Donald Westlake - Drowned Hopes

“You bet,” she said. “I wouldn’t be out here, believe me, if I wasn’t such a good little wifey.”

The word wifey sent one signal to Doug, but the ironic tone sent another. Looking at her more closely, he said, “Your husband sent you out in this weather? For what? Get him a sixpack?”

“He didn’t send me,” she said. “He doesn’t send anybody anywhere, believe me. I was just visiting him in the hospital.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“The bug hospital,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “He’s wiggy, you know?”

“That’s terrible,” Doug said. “A good-looking girl like you, stuck with a nutcase?”

She gave him a gratified smile. “You think I’m good-looking?”

“You know you are.”

“Would you believe I’m pregnant?”

“No! Really?”

“I don’t show, do I?”

“Not a bit,” Doug told her truthfully, wondering if he dared pat her belly. Probably not. A ride was more important than anything else at this point.

The gift sighed theatrically. “I should have listened to my mother,” she said. “ She knew there was something wrong with him from the beginning, but I just never listened.”

“Why not?”

Another sigh. “I guess I just like sex too much,” the poor girl said.

“Mmm,” said Doug, in sympathetic understanding. “Uh, what’s your name?”

Dortmunder raised his cup. “My last coffee for a year,” he said, and drank.

May, with him in the kitchen of the house on Oak Street, said, “Why’s that?”

“Because I’m going back to the city,” he explained, “and I won’t be drinking anything out of a faucet there for a good long time.”

“What about taking showers?”

“I haven’t doped that out yet.”

May said, “John, they do all kinds of things to purify that water before it ever gets to the city. Animals and birds and fish and things die in it all the time.”

“Still,” Dortmunder said. “Every time I turn the faucet and the water splashes in the sink, you know what it’s gonna sound like? ‘ Al .’ ”

Murch’s Mom came in and said, “Wally’s off.”

Dortmunder and May went out to the living room, where the front door was open, letting in cold damp air and giving a great view of the rain-drenched world outside. Tiny carried the components of Wally’s computer in white plastic trash bags to protect them from the weather, and Wally carried his bulgy green vinyl bag. He was grinning from ear to ear, which made him look more than ever like a novelty item for sale on the Jersey shore. “Miss May, John,” he said. “It’s been wonderful. I learned so much from you all.”

“It was nice to meet you, Wally,” May said.

“You and the, uh, computer,” Dortmunder said, coughing slightly, “were a real help.”

“I hate long good-byes,” Tiny said. “Especially when I’m carrying three hundred pounds of shit.”

So they had a short good-bye, and Wally and his equipment went out to Murch’s Mom’s cab for the run around the corner to Myrtle Street. Uh, Myrtle Street. On Myrtle Street.

A little later, Kelp and Stan Murch came back with transportation for the trip back to the city; Stan a Datsun S.E.X. 69 for his Mom and himself, Kelp an MD-plated Pontiac Prix Fixe for himself and Dortmunder and May and Tiny. They packed the two cars, running back and forth in the rain, and when they were about to leave, Dortmunder shut the front door and turned to see May frowning in worry at Doug’s pickup, still parked on the gravel drive beside the front lawn. Dortmunder said, “What’s up?”

“I wish I knew Doug was all right,” she said. “And don’t say, ‘He’s a pro.’ ”

“I wasn’t going to,” Dortmunder lied. “I was going to say he’s a big boy. Come on, May, it’s raining.”

February 11. It had been months since Dortmunder had even thought about the failed reservoir job…

“It’s too awful to go out tonight,” May said.

“You’re right,” Dortmunder said, and she was. A winter storm, high winds packing an overload of wet snow, swirled through the canyons of New York City, hunting for victims.

“There’s a special on TV tonight about Caribbean vacation places,” May said. “We can stay in and watch.”

“I wish we could go there, May.”

“We’ve been before,” she pointed out, “and we’ll go again. This year, we’ll just watch.”

So they watched. And twenty minutes in, half asleep, distracted, barely paying attention at all, they were both snapped awake by—

Doug.

“Jesus Christ !”

“Ssh, John!”

“—new owner Douglas Berry, a transplanted New Yorker, has big plans for his resort hotel and dive shop, right on the beach, with easy access to the reef.”

Doug, grinning big, tanned, in a bathing suit, stood on the sand with a low white resort hotel behind him, his left arm around a beautiful young woman holding a tiny baby. “It’s gonna be great for little Tiffany, to grow up here. It’s a terrific place to be a kid. I’m a kid myself. Love it!”

Then there was a shot of Doug wind-surfing, grinning like a baboon, huge ocean, huge blue sky, fantastic yellow-white sun. The off-screen announcer said, “Berry himself, a qualified professional dive instructor, leads the snorkel and scuba-diving classes. His emphasis is on active vacation life.”

And now a shot of Doug bursting out of the ocean into close-up, in full scuba gear, pulling off the face mask and mouthpiece, giving that shit-eating grin right at the camera. “Come on down!”

“You’re goddamn right I will!” Dortmunder raged, on his feet, about to jump headfirst into the TV.

“John, John, John!” May leaped up and stood in front of him, patting his chest as though he were a spooked horse. “John, no.”

“He got it, the son of a bitch! He got the seven hundred thousand! New oooow -ner!”

“John, forget it,” May begged him.

“Where was that place?” Dortmunder demanded. “What island was that?”

But the TV was showing a commercial now, for a timed-release cold remedy. May said, “John, what can you do about it? Nothing.”

“Nothing! I can go down there, I can—”

“And do what? John, if he bought that hotel, he’s figured out how to make the money look legitimate. Said it was an inheritance, or gambling winnings, or something. Paid taxes on it, and bought that place with the rest.”

Dortmunder didn’t want to calm down, but he didn’t seem able to stop himself. “Yeah,” he agreed, “that’s the way to do it. But still , May—”

“It wasn’t ever your money,” May pointed out. “You can’t take him to court. If you go down there, if we even find out where it is, he won’t have to give you a thing.” She looked at the TV set, now showing a nasal spray commercial. “We gave up too soon, that’s all.”

Dortmunder gnashed his teeth. “His own hotel.” He started out of the living room, snarling, “You want a beer?”

“At least,” she said.

As he went through the doorway, the phone rang. He stopped, turned, pointed at the phone. “You tell Andy,” he said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”