Drowned Hopes Part 19

"The why is," John went doggedly on, "tree stumps. Even if you could see down there, that's what you'd see. Tree stumps. And you can't tell which is uphill, which is downhill-"

"That's true," Andy said. "I noticed that myself. Disorienting, that's what they call that."

"I call it a couple of things myself," John told him. "And that's why I'm not going down in there. Tree stumps, and you can't tell up from down, and you can't walk through that stuff. And even if you could walk through it, which you can't, you couldn't drag any heavy casket up through it."

Wally said, "Maybe it would work better if you took the railroad line."

Everybody stared at him. Embarra.s.sed at all the sudden attention, Wally's face grew as red as the raspberries on his spoon which didn't make him look like a raspberry, but like a hyperactive tomato. John said to him, "Railroad? Wally, there isn't any train to Putkin's Corners."

"Well, no, gee, no," Wally said, bobbing his tomato head, spilling raspberries off his spoon. "But there's still the line."

Andy, looking suddenly very alert, said, "Are you sure about this, Wally?"

"Sure," Wally told him. "That was part of the information I input when I did the model in the computer. The old DE&W used to go through-"

"DE&W?" asked May and Andy.

"Dudson, Endicott & Western," Wally explained.

"That's great, then," Andy said. "If we could find the old rail bed, there wouldn't be any tree stumps there, and it would be like a clear path all the way."

Tiny said, "And you could walk it right down into town. Is that the story, Wally? It went to Putkin's Corners?"

Tom said, "The railroad station was across the street from the library. Tracks went behind the station, Albany Road went in front."

"So," Andy said, "we could walk the rail line right down into town."

"If," John said, "we could see, which we can't. And if I was ever gonna go underwater again, which I won't. And if we could find the old rail bed, which we can't."

"Well, uh," Wally said hesitantly, "that part would be easy. The tracks are still there."

Again he got the general stare, and again his reaction was to turn bright red.

This time it was Andy who picked up the ball, saying, "That doesn't make any sense."

"It's true, though," Wally insisted.

Andy said, "Wally, they took out all the buildings they could use. They cut down all the trees. You're telling me they left the railroad tracks? Hundreds of pounds-no, what am I saying? Thousands of pounds of reusable steel, and they left it there, under the reservoir?"

"Well, it's kind of interesting what happened," Wally said. "It was all ecology and conservation groups. I guess in the old days, if New York City needed more water, they'd just go up and pick a valley and move everybody out and put in the dam. But now there's all kinds of different groups and impact statements and all that stuff, so they always have to do compromises, and this time one of the groups was one that was trying to preserve the old railroad lines anyway, because there's people that want the railroads to come back because of all the traffic jams on the highway, and the pollution, and-"

"Close with it, Wally," Andy suggested.

Wally looked embarra.s.sed again. His feet, which didn't reach the floor, started swinging back and forth. "Well, that was the compromise," he said. "They're trying to keep the railroad lines, not let them get torn up and housing developments put on them, so they can be used again someday."

"Underwater?" John asked.

"Well, only that one stretch of the line was underwater," Wally explained. "It was all mixed in with a great big negotiation, all kinds of problems and construction projects and other stuff, so part of the compromise was that these groups wouldn't complain about the reservoir and a couple of other things, and the government wouldn't tear up the railroad line all the way from Endicott up to the state line at Vermont. So it's all still there."

"Even the underwater part," May said faintly.

"Well, that was the way it was written," Wally told her, "in the compromise agreement, the whole line was supposed to stay. I guess they didn't think about the reservoir part of it when they wrote the compromise. Then later on n.o.body felt like they could go against what it said."

"And to think," John said, "my old parole officer-what was his name? Steen-he wanted me to become a productive member of society."

Tom said, "You see why I favor dynamite. Direct action startles those people."

Everyone looked uncomfortable, but n.o.body answered Tom directly. After a brief awkward silence, Andy said, "Well, you know, that's gotta make it easier. We go down in there-"

"Huh," John said.

"-and we just stay between the tracks," Andy went on. "And we don't get lost."

"No," John said.

