Drowned Hopes d-7

by Donald E. Westlake

  “Easy places other people find,” Tom pointed out. He sat on the ground beside the coil of rope.

  “What the hell were you doing in South Dakota anyway?” Dortmunder demanded. This whole thing made him mad.

  “Robbing a bank,” Tom said. “You ready?”

  “No,” Dortmunder said. “I’m never gonna be ready to step out into thin air from on top of a mountain.” Taking one cautious step out onto Lincoln’s forehead, he looked down, way down, at the tops of pine trees. The whole world was out there. “Somebody’s gonna see me,” he said.

  “They’ll think you’re a ranger.”

  “I don’t have the hat.”

  “So they’ll think you’re a ranger that his hat blew off,” Tom said. “Come on, Al, let’s do it and get it over with. We gotta drive all the way back to Pierre, turn in the car, catch the plane.”

  “Pierre,” Dortmunder said in disgust, studying Lincoln’s eyebrows. Would they provide handholds? “Who calls a city Pierre?”

  “It’s their city, Al. Come on, will ya?”

  So Dortmunder dropped to his haunches and slid forward out of Lincoln’s hair, his feet reaching for those bushy thick eyebrows. Behind him, Tom paid out the rope. “How the hell,” Dortmunder complained, “did you ever stash the stuff here in the first place?”

  “I was a lot younger then, Al,” Tom told him. “A lot spryer.”

  Dortmunder stopped to look back and say, “Young people aren’t spry. Old people are spry.”

  “You’re stalling, Al.”

  He was. Oh, well. His waggling feet found the eyebrows, he slid down farther, his legs straddled the bumpy nose.

  He was now out of sight of Tom, in safety up there on top, calling down, “You there yet?”

  “No!”

  “It’s the left nostril.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Dortmunder slid off the nose, dangled briefly in space—the pitons they’d pounded into the ground up there damn well better hold—clutched a naris, and hauled himself in to Lincoln’s upper lip.

  Left nostril. Jeez, it was like a cave in there, it was so big. Dortmunder inched up into the thing, standing on Lincoln’s lip, and saw the oilcloth-wrapped package tucked behind an irregularity of rock. Reaching for it, he dislodged a few pebbles, raised some dust. Inside Lincoln’s nostril, Dortmunder sneezed.

  “God bless,” called Tom.

  “Oh, shut up,” Dortmunder muttered inside the nostril. He grabbed the package and got out of that nose.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  One Monday in June, the reservoir gang converged on 46 Oak Street in the peaceful upstate rural community of Dudson Center. Already in residence at the house were May Bellamy, Tom Jimson, and Murch’s Mom. Coming from Islip, Long Island (home of the lobotomy; known in psychiatric circles as Icepick, Long Island), was Doug Berry, his custom-packaged pickup laden with gear for the job ahead: diving equipment, a 10hp outboard motor, uninflated inflatable boat, lots of other stuff. In a borrowed bakery van, driving up from New York City, were Stan Murch and Wally Knurr, with Wally’s computer components strapped down on the bread shelves in back. Also coming from the city, in a silver Cadillac with California MD plates, equipped with cruise control, a/c, cassette player, reading lights and extremely woodlike dashboard trim, traveled Andy Kelp (driver), John Dortmunder (front-seat passenger), and Tiny Bulcher (all over the rear seat). Of these vehicles, only the Cadillac was being followed, by a large roughhewn shambling fellow named Ken Warren, wedged with his tow bar into a small red two-door Toyota Chemistra.

  The travelers in the Cadillac remained unaware of the intense interest seven car-lengths behind them and chatted mostly about their upcoming task. “I’ve been wrong before,” Dortmunder conceded, “but I just have a feeling. This time, we’re gonna get that box.”

  “The reason you’re feeling good,” Kelp told him, ignoring the red Toyota in all three rearview mirrors, “is the same reason I’m feeling good. We are not going into that reservoir. Not you, and not me.”

  “Let Doug go in the reservoir.”

  “Right.”

  “He likes that kind of thing.”

  “He does.”

  “We don’t.”

  “We don’t.”

