hadn’t kept her on staff for this job, that she had to do it on her own time and money. If she pulled it off, she’d be a hero in the newsroom, but if she didn’t go back with the goods on Bo Scully, she couldn’t go back at all. She’d be writing about womens’ club meetings on some county weekly.

  Quite apart from Howell’s taking the heat off her, she was glad to have him in town. In Atlanta, she had avoided tying herself to one man, but she was accustomed to an active sex life, even if she had to hit the singles bars to keep it up. In Sutherland, however, the only attractive man around had been Bo Scully, and he was for her, as she was for him, too close to home. Still,
Howell had turned up just in time. Another week, she knew, and she’d have been in bed with Bo. Another day, now, and she’d be in bed with John Howell. She could always tell.

  In her room, she dialed an Atlanta number.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Hiya, kid, how’re you doing?”

  “Okay, just fine.” Her father was a widowed orthopedic surgeon who practiced at Emory University Hospital, in Atlanta. Her mother had been dead for less than a year, and she made it a point to see him often. Since she had been in Sutherland, she had telephoned him two or three times a week.

  “You’re really okay, now? You’re not doing anything dangerous.”

  “Honest, Daddy, it’s just like I told you. All I do is work in the office. It’s less dangerous than writing society stuff for the Constitution.”

  “Well, I know you’re a tough little nut, anyway. After all, dynamite comes in small packages.”

  “You know it.” It had been his joke for as long as she could remember. “How’s the practice of medicine? Left any tools in patients this week?”

  “Well, there’s a crowbar missing around the office, but it’ll turn up. When you coming home? I miss you.”

  “I know, Daddy, I miss you, too, but I’ve got to stick it out up here for as long as it takes.”

  “How long is that going to be?”

  “Well, who knows, but if I can’t dig up something in three months, I probably never will.”

  “Three months, huh? Is that a promise?” “Well… almost. Listen, I’d better run. Big day in law enforcement tomorrow.”

  “Take care of yourself, now. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Okay, Daddy. I love you. Goodbye.” Scotty hung up and made one other call, to the answering machine in her Atlanta apartment. A couple of calls from guys. No point in returning them; it would just make her hornier. As she brushed her teeth before going to bed, Scotty reminded herself to take her pill the next morning. She was glad she hadn’t gone off it. She had always known something would turn up, and now, something had.

  8

  The hangover did not help Howell’s attempts to make a start on the autobiography of Lurton Pitts. He had followed Scotty’s advice and soaked in a hot tub, but he had gotten through another six ounces of the bourbon in the process and had fallen asleep quite drunk. The dream had come again, most vivid just at the point of awakening, but as soon as he was conscious, it was gone, just as always.

  A beer for lunch quelled the hangover enough for him to listen to more of Lurton Pitt’s tapes, but what he heard did not inspire him to write. He was getting the picture, though, getting through the tapes, figuring out what sort of book Pitts wanted. He could blast through it in a hurry when he finally got around to writing, he was sure of it.

  He lasted until two o’clock on the tapes, then gave up. He needed air. He drove to town with nothing particular in mind, then, on impulse, pulled into Ed Parker’s service station.

  “How you doin‘?” Benny Pope asked, scratching his snow-white head.

  “Not bad, Benny. Listen, I want to get Denham White’s outboard out of storage. Is it ready to go?”

  “Give it a test run, Benny,” Ed Parker said, coming out of the station’s little office. “It’s been sitting around all summer, John; let’s see if it’s running good.” He sat down on a cane-bottomed chair and pulled up another. “Sit yourself down for a minute. Want a cold drink?”

  Howell accepted the chair and a Coke. The two men leaned against the whitewashed station wall and soaked up the afternoon sun.

  “Hear you and Bo had yourselves a shoot-out yesterday out to Minnie Wilson’s.”

  “Well, sort of, I guess.”

  “They ain’t been talking about nothing else over to Bubba’s all day.”

  “Wasn’t much to it, really.”

  “I hear Minnie put a hole slap through that fellow.”

  “She sure did that, Ed. Just about scared me to death.”

  Ed laughed. “Yeah, must’ve got pretty noisy around there. What sort of book you working on, John?” Ed hadn’t missed a beat on the change of subject.

  “Oh, nothing I can talk about for the moment, Ed.”

  “I guess it’s like that if you’re a writer. You get superstitious about talking about it, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess sort of superstitious.”

  “A novel, is it?”

  “Yeah, a novel.”

  “And you plan to be up here just two or three months?”

  “About that.”

  “I always thought a novel took a long time to get written; maybe years.”

  “Well, if you’re Flaubert, maybe. I hope to work faster than that. Anyway, all I want to do is get a start up here. I’ll finish it in Atlanta, I guess.”

