Drowned Hopes Part 35

"Great book," Doug commented.

"You just mumbled when you said it, that's all," John told him. "So, okay, it's a salvage job. So let's get to it."

So they got to it, and this time Doug could absorb the computer model, see how clever it was, and also see what some of the problems were going to be. At one point, he said, "How did you guys figure to find one little box buried somewhere in a field? What were you gonna do, dig up the whole field? Underwater?"

John, a little huffy, said, "We got a fix on the place from Tom. And we had a poker with us, to help find it."

"Great," Doug said ironically. Now that they were dealing with his area of expertise, he was losing the last remnants of panic and insecurity, was unconsciously becoming a little arrogant and dismissive. Shaking his head at John, he said to Wally, "How close a fix is this?"

Wally explained about the three streetlights that Tom had used to mark the location of the buried casket, and Doug said, "Can you give me an accurate reading on distance to the box from the back wall of the library?"

"Sure."

John, a bit nastily, said, "What are you gonna do, pace it off when you get down there?"

"I'll bring a line with me," Doug told him, "the same length as the distance from the wall to the box. Okay?"

"Mrp," John said, and stopped interrupting after that, so finally Doug could close with the problem.

At last, when Wally had shown him everything he had, Doug stepped back from the computer screen and said, "Okay. I got the picture now."

Andy said, "And it can be done?"

"Yes."

"Good," Andy said.

"But," Doug said, "it can't be done without a boat."

"Gee, Doug," Andy said. "That's a reservoir, you know? No boating."

Doug frowned at him. "I didn't think you guys worried about laws that much."

John said, "What Andy means is, we can't be seen with a boat."

Doug shrugged. "So we do it on a cloudy night. All we need is a small rubber boat with a little ten-hp motor."

John said, "A motor? We shouldn't be heard with a boat either."

"You won't hear it," Doug promised him. "But the main thing is, we have to go in from above, and that means a boat."

"Expensive," John suggested.

Doug waved that away. "A couple thou. For the boat and the motor, I mean. Then there'll be other stuff. Maybe four or five thou altogether."

John nodded. "Well," he said, "time to go tell Tom the good news. We need more money."

FIFTY-SIX.

"G.o.ddammit, Tom," Dortmunder said, strapping on the safety harness, "why didn't you ever stash your G.o.dd.a.m.n money anywhere easy?"

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

"What the h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l," 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 b.u.mpy 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 s.p.a.ce-the pitons they'd pounded into the ground up there d.a.m.n 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.

"G.o.d 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, ca.s.sette player, reading lights and extremely woodlike dashboard trim, traveled Andy Kelp (driver), John Dortmunder (front-seat pa.s.senger), 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 tw.a.n.g 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 a.s.sumed 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 b.u.t.ton 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 Cadillac.

"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 gla.s.s 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-s.h.i.+rt 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.

h.e.l.l! Could he push both the van and the pickup? Deciding he had no choice, he could but try, Ken s.h.i.+fted 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 gla.s.s 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.