Drowned Hopes d-7

by Donald E. Westlake

“It’s really nice to be here,” Bob told them all with his new sweet smile. Looking around the big office inside the dam, he said, “Gee, I remember this place. I really do.”

  “Well, sure you do, Bob,” Kenny the boss said, grinning harder than ever, patting him softer than ever. “You were only gone a few weeks.”

  Bob nodded, a slow drifting motion very akin to his new smile. “I forgot a lot, you know,” he told them. “A lot of stuff from before. Dr. Panchick says that’s okay, though.”

  “Whatever the doctor says,” Kenny said, nodding emphatically.

  The other guys all nodded and smiled, too, though not as sweetly as Bob. They all said they agreed with Dr. Panchick, too, that it didn’t matter about all that old stuff Bob had forgotten.

  Gee, it was nice to be back with these nice fellas. Bob almost thought about telling them how he’d even forgotten that girl, whatsername, the one he was married to, but how Dr. Panchick had told him he’d definitely start to remember her again pretty soon. That and a lot of other stuff, too. Not the bad stuff, though. Just the good stuff.

  Like the girl; whatsername. After all, there she was around the house all the time, looking red-eyed and smiling so hard it seemed sometimes as though the edges of her mouth must have been tied back to her ears. Having her around all the time like that, calling him Bob and so on, pretty soon he’d remember her just fine. And then she wouldn’t have to keep going off into other rooms and crying and then coming back with that smile on. Which was anyway a nice smile, even if kind of painful-looking.

  Anyway, he was almost about to kind of mention that, the lapse of memory that included whatsername, but as he was taking one of his slow deep breaths, the slow deep breaths he took these days before he made any kind of statement at all, just as he was taking that breath, he remembered he wasn’t supposed to talk a lot to other people about his symptoms.

  That’s right. “They needn’t know you’ve forgotten XXXX,” whatever her name was, Dr. Panchick had said just today. Or yesterday. Or sometime. So he didn’t say any of that about whatsername after all, but just smiled and breathed out again, and nobody noticed.

  “Well, uh, Bob,” Kenny said, still grinning fitfully, washing his hands, looking around the big open office, “uh, we thought maybe you could, uh, get back into the swing of things by maybe doing some of the filing, getting caught up on some of this paperwork here. Do you think you could do that?”

  “All right,” Bob said, and smiled again. He was very happy.

  Kenny continued to grin but looked doubtful. Peering at Bob as though this new sweet smile made him hard to see, he said, “You, uh, remember the alphabet, huh?”

  “Oh, sure,” Bob said, very relaxed and easy, very happy to be here in this nice place with all these nice fellas. “Everybody knows the alphabet,” he said.

  “Sure,” Kenny said. “That’s right.”

  Then Bob’s watch went BEEP, and everybody jumped and looked scared. Everybody but Bob, that is. He raised his left arm to show everybody his watch, and smiled from watch to people to watch, saying, “Dr. Panchick gave me this. It reminds me when to take my pill. I have to take my pill now.”

  “Then you better, I guess,” Kenny said.

  “Oh, sure,” Bob said, and smiled around at all the nice fellas, and went away to the men’s room for water to wash down his nice pill.

  (“Doped to the eyes!” a fella named Steve said, and a fella named Chuck said, “You could sell those pills on the street down in New York City and retire,” and Kenny the boss said, “Now, leave him alone, guys. Remember, it’s up to us to help Bob get his head out of his ass,” and all the fellas said, “Oh, yeah, sure, naturally, of course, you got it.”)

  Mouthpiece in; breathe normally: well, breathe, anyway. Sinking like a stone. Goggles on. Goggles off; full of water.

  Oh, boy. Feeling the water rush upward into his nose as his body rushed downward toward the bottom of the reservoir, Kelp stuck his left arm straight up, pressed the button, and filled the BCD. Immediately he stopped sinking, started soaring instead, and suddenly broke through into air.

  But where? Anonymous reservoir in the dark. Dortmunder and the boat were nowhere to be seen. I am not going to get lost, Kelp told himself sternly. Ignoring the tiny voice telling him he was already lost, he emptied the water from the goggles, put them on, reassured himself the headlamp was in the right place, released some of the air from the BCD, and floated down through the black water like a discarded love letter.

