Donald Westlake - Drowned Hopes

“Cabdrivers don’t get to have opinions about destinations,” Murch’s Mom snapped, which might have been a form of “yes,” and she marched out.

“Well, Dortmunder,” Tiny said, “I can’t a hundred percent blame you. Put her there.”

So Dortmunder shook his hand, and Tiny and Stan left, and Dortmunder’s hand was almost recovered enough to go on packing when Doug came in to say, “I hear you’re really going.”

“I’m really going,” Dortmunder agreed.

“Well,” Doug said, “tomorrow or the next day, sometime soon, I got to go back to Long Island anyway, see to my business, pick up the stuff we need for the next try. You could ride along.”

“I’m leaving today,” Dortmunder told him.

“What the heck, wait a day.”

“Well, Doug,” Dortmunder said, “let’s say I wait a day, a couple of days, everybody having these little talks with me. Then let’s say I get into that pickup with you and we head for the city, and you just can’t resist it, you gotta tell me the plan, the details, the equipment, you gotta talk about the res— the place there, and all that. And somewhere in there, Doug,” Dortmunder said, resting his aching hand in a friendly way on Doug’s arm, “somewhere in there, I just might be forced to see if I know how to do a three-sixty.”

Dortmunder was just locking his suitcase when Andy Kelp came in. Dortmunder looked at him and said, “Don’t even start.”

“I’ve heard the word,” Kelp told him. “And I know you, John, and I know when not to waste my breath. Come on over here.”

“Come on over where?”

“The window,” Kelp told him. “It’s okay, it’s closed.”

Wondering what Kelp was up to, Dortmunder went around the bed and over to the window, and when Kelp pointed outside he looked out, past the curtain and the rain-smeared window and the rain-dotted screen and the rain-filled air over the rain-soggy lawn and the rain-flowing sidewalk to the rain-slick curb, where a top-of-the-line Buick Pompous 88 stood there, black, gleaming in the rain.

“Cruise control,” Kelp said, with quiet pride. “Everything. You gotta go back in comfort.”

Dortmunder was touched. Not enough to reconsider, but touched. “Thank you, Andy,” he said.

“The truth is,” Kelp said, leaning forward, speaking confidentially, “I think you’re right. That reservoir is out to get you.”

Well, at least there was a little more room at the dinner table, though no one said that out loud in case of hurting May’s feelings. But it was nice, just the same, to have that extra inch or two for the elbow when bringing a forkful of turkey loaf mouthward.

On the other hand, when it came to discussing future plans, all at once Dortmunder’s absence from the table became less positive and pleasant, though that wasn’t obvious right at first, when Doug raised the subject over coffee, saying, “Well, it’s easy from here on. We’ve touched the box. We know where it is.”

“We’ve got a rope on it,” Kelp added.

Nodding, Doug said, “And the other end of the rope is tied to our monofilament, which nobody’s going to see.”

“Especially in this weather,” Tiny said, and sneezed.

“Another good thing,” Tom added. “This last time, you birds didn’t leave a lot of evidence around to alert the law.”

Wally said, “The computer says there’s a million ways to get it now. It’s so easy.”

Stan said, “Good. So let’s do it and get it over with.”

His Mom said, “I’ll go along with that. I want to get back to where driving’s a contact sport.”

“So we’ll just do it,” Doug said, and shrugged at how easy it was.

“Be glad to get it over with,” Kelp said.

Then there was a little silence, everybody drinking coffee or looking at the wall or drawing little fingertip circles on the tablecloth, nobody quite meeting anybody else’s eye. The light in the crowded little dining room seemed to get brighter, the tablecloth whiter, the walls shinier, the silence deeper and deeper, as though they were turning into an acrylic genre painting of themselves.

Finally, it was May who broke the silence, saying, “How?”

Then everybody was alive and animated again, all looking at her, all suddenly eager to answer the question. “It’s easy, May,” Kelp said. “We just winch it in.”

“We tie the rope to the rope,” Doug explained.

“Naturally,” Tiny added, “we gotta get a new winch.”

“Oh, yeah,” Kelp said, nodding. “And a rope.”

Stan said, “Don’t we need some kind of boat?”

“Not one that sinks in the rain,” Tiny suggested.

Wally asked, “Well, when do we do it? Do you want to wait for the rain to stop?”

“Yes,” Tiny said.

“Well, I don’t know,” Doug said. “Depends on how long that is. You know, the engineers in the dam put a little boat in the water every once in a while, run around the reservoir, take samples and so on, and if they ran over our line they’d cut it. Even if they didn’t foul their propeller, even if they didn’t find it, we’d lose the line.”

Tiny said, “They won’t do one of their jaunts in this weather, count on it.”

“That’s true,” Doug agreed.

May cleared her throat and said, “It seems to me, John would point out right here that the instant the rain stops the people in the dam might go right out in their boat so they can get caught up with their schedule.”

“That’s also true,” Doug agreed.

Wally said, “Miss May, what else would John point out?”

“I don’t know,” May said. “He isn’t here.”

Everybody thought about that. Stan said, “What it is, when John’s around, you don’t mind coming up with ideas, because he’ll tell you if they’re any good or not.”

“Dortmunder,” Tiny said, ponderously thoughtful, “is what you call your focal point.”

With his patented bloodless lipless cackle, Tom said, “Pity he tossed in his hand just before the payout.”

Everybody looked uncomfortable. May said, “I’m here to see to John’s interests.”

“Oh?” Tom asked mildly. “Does Al still have interests?”

Murch’s Mom gave him a beady look. “I don’t see what it matters to you,” she said. “It doesn’t come out of your half. You’re just a troublemaker for the fun of it, aren’t you?”

“As long as everybody’s happy,” Tom told her, “I’m happy.”

“The question is,” May insisted, “ when are you going to do it, and how are you going to do it?”

“May,” Kelp said, “I’ve touched that box now, with this hand.” He showed it to her, palm out. “From here on, it’s so easy .”

“Fine,” May said. “Tell me about it.”

Kelp turned to Doug. “Explain it to her, okay?”

“Well,” Doug said. “We go out and tie the rope to the rope, and Tiny winches it in.”

Tiny said, “Don’t you have to do something to get the box lighter, so it’ll lift up over the tree stumps?”

“Oh, right,” Doug said. “I forgot that part.”

“And when ,” May said. “And what kind of boat. And what are the details ?”

“That’s what we need John for!” Kelp exclaimed, punching the table in his irritation.

“We don’t have John,” May pointed out. “So we’ll have to work out the details ourselves. And the first detail is, when do you want to do it?”

“As soon as possible,” Stan answered. Turning to Tiny, he explained, “I hate to say this, but I think we’re better off in the rain. As long as we get ourselves ready for it.”

“And the boat doesn’t sink,” Tiny said.