  In the backseat, Tiny wriggled around, uncomfortable, and finally reached underneath himself to pull out a tambourine, which he stared at in irritated astonishment. “Hey,” he said. “There’s a tambourine in this car.”

  “A what? You sure?” Kelp looked in the interior rearview mirror as Tiny held up the tambourine, blocking the view of the red Toyota. “It looks like a tambourine,” he admitted.

  “It is a tambourine,” Tiny said, and shook it. Tambourine music filled the air.

  “I remember that sound,” Dortmunder said. “They used to have those in the movies.”

  “Wait a second,” Tiny said, and from the crevice between seat and back he brought out a small cardboard box. “Now we got a deck of tarot cards.” Putting down the tambourine (jing!), he took the cards out of their box and riffled them. “Looks like a marked deck,” he said.

  Dortmunder said, “Andy, what kinda doctor did you get this car from?”

  “I dunno,” Kelp said. “He was making a house call, I think. It was in front of a Reader and Advisor on Bleecker Street.”

  “I don’t want this doctor doing any operations on me,” Tiny said. He shuffled the cards. “John, you want me to tell your fortune?”

  “Maybe not,” Dortmunder said.

  The red Toyota, still unnoticed, was a block behind the Cadillac when it made the turn onto Oak Street and pulled up onto the gravel driveway beside the house. Stopping just shy of the chain-link fence, Kelp said, “Looks like we’re first.”

  “Yeah?” Dortmunder looked interested. “What do we win?”

  “Just the glory,” Kelp told him.

  Ken Warren steered the red Toyota past 46 Oak Street, watching the trio from the Cadillac unload luggage from the trunk. He drove on by, made the next right, took the next left onto Myrtle Street and parked near the far corner there. Leaving the tow bar behind—it would be easier to tow the Toyota with the Cadillac than the other way around—he locked up and retraced his route on foot, shambling along round-shouldered and thrust-jawed like a bad-tempered bear.

  The Cadillac had been left unlocked, and he was seated behind its wheel, door open, looking through his keys for the one to fit this ignition, when a bread company van pulled in behind him, filling the rearview mirrors and blocking his exit.

  Now, Ken was the big silent type, not because he had nothing to say but because of his deep nasal twang and severe glottal stop. He preferred to be thought of as a silent tough guy rather than a geek who couldn’t talk right. But there were moments when speech was necessary, and this looked like one of them. “Hey,” Ken said, and leaned out to look back at the van’s driver, who he assumed was just making a delivery. “Moo fit!” he called.

  Stan Murch, who was not exactly making a delivery, and who knew from the MD plates that (1) Andy Kelp had driven this car here, and (2) that ugly mug at the wheel wasn’t Andy Kelp, switched off the van’s engine, pulled on the emergency brake, and stepped out to the driveway, calling toward the house, “Andy! Mayday!”

  Wally, climbing over the driver’s seat to get out on the same side as Stan, said, “Who is he, Stan?”

  “No idea.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “No idea.”

  There is one rule in Ken Warren’s profession: If you’re in the car, it’s yours. Therefore, he slammed the driver’s door of the Cadillac, hit the button that locked all four doors, and went back to his methodical run-through of his keys. Once he got this vehicle started, he’d use it to push the van out of his way.

  People erupted from the house; first Andy Kelp, then Dortmunder, May, Tiny, and Tom. While May and Tom stayed on the porch, observing, Kelp and Dortmunder and Tiny went over to join Stan and Wally in looking at the beefy man inside the Cad
illac.

  “What’s going on?” Kelp asked.

  “No idea,” Stan said.

  “That man was in the car,” Wally said in great excitement, “when we got here.”

  “He’s still in the car,” Kelp pointed out, and rapped on the glass in the driver’s door. “Hey! What’s the story?”

  Got it! The Cadillac engine caught, and Ken looked over at the right-door mirror just in time to see a heavy-laden pickup pull into the driveway behind the van, filling the driveway and blocking the sidewalk as well. A handsome blond guy in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt that said WORK IS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T SURF got out and strolled curiously forward.

  “What’s the story here?” Doug asked.

  “No idea,” Stan said.

  Hell! Could he push both the van and the pickup? Deciding he had no choice, he could but try, Ken shifted into reverse and watched a green-and-white taxi pull up to the curb, parking crossways just behind the pickup.

