Drowned Hopes Part 27

Unfortunately, these mysterious midnight prowlers had chosen to strike at a particular moment when Bob himself was overwrought, what with his just having returned from his honeymoon and starting back to work and all, and so he'd had this excessively emotional response when he'd looked out at the lake and seen what it turned out must have been a person swimming, but which, to his overwrought and excessively emotional eyes had, uh, seemed to be, um...

... a sea serpent.

Bob and the counselor had worked all this out pretty extensively the last month. In fact, Bob was beginning to believe that his terrible experiences of that moonlit night in April were a blessing in disguise, since they'd led him to Manfred, the counselor who was having an absolutely significant effect on Bob's life.

But what a mess he'd made of things along the way, starting with his inability to find Soldier of Fortune magazine later that night when he'd driven away from the dam and home and Tiffany forever. Without Soldier of Fortune, his plans to become a hard-bitten mercenary soldier on some different and more interesting continent had been stymied, and so he'd bought a couple sixpacks instead and parked all night alone up on Ten Eyck Hill, overlooking the reservoir, waiting for the sea serpent to return.

It had not, of course, and at some point in his vigil Bob had finally pa.s.sed out from exhaustion and beer (and, as he and Manfred now understood, overwroughtness and excessive emotion), and when he'd returned, bleary and messy, to his normal life the next day, he'd learned that n.o.body wanted him anymore. Tiffany, furious, had moved back with her parents. Down at the dam, they were talking about dereliction of duty. It wasn't until Bob had agreed to accept counseling that his boss had decided not to fire him.

Once Tiffany had learned he was so serious about solving his problems that he'd started counseling, she'd come back as well-which had its pluses and minuses, to tell the truth-and over the course of the last month Bob felt that he and Manfred had made great strides together. Bob felt himself really coming together these days, both intellectually and emotionally. Right now, he was feeling very good about himself, very comfortable in his s.p.a.ce.

It was going to take a little longer, though, for the crowd at work to settle down and forget the past and accept the new Bob. In the meantime, the other guys mostly didn't talk to him-which was okay, too, considering the kind of talk they talked when they did talk-and he had this ridiculous extra duty every night, checking all the padlocks and all the roads to be sure those mysterious unknown swimmers had not returned.

But who were they? What made them do it? Cutting through padlocks, destroying official property like that, was serious business. n.o.body would do such a thing just so they could go skinny-dipping with their girlfriend. Not when there were so many actual lakes and ponds all around this whole area. And not at all in April; way too cold. Some sort of Polar Bear Club branch of the ancient Druids was the only possibility Bob had come up with so far, which just didn't sound all that probable, not even to him.

Well, again tonight, this padlock on the barrier next to the state highway was unharmed. Nevertheless, he was required to unlock it, open the bar, get into his car, drive to the property-line fence and the second padlocked barrier, check that lock, open it, and drive on to the reservoir, to the spot where it had happened.

Criminals do not return to the scene of their crime. Manfred said that was just superst.i.tion. But on the other hand, Manfred also said he should go along with everybody else for now, with all their myths and rituals, until the general community feeling was that he had atoned for his abandonment of them and their values. So that's what he'd do.

Once he had the barrier unlocked and open, Bob sighed and got back into his car, s.h.i.+fted into drive, and headed down the dirt road, among the trees, in the dark, toward the water.

The water looked darker tonight, with no moon. Darker, and colder, and even more unfriendly. Changing into his wetsuit, boots, gloves, airtank, weight belt, and BCD, Dortmunder muttered, "Last chance to get outta this."

"What?" Kelp asked chirpily, nearby.

"Nothing," Dortmunder said grumpily.

Because, of course, it wasn't the last chance to change his mind, he'd missed that moment a long time ago. He was here now, with Kelp and Tiny and Tom and Stan Murch and this vivisected Hornet and this winch and all this rope, and there was no choice. Into the drink. "I could use one," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing!"

"All set over here," Stan said, standing beside the car.