Andy said, "John, I hear you. If we can't see, we don't go. But if this Normandie book-"

"I'm gonna get it," Wally piped up, all eagerness and bounce. "I really am."

"And if it shows us," Andy said, "how to solve the seeing problem, then, John, you know, just maybe we still got a chance."

John busied himself sc.r.a.ping the last bit of ice cream out of his bowl with the edge of his spoon. The sound of spoon against bowl was very loud in the small living room.

May said, "John, you put in so much time and effort on this already. And you learned all that scuba-diving knowledge. It seems such a waste, not to use it."

John looked at her. "May," he said. "You want me to go down in there again? When I just barely got outta there the last time? When if I go down in there again, what we're mostly talking about is what they call a watery grave? May? Do you really want me to do that again?"

"Of course not, John," May said. "Not if the problems can't be solved. I don't want to lose you, John. I don't want you to risk your life on this."

"Well, that's what I was risking," John told her. "More than I knew. And that's the end of it."

"All I'm asking, John," May said, "is you keep an open mind."

"And let all that muddy water run in."

"Just to see," May persisted. "Just to see if it's possible, to explore the options. And then, if it isn't, it isn't, and Tom goes and does it some other way."

"Boom," said Tom cheerfully.

"Okay," John said to her. "And if we keep this thing going, if we keep looking around for some kind of magic three-D gla.s.ses to look through mud with, then while we're doing all this, where's"-he jabbed a thumb at Tom, sitting comfortably to his left-"where's this gonna live?"

May was sure she looked as stricken as she felt. "Well," she said, "well, umm..." And she turned to Tiny, on her left, raising her eyebrows, hoping for a volunteer.

But Tiny looked embarra.s.sed, and fumbled with his spoon, and wouldn't meet her eye. "Josie," he mumbled, "she wouldn't, uh, it wouldn't work out so good."

May's pleading gaze slid onto Andy, who flashed three or four quick panicky smiles and said, "Gee, May, I'd love to, but you know, my place's so small, I can barely fit me in there, I been planning to look for somewhere bigger for a long..."

May sighed and looked toward Wally on her right, but he was already shaking his head, saying, "Oh, I wish I could help, Miss May, I really do, but my little apartment's so filled up with electronics and computers and all, well, John and Andy can tell you, it's so cramped in there you can't barely sit down anywhere, and, uh..."

Sighing, May looked across the table at John, who met her gaze with grim satisfaction, saying, "Let's put it this way, May. I leave it up to you. You want me to forget this thing, and send everybody away? Or you want me to keep looking for underwater Seeing Eye dogs?"

May refused to look toward Tom, knowing he would be at his blandest and most careless, just sitting there, toying with his spoon. Tuna ca.s.serole curdling within her, she turned to Wally again. "How long will it take you to find that book, Wally?" she asked.

THIRTY-ONE.

The book was called Normandie Triangle, and the writer was called Justin Scott, and according to the book the divers didn't solve the problem of cruddy, black, filthy water, also known as "turbidity." What they did was, they made a model on sh.o.r.e of the parts of the ship they wanted to work on, and they practiced on the model until they could do the work with their eyes closed, and then they went down into the water and did it; and it might just as well have been with their eyes closed.

So the book itself wasn't that much help. However, Wally, with his incredible unlimited computer access to what was apparently every piece of knowledge in the world, had come up with the fact that Justin Scott lived in New York and had a telephone. Wally had the number.

"We'll call from my place," Kelp decided. "I got a speakerphone."

"Of course you do," Dortmunder said grumpily. Andy was well known to have surrounded himself with all the latest in telephone technology, and Dortmunder was too proud to admit he didn't know what a speakerphone was.

At least Kelp wasn't one to put out cheese and crackers, though when Dortmunder arrived at his place-which wasn't that small, actually, a one-bedroom with a separate kitchen-Kelp had apparently antic.i.p.ated some sort of party, because he looked past Dortmunder at the hall and said, "Where's everybody?"

"Who everybody?" Dortmunder asked, walking into the living room.

"Well, Tiny," Kelp said, standing there with the door still open. "Maybe Tom or Wally. Or could be May."