  During the descent, he switched on the headlamp and kept turning his face this way and that, hoping either to see Doug’s light or show Doug his own. But when his flippered feet finally found the bottom, he still had seen nothing, and in fact he couldn’t even see what he was standing on until he bent almost double. Then, through the brown water, he saw he was on a flat pebbly surface covered with hairy slime. Yuck.

  Still, when he straightened again and stomped both feet around, flippers flapping, he could tell he was on something solid, and not even very muddy. A road? Wouldn’t that be good luck!

  Kelp walked back and forth, noticing the evenness of this surface, noticing how little he was increasing the turbidity by his movements, and wondering if he were actually on a street in the town. And if so, where was the curb? Where was the side of the road so he could get some sense of where he was and where he should go?

  Treading slowly, having to lift each knee unnaturally high because of the drag of the flippers on his feet, Kelp walked in ever-widening circles, looking for the side of the road or whatever this was. A parking lot? It could take him an hour to find the edge of a parking lot.

  Wall. Low brick wall, about knee height. Kelp bent down, resting his hands on its slimy surface, and tried to see what the bottom was like on the other side before stepping over.

  At first, he just couldn’t see a thing. Brown water drifting and floating, but then also the bricks. Row after row of brick, on down out of sight.

  What the heck? Kelp leaned lower, one arm still clutching the wall, most of his body over its edge now as he aimed the headlamp down, trying to see, following the lines of brick wall down, down… to some sort of dark rectangular opening, several feet below.

  So hard to see through this murk, everything so distorted and deceptive, if Kelp didn’t know better he’d think this brick wall went right on down and down, and that black rectangle there was…

  … a window.

  AAA!! Flailing back across the wall, flinging himself to the safety of the roof—the roof! — Kelp overshot and drifted upward, turning slowly, absolutely helpless for just an instant, but then floating back down to the roof again and standing there, gasping through the mouthpiece, staring around, trying to think what he could possibly do next.

  I’m on a roof! What miserable luck. I don’t even know how tall this building is. How am I going to get down off—

  Wait a second. I floated down here. The roof was under me. What do I care how tall this building is?

  Moving now with long penguinlike hops, like astronauts on the moon, Kelp made his way back to the edge of the roof, added just a teeny bit more air to his BCD, and floated off into space, actually putting his arms out to the sides like a kid playing airplane.

  Superman! The feeling of exhilaration was suddenly so intense that Kelp laughed out loud into his mouthpiece. Kicking his legs, waving his arms, ducking his head downward, he made a complete forward roll in the middle of the water, beside the roof, heels over head. Leveling out afterward, he looked around, the headlamp beam flashing this way and that, and stared out through his goggles like a kid in a playground looking for somebody to ride the seesaw with.

  This was so much fun! All the practice sessions, both times descending into the reservoir with Dortmunder, and neither of them had ever known how much fun this was. Oh, if only John knew it was like this, Kelp thought, he’d change his mind completely. Even John would. Even John.

  Kelp cavorted beside the brick building for maybe five minutes
before remembering Doug and the buried money and the job he was down here to perform. Okay; time to quit playing hookey and get to work.

  With more control over his movements every second, Kelp swam back to the brick wall of the building, and made his way down its face, learning it was three stories high and that he was probably on the side of it, since there was nothing here but windows; no doors.

  Choosing arbitrarily to go to the right, he kicked steadily and easily, the fins doing all the work of moving him along as he made his way to the corner, then turned left and discovered he’d guessed right: this was the front of the building, with gunk-covered slate steps leading up to a big blank opening where an elaborate doorway must once have stood. And above that opening was a broad stone lintel with words carved into it. Moving very close, putting the headlamp directly on the scum-filled letters, Kelp read:

  PUTKIN’S CORNERS MUNICIPAL LIBRARY

  This was it! He’d jumped out of the boat any old way, and he’d landed exactly precisely on top of the very building they were looking for. Tom’s stash was buried in the field right behind here. So all he had to do now was find Doug, and they could go collect the money.