All set. Tiny had broken off a couple of pine tree branches to chock the wheels of the Hornet, though it didn't give much impression of any lively desire to race down the gradual slope into the water. One end of the long rope from the winch was tied to a frame piece where the b.u.mper used to be attached; not because they had any hope of winching the entire car back up to the surface, but only because that was the simplest and safest way to be sure they had the rope with them. The two big trash bags of Ping-Pong b.a.l.l.s were in the trunk, which was closed only with a simple hook arrangement to make it easy to open underwater in the dark. The underwater flashlights waited on the front seat, the shovels and a four-foot-long fireplace poker in back. A second long coil of rope also lay on the backseat, one end extended forward between the front seats and tied firmly to the steering column. The two long poles, to push them along as necessary, were placed behind the front seats, sticking up and back over the rear seat.

The idea was, the Hornet would roll on down the track underwater, downhill almost all the way into Putkin's Corners. Now and again, if they came to a stop, they'd stand up in the car like gondoliers and pole themselves along. Since only the points of the poles would ever touch bottom, they could minimize turbidity.

Once they reached Putkin's Corners, they'd have to get out of the car and walk, which would roil up the bottom some, but that couldn't be helped. They would use the second rope then to keep in contact with each other and with the car as they made their way around the library-directly across the street from the railroad station, that's a help-and into Tom's G.o.dd.a.m.n field. The four-foot-long poker would be poked into the soft bottom in the area where Tom had buried his casket, and when they hit it they'd dig it up and drag it-this would be a tough part, full of hard work and turbidity-back to the Hornet. There, they'd attach the long rope to a casket handle, then open the car's trunk-carefully! don't want the trash bags of Ping-Pong b.a.l.l.s to escape and float up to the surface-tie the bags of Ping-Pong b.a.l.l.s to the casket on both sides to lighten it, then give the prearranged three-tug signal to Tiny and walk back up the track with the casket as Tiny cranked the winch.

Not exactly a piece of cake, but not absolutely impossible either. And this time, if anything went wrong, Dortmunder would definitely remember his BCD and rise up out of there. Count on it.

"I'm ready," Kelp said. "You coming, John?"

"Naturally," Dortmunder said, and plodded over to get into the Hornet, sitting behind the wheel, the underwater flashlight in his lap, Kelp on the seat beside him, grinning around his mouthpiece. At what?

Dortmunder put his own mouthpiece in and nodded to Tiny, who pulled away the tree branch chocks, and nothing happened. Dortmunder made pus.h.i.+ng gestures, and Tiny said, "I know, I know," and went around to the back of the car.

While Tom stayed with the winch, Tiny and Stan pushed on the car, which rolled sluggishly, and then less sluggishly, down the incline toward the reservoir. "Mmmmmm!" said Kelp, in delight, as the Hornet's front end plowed into the black water.

The front wheels. .h.i.t with a little splash. Dortmunder expected the water's drag to stop the d.a.m.n car again, but it didn't, at least not right away. Rolling slowly, but rolling, the Hornet moved easily down into the reservoir, water bubbling up into the pa.s.senger compartment around their feet through the holes where the accelerator and clutch pedal used to be, then pouring in through the larger s.p.a.ce where the dashboard once spread, as the hoodless front went beneath the surface. The winds.h.i.+eld and side windows caused a little wake to boil past them as they rolled on, water bubbling on the outside of the gla.s.s. There was no rear window anymore, it having gone with the top, so all at once the interior was full, water halfway up their chests, a few seconds of freezing icy numbness, as Dortmunder had expected, and then it was okay.

Breathe through the mouth.

Breathe through the mouth.

Breathe through the mouth.

Breathe through the mouth.

Kelp pulled his mouthpiece out long enough to cry, "It's working!" and then popped it back in as the water closed over their heads. Water tumbled around their face masks. Trapped bubbles of air in the car's doors and trunk and frame began to work their way clear for the straight run up through the black water to the eddying, then quieting, surface.

Second padlock untampered with. n.o.body at the clearing down by the reservoir at the end of the road. Naturally not.

