Drowned Hopes Part 37

The worst of it for Doug was, he didn't have anyplace to take her. Myrtle, that is. He couldn't take her to the house on Oak Street, of course, not with it full of people all the time, and not with his own bed being merely a sleeping bag on the floor of Tom's room. And that incident of the horrible interruption from John was the only time he'd been at Myrtle's house when her mother was away.

Movie theaters and the interior of the pickup both allowed for a certain amount of personal interaction, but by no means enough. Nor could he convince Myrtle to grab a blanket one day and come with him for a nice picnic in the woods. It was extremely frustrating.

Well, at least he didn't have to lie to her anymore; or anyway not so much. Her curiosity about the environmental protection group he'd claimed to be a volunteer researcher for had been so intense and so unrelenting that first he'd told her it was merely a minor part of his life, not as important as she'd at first thought, that he was mostly a diving instructor out on Long Island. And then he'd told her he'd quit his volunteer work with that group because he didn't like their att.i.tude. (John, in this scenario, became a demanding regional head of the environmental group, an autocratic ideologue who Doug had simply been unable to stand anymore, the last straw having been that unfortunate scene on Myrtle's front porch.) So now, as far as Myrtle was concerned, Doug was in fact who he really was, and his trips up to Dudson Center from Long Island three or four days a week were simply because he was crazy about her. Since Myrtle seemed to be more or less crazy about him as well, the situation should progress swimmingly from here, and it would, too, if there were only someplace they could be alone together.

Now, after another evening of sweet hot frustration at the movies-the one local movie house was never more than half full, mostly old people and kids, people who didn't have VCRs-they were walking home, hand in hand, and Doug was trying yet again to figure out some way to get Myrtle alone.

If only the weather would break so he and the others could make the descent into the reservoir and salvage Tom's money, life would surely become easier. Doug would no longer have anything active to conceal from Myrtle, and with time and leisure and full attention to devote to this project, surely he could make it all happen. After all, summer was fast approaching; high season in his line of work. From Fourth of July weekend through Labor Day, he was going to be busy, far too busy to make six-hour round trips in pursuit of some girl.

It was a beautiful night in Dudson Center, clear and crisp, a velvety sky with a great milk-gla.s.s moon, temperature in the low sixties, humidity nonexistent. A playful breeze rustled and breathed in the dark green branches of trees, and below the mysterious upper reaches of those trees the old-fashioned streetlamps spread a yellow glow on sidewalks flanked by green lawns. Gentle music sounded from open windows here and there, late sprinklers could be heard whispering their rhythmic secrets, and the romantic in Doug just swelled with sensual delight.

But when he approached Myrtle's front porch, expecting at least to spend a little time with her on the glider, the porch light was on and someone was already out there. In fact, two people. With a table in front of them, doing something there, playing some kind of game.

Doug hadn't been present at dinner the other night when Murch's Mom had announced the news of her new local pal, so it was with a real sense of dislocation that he recognized who that was on the glider with Myrtle's mother. Oh, my G.o.d, he thought, am I supposed to know her? What's she doing here? What does Myrtle know?

"There you are," her mother said. "How was the movie?"

"Okay," Myrtle said, a bit listlessly. She'd been rather quiet and withdrawn all the way home, come to think of it.

"Gladys," the old b.i.t.c.h said to Murch's Mom (Gladys?), "this is my daughter, Myrtle."

"How do you do."

"h.e.l.lo."

"And a beau of hers." Smiling like a shark at Doug, she added, "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't know your name."

She never did. Doug had met Myrtle's mother half a dozen times in brief pa.s.sages at the beginning or ending of dates, and Myrtle always introduced him, and her mother always immediately cast his name out of her memory bank.

This time, before Myrtle could say anything, Doug smiled hugely at the nasty old witch and said, "That's okay, Mrs. Street." To Murch's Mom, he said, "It's Jack Cousteau. Nice to meet you."

All three women gave him funny looks, which he affected not to notice, turning his smile on Myrtle, saying, "See you in a couple days?"

"Sure," she said, but still looked confused.

"I'll call you at the library," he promised, shook her hand as though they'd just finished a really productive Kiwanis meeting together, and turned to say, "Nice to see you again, Mrs. Street. Nice to meet you, Gladys." And he went whistling away in the dark.

"One word!"

"Okay, okay!"

"One word to anybody about 'Gladys,' and I run you down with the cab!"

"Okay, okay!"

Murch's Mom released the bunch of Doug's shirt she'd held clutched in her fist and stepped back, aiming her glare out the kitchen window instead. "If it doesn't cloud up soon," she said, "I may run you down anyway."

FIFTY-NINE.

Driving herself home from work and her mother home from the Dudson Combined Senior Citizens Center, Myrtle brooded about Doug Berry and, as usual, came to no conclusion. Was there really an Environment Protection Alliance, even though she could find it in absolutely no reference books or directories? Or was Doug completely and totally false, some sort of con man engaged in some secret nefarious pursuit (other than the nefarious pursuit of her body, that is)?

His having called himself Jacques Cousteau with Edna and Edna's new friend the other night had really brought the whole problem into focus. Myrtle had been feeling more and more depressed, not even noticing the change in herself, just sliding away into gloom; and all, of course, because she couldn't make up her mind about Doug Berry. And he'd used that false name, she understood, because her mother refused to remember his real name, which she did because she didn't trust him, either. And Edna was very often right about such things.

