Drowned Hopes d-7

by Donald E. Westlake

  His doubts had increased with the passage of time, even though the computer had constantly reassured him:

  The story cannot end until the hero is satisfied.

  Which was all well and good, assuming their postulates were correct.

  What if I’m wrong? What if I’m not the hero?

  Then there is no story.

  Wally had begun to think that perhaps the computer didn’t entirely understand the way reality works, and seismic disturbances of disbelief had just begun to shake his compact little universe, when lo and behold, John phoned! Fortunately, computers don’t say, “I told you so.”

  The upstairs bell rang, and Wally hurried to open it, surprised to see John by himself out there. Looking around the landing, Wally said, “Isn’t Andy with you?”

  “Well, no,” John said. He seemed ill at ease, less sure of himself than usual. “It’s just me,” he said. “Andy doesn’t know about it. I come over to, uh, talk it over with you.”

  “Come in, come in,” Wally urged him. “I’ve got cheese and crackers.”

  “That’s nice,” John said neutrally, nodding at the plate on the coffee table.

  Wally shut the door, gestured John to the comfortable chair, and said, “Would you like a beer?”

  “As a matter of fact,” John said, “yes.”

  “Gee, you know, I think I would, too,” Wally told him, and hurried to the kitchen to get two cans of beer. When he returned, John was seated in the chair Wally had indicated, gloomily eating cheese and crackers. Wally gave him his beer and sat alertly on the sofa, waiting.

  John squinted through his eyebrows in Wally’s direction. For some reason, be seemed to be having trouble looking straight at him. “Well,” he said, “we’re still trying to get that box up out of the reservoir.”

  “The treasure,” Wally said.

  “Tom really wants that money,” John said.

  “Well, sure, I guess he would,” Wally agreed.

  “He wants to blow up the dam,” John said.

  Wally nodded, considering that. “I guess that would work,” he said. “Only, how does he plan to channel the water?”

  “He doesn’t,” John said.

  Wally’s wet eyes widened: “But doesn’t he know about the towns? A lot of people live down there! John, we have to tell him about—”

  “He knows,” John said.

  Wally looked at John’s grim face. The warlord has no pity. Wally whispered, “Would Tom really do that?”

  “He’d’ve done it already,” John said, “only I talked him into letting me have one more crack at it.”

  Suddenly John did look straight at Wally, and in that instant Wally understood just how difficult it had been for John to come here to ask for help. That’s why he’s here, Wally thought, with a sudden thrill. He’s here to ask for help! To ask me for help! Wally blinked, his mouth sagging open at his sense of the importance of this moment.

  John said, “May moved up there. Dudson Center. See, I quit, I couldn’t do it anymore, so that’s what she did.”

  Horrified, Wally said, “Tom wouldn’t blow up the dam with Miss May there!”

  “Tom would blow up the dam with the Virgin Mary there,” John said.

  “Then we have to get that treasure!” Wally cried, bouncing around on the sofa in his agitation. “Before he does it!”

  “That’s the situation,” John agreed. “And here’s the rest of the situation. Andy and I went down in that reservoir twice, and that’s twice too much. I can’t do it again. Just take my word for it, I can’t. So it has to be something else. There’s gotta be a way to get the money up out of there without me going down in there.”

  Wally nodded, trying to think but still overcome by the wonder of it. John came to me! “But what?” he asked, caught up in the story.

  “I don’t know,” John told him, putting his beer can down so he could actually wring his hands. “I thought and I thought and I thought, and I just don’t come up with a thing. I shot my bolt on this one, Wally, there’s nothing left. I’m not finding anything because I can’t get myself even to think about that place. And Tom won’t wait much longer.”

  “No, I guess not.” Wally felt very solemn at this moment. John leaned toward him. “So here’s the idea.”

  “Yes? Yes?” Wally’s damp face gleamed with excitement.

  “Our half of the caper,” John explained, “the profit for everybody except Tom, is three hundred fifty grand.”