  Murch’s Mom got out of her cab and joined the crowd beside the Cadillac, saying, “What’s happening?”

  “No idea,” said her son.

  Ken considered the chain-link fence. Drive through it? Unlikely; the metal pipe supports were embedded in concrete. It wouldn’t be any good to make the Cadillac inoperable.

  Murch’s Mom went into the house for a potato. Kelp leaned close to the glass separating him from the stranger. “We’re gonna put a potato in the exhaust!” he yelled. “We’re gonna monoxide you!”

  Ken was feeling very put-upon. And also, come to think of it, a little confused. This mob around the Cadillac just didn’t look right. Could he have made a mistake?

  No. The car was right: make, model, and color. The license plate was right. There was a tambourine on the backseat.

  Still, something was wrong. As the woman cabdriver came out of the house carrying a big baking potato in her hand, Ken cracked the window beside him just far enough to make conversation possible, and announced through the crack, “Ngyou’re gno gnipthy!”

  Kelp reared back: “What?”

  “Gnone of ngyou are gnipthyth!”

  “He’s a foreigner,” Stan decided. “He doesn’t talk English.”

  Ken glared at him. “Ngyou makin funna me?”

  “What is that he talks?” Murch’s Mom asked, holding the potato. “Polish?”

  “Could be Lithuanian,” Tiny said doubtfully.

  Dortmunder turned to stare at him. “Lithuanian!”

  “I had a Lithuanian cellmate once,” Tiny explained. “He talked like—”

  Ken had had enough. Pounding the steering wheel, “Ah’m sthpeakin Englisth!” he cried, through the open slit in the window.

  Which did no good. Dortmunder said to Tiny, “Tell him it’s our car, then. Talk to him in Lithuanian.”

  Tiny said, “I don’t speak Lith—”

  “Ikn’s gnot your car!” Ken yelled. “Ikth’s the bankth’s car!”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Kelp said. “I understood that.”

  Dortmunder turned his frown toward Kelp: “You did?”

  “He said, ‘It’s the bank’s car.’ ”

  “He did?”

  “Fuckin right!” Ken yelled.

  Murch’s Mom pointed the potato at him. “That was English,” she said.

  “He’s a repo,” Stan said.

  “Ah’m a hawk!” Ken boasted.

  “Yeah, a car hawk,” Stan said.

  Wally said, “Stan? What’s going on?”

  Stan explained, “He’s a guy repossesses your car if you don’t keep up the payments.” Turning to Kelp, he said, “Andy, you stole a stolen car. This guy wants it for the bank.”

  Ken nodded fiercely enough to whack his forehead against the window. “Yeah! The bank!”

  “Oh!” Kelp spread his hands, grinning at the repo man. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  Ken peered mistrustfully at him.

  “No, really, fella,” Kelp said, leaning close to the window, “no problem. Take it. We’re done with it anyway.”

  Handing Doug the potato, Murch’s Mom said, “I’ll move my cab.”

  Handing Stan the potato, Doug said, “I’ll move my pickup.”

  Handing Wally the potato, Stan said, “I’ll move the van.”

  Wally pocketed the potato and smiled at the man in the Cadillac. He’d never seen a repo man before.

  Ken, with deep suspicion, watched all the other vehicles get moved out of his way. Everybody smiled and nodded at him. The other woman and the mean-looking old guy came down off the porch to hang out with everybody else. The woman seemed okay, but the old guy suddenly said, “Kill him.” His voice was thin and reedy, and his lips barely moved, but everybody heard him, all right. Including Ken.

  The others all turned toward the old guy, and several of them said, “Huh?”

  “Drag him out through the crack in the window,” the old guy suggested. “Bury him in the back yard in a manila envelope. He knows about us.”

  Everybody blinked at that, but then Dortmunder said, “He knows what about us?”

  The mean-looking old guy kind of shifted position and looked at various pieces of gravel, but he didn’t have anything else to say. So the others all turned back to Ken with their big smiles on again.

  Smiles that Ken mistrusted; none of this behavior was traditional. Lowering his window another fraction of an inch, he said, “Ngyou dough wanna argnue?”