Bob switched off his headlights, got out of his car, and stood leaning his skinny b.u.t.t against a front fender, arms folded, gazing out over the water. n.o.body could say for sure how long it would take him to do this pointless inspection every night, since n.o.body had ever had to go through this nonsense before him, so there was no reason why he shouldn't take a little time out for himself along the way.

Darker tonight, without the moon, but lots of high tiny white pinpoints of stars in cl.u.s.ters and lines and patterns all across the black sky, looking as though they really ought to mean something. If only the thousands of white dots were numbered, you could connect them, and then you'd know it all. The secret of the universe. But n.o.body even knows which dot is number one.

Maybe the sun? Our own star? Maybe we can't see the pattern because we're in the pattern. Have to talk to Manfred about that.

Ever since he'd started the counseling, Bob had learned there were depths and complexities within himself that his schooling and his family-and certainly his r.e.t.a.r.ded boyhood friends-had never evoked. Ways of seeing things. Ways of relating himself to the world and the universe and time itself.

What did it all matter, really, in the vastness of s.p.a.ce, the fullness of time? Maybe Tiffany wasn't exactly the ideal person to spend the rest of one's life with, but what the heck, maybe he wasn't anybody's lifelong ideal either.

Look up at all those pinp.r.i.c.ks of light up there, all those stars, billions and billions, so many with planets around them, so many of the planets beating some form of life. Not human beings, of course, and not the kinds of aliens and monsters and ETs you saw in science fiction, either. Maybe life based on methane instead of oxygen; maybe life closer to our plants than our animals, but intelligent; maybe life in the form of radio waves. And all going on for billions of years, from the unimaginable beginning of the universe to its unthinkable end. What were Bob and Tiffany in all that? Not very important, huh?

So take it easy, that was the answer, don't get so excited about things. Don't get so excited about s.e.x-that's what got you where you are today-or your future or your job or sea serpents or the simple-a.s.s stupid asinine meatheaded dumbness of one's pals and coworkers. Accept the life you've got. One little life in the great heaving ocean of s.p.a.ce and time, the hugeness of the universe.

Think about all those lives up there in s.p.a.ce, unguessable lives, millions and millions of miles away. Each life its own, each life unique, unrepeatable, soon ended, a brief s.h.i.+ning of the light.

"And this is mine," Bob whispered, accepting it, accepting all of it: himself, Tiffany, Manfred, his s.h.i.+t-for-brains buddies, his small destiny in this unimportant spot on this minor planet circling this mediocre sun in this lower-middle-cla.s.s suburb of the universe. "I accept," Bob whispered to the universe.

Bubbles. Little air bubbles breaking the surface of the water, out a ways and off to the right. Hard to see, in this thin starlight barely brus.h.i.+ng the black surface of the reservoir. Just a few little bubbles, rippling the water. Bob smiled, calm, accepting it. Some fish down there, moving around.

Dortmunder moved around as the Hornet came to a stop. Their progress had been very slow from the time they'd been completely submerged, just drifting down along the railroad track, but that hadn't been at all bad. Actually, the gradualness of their descent helped control the turbidity, so whenever Dortmunder aimed his flashlight back up the track there was very little extra roiling of the water.

Which didn't mean the d.a.m.n stuff was clean. Far from it. Their flashlight beams still glowed dimly on murky brown water full of drifting hairy tendrils and clumps of stuff that Dortmunder could only hope were not what they looked like. But visibility was a lot better than last time; by which is meant, some visibility existed. It was possible for a light beam to cut at least partially through the sludge and drifting guck and pervasive brownness of the water to show the slimy gravel and rusty track over which they were pa.s.sing, the furry tree stumps on both sides.

At one point, Kelp had poked Dortmunder's arm to direct his attention to a low stone wall they were traveling by on their right, with more stone walls going away at right angles into the murk at both ends. A building foundation. That was spooky; people used to live there. Way down here, in the dark.

The Hornet had still been moving at that time, the old stone foundation gradually receding away behind them. But now it was stopped, with no town at all in sight within the short uncertain range of their lights. As with the last time they'd been down in here, spatial disorientation had taken place, so it was impossible to tell if they were still on a hillside or had reached flat ground. So who knew how much farther it was to Putkin's Corners?