  “How you like it out at the cove?”

  “Pretty good. Got everything I need out there.”

  “Pretty place, ain’t it? Prettiest place on the lake.”

  “Sure is. Say, Ed, how many lots has Sutherland let out to people over the years?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, forty or fifty, I guess.”

  “How come nobody else has built out at the Cove except Denham? Like you say, it’s the prettiest place on the lake.”

  “I don’t know. I tried to get a lot out there once, myself,” Parker said, “but old man Sutherland wouldn’t lease it to me. I got a place over on the south side of the lake, though.”

  “Did he tell you why he wouldn’t let you have a lot in the Cove?”

  Parker shook his head. “Wouldn’t even talk to me about it. Just flat refused. I didn’t want to get him riled, so I took the other one.”

  Howell heard the outboard start up in the test tank behind the station.

  “Sounds pretty good,” Ed Parker said. “Running real smooth.”

  Howell got up. “I guess it’ll go in the back of the wagon all right, won’t it?”

  “I’ll send it up there in the truck with Benny. You’ll need a hand getting it on the boat; that’s a pretty big hunk of iron. There’s the battery, too. That’s been on a trickle charger.”

  “Thanks, Ed; what do I owe you?”

  “Oh, Denham paid when he laid it up. You can give Benny five bucks for helping you, if you want to. You headed home now? I can send him right on with it.”

  “Yeah, that’ll be great. I’ll go straight there.” He didn’t go quite straight to the cabin, though. He picked up a couple of bottles of bourbon and a bottle of brandy. The booze seemed to be going pretty fast.

  Benny was waiting for him, sitting in the truck, when Howell got back to the cabin. The two of them stripped the tarp off the boat and wheeled it from under the house into the water on its trolley. Benny rolled the heavy outboard down to the lake’s edge on a hand cart, set a gas can down next to it, then pulled off his shoes and pants. “Reckon we’ll get our feet wet doing this right,” he said.

  Howell shucked off his trousers and shoes, too, and waded into the cold water with Benny, wheeling the outboard. Benny stopped at the right depth, then pulled the boat toward them. In a moment, the motor was fastened securely to the boat’s stern, and Benny was connecting the control cables which led forward to the throttle and steering. He set the battery in its box and hooked it up.

  “You like it up here?” Benny asked. He had been very quiet. Howell remembered how chatty he had been at the filling station.

  “Yeah, it’s real pretty. Quiet, too; just what I need to work.

  Benny straightened from his work and looked out over the little inlet on which the cabin was situated. “You ain’t, uh, seen nothing?”

  “Seen what?” Howell asked.

  Benny worked his jaw for a minute, but didn’t answer the question. “Get in there and see if she’ll start okay. Battery’s all hooked up.”

  Howell climbed over the stern of the boat and tried the starter. The engine roared to life. “Sounds great; want to come for a spin?”

  “No, sire
ee, not me,” Benny said, backing out of the water, his skinny white legs sticking out of his shorts. He got into his trousers and started for the truck, shoes in hand, walking tenderfootedly toward the vehicle.

  “Hey, Benny, take five bucks out of my pants for your trouble…” Howell shouted, but Benny didn’t seem to hear. A moment later he was driving away. Howell shrugged; he would drop the money by the station next time he was in town. He looked around him; it was a beautiful, summer day, hot and sunny. The engine idled quietly, waiting his bidding. He sat in the driver’s seat and shoved the throttle down. The boat shot forward, and shortly, he was in the middle of the lake, flying along at what he reckoned was thirty or thirty-five miles an hour. He had flown for not more than five minutes when the engine coughed, then coughed again, then sputtered and died. The boat slowed to a stop, rolling, caught by its own wake.

  Howell tried the starter a few times, but nothing happened. Then he remembered the gasoline can sitting ashore. He made his way aft and checked the two fuel tanks which had been in the boat all along. Both empty. Swell. He checked the boat for a paddle, but there were only some life jackets and a couple of old beer cans. He looked around him. He was drifting about equidistant from both shores of the lake. He could see the outline of the town of Sutherland a couple of miles down, the water tower hovering over it, but no boats. He looked toward the other end of the lake. There was a boat coming fast from that direction, perhaps half a mile away. It would pass close to him if it didn’t change course. He started waving.

  He could see four people, two couples, in the boat as it grew closer. The driver returned his wave and turned toward him. “Having problems?” he called out as they pulled alongside.

  “Yeah, I’m out of fuel, and I’m afraid I’ve left my gas can ashore,” Howell explained.

  “That’s not all you left ashore,” the young woman next to the driver laughed.

  Howell followed her gaze and found that he was wearing only jockey shorts. “Oh, Christ, you’re right. I was wading…”