Drowned Hopes (31 page)

“Excuse me,” Doug said, reaching for the papers under the one the old bastard was memorizing.

But the old son of a bitch hunched over his papers, folding his arms around them protectively, saying, “I’m reading these!”

“Not all of them,” Doug insisted, grabbing nether papers and tugging. “You’re just reading the one on top.”

“Wait your turn!” the old monopolist snarled, and pressed his bony elbows down onto the papers.

Doug leaned in close and looked into his ancient opponent’s beady eyes. “When old bones break,” he pointed out quietly, “they take
forever
to heal.”

The old creep blinked, licked his lips, stared around the room. “I know that cop,” he announced.

“Who, Jimmy?” Doug said, and grinned, not in a friendly way. “Everybody knows Jimmy. He’s one of my best friends. Maybe I’ll tell him about you.”

The old snothead blinked furiously for a second, then abruptly pushed the stack of papers away, crying, “
Take
them, if it means so much to you!”

“It does,” Doug told him, and slid the papers down the table to a quieter location, while the old hoarder went stumping away to some other part of the library.

It was in the fifth of this batch of papers:

Doug settled down to read the story, which was bizarre enough from the newspaper’s point of view, since they didn’t know what had really been going on. Someone, according to the report, or more probably several someones, had cut a great hole in the fence surrounding the reservoir at the site of an old inactive railroad line, which they had apparently used in order to get an old junk car without an engine to the reservoir, where they pushed it into the water and abandoned it.

Why anybody would go to such trouble to throw away a useless car no one could figure out, but police did speculate that the perpetrators were probably the same individuals who, a month earlier, had broken padlocks in order to enter another part of the reservoir property. In that first incident, the perpetrators had apparently done nothing but gone for a midnight swim in the extremely cold water.

Abandoning an old car in the reservoir was considered a much more serious act, though officials reassured the public that the purity of the reservoir’s water would not be adversely affected in any way. This being just about the end of the school year of most colleges in the region, the possibility of a schoolboy prank, possibly a fraternity hazing or some such thing, was not being discounted.

Oh, no? Doug sat back, grinning to himself. He’d found it, all right. The Vilburgtown Reservoir was the place, and the seven hundred thousand dollars was the loot.

And now to figure out how to follow the trail from here. Rising, Doug left the papers on the table — let the doddering news buff put them away, if he loved them so much — and headed for the door, to be intercepted midway by Myrtle Street, her old smiling self again, saying, “Find what you wanted?”

“I’ll have a terrific report to turn in at the office,” he assured her.

“You’re probably looking for somewhere to have lunch now,” she suggested. “Do you want a recommendation?”

She’s picking me up! Doug thought, both surprised and pleased. Seeing by the large digital clock on the wall that it was shortly after one, and aware of no reason why he shouldn’t be picked up by a pretty–enough girl, he flashed her his smile and said, “Only if you’ll join me. When’s your lunch break?”

“Right now.” She matched him smile for smile. “If we can make it dutch treat, I’ll be happy to come along.”

“Lead on,” he said.

Leading on, smiling over her shoulder, she said, “And you can tell me all about your researches.”

Like fun. “I’ll bore you silly with it,” Doug promised.

“I’ll drive and you follow.”

“Anywhere.”

They went out together into the bright sunlight. Trotting down the steps, squinting until he remembered to pull his sunglasses down from his head to cover his eyes, Doug suddenly saw John ride by in a car. He stopped, stumbling, almost falling down the library steps, and when he’d recovered his balance he just stared.

It was John, all right, definitely John, in the passenger seat of a Buick Century Regal, fortunately looking straight ahead and not to the side out his window. Doug stooped to stare past that grim profile, and it seemed to him the driver was
not
Andy. And when the car went on by, it didn’t have MD plates. But that had been John, all right. That gloomy pan was nobody in this world but John.

At the foot of the steps, shielding her eyes with her hand as she looked back up at him, Myrtle said, “Doug? Are you coming?”

“Oh, sure. Sure.” Grinning again, careless and handsome in the brightness, Doug trotted down the steps.

They didn’t get it. They’re still hanging around. They missed again.

“There it is,” Dortmunder said, pointing. “Pretty goddamn place,” he grumbled.

It was, too. Behind a neat green lawn stood a one–story–high white clapboard bungalow with yellow trim and shutters. Climbing roses, red and pink and cream and white, grew up across the front, enlaced with the railing of the cosy–looking broad front porch, on which the seating consisted of two rocking chairs and an actual glider, a kind of sofa without legs suspended by chains from the porch ceiling. White lace curtains made proscenium arches of every window, and the number
forty–six
was spelled out in iron script across the top riser of the stoop. Impatiens had just recently been planted on both sides of the cement walk; small now, they would soon spread and prosper, so that visitors would enter through a field of flowers. “How could anybody live in a place like that?” Dortmunder muttered, squinting at the brightness of it.