Oh, well. Time to go to work. Dortmunder got to his feet, putting one foot on the soggy seat as he turned, holding the flashlight with his left hand as he picked up the pole from the back with his right. Beside him, Kelp, moving more easily without this useless steering wheel in his way, was doing the same thing.

Kelp elaborately mimed, with his entire body, a counting cadence: One, two, three; ready, set, go. On the first two, they positioned their poles, more or less even with the rear tires, pressing down into the gravel roadbed. On three, they pushed, and the Hornet moved forward, but only as long as they kept pus.h.i.+ng.

One, two, three; forward.

One, two, three; forward.

One, two, three; forward.

One, two, three; up.

One- Up?

Dortmunder and Kelp stared at each other in wild surprise, goggle-eyed inside their goggles. Shakily, Dortmunder aimed the flashlight over the Hornet's side, down at the ground, which was farther away.

Jesus Christ! Now what?

Only the front tires still touched the tracks. As the rear of the Hornet swayed gently back and forth, still lifting slowly, tilting them forward, Dortmunder and Kelp turned this way and that, bewildered, losing the poles, b.u.mping into each other. The Hornet, off balance, tilted ever more forward and now leftward as well, the right front tire lifting off the rail as delicately as a mastodon's foot.

The Ping-Pong b.a.l.l.s! They'd misunderstood the buoying capacity of two large trash bags full of Ping-Pong b.a.l.l.s, that's what had happened. Trapped in the trunk of the Hornet, now that they'd reached the increased pressure of this depth, they were lifting the rear of the car.

And if Dortmunder and Kelp tried to keep poling them deeper, closer to Putkin's Corners, despite the Ping-Pong b.a.l.l.s? No way. But what could they do instead? Gotta think. Gotta think! Gotta have a minute to think!

Dortmunder made frantic pus.h.i.+ng gestures at Kelp: Sit down! Sit down, you're rocking the car! Kelp, not sure what Dortmunder wanted of him, moved this way and that, stumbled forward, blundered into Dortmunder, and grabbed the steering wheel beside Dortmunder's elbow to regain his balance.

Now all the weight was on the Hornet's left side, and suddenly the car flipped right over, catching the two of them within itself like a clam rake snagging a couple of clams. Both their flashlights went tumbling away into the murk.

BCD! That's all Dortmunder could think when he found himself in the dark again, underwater and lost again, enclosed inside the Hornet. Scrabbling all over himself, he found the right b.u.t.ton, managed to lift his left arm up into the area around the steering column, jammed the b.u.t.ton down hard, and the BCD filled right up with air, just as it was supposed to, increasing his buoyancy wondrously, pressing him ever more firmly against the Hornet's upside-down front seat, increasing the Hornet's buoyancy as well, moving the whole ma.s.s slowly and ponderously upward, through the black water.

So many stars. If you looked very closely, you could see them reflected in the calm black surface of the reservoir, as though this small man-made bowl of water on the planet Earth contained within itself the entire universe.

Gee! Bob thought, I'm coming up with so many insights! I'll have to write all of this down on paper when I get back to my desk in-the dam so I'll be able to talk about it all with Manfred, next time we- Something broke the still surface. Out a ways, off to the right, near where the bubbles had been. Something... something hard to make out.

Bob stood up straighter, taking a step away from his car, squinting toward that unknown object emerging out of the reservoir. Not a sea serpent, he told himself jokingly; he knew all about that sort of thing now, knew the deep wellsprings of self-discontent that had led him to that particular error. This would simply be some sort of fish, that's all, surfacing briefly; probably the same one that had caused the bubbles a little while ago.

But, no. Not a fish. Still not a sea serpent, but not a fish either. Starlight glinted mutedly on metal. A machine of some sort. Round constructions on top, a wider metal surface below, angling away, downward into the water. Hard to see details in the dark, but certainly metal, certainly a machine.

