Drowned Hopes Part 10

All three of his visitors looked around at the shelves, the two strangers with the curiosity of people who'd never been in a dive shop in their lives before-which Doug could well believe-and Mikey with a kind of professional interest. "Gee, Dougie," he said, "you haven't moved much product, have you, kid?" He was probably the same age as Doug, within a year or two, but he called him Dougie and "kid."

"It's just the beginning of the season," Doug explained. "Things'll pick up."

"You know, kid," Mikey said, "it could be, what you could use is a nice burglary. You gotta be insured, huh?"

Oh, no. Doug was living on the edge of disaster as it was, and he knew it. False burglaries for the insurance were exactly the way to integrate a state prison, a goal Doug had never held for himself. "Not just yet, Mikey," he said, trying to produce a cool and untroubled grin. "If I ever need anything like that, you'll be the guy I call. You know that."

"Sure, kid," Mikey said and grinned, spreading his hands as though to say naturally you'll come to me. With that round tough face and lumpy nose and curly black hair and those penetrating dark eyes, Mikey could be just as easily Italian or Irish, Irish or Italian. Doug had no idea why it mattered to him to know what Mikey was, but it did. Maybe because the question was essentially unanswerable.

Now Mikey turned to his companions, saying, "I wanna introduce you a couple guys. This is John and this is Andy. That's Dougie. He runs this place."

"How are you," said Doug, nodding at them, not liking the flat emotionless way they both studied him.

"Fine," said the one called John. "You got the certification, huh?"

That was a surprising question. "Sure," Doug said. "I couldn't run the dive shop unless I did." And he gestured to the sticker in the bottom right of the front window: DIPS.

"Dips," said the one called Andy in a thoughtful tone of voice. "I don't think I know that one."

Surprised that somebody like Andy would know any of diving's professional a.s.sociations, Doug said defensively, "It's a new group, very lively, very forward-looking. The best, I think. That's why I went with them."

With a raucous laugh, Mikey said, "Also, Dougie, they'd take you, don't forget."

Doug was offended, and for the moment forgot his fear. Looking hard at Mikey, he said, "It wasn't exactly that way, Mikey. What have you been telling these friends of yours, anyway?"

"Hey, take it easy, Dougie," Mikey said, laughing again, but putting his hands up mock defensively. He's afraid! Doug thought with astonishment, as Mikey went on, saying, "All I said to Andy and John, maybe you were the guy could help with a little problem they got. I'm not in it at all, okay? It's strictly between you and them."

Doug, pushing his unexpected advantage, said, "What's between me and them?"

"Why don't you guys talk it over?" Mikey said, backing toward the door, grinning at everybody. "I'm just John Alden here, right? Dougie, I can guarantee these guys, Andy and John'll treat you straight. Guys, Dougie here is a hundred percent." Waving generally, he said, "I gotta couple calls to make in the neighborhood. Be back in fifteen, twenty minutes, okay?"

"Sure, that's good," the one called John said. He nodded at Mikey, but his brooding eyes were on Doug.

"See you, guys," Mikey said, and reached for the doork.n.o.b. But then he pointed playfully at Andy and said, "Remember, if it works out..."

Andy nodded as though this reminder was unnecessary. "Don't worry, Mikey," he said. "You've got your finder's fee."

"Great," Mikey said. His grin was bigger and bigger. "I love to get friends together," he said, and pulled open the door at last and left.

They all watched out through the window as Mikey slogged through the rain to his diseased-lime Impala and climbed in. After a few seconds, the windshield wipers started, and then the Impala backed away in a semicircle and drove out toward Merrick Road. And they were alone.

Doug looked at his unexpected visitors, wondering what this was all about. More stolen goods? He had to be very careful here, dealing with strangers; there was such a thing as entrapment.

My G.o.d, yes! Suppose the cops had the goods on Mikey for something or other-Doug had no idea what Mikey's activities were beyond the finding of goods that had fallen off trucks, but he was sure those activities must be wide-ranging and far from legal-suppose Mikey had got himself caught, and the cops had offered him a deal if he'd turn somebody else in. Didn't they do that all the time? They did.

Okay, in that case, who would Mikey choose to betray? Some other tough guy like himself, who'd grown up with him and knew all about him and knew where he lived? Or would he choose Doug Berry, a guy he barely knew, who wasn't connected to anything that Mikey thought important?