  “That’s a lot!”

  “Not when you start cutting it up,” John told him. “But it’s still some, and those of us in it split it even, all the way down. If we manage, that is, to keep Tom from double-crossing us and getting it all.”

  Wally nodded. “He’d do that, wouldn’t he?”

  “Nothing else would even occur to him,” John said. “Okay. The way it stands now, there’s four of us in it: Me, Andy Kelp, Tiny Bulcher, and a driver named Stan Murch that you don’t know.” John cleared his throat, hesitated, seemed on the point of flight, then blurted forward, saying, “You come up with the way, Wally, you’re a partner.”

  “A partner? Me?”

  “You,” John agreed. “That makes it seventy grand for each of us, including you.”

  “Wow!”

  “But you gotta come up with something,” John told him. “One of us has gotta come up with something, and I just don’t think it’s gonna be me. Not anymore.”

  Wally, excitement bubbling in him like chocolate fudge just on the boil, jumped to his feet, saying, “Let’s see what the computer has to say!”

  John looked displeased. “Do we have to?”

  “The computer is very smart, John,” Wally said. “Let’s just see.”

  So John shrugged, and they both went over to have a chat with the computer, Wally in his usual swivel chair, John standing beside him.

  “First,” Wally said, “let’s bring up the model we did of the valley, with the reservoir in, and ask the computer to show us different ways to blow up the dam. Maybe in one of them, the water could be channeled down the valley away from all the towns and things.”

  “I don’t see it,” John said.

  “Let’s just find out.” Wally sent his little fat fingers flying over the keys, and up on the screen came a side view of the valley, heavy with rich blue, trailing away to green dotted with brown and black; the brown and black dots were towns.

  John touched the screen over one of the brown dots. “That’s where May is.”

  “Now we’ll see,” Wally said, and proceeded to drown Miss May and a lot of other people seven times in a row. Every single time, the blue area would at first tremble, and then it would spread and suddenly swell, obliterating every last one of the black and brown dots.

  After the seventh time, John said, “No more, Wally, no more. I can’t take it.”

  “You’re right,” Wally agreed. “There just isn’t any safe way to send all that water downstream. Not all at once.”

  “That’s the way dynamite works, though,” John pointed out. “All at once.”

  “Let me explain the situation to the computer once more,” Wally said, “and see if it comes up with anything new.”

  “Just so we don’t have any more of that killer blue.”

  So Wally asked his question, and after a brief pause the computer responded with its green-lettered series of suggestions, crawling slowly up the screen. Wally and John watched, neither saying a word until it was finished, and then John said, quietly, “This computer really has a thing for Zog, doesn’t it?”

  Wally cleared his throat. “I don’t have the heart to tell it Zog isn’t real,” he admitted.

  “Wally,” John said, “I don’t know that I’m getting anywhere here. I thought I’d come over and talk to a person, but I’m here talking to a machine that thinks a planet called Zog is a real place.”

  “You’re right,” Wally said, abruptly ashamed of himself. He felt now as though he’d been using the computer for a crutch
, that he was hiding behind it. John had come here for help, and Wally had run straight to his computer. That’s not the way to treat people, Wally told himself, and he reached out to hit the power button, shutting the computer down. Then, standing, turning, he said, “I’m sorry, John, that’s just a bad habit. I always talk things over with the computer. I don’t know why.”

  “Yeah, I always talk things over with May,” John told him, “but there comes a time when you got to make your own decision.”

  “I’m going to,” Wally said. The excitement he felt now was different from before, more tremulous and frightening. He was going to be on his own! In the real world! “Let’s talk it over some more, John,” he said, “just the two of us. Not the computer at all.”

  “Good.”

  So they sat around the cheese and crackers, ignoring them, and John told him about the way he and Andy had learned how to do underwater things from a fellow on Long Island, and how they’d tried once to walk into the reservoir and once to drive in, and how the reservoir almost drowned them both times, and all about the turbidity and the flotation power of Ping-Pong balls, and after about twenty minutes Wally said, “Gee, John, why don’t you ask that guy on Long Island?”