  Well, that should be easy. Their first goal had been the railroad track, and then they’d intended to follow that down to the railroad station in Putkin’s Corners, because the library—this library right here—was directly across the street from that station. So if he went over there, sooner or later Doug would show up.

  Fine. Kelp turned away from the library and sailed across a street he couldn’t see to the front wall of the railroad station, which he could see, once he was right on top of it. Or it was on top of him. A big old stone building, from back when people hadn’t yet known that the railroads were a transitional technology. Again, the window and door frames and other useful parts were gone, but the stone pile was still there, easily identifiable as railroad architecture.

  Unwilling to swim—sail, fly—through the building, Kelp made his way around it instead, and there was the concrete platform, much the worse for wear; and beyond it the tracks. Kelp floated over there and descended almost to the ground to study the tracks and then to look all around. No Doug, not yet. But gee, it would have been fun to pole in here in that car! Kelp could just see it.

  Oh, well, it wasn’t going to happen, that’s all. Still, Kelp thought, we’re here. One way or another, we’re here. At least I am. Here, and raring to go.

  Come on, Doug.

  This, Dortmunder thought, is what I don’t like about fishing. One of the things. Sitting here in a boat, pitch-black darkness all around. Getting cold. All alone. Not a sound.

  SPLASH!

  Dortmunder about jumped out of the boat, staring around in frenzy, and when he first saw Doug’s head in the water below his right elbow he had no idea what it could be. A bomb? A coconut?

  The coconut removed its mouthpiece and goggles and spoke: “Where’s Andy?”

  “Oh, my God, it’s Doug!”

  “Of course it’s Doug,” Doug said. “Andy isn’t here?”

  “No,” Dortmunder told him, “he went in right after you.”

  “Shit,” Doug commented.

  Dortmunder said, “You don’t think something’s wrong, do you?”

  “He didn’t hold on to the guideline, that’s all,” Doug answered, wriggling for demonstration the white nylon cord that was tied to the boat and that then angled straight down into the water, its other end tied to the weight at the bottom.

  Dortmunder nodded, saying, “Oh. He was supposed to hold on to that, was he?”

  “That’s how we keep together,” Doug pointed out. “That’s how I found you, coming back up.”

  Dortmunder said, “Probably he was thinking mostly about his mouthpiece.”

  “His mouthpiece?”

  “And his goggles,” Dortmunder added. “He forgot to put them on before he went over.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Doug said. “Listen, if he comes up or anything, give two tugs on this line here, okay?”

  “Right,” Dortmunder said. “But you don’t think anything happened, do you?”

  But Doug was gone, shooting back down into the depths. Dortmunder looked over the side, seeing nothing. Not even his own reflection. Poor Andy, he thought.

  That could be me, he thought.

  Kelp sat on the stone bench on the westbound platform like the last-ever passenger waiting for a train that will never come. Legs crossed, arms folded, body pushed slightly forward by the bulk of the scuba tank, he sat mostly at his ease; vaguely visible in the diffuse glow from his headlamp, water lazily ebbing and flowing around him, and if he could have seen himself there, in the drowned town, in the brown water, waiting on the ruined platform for the nonexistent train, he would definitely have scared himself.

  But he couldn’t see himself, nor was there anyone else to observe him seated there. Minute after minute there was nobody else, and after a while Kelp began to fidget, began to feel a little cold and uncomfortable on this stone bench, began, in fact, to feel quite alone here in Putkin’s Corners.

  Where was Doug? Wouldn’t he have to follow the tracks to the station? Wasn’t that the most logical, the only thing, he could do? And then—

  Light. Vague, dim, barely discernible inside the muck, made harder to see by the diffusion of his own light. Hard even to be sure it truly existed, wasn’t merely some refracted ray of his own headlamp’s gleam, but wasn’t that, over there, not along the track but over on the far side, on the east bound platform, where he hadn’t expected to see anything at all, some sort of light?