These guys didn't look like cops, But they wouldn't, would they? Giving the pair a very critical and cautious look, Doug said, "You need some help with a diving problem?"

If he'd expected a no to that question-and he had-he was both disappointed and surprised, because the one called John turned and said, "That's it, okay. A diving problem."

"You do?"

"Yeah," John said. "Andy and me, we got to go underwater, and we never did that before, and it turns out it's not so simple like we thought."

Doug just couldn't get this straight. "You really do want to dive?"

"Walk," Andy said. "We wanna walk in from the sh.o.r.e to where it's fifty feet deep."

Doug looked out the side window at the rain-pocked gray waters of the Great South Bay. "Around here?"

"Somewhere else," John said.

"Where?"

But John spread his hands and said, "We got to talk first, you know? We got to know we're all on the same team, then we'll talk about where."

Andy said, "You see, Dougie, John and-"

"Doug," Doug said.

They both frowned at him. Andy said, "I thought Mikey said you were Dougie."

"That's what he calls me," Doug agreed. "Everybody else calls me Doug."

They looked at each other and came to some sort of decision. Nodding briskly, Andy said, "Got it. Okay, Doug, here's the story. John and me, we got to go into a body of water, like a lake-"

"Freshwater, you mean," Doug suggested.

"Yeah," Andy said. "Down at the bottom of this lake, there's a box we want. A big box. So we got to get to it, tie a rope on, pull it out."

John said, "We thought it should be kind of simple. But then we went to a store to buy the stuff, and it turns out there's this secret society or something, n.o.body gets to go underwater unless they know the pa.s.sword."

"We have no fatalities in the sport in the United States," Doug told him, "and that's why. Safety first."

"I believe in safety first," John said. "I don't want to go anywhere that it isn't safety first. So maybe this is okay after all. We can't pull the job without a pro."

"Not if it's underwater," Doug agreed.

"But," John said, "we need a very particular special pro. Not just any pro."

"Not the pro in just any dive shop you see around," Andy said, expanding on the idea.

Here comes the illegality, Doug thought. Entrapment. Temptation. They're probably both wired. Be very careful about everything you say. "Mm," he said.

"So we asked around," John went on, "among people we know, particular people we know..."

"And I happened to know Mikey," Andy said. "We've been in trade together a couple times. And he said you were exactly the guy we were looking for."

"So here we are," John said.

"Mm," Doug said.

They all looked at one another for a minute. Finally, Andy said, "Don't you wanna know what we want?"

"I thought you were going to tell me," Doug said, trying not to sound too eager to commit anything illegal.

Andy and John looked at each other again, and then John nodded and said, "Okay. Here's what we want. We want the expertise and the equipment so we can go down into this res- this lake and get this box. That's what we want."

Doug said, "Mm."

Again they all stood around gaping at one another, and this time Andy said, "You want to do it?"

Doug had to ask the question somehow, without suggesting he was open to criminal considerations. Tone flat, he said, "What's illegal about it?"

They looked surprised. "Illegal?" John said. "Unless you're gonna sell us stuff you got from Mikey, I don't know what's illegal about what we want here."

"You're the pro, that's all," Andy said.

Doug shook his head, bewildered, but still afraid to expose himself to risk. "Then why me?" he asked. "I mean, it's not that I'm-that I do illegal things or anything. I'm not suggesting here that I'm open to uh, um, criminal enterprises or anything, but why did you need a special pro and all that?"

They stared at him, as bewildered as he was. John said, "Criminal enterprises?"

But then Andy laughed and clapped his hands together and said, "John, he's afraid we're wired!"

John looked surprised, then offended. "Wired? You mean like FBI men? Do we look like FBI men?"

"Well, you wouldn't, would you?" Doug said. "Not that it matters, I'm not proposing any, uh..."

"Criminal enterprise," John suggested.

Andy said, "Look, Doug, somebody's gotta start by trusting somebody, so I'm gonna start by trusting you. You got an honest face. See, there's a fella we know, a long time ago he went to jail, and he just got out now, and it turns out before he went inside he buried some money-"

"Criminal enterprise money," John interpolated.

