Donald Westlake - Drowned Hopes

“That’s impossible, John, you know that. Besides, they’re going to go do it tonight, and then it’ll be all over with. One way or the other.”

“It’s the other that bothers me,” Dortmunder said. “You keep your back against the wall, May.”

“I will. And I’ll see you tomorrow, John.”

Dortmunder was very thoughtful when he went back to the kitchen, where Guffey offered him a fresh cup of coffee, plus two more names to try: Harry and Jim. Neither did the trick, and then Dortmunder said, “Guffey, I’m gonna have to go up there.”

Guffey looked alert. “Up where?”

“Not near the water,” Dortmunder said. “Just to the town.”

“What town?”

“Now, here’s the deal,” Dortmunder went on. “If you wait until Tom’s got his money, then maybe Tom gets away and you don’t get to meet up with him at all. Which is maybe just as well.”

Guffey rested a scrawny fist on the kitchen table. “That man ruint my life,” he said. “And I mean that, Dortmunder. I was just a young fella when he got his hooks into me, and he ruint my entire life. My destiny is to catch up with that son of a bitch, or why would you and him come all the way out to Cronley, Oklahoma? What happens after I catch up is between him and me, but I got to have him in my sights one time before I die.”

“I guess I can understand that,” Dortmunder said. “So this is what I offer. You give me your solemn word you won’t make a move on Tom until this other business is over with, and you can come along with me upstate.”

“Where to?”

“But you have to swear you won’t do anything till I say it’s okay.”

Guffey thought about that. “What if I won’t swear?”

“Then I go out to the living room and get your rifle,” Dortmunder told him, “and bring it back in here, and wrap it around your neck, and go upstate by myself.”

Guffey thought about that . “What if I swear, only I’m lying?”

“I got a lot of friends up there where I’m going, Guffey,” Dortmunder said. “And all you got up there’s one enemy.”

It hadn’t been easy for Andy Kelp to find a large station wagon with both MD plates and a trailer hitch, but he’d persevered, not settling for second best, and so it was a big solid Chrysler Country Square with woodoid trim that he sat in the front passenger seat of as Stan Murch steered off the county road an hour after alleged sunset that wet evening, towing the big boat (containing Doug, back there familiarizing himself with the controls) onto the same dirt lane they’d used for their very first assault on the reservoir, months ago. “ This time we get it!” Kelp said. “I can feel it!”

Tiny got out of the backseat he was sharing with Tom. Carrying the wire cutters through the pouring rain, he lopped the new padlock at the same old barrier, then lifted the barrier out of the way. “ Another déjà vu,” he muttered as he put the barrier back in position after car and boat had passed, then returned to his place in the wagon.

Last time on this road, in the motor home, Kelp had been the driver, mostly by ear, keeping the lights off and the windows open so he could listen to the bushes as they scraped past. This time, the downpour meant not only that no one in the car had any desire for the windows to be open, but also that Stan felt he could safely drive with the parking lights on. The rain both obscured the lights and lessened the likelihood of observers wandering the nearby vicinity. So the windshield wipers slashed back and forth, flinging water left and right, and through the sporadically clear glass they could dimly see the rutted dirt road and its surrounding trees and shrubbery, all muddily illuminated in a smoky amber glow.

After a while they reached, and this time saw, the second barrier, at the reservoir property’s perimeter fence, the one Kelp had not quite driven into the first time. Tiny climbed out again and cleared the way again, and when he got back into the car, dumping the wire cutters onto the carpet-covered storage space in back, he said, “I might as well go underwater this time. I couldn’t get any wetter.”

“Soon be over,” Kelp told him.

“That’s right,” Tom said mildly.

“According to the computer,” Wally said, “as soon as they get their hands on the money, Tom is going to try to betray everybody.”

“I’m afraid that’s true,” May agreed.

Murch’s Mom sniffed. “You don’t have to be a machine smarter than a human being to dope that out,” she said.

May said, “The guys out there with Tom know he’s got something in mind. They’ll keep an eye on him.”

“That’s right,” Murch’s Mom said. “They aren’t cream-puffs, you know. My boy Stanley can take care of himself.”

“And Tiny,” May said. “And Andy.”

Wally cleared his throat. “Just in case,” he said.

Murch’s Mom gave him an irritable look. “Are you talking against my boy Stanley?”

“What I’m saying is,” Wally assured her, “we ought to think about all the possibilities. That’s what the computer says we should do, and I agree with it.”

“You always agree with that computer,” Murch’s Mom told him. “You got a real mutual admiration society going there, that’s why you keep it around.”

May said, “Wally, what are you getting at? What possibilities?”

“Well,” Wally said, “let’s just say Tom does something really underhanded and nasty—”

“Sounds right,” Murch’s Mom said.

“And let’s just say,” Wally went on, “that he wins . He’s got the money and he’s, you know, harmed our friends.”

“Killed them, you mean,” May said.

“I don’t really like to say that.”

“But it’s what you mean.”

Wally looked pained. “Uh-huh.”

“Hmp,” said Murch’s Mom. But then she shook her head and said, “All right, go ahead, what then?”

“Well, that’s the question,” Wally told her. “Is Tom just going to take the money and run? Or is he going to say to himself, ‘I don’t want any witnesses left behind?’ ”

May looked at the storm-battered front windows. “You mean he might come back here.”

“The computer thinks so.”

Murch’s Mom said, “And you agree with it.”

“So do I,” May said. She looked very worried.

Wally said, “And then there’s Myrtle.”

Both women were taken aback by this abrupt change of subject. Murch’s Mom said, “Myrtle? That little ninny upstairs? What’s she got to do with anything?”

“Well, that’s just it,” Wally said. “Nothing.”

“That’s what I figured,” Murch’s Mom agreed.

“What I mean is,” Wally told her, “the rest of us got into this because we wanted to, we chose to be here. But Myrtle didn’t. And if her father comes back and—”

May said, “Who?”

“Tom’s her father,” Wally said. Nodding at Murch’s Mom, he said, “That lady Edna you play canasta with—”

“The girl’s mother. I know.”

“She worked in the library in Putkin’s Corners when Tom buried the casket behind it. She was the one told him they weren’t going to put in the parking lot after all. And her father was the town undertaker; it was from him that Tom got the casket.”

May said, “Why didn’t Tom say anything when Tiny caught her?”

“He doesn’t know. And I don’t think he’d care.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Murch’s Mom said, “Not a sentimental kind of guy, Tom.”

May said, “Wally? Do you and your computer have an idea what we should do?”

“Go to Myrtle’s house.”