  Kelp grinned amiably at him. “Argue with a fluent guy like you? I wouldn’t dare. Have a happy. Drive it in good health.” Then he leaned closer, more confidentially, to say, “Listen; the brake’s a little soft.”

  The other vehicles were all out of the way now, but people kept milling around back there. The van driver returned from moving his van to lean down by Ken’s window and say, “You heading back to the city? What you do, take the Palisades. Forget the Tappan Zee.”

  Ken couldn’t stand it. Trying hopelessly to regain some sense of control over his own destiny, he stared around, grabbed the tambourine, shoved it into the van driver’s hand: “Here. This ain’t the bank’s,” he said, the clearest sentence of his life.

  The blond guy stood down by the sidewalk and gestured for Ken to back it up; he was going to guide him out to the street. Ken put the Cadillac in reverse again, and the woman from the porch came over to say, “You want a glass of water before you go?”

  “Gno!” Ken screamed. “Gno! Just lemme outta here!”

  They did, too. Three or four of them gave him useful hand signals while he backed out to the street, and then all nine of them stood in the street to wave good-bye; a thing that has never happened to a car hawk before.

  Ken Warren had his Cadillac but, as he drove away, he just didn’t look very happy about it. Much of the fun seemed to have gone out of the transaction for him.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Two solid weeks of beautiful weather. Clear sunny days, low humidity, temperature in the seventies, air so brisk and clean you could read E PLURIBUS UNUM on a dime across the street. Clear cloudless nights, temperature in the fifties, the sky a great soft raven’s breast, an immense bowl of octopus ink salted with a million hard white crystalline stars and garnished with a huge moon pulsing with white light. It was disgusting.

  The problem was, to take the boat out on the reservoir, they needed darkness, clouds, no moon. They didn’t need nights so bright you could read a newspaper in the back yard (Kelp did, which Dortmunder hated). They didn’t need nights so bright that the local drive-in movie shut down because people couldn’t see the screen. “In darkness deep the darkest deeds are done,/And villains all retreat before the sun,” as the poet put it. Dortmunder didn’t know that particular verse, but he would have agreed with it.

  It was a big house, 46 Oak Street, but it had never expected to house nine people and a computer. Dortmunder and May occupied the master bedroom, upstairs front over the living room. Stan and Tiny shared the other front bedroom, Stan sleeping on the box spring and
Tiny tossing uncomfortably on the mattress on the floor. Kelp and Wally and the computer filled the large bedroom at the rear, Wally being the one on this mattress on the floor (he didn’t seem to mind), while Doug had been shoehorned into the last bedroom, with Tom. Since Tom would not divide his bed, Doug had brought up a sleeping bag; when it was open and occupied, the room was so full the door couldn’t be opened. And, finally, the small utility room off the kitchen downstairs contained a cot which was Murch’s Mom’s portion. The three bathrooms—two up, one down—were fought over constantly.

  Idle days in Dudson Center aren’t exactly the same as idle days in Metropolis. Wally still had his computer, still could spend his days and nights battling unambiguous enemies in far-flung galaxies, but for the rest of them certain adjustments had to be made. Doug had a local girlfriend, whom he kept scrupulously away from the others (not even telling her he had a place to stay here in town), and with whom he spent as much of his free time as he could, and other than that he commuted four days a week to his Dive Shop, three hours each way, driving doggedly back to Dudson Center every night just in case the weather should break. Tiny traveled with him as far as New York about half the time, not liking to be for very long away from his own lady friend, J. C. Taylor.

  Other than that, though, time hung heavy.

  The regulars in the Shamrock Family Tavern on South Main Street were talking about the railroad. “I worked for the railroad,” one unshaved retiree announced, “when it was the railroad. You know what I mean?”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” said the guy to his right. “New York Central. D&H. Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western. Those were railroads.”

  Down at the end of the bar, Dortmunder and Kelp drank beer.

  “Union Station up in Albany,” the first regular said, with a little catch in his voice, holding up his bourbon and Diet Pepsi. “Now, that was a beautiful station. That station was like a church.”

  “Grand Central Station,” intoned his pal. “Crossroads of a million private lives.”