If Myrtle could be sure Doug wasn't a fake-or at least not a fake about anything except his extravagant claims of desire for and obsession with her own self-they would have progressed beyond the get-acquainted stage long ago. The weather was perfect, for instance, for a nice picnic up on Hochawallaputtie Hill, overlooking the reservoir. But how could she go up there with him when her heart was so full of mistrust?

"Go down Oak Street," Edna suddenly said, breaking their long silence.

Surprised, Myrtle glanced at her mother and then out the windshield toward Oak Street, still two blocks ahead. "But that's out of our way," she said.

"Some gypsies moved in there," Edna told her. "They've got a wrecked old car out front and everything. We're all calling and complaining. We're going to get up a pet.i.tion next. Can't have gypsies here running down the neighborhood."

"Gypsies," Myrtle repeated with a laugh. "Oh, Mother, what makes you think they're gypsies?"

"Mrs. Kresthaven found a tambourine in their garbage," Edna said. "Go on, Myrtle, turn. I want to see if that awful car is still there. It's in the second block."

As they made the turn onto Oak Street, the world ahead suddenly grayed, losing color and tone. Myrtle leaned forward over the steering wheel to look up at the sky. "Cloud," she reported.

"Never trust the weather report," Edna commented. "Slow down, now, it's up there on the right. See that blue car?"

"It looks perfectly ordinary to me," Myrtle said, slowing as per instructions, looking at an ordinarily neat house with an ordinarily plain automobile parked beside it.

"They moved some of the junk," Edna said with mixed satisfaction and regret. Clearly, she was both glad the small-town peer pressure had done its job and sorry she couldn't keep exerting it. "But you can still see some by the fence," she added hopefully.

"It's hidden by the car," Myrtle said, slowing more and more so she could look at the place as they went by.

As they came abreast of the house, its front door opened and people abruptly started to emerge. Lots of people. They came pouring out of the house as though it were on fire, except that their expressions were happy, delighted, surprised. Running down the stoop and onto the lawn, they pointed skyward, laughing and capering and patting one another on the back.

Astounded, Myrtle watched the people cavort in her rearview mirror. Beside her, Edna said in doubtful surprise, "Was that Gladys?" but Myrtle paid no attention. She had recognized others among that group of people.

Doug? And Wally Knurr? Together? Holding hands and dancing in a circle, like something in a Breughel painting? What's going on?

"Couldn't be Gladys," Edna decided, and craned around to look back. "What are they doing out there?"

"Looking at the cloud," Myrtle told her, distracted.

Back there, too far away for identification, an older man, who had probably been napping upstairs, came hurrying out of the house, looked up, and nodded in agreement with the sky.

"Maybe they're farmers," Edna said, but she sounded doubtful.

SIXTY.

With mixed feelings of relief and guilt, Dortmunder watched Kelp, in the living room of the house on Oak Street, work himself yet again into a wetsuit. "I couldn't do that, Andy," he said.

"I know you couldn't," Kelp said, zipping zippers. "It's okay, John, don't worry about it."

"I just couldn't do it."

"It's gonna be fine," Kelp said. "Doug's a real pro. We'll be perfectly fine down there. And he's right about one thing: even a total professional like he is shouldn't make a dive like this by himself."

"A dive," Dortmunder echoed. Then he was sorry he'd said it, because maybe Kelp hadn't thought about that part of it yet.

The fact is, this time into the reservoir was going to be different, unlike anything either Dortmunder or Kelp had ever done. On both previous attempts, they'd walked in. This time, Doug and Kelp were going to plop out of a boat in the middle of the reservoir and sink in. Only of course when a professional does it, the word for sink is dive.

Sure.

Tiny came back in from the porch, having just finished shlepping out all the equipment. "The track's here," he said.

"All set," Kelp told him. Carrying his flippers under his arm, he followed Tiny out of the living room, Dortmunder trailing, and all three went out to the porch, where May, Murch's Mom, Wally, Tom, and Doug (he had also suited up for the dive) were watching Stan maneuver a large slat-sided open-topped truck backward up on to the driveway in the dark.

The very dark. Today's single cloud had by now become a cloud cover stretching from horizon to horizon like an extra-thick icing on the birthday cake of the Earth. Not a glimmer of light reached the surface of the planet from the heavens. Stan's only visual aid, in fact, beyond the truck's own back-up lights, was a streetlight some little distance away; it was by that faint gleam he was doing his best to bring the rear of the truck reasonably close to the porch without either driving on the lawn (his Mom had warned him about that) or ramming the Lincoln he still hadn't quite finished fixing up (she hadn't bothered to warn him about that). The porch light would have helped, but it would also have attracted unwelcome attention if it were on with all this activity around it at one-thirty in the morning. Small-town people are so nosy.

With confusing and at times contradictory advice from Tiny, Stan managed at last to place the truck where he wanted it, and then he climbed down from the cab to help load the equipment. Once all the gear was aboard, Stan got back into the cab, this time with Tom, while Dortmunder and Kelp and Doug and Tiny all clambered up into the back, which smelled faintly of several things: pine trees, possibly sheep, maybe one or two less pleasant things.

May and Murch's Mom and Wally stood on the dark porch and watched the slat-sided truck bounce and jounce back to the street and drive away toward the reservoir. None of them waved, but all of them thought of it.

Once the truck was out of sight, May sighed and said, "I hope we know what we're doing."

"No, you don't," Murch's Mom told her, and nodded after the truck. "You hope they know what they're doing."

Wally said, "The trouble with real life is, there's no