  John blinked. “Ask him what?”

  “He’s a professional diver, John,” Wally said. “And you told me you went to him because he already does some things that aren’t absolutely legal.”

  John shrugged. “So?”

  “So I realize,” Wally said, “that would mean there were six of us to share the money now, instead of five, but that would still be about sixty thousand dollars each, and—”

  “Wait a minute wait a minute,” John said, rearing back. “Bring Doug aboard, you mean.”

  “Is that his name? Yes, sure, bring Doug aboard. Wouldn’t he know how to go down into the reservoir and get the box?”

  John looked at Wally without speaking for quite a long time. Then he sat back, shook his head, and said, “You know why I didn’t think of that?”

  “Well, no,” Wally admitted.

  “Because,” John said, “whatever it is I’m doing, I’m used to it I’m the one does it. I figure out how and I do it. I get people to help, but that’s help, that isn’t to do it instead of me.”

  Wally wasn’t sure he understood. “Do you mean,” he asked carefully, “it would be like against your principles or something to have somebody else do things instead of you?”

  “No, I don’t mean that,” John said. “I’m simply trying to explain to you why I’m as stupid as I am.”

  “Oh,” Wally said.

  “Why I could never think about anybody going down into that goddamn water except me,” John went on, “and I knew damn well it wasn’t about to be me, not again, so that’s why I was stymied.”

  “I see,” Wally said.

  “But you took one look,” John told him, “once you got out from behind that machine of yours, you took one look at what I couldn’t see at all, and you said it’s obvious. And it is.”

  Wally wasn’t sure exactly how far he was supposed to go in agreement with John’s self-insults, so he made a quick defensive move, shoving cheese and cracker in his mouth so he wouldn’t be able to do anything but nod and say, “Mm. Mm.”

  Which was apparently enough. John sat back, his whole body a study in looseness and relief. Pointing over at the computer, he said, “Sell that thing, Wally. You don’t need it.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  “South Shore Dive Shop. Sorry we’re not open now. Our usual hours are Thursday through Sunday, ten to five. Licensed professional instruction, basic and advanced courses. Dive equipment for sale or rent, air refills, tank tests, all your diving needs under one roof. Hope to see you!”

  Everybody in May’s new living room watched Dortmunder’s face as he listened yet again to that goddamn irrelevant infuriating long announcement. At the end, he snarled savagely into the phone, “Don’t you ever listen to your messages? You’re worse than Andy.”

  “Aw, come on,” Kelp said from his perch on the sofa arm, beside May.

  Ignoring him, Dortmunder told the phone, “This is John again. Call me, dammit. I’ve been out to your place, you’re never there. Time’s running out.”

  “And that’s no lie,” Tom said happily, seated primly on the wooden chair in the corner that had become his favorite waiting place. Murch’s Mom gave him a dirty look, which he seemed not to notice.

  Laboriously, Dortmunder stated May’s new phone number into Doug Berry’s machine, area code and all, then said, “Call collect, if you want, dammit. Just call. We’ve been trying to reach you for three days now.” And he slammed down the phone.

  In the ensuing silence, Dortmunder, Kelp, May, Stan Murch, and Murch’s Mom—everybody but Tom—all sat or stood in the living room, thinking the same furious thought: Where is that waterlogged jerk?

  FIFTY-FOUR

  How the old glider groaned under their weight! Or was that Doug, moaning as he nuzzled his nose down into the softness at the side of her throat, his lips caressing the pulse that beat so wildly there? Or was it—good heavens! — herself, losing control, giving in to the sensations, the warmth flooding her body from his lips, his tongue, his hands, his body pressed to hers as they half reclined here?

