Donald Westlake - Drowned Hopes

“Is that right? Sleeps two?” Andy stepped back and surveyed the boat with a kind of proprietary pride. “Pretty good, Doug,” he agreed. “Pretty good.”

And it was. The boat Doug had selected, already swapped to a three-wheel hauler, was a twenty-four-foot Benjamin inboard cabin cruiser with a Fiberglas top and Lucite sides around the wheelhouse amidships, an open deck at the rear, and a narrow cabin below in front containing two single-person sleeping sofas, minimal kitchen facilities, and a very basic head. In comparison with the QEII , say, it was merely a tiny pleasure craft for weekend fishermen, but in comparison with their previous rubber raft it was the QEII .

Nodding happily in the rain, Andy said, “Stan’s gonna have a lot of fun towing this upstate.”

Startled, Doug said, “Andy? Stan, he won’t, uh, my truck…”

Andy reassuringly patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry, Doug,” he said. “Stan’ll be good. I’ll tell him to be good.”

“Uh,” said Doug.

Myrtle awoke to a scratching sound. She opened her eyes and saw that it hadn’t been just a bad dream, after all. It had been true and real. The monster called Tiny, the tough gang members, her own icy-eyed father, all real, and she in their grasp, imprisoned here on this narrow old canvas cot in the attic of the house on Oak Street, under one holey sheet and one threadbare blanket, with a lumpy pillow under her head and a lock on the door.

It was amazing, really, that she’d been able to sleep at all. The cot was so lumpy , with one giant hard bump in particular, in the small of her back, that she just hadn’t been able to either prod out of the canvas or ignore. And there was also her situation, of course, as desperate as it could be, with the gang downstairs including among its members two people—Doug and Wally—that she’d thought of at one time as her friends, in their very different ways. Friendly, in any case.

So the fact that sleep had come to her at any time in the course of this night was just a proof of her exhaustion in the face of all this peril. And now, some sort of scratching noise had awakened her. Rats? Ooo!

Staring around at the bare wide-planked floor, Myrtle saw no rats, saw nothing alive or moving at all. Then she realized what it must be: rain. Very dim light showed at the one window in the end wall, meaning it must now be very shortly after dawn, and in that gray light she watched the raindrops pelt the window glass as hard and unceasing as ever.

So it was the rain, that’s all; too early to wake up. Myrtle closed her eyes again, and listened, and heard the scratching sound once more, and it came from the other direction . Not from the window at all. From the other way.

Reluctantly, Myrtle opened her eyes and looked the other way. Down there was the unfinished interior wall, closing off this room at the end of the attic. Centered in the wall was the old wooden door with its old worn brass round knob.

Skritch. Skritch . Someone was at the door.

Myrtle sat up on the creaky old cot. Though she’d slept in all her clothes—wouldn’t you? — she held the ragged sheet and blanket up to her throat as she stared wide-eyed toward the door.

Who is it? She whispered that: “Who is it?”

Skritch. Skritch.

Well, she hadn’t slept in all her clothes. Tentatively putting her legs over the side of the cot, she felt around with her toes, found her shoes, slipped them on, and now was completely dressed. As armored as possible under the circumstances, she crept across the rough wood floor and bent her ear to the door. “Hello?”

“Myrtle!” An excited but unidentifiable whisper.

“Who is it?”

“Wally!”

She recoiled. The mastermind! Her own whisper became increasingly sibilant, with falsetto breakthroughs: “What do you want?”

“I don’t dare rescue you yet!”

She frowned at the wood panel of the door: “ What ?”

“Tonight,” his faint whisper came, “when they’ve all gone— Myrtle?”

“Yesss?”

“Can you hear me?”

“I think so,” she whispered.

“Get down by the keyhole!”

Poison gas. Pygmy dart in her eye. Bending nearer the keyhole but not all the way in front of it, she whispered, “I can hear you.”

“Tonight,” came that rustle of his whisper, “they’ll all be going to the reservoir.”

Devil cults, black masses. Mass poisonings. “Why?”

He ignored that (of course!). “Only May and Murch’s Mom and I will be here. The compu—”

“Who?”

“The two ladies.” Then, his whisper somehow closer, more insinuating, as though his astral person had shinnied through the keyhole and up onto her shoulder, he asked, “Is her name really Gladys?”

“I don’t know anything anymore,” Myrtle wailed, half whispered and half in that screechy falsetto. “I don’t know what anybody’s doing , I don’t know anybody’s real name—”

“You know my real name.”

“Do I?”

“And I know yours.”

That brought her up short. She leaned her palm against the door, its wooden surface surprisingly warm and comforting to her touch. Her mind ran like watercolors.

“Myrtle?”

Nobody can be trusted, she thought hopelessly. Not even me. Bending closer to the keyhole, she whispered, “No, you don’t.”

“I don’t what?”

“Know my real name. My real name is Myrtle Street.”

“That’s where you live .”

“That’s partly why I lied. And partly, just before I met you, I just found out Tom Jimson’s my, my, my… father.”

“You just found out?”

“You’re the only person I ever said that name to. And now that I’ve seen Tom Jimson…”

His whisper awash in sympathy, Wally told her, “I guess he’s not much what people think of when they think ‘father.’ ”

“I sure hope not,” Myrtle whispered back.

“Well, listen. The computer says we can rescue each other!”

“Wally,” she whispered, bending closer and closer to the keyhole (oh, chink!), “who do you talk to when you use the computer?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where is it connected ?”

“It’s just plugged in,” he whispered, sounding baffled. “Like any computer.”

“You aren’t giving orders to a gang? Or getting orders from a boss? Or anything like that?”

“Well, gee, no. Myrtle, it isn’t a VDT, not like your terminal at the library, it isn’t connected to a mainframe anywhere.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, honest. It’s my personal personal computer.”

Could she believe him? What could she believe? What could she believe? And, given her present circumstances, what did it matter what she did or did not believe? She whispered, “Wally, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you,” he promised. “Tonight, they’re all going out to the reservoir to get some money that’s hidden there. I think Tom’s going to try to cheat everybody once they get the money.”

Well, that sounded believable. Myrtle whispered, “Then what?”

“Tom might come back here to, uh, make trouble.”

Myrtle had the feeling she knew what he meant. She had a quick vision of herself pleading for mercy— I’m your daughter ! — and she pressed herself closer to the door, imagining the little, squat, round, moist, reliable form of Wally Knurr on its other side. “What should I do?”

“After everybody else leaves,” he whispered, “I’ll get you out of there and we’ll go over to your house. We’ll be able to see what happens from there.”