  I should reach up, Kelp thought, and switch off my lamp to make it easier to see that light over there; if there’s really a light over there to be seen. The problem was, he’d had plenty of time by now to get himself good and spooked, which he hadn’t realized until that other light—if it existed—had come swimming more or less into view from a completely unexpected direction. What if it was a— Well, there aren’t any ghosts, really, but— Underwater, somehow, the regular rules didn’t seem to apply. Maybe anything that wanted to exist could exist, down here, at the bottom, away from people. Maybe that light was… anything at all.

  Kelp managed to lift his right hand and touch the switch on his headlamp, but he never did summon the strength to turn it off. He just sat there, hand to head, while the light across the way floated and swayed, moved into nonexistence, flowed back again, disappeared once more, and then suddenly came straight at him! Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

  It was Doug. Kelp felt vast relief and didn’t even mind when Doug hauled him to his feet and shook a stern finger at him, which he then pointed at the white nylon cord wrapped around his other wrist. This cord drifted away upward into the dark, and the second Kelp saw it he remembered what he was supposed to have done first thing out of the boat.

  Of course! Dummy! Elaborately, he demonstrated to Doug his understanding, embarrassment, apology, by throwing both hands up in the air, then smacking himself on the ear, shaking his head, punching himself on the jaw, pounding his right fist into his left palm…

  Doug grabbed both his wrists. When Kelp looked inquiringly at him, Doug released the wrists and made down-patting gestures: take it easy.

  Oh. Sure. Kelp nodded, flashing his headlamp up and down Doug’s person.

  Next, Doug selected one of several more nylon cords hooked to his weight belt and tied the other end to Kelp’s belt. Now they could be up to eight feet apart but wouldn’t lose each other.

  Great. Kelp expressed his pleasure in this move by firmly shaking Doug’s hand with both of his. Doug nodded, a bit impatiently, pulled his hand free, and made walking movements with his fingers.

  Right. Kelp nodded emphatically again, and would have turned and walked from here to the library but that Doug suddenly lifted up into the air—into the water—and started swimming away. Hastily, before the rope linking them could get taut, Kelp launched himself off the platform and followed.

  The thing about n
eeding a cloudy night to do whatever it is you want to do, that means you have to be prepared to accept clouds with all their implications.

  Dortmunder sat in the rubber boat, bored, sleepy, a little chilly, also apprehensive about Andy Kelp. Was he okay down there? Would Doug find him? If there was some sort of trouble, wouldn’t Doug have come back to say so by now?

  Plip, on the back of his hand. Thinking it was some kind of splash from the water all around him, he brushed it off.

  Plip. Forehead this time. Plip-plip-plip.

  No. Dortmunder lifted his head toward the completely beclouded sky. Plipliplipliplplplppppppp…

  “Of course,” Dortmunder said, and hunched his shoulders against the rain.

  They kept off the bottom as much as possible to limit turbidity, but they were near the bottom all the time. First, the end of the measuring cord with the red ribbon tied around it was placed by Doug at the right rear corner of the library, while Kelp ranged as far as the connecting rope would permit, found a rock, brought it back, and used it to hold the red-ribboned cord in place. Then they moved along the rear wall like wasps under a house eave, setting the cord against the base of the building, till they came to the knot.

  This time it was Kelp who held the cord in position, while Doug swam this way and that, exactly like a fish in a too-small aquarium, and eventually came back with a rock of his own, which was placed atop the knot.

  The next part would be tricky. They wanted to mark a distance out across the field at right angles to the library wall. They’d rehearsed this in daylight, on dry land, in the back yard at 46 Oak Street, but doing it under present conditions was still kind of strange. For instance, they hadn’t spent all their time flying over the back yard.

  First, Kelp stood straddling the knot, his back—or the scuba tank, actually—against the library wall, his face turned outward so the beam from his headlamp marked the right angle. Then Doug, paying out the cord as he went, swam eight feet away along that light beam and paused there with the new line of cord resting on the bottom. Kelp now lifted into the water, kick-swam forward about four feet, and put his second flashlight on the ground beside the cord, switched on, the beam running out along the rest of the cord. Then he came forward to where Doug waited, straddled the cord again, and Doug backed away slowly, paying out more cord, keeping his alignment with the two lights until he’d gone another eight feet. Then they repeated the procedure all over again.