  The glider swayed on the front porch in bright daylight, moving rhythmically and suggestively with their movements, and when Myrtle opened her eyes, looking past his ear, past his wavy blond hair, her vision blurred and she could barely see Myrtle Street and the houses across the way and the glimpses beyond them of the houses fronting on Oak Street far away. The glider swayed in the somnolent day, no traffic at all moved on the street, and Myrtle felt again the flutter of a faint moan rise up through her throat, past his warm mouth, out her own trembling lips.

  But this was supposed to be safe! Broad daylight! She had nothing to fear, she’d been sure of that, just sitting with him on this front porch in the middle of the day, in front of the world, with the sun beaming down. That’s why she’d agreed.

  Suggested. Ohhhhhhhh…

  Edna isn’t home.

  The house loomed empty behind them. “Myrtle,” he murmured, lips moving against her throat, “Myrtle, Myrtle, Myrtle…”

  She closed her eyes. The heat rose from them, rose around them, surrounded them like a sauna, an invisible ball with them inside, steaming. The strength flowed away, out of her shoulders and arms, out of her knees and legs, concentrating in her belly. Her head lolled against the silkiness of his hair, unable to sustain its own weight. Her breath flowed like jasmine through her parted mouth, her lips were swollen and red, her eyelids heavy.

  “Doug…”

  No. That was supposed to have been a warning, a protest, a command to them both to stop, but she could hear herself how it had come out wrong, how the syllable had stretched, had become languorous and welcoming, had beckoned him on instead of pushing him away. She was afraid to speak again, to say anything else, afraid her voice would betray her once more. But if she said nothing, did nothing, he’d just continue, his mouth, his hands…

  “Myrtle, say yes.”

  “Doug…”

  “Say yes.”

  “Doug…”

  “Say yes.”

  “Ououououououououghhh…”

  “Say yesssssssssss…”

  “Yesssssssssss…”

  He was up on his feet, holding her hand in his, drawing her up beside him. His smile was gentle and loving, his body so strong. “Yes,” he said, and turned them both toward the front door.

  “There you are, Doug, goddammit!”

  They spun around, and Myrtle’s heart leaped with fear. An extremely angry man, a stranger, stood at the top of the stoop, glaring at Doug.

  Who knew him. “John!” he cried in absolute stunned astonishment.

  “I hate your answering machine, Doug,” the angry man said. “I just want you to know that. I have a deep personal dislike for that answering machine of yours, and if I’m ever n
ear it with a baseball bat in my hands, that’s it.”

  “John, I, I, I…”

  What is going on? But Myrtle couldn’t even ask the question, could only stand there, romance forgotten, her body forgotten, and stare from Doug’s ashen amazed face to the other man’s darker angrier unloving face.

  “Never mind, ‘I, I, I,’ ” said this unloving face, and the man made a quick impatient sweeping gesture like a traffic cop. “Come on. We gotta talk.”

  “John, I— Now? John, I can’t, I—”

  “Yes, now! What’s so goddamn important that you can’t—”

  “John, will ya?”

  Oh! Face burning, Myrtle pulled her hand free from Doug’s, turned blindly, groped for the door, pulled it open, and flung herself into the house as behind her Doug said to the angry man, “John, I’ll never forgive you for this in my entire—”

  Slam. Tottering, weaving, Myrtle staggered to the living room and dropped into the nearest chair. Through the front windows she could see them out there, both gesturing, the angry man not letting up, Doug finally assenting, shrugging, shaking his head, turning for one last lost look at the front door—Oh, Doug, how could you? How could you let us be interrupted, let that moment be broken? — before, with obvious reluctance, he followed the angry man off the stoop and across Myrtle Street and up the Fleischbacker’s driveway over there and on out of sight.

  It wasn’t until twenty minutes later, when she was calmer, when she’d already had one cup of tea and was sipping a second, when she was already remembering that her involvement with Doug in the first place was because he was a mystery she was trying to solve, that the thought suddenly came to her:

  I’ve seen that man somewhere before.