A submarine? In the reservoir? Ridiculous. It couldn't possibly- And then, with a sudden leap of the heart, Bob knew. A s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p! A flying saucer! A s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p from the stars, from the stars! Visiting Earth secretly, by night, hiding here in the reservoir, taking its measurements or doing whatever it was doing, now rising up out of the water, going back, back to the stars. To the stars!

Bob ran forward, arms upraised in supplication. "Take me with you!" he screamed, and tripped over a root, and crashed flat onto the ground at the edge of the water, knocking himself cold.

"Now, if you want to get to South Jersey in the afternoon," Stan said, "the Verrazano and the Outerbridge Crossing are still your best bet. It's just it's a little tricky getting across Staten Island. What you do, when you-"

"I had to bury a soldier on Staten Island once," Tiny reminisced, leaning on the winch.

Tom, hunkered down on his heels beside the tracks like a refugee taking five, said, "Because he was dead, I suppose."

"Not when we started," Tiny said. "See, what we-"

Stan, looking out at the reservoir, said, "What's that?"

They all looked. Tom slowly rose, with a great creaking and cracking of joints, and said, "Tires."

"The Hornet," Tiny said. "Upside-down."

"Floating," said Stan.

Tiny said, "I don't think it's supposed to do that."

Stan said, "Where do you figure John and Andy are?"

"In the reservoir," Tom said.

Tiny said, "I think I oughta winch it in."

Stan said, "Did you hear somebody shout?"

They all listened. Absolute silence. The rear wheels and axle and a bit of the trunk and rear fenders of the Hornet bobbed in the gloom.

Tiny said, "I still think I oughta winch it in."

"I'll help," Stan volunteered.

Tiny turned the winch handle rapidly at first, taking up a lot of slack, while the car sat out there like a newly discovered island; then the rope tautened, the winching got harder, and the Hornet wallowed reluctantly sh.o.r.eward.

The car was still several yards offsh.o.r.e, but in water only perhaps five feet deep, when a sudden thras.h.i.+ng and spouting took place on its left side, and Dortmunder and Kelp appeared, apparently fighting each other to the death, struggling, clawing, swinging great haymaker lefts and rights. But, no; what they were really trying to do was untangle from each other, separate all the hoses and equipment and feet.

Kelp at last went flying a.s.s over teakettle, and Dortmunder turned in a great swooping circle, found the sh.o.r.e, and came wading balefully forward, flinging things in his wake: face mask, mouthpiece, tank, BCD. Emerging from the water too wild-eyed for anybody to dare speak to, he unzipped the wetsuit, sat on a rail to remove the boots and peel off the legs of the wetsuit, stood in nothing but his underpants to heave the boots and wetsuit into the reservoir (just missing Kelp, who was still struggling and floundering and falling and scrambling sh.o.r.eward), and turned to march away, between the tracks.

"Oo! Oo! Oo!"

He stopped, growling in his throat, grinding his teeth, and turned about to march back to the reservoir. "Oo! Oo! Oo!" Wading into the cold water, he felt around in it for the boots, found them, carried them back to sh.o.r.e-"Oo! Oo!"-sat down again on the rail, pulled the boots on, stood in nothing but his underpants and boots, and this time did go marching away down the railroad line.

Mildly, Tom said, "If I'd blown it up to start with, we would've all saved ourselves a lot of time and trouble. Well, live and learn." And he followed Dortmunder away toward the highway.

THIRD DOWN.

FORTY-FOUR.

May stepped off the curb and hailed a cab. Though its off-duty light was lit, this particular cab immediately cut off a bakery van and a black TransAm from New Jersey to swerve across the lanes and yank to a stop at May's feet. Since the backseat already contained three people, May opened the front door and slid in beside the driver, who was Murch's Mom. "Right on time," she said, slamming the door.

"Naturally," Mom said, and slashed the cab back into the flow of traffic, causing a great tide of imprecation to rise up into the air behind her.

"We would've been late," Stan said from the backseat, "if I hadn't told Mom to come down Lex and forget Park."

"Know-it-all," muttered Mom darkly.

May s.h.i.+fted around in the seat so she could see Mom and Stan and Andy and Tiny all at once. "I want to thank you all for coming," she said.