Donald Westlake - Drowned Hopes

“I’ve never been out of Oklahoma in my life!” Guffey cried, truthfully. “I just want to write that person and tell him I forgive him. I’m a Christian, you know. Praise the Lord!”

When it looked as though Guffey might intend to start preaching in their direction nonstop, the cops gave him two names—Tom Jimson, who’d rented the car, and John Dortmunder, who’d driven it—plus one address in New York for both of them. (Tom Jimson, huh? Tim Jepson, Tom Jimson, huh? Huh? Huh ?)

There was a little glitch when the hospital said they wanted to keep Guffey a few days longer for observation, but when they discovered he didn’t have any insurance they realized they’d already observed him long enough, and he was let go. And then, for the first time in his life, thumb extended, Guffey left Oklahoma.

The trip northeast was fairly long and adventurous, punctuated by a number of crimes of the most cowardly and despicable sort: church poor-boxes rifled, cripples mugged for their grocery sacks, things like that. And here at last was New York. And here was the address. And here was John Dortmunder.

Tim Jepson wasn’t here right at this minute, unfortunately—killing him in his sleep would be the safest way to go about it, after all—but that was all right. John Dortmunder was here and John Dortmunder could tell Guffey how to find Tim Jepson.

And he would, too. Oh, yes.

“Well, no,” Dortmunder said, trying to sound like a reasonable person in control of himself and his environment, rather than a terrified bunny rabbit who’s just been awakened by a madman with a rifle. “No, I don’t know where Tom—Tim is.”

“Lives here,” the madman corrected him. “Said so when you rented the car.”

Dortmunder stared, astonished at the madman’s information, and the madman cackled, rather like Tom himself, except that his mouth opened plenty wide enough to see the shriveled and darkened toothless gums. “Didn’t know I knew that, did you?” he demanded, the rifle as steady as a courthouse cannon in his wrinkled old hands.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Oh, I know all sorts of stuff, Mr. Department of Recovery. Tim Jepson calls himself Tom Jimson now. He paid for that rental car. You drove.”

“Well, gee, you’re pretty good,” Dortmunder told him, thinking like mad.

“You know what I’m really good at?” the madman asked him.

“No, what’s that?”

“Shooting.” The maniac grinned, cheek nestled against the cold rifle. “I been shooting for the pot for years now,” he explained.

“Don’t you ever hit it?” Dortmunder asked him.

Which made the old guy mad, for some reason. “Shooting for the pot !” he repeated, with great emphasis. “That means shooting food! Coyotes and rabbits and gophers and snakes and rats! That you put in the pot ! And eat !”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Dortmunder told him, very sincerely. “I’m a city person, I don’t know these things.”

“Well, I do,” the touchy countryman said, “and let me tell you, Mr. City Person, I’m goddamn good at shooting for the pot.”

“I bet you are,” Dortmunder told him, filling his voice to the gunwales with admiration.

“You get a little squirrel out there,” the madman told him, “it don’t stand still and let you aim, like how you do. It keeps moving, jumping around. And yet, every blessed time I pull this trigger, I hit that squirrel just exactly where I want. I never spoil the meat.”

“That’s pretty good,” Dortmunder assured him.

“It’s god damn good!”

“That’s right! That’s right!”

“So, then,” the madman said, settling down once more, “what do you think the chances are, if I decided to shoot that left earlobe offa you, that I’ll probly do it?”

“Well, uh,” Dortmunder said. His left earlobe began to itch like crazy. His left hand began to tremble like crazy, thwarted in its desire to scratch his left ear. His left eye began to water. “Uhhhhh,” he said, “I don’t think you ought to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, uh, the noise, the neighbors, they—”

“What I hear about New York City,” the madman informed him, “when the neighbors around these parts hear a gunshot they just turn up on the TV and pretend it didn’t happen. That’s what I hear.”

“Oh, well,” Dortmunder said, “that’s just people out in the sticks knocking New York the way they do. This city’s really a very warm-hearted, caring, uh, for instance, people from out of town are constantly getting their wallet back that they left in the taxi.”

“Well, I don’t leave no wallet in no taxi,” the madman told him. “I only know what I hear. And I figure it’s worth the chance.”

“Wait a minute!” Dortmunder cried. “Why do you, why do you want to do such a thing?”

“For practice,” the madman told him. “And so you’ll take me seriously.”

“I take you seriously! I take you seriously!”

“Good.” The madman nodded agreeably but kept the rifle aimed at Dortmunder’s ear. “So where’s Tim Jepson?” he said.

“Uh,” said the man on the bed.

Guffey frowned at him. “Uh?”

“I don’t know!”

“If you really don’t know,” Guffey told him, in all sincerity, “that’s a pity, because you’re about to lose an ear.”

“Wait a minute!” the man called John Dortmunder cried, waving his arms around, kicking his legs under the blanket. “I do know, but wait a minute, okay?”

Guffey almost lowered the rifle at that, it was so astonishing. “You do know, but wait a minute?”

“Listen,” John Dortmunder said earnestly, “you know Tom Jimson, right? Or Tim Jepson, or whatever you want to call him.”

“I surely do,” Guffey agreed, hands squeezing the rifle so hard he almost shot the fellow’s ear off prematurely.

“Well, then, think about it,” Dortmunder invited him. “Would anybody on this Earth protect Tom Jimson? Would anybody risk their own ear for him?”

Guffey thought that over. “Still,” he said, “Tim Jepson lives here with you, and you know where he is, but you don’t want to tell me. So maybe you’re just crazy or something, and what you need is shock therapy, like me shooting off your ear and then a couple of fingers and then—”

“No no no, just give me a chance,” Dortmunder cried, bouncing around on the bed some more. “I don’t blame you, honest I don’t. I know what Tom did to you, he told me all about it.”

Guffey growled, low in his throat. “He did?”

“Getting you stuck in that elevator and the whole thing.” Shaking his head sympathetically, he said, “He even laughed about it. I could hardly stand to listen.”

Nor could Guffey. “Then how come you hang out with this fella?” he demanded. “And protect him?”

“I’m not protecting Tom,” Dortmunder protested. “There’s other people in it that I do care about, okay?”

“I don’t care about nobody but Tim Jepson.”

“I know that. I believe it.” Dortmunder spread his hands, being reasonable. “You waited this many years,” he pointed out. “Just wait another day or two.”

Guffey gave that suggestion the bitter chuckle it deserved. “So you can go warn him? What kinda idiot do you think I am?”

Dortmunder stared around the room, brow corrugated with thought. “I tell you what,” he said. “Stay here.”

“Stay here ?”

“Just till I get my phone call.”

“What phone call?”