Dortmunder stood in the middle of the living room and looked at him. "Why don't you close your door, Andy?"

"Oh. Sure." And he did.

Dortmunder said, "Everybody's gonna be guided by my judgment, so they don't need to come along. If I decide I'm crazy enough to go down in that lake again, everybody's gonna let me do it."

"Let us do it," Kelp pointed out.

Dortmunder shook his head at him. "I don't know why you're so eager," he said.

"I'm not exactly eager," Kelp said. "But the thing is, I remembered about the BCD when I was down there-"

"When you weren't thinking about books."

"The BCD," Kelp said. "That's the difference right there, John. I was getting nervous, the same way you were getting, but then I remembered that good old BCD. One push on the b.u.t.ton and up you go. When you know you can always get outta there if you need to, it makes things easier."

"Yeah, yeah," Dortmunder said. It rankled with him that he hadn't thought of the BCD in his moment of direst need, and it rankled double that Kelp had thought of it. "BCD or no BCD," he said, "if I can't walk and I can't see, I ain't going."

"So let's have a beer," Kelp suggested, "and call this guy, and see what's the story."

So they did. Dialing the number, Kelp said, "I'll switch to the speakerphone after we start talking."

"Sure," Dortmunder said.

A little pause, and then Kelp made a face. "It's the answering machine."

"You're the last to complain," Dortmunder told him.

Kelp ignored that. "I'll leave my number," he decided, and sat there waiting for the answering machine message to finish itself. Then he said, "Hi, I'm a fan, my name's-What? Oh, h.e.l.lo! You're there!"

Little pause, Kelp nodding and grinning. "Yeah, I do that sometimes, too," he said. "Screening your calls, that's very- Oops, hold on a second."

He reached down, hit a switch on the side of the phone, and suddenly the room was filled with a voice saying, "-never get any work done."

"I agree a hundred percent," Kelp told the phone while Dortmunder stared around in shock for the source of the voice.

Which now said, "What can I do for you?"

The phone. Dortmunder got it at last; the phone had a loudspeaker in it, that's why it was called a speakerphone. So this was the writer talking.

But now it was Kelp talking, saying, "My name's Andy... Kelly, and I want to tell you, I just read Normandie Triangle again, so that's I think the third time, and it's really terrific."

"Well, thanks," said the speakerphone. "Thanks a lot."

"Now, the reason I happened to read it again," Kelp went on, "is I have a friend with a summer house upstate on Parmalee Pond. You know Parmalee Pond?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," said the speakerphone. "A friend of mine has-"

"My friend," Kelp said hastily, "just bought his place. He's new there. And what he did, his first time up there, he went out in his rowboat and he was gonna take a picture of his house from the lake with this very expensive Nikon camera-"

"Don't tell me," said the speakerphone. "It fell overboard."

"It sure did."

"Reason I know is, my novel The Shipkiller is always falling overboard. It's about boats, and sailors drop it in the water accidentally. I know it's accidental because they call me up for another copy. They can't find it in the stores. Well, I can't find it in the stores either, and-"

"A truly excellent novel," Kelp silenced the writer. "My friend on Parmalee Pond admired it greatly, my friend who dropped his camera. Overboard."

Dortmunder watched Kelp with grudging admiration; this crock of horse elbows just flowed out of the guy with no effort at all.

"And he tried to get it back," Kelp was going on, spinning his story, "by putting on his scuba gear and walking into where he dropped it. But he ran into all this turbidity."

"Oh, sure," said the speakerphone. "He would. Walking in? He just roils up the bottom that way."

"That's what he did, all right," Kelp agreed. "And I remembered your book, and I read it again to see how those divers of yours got around the problem."

"They didn't," the speakerphone said. "Those who didn't wash out worked entirely by feel."

"Wash out?" Kelp echoed. "You mean, you can wash out the turbidity? With clean water, you mean?"

"No, no," the speakerphone said. "Washed out on the test they had to take before they were hired, to find out how they'd handle themselves in total darkness underwater. Eighty percent failed the test."

"Oh, yeah?" Kelp said while Dortmunder raised an eyebrow at him. "Why'd they fail, mostly?"