"Right," Andy said. "Your basic ill-gotten gains is what we're talking about here. And now he's out and he wants these gains, and it turns out there's a reservoir there now."

Doug couldn't help himself; he laughed. He said, "A reservoir? He buried the money and now it's underwater?"

"That's why we're here," Andy told him. "And to tell you the truth, Doug, there is gonna be some criminal enterprise in all this. For instance, when we go over the fence around the reservoir, that's already breaking a law. Trespa.s.sing or something. And when we go into the reservoir, actually into the water, there's another law laying dead on the ground."

"And," John said, "when we get the box with the money in it, we won't give it back to the bank, so there we go again. Who we'll give it to is the guy that buried it, and he'll give us some for helping out, and we'll give you some for helping out."

"How much?" Doug couldn't help from asking.

"A thousand dollars," John said, "over your regular fees and expenses and the cost of the stuff we use."

"Doug," Andy said, sounding very sincere and confidential, "in all honesty and truth, Doug, I never in my life even thought about being an FBI man."

Doug wanted to believe these two-and G.o.d knows he could use a thousand dollars-but a lot of Congressmen had once wanted to believe a couple of fellas like this were Arab sheiks. He said, "If we're gonna start familiarizing ourselves with the equipment and all, you two will have to take your coats and, uh, shirts off, you know. Strip to the waist."

Andy, grinning, said to John, "He still thinks we're wired."

"No, no," Doug said, "it's just to, uh, fit everything, that's all."

John shook his head, with a faint look of disgust, and took his coat off, and Andy followed suit. With no hesitation at all, they both stripped down, revealing physiques no one in history could have been proud of. But no microphones, no tape recorders, no wires.

Spreading his arms, pirouetting slowly, grinning at Doug, Andy said, "Okay, Doug?"

"Okay," Doug said, and covered his confusion with a deep layer of professional manner. "Have either of you ever breathed through a mouthpiece before?"

"You could keep it warmer in here," John said.

"A mouthpiece?" Andy asked. "I've talked to one or two, but I've never breathed through one, no."

"Okay," Doug said, turning to his well-stocked shelves. "We'll start now."

SEVENTEEN.

"I wish you'd take that thing off, John," May said. "It makes you look like something in science fiction."

Dortmunder removed the mouthpiece from his mouth; not to accede to May's request, but to make it possible to answer her. "I'm supposed to get used to breathing through it," he said, and put it back in his mouth. Then he immediately forgot and breathed through his nose, as usual; underwater, he would have drowned half a dozen times by now.

Fortunately, he wasn't underwater. He was in the living room with May, watching the seven o'clock news (which is to say, watching the headache and laxative commercials) and waiting for Tom Jimson to come back from wherever he was when he wasn't here. He'd been waiting for Tom since he'd come back from Long Island and Doug Berry and the wonderful world of underwater late this afternoon.

May said, "John, you aren't breathing through it."

"Mm!" he said, startled, and grasped his nose between thumb and forefinger of his right hand, to force himself to do it right. Breathe through the mouth, doggone it. The mouth gets dry almost immediately, but that's all right. It's better than the lungs getting wet.

So Dortmunder went on sitting there, on the sofa, next to the silently disapproving May, breathing through his mouth and watching the news over the knuckles of the hand holding his nose. That was his position when Tom noiselessly appeared in the doorway just as the news anchorman was smiling his last. (Though what he had to smile about, considering everything he'd had to report to the world in the last half hour, was hard to figure out.) But there, all at once, was Tom Jimson in the doorway, raising an eyebrow, looking at Dortmunder and saying, "Something smell bad, Al?"

"Mm!" Dortmunder said again, and took the mouthpiece out of his mouth and sneezed. Then he said, "This is the mouthpiece for going underwater."

"Not very far underwater," Tom suggested, giving the mouthpiece a critical look.

"This is just one part of it," Dortmunder explained. "In fact, Tom, I've gotta talk to you about that. It's time to come up with some cash."

Tom's face, never exactly what you'd call mobile, stiffened up so much he now looked like a badly reproduced photo of himself. From somewhere deep within the photo came the hollow word, "Cash?"

"Come on, Tom," Dortmunder said. "We agreed on this. You'll dip into your other little stashes to finance this thing."

The photo crumpled a bit. "How much cash?"