“Let’s find out,” Stan said.

A freshly graveled driveway ran beside the house, stopping at a chain–link fence at the rear. So there was no garage — rough in winter, huh? — but the back yard was enclosed. For puppies, no doubt. As Stan steered onto this driveway and came to a stop beside the porch, Dortmunder’s face had begun to look like the first day of a nor’easter.

They climbed out of the Buick, took the secondary slate path across the lawn in front of the roses to the stoop, and went up onto the porch. The mailbox beside the door was an open wicker basket, without even a top on it, much less a lock. Stan pushed the white button beside the front door — doors: wood and screen, the wood with a large curtained window in it — and from inside
chimes
sounded. Dortmunder growled, deep in his throat.

It was May who opened both doors, smiling at them, saying, “Here you are! Come in, come in. You’re early.”

“Did the GW Bridge and the Palisades,” Stan told her as they entered the bungalow. “Avoided all that stuff with the Tappan Zee.”

May was wearing an apron. Kissing John on the cheek, she said, “Hello, John. I’m really glad you came.”

“Had to,” Dortmunder told her, and did his best to soften his face with a smile. If he was going to talk reason with this woman, if he was going to get her to move
out
of this crazy place and come back to the apartment where she belonged, he knew he was going to have to be pleasant, reasonable, calm, patient, understanding, and benign. He was going to have to be, in other words, everything he wasn’t. “Had to talk to you,” he said, and tried the smile again. It felt like it was made of wood.

Stan said, “Where’s Mom?”

“Out driving her cab,” May said. “She’ll be back soon. Come on in the living room.”

They were in a kind of entrance hall with a rug on the floor and pictures of flowers on the walls and some kind of complicated chandelier hanging from the ceiling. As they followed May through the archway on the left into the living room — sofa, chair, chair, lamp, lamp, table lamp, coffee table, end table, end table, TV console, area rug, fake marble plant stand, fern, pictures of nymphs–fauns–architecture on the walls — Stan said, “Mom’s back driving her cab? She commutes to New York?”

“No, she’s driving for the cab company here,” May said. “Sit down, sit down.”

Dortmunder looked around, but everything looked too comfortable. He sat in the middle of the sofa, but even that was cozy and soft.

Meanwhile, May was telling Stan, “She loves it, driving here. She says nobody fights back.”

Dortmunder opened his mouth to say something nice about the roses, as a kind of icebreaker. “May,” he said, “what the hell are you
doing
in this place?”

May smiled at him. “Living here, John,” she said.

“Why?” he demanded, even though he knew the answer.

May’s smile was serene but steadfast. Dortmunder knew that smile, he’d seen her use it on delivery boys, policemen, bus drivers, drunks, sales clerks, and customs inspectors, and he knew it was unbeatable. “It’s good to make a change sometimes, John,” she said, utterly calm. “Move to a different place, get a different slant on life.”

“And when Tom blows up the dam?”

“We can only hope he won’t,” she said.

“He’s going to, May.”

Stan, sounding a little awed, said, “You can see it from here, out the window.”

The sofa on which Dortmunder sat stood in front of the window but faced the other way, at the television set, the paradigm of America. Twisting around, he looked through the draped–back curtains out the clean window and across the clean street and above the clean cottages on the other side to the broad gray wall, far away, curving among the green hills. At this distance it looked small and unimportant, just a low gray wall surrounded by hills taller than itself. But it was definitely aimed this way.

The sight gave Dortmunder a headache. Twisting back to look at May again, he said, “Tom’s back in New York. He’s putting together a string. He gave me what he said was a courtesy call, one last chance to join in with him when he dynamites the dam.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him no.”

May, still smiling, raised an eyebrow and said, “Did you tell him I was here?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want to hear him laugh.” Leaning forward on the too–comfortable sofa, Dortmunder said, “May, Tom isn’t going to care. His entire family, if he ever had a family, could move to this town, and he still wouldn’t care. He’s gonna blow that dam. You can’t change his mind.”

“I’m not trying to change Tom’s mind,” May said.

So that was it. Dortmunder nodded, knowing that was it. “May,” he said, “I can’t help. I gave that thing two tries, and that’s it, I’m played out. I’m not going down in there again.”

“You don’t give up, John,” she said.

“Sometimes I do. And I won’t go down in that water again because I
can’t
go down in that water again, and that’s that.”

“Then there’s some other way.”

“Well, I don’t know what it is.”

“You’re not even trying to think about it, John,” she said.

“That’s right,” he said, agreeing with her. “What I’m doing, I’m trying
not
to think about it. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Have Stan’s friend fix up another car for us, get a lot more scuba stuff from the guy on Long Island, break through the fence all over again that they’ve probably got people watching now, go down in there
without
Ping–Pong balls? There’ll be something else, May. It’ll try to kill us some brand–new way we haven’t even thought about yet. And if we even get to that goddamn town, we’re gonna have to walk around on the bottom, kick up all this
muck,
and then try to find one little casket buried in a great big field, where, even if the landmarks are still there we won’t be able to see them. Or anything else.”

“If it was an
easy
problem, John,” May said reasonably, “we wouldn’t need you to solve it.”

Dortmunder sat back and spread his hands. “I’ll move in here with you, May, if you want. We can go together when Tom blows the dam. But that’s it. I don’t have anything else. Tom and me are quits.”

“I know you can do it,” May insisted. “If you’ll just let yourself start thinking about it.”

Stan said, “Here comes Mom.”

Dortmunder turned to look out the window again and saw the green and white Plymouth Frenzy parked at the curb out there, with the legend
TOWN TAXI
on its door. Murch’s Mom was getting out from behind the wheel, wearing her usual workaday garb of checked leather cap, zippered jacket over flannel shirt, chinos, and boots. She moved with an unusual and uncharacteristic languor, closing the cab door rather than slamming it, walking toward the house at a normal pace with elbows barely sawing at all, chin hardly even a little bit thrust out.

“Gee,” Stan said, sounding worried. “What’s wrong with Mom?”

“She’s relaxed,” May said.

She sure was. When she came into the house, she didn’t slam the door, didn’t stomp her feet on the floor, didn’t even scream and holler. All she did was
hang up
her zipper jacket and cloth cap in the hall,
amble
into the living room, and mildly say, “Oh, hi, Stanley, I’m glad you could come. How you doing, John?”

“Drowning,” Dortmunder said.

“That’s nice.” Murch’s Mom crossed the living room to present a cheek for her son to kiss. He did so, looking astonished at the idea, and she studied him critically but kindly, saying, “Have you been eating?”

“Well, sure,” Stan said, and shrugged. “Like always. You know.”

“Can you stay over?”

Dortmunder cleared his throat. “Uhhh,” he said. “The idea was, we come up here to bring you back.”

Murch’s Mom turned around to frown at Dortmunder. With a touch of her old pugnacity, she said, “Back to the
city?
Down there with those wahoos and yo–yos?”

“That’s right,” Dortmunder said.

Murch’s Mom pointed a stubby finger at Dortmunder’s nose. “Do you know,” she demanded with a tremor in her voice, “what people do up here when you put on your turn signal?”

“No,” Dortmunder admitted.

“
They let you make the turn!
”

“That’s nice,” Dortmunder said.

Murch’s Mom planted her feet on the floor, her fists on her hips, her elbows to east and west, and her jaw toward Dortmunder. “Whadaya got to match
that
in New York?”

“The water isn’t over your head.”

Murch’s Mom nodded once, slowly, meaningfully. “That’s up to you, John,” she said.

Dortmunder sighed.

May, apparently taking pity on him, got to her feet at that point and said, “You’re probably both thirsty after that long drive up.”

“
I
sure am,” Stan agreed.

“I have tea made,” May told him, and started for the door.

Simultaneously, Dortmunder and Stan both said, “
Tea?
”

May paused in the doorway, looking back, raising an eyebrow.

Stan, hesitant, said, “I was kinda looking forward, you know, May, to a beer.”

May and Murch’s Mom both shook their heads. It was his Mom who said, “You shouldn’t drink beer, Stanley, if you’re going to drive all the way back today.”

Dortmunder said, “
I’m
not driving.”

While Stan gave him a dirty look, May said, “John, that wouldn’t be fair. I’ll be right back with the tea. It’s all made.” And she left.

While May was gone, Stan tried to talk his Mom into giving up this ridiculous idea and coming home. His arguments were many and, to Dortmunder’s ear, persuasive:

1) This little vacation would soon pall, and Mom would begin to miss the rough–and–tumble of city life.

2) The longer she stayed up here in the sticks, the more she would lose that competitive edge without which you can’t hope to make it in Big Town.

3) The
style
of this house would soon begin to grate on her nerves something fierce, being so unlike the nice apartment over the garage in Brooklyn where they’d both been so happy for so long.

4) You can’t make the same kind of money pushing a hick hack as driving a metered yellow cab in New York City.

5) Tom Jimson
will
blow up the dam.

“That’s up to John,” Murch’s Mom kept repeating at every iteration of No. 5; the other four she just shrugged off, not even arguing back. It was a very depressing performance all the way around.

Then May came back with mugs of tea on a round Rheingold beer tray. (At least, Dortmunder thought, she hadn’t gone all the way to a tea set and little cups and tiny sandwiches with all the good chewy crust cut off. So maybe there was hope.)

Or maybe not. They all sat around the living room with their mugs of tea, like a Poverty Row production for “Masterpiece Theater,” and May said, “If you really want to move up here, John, there’s plenty of room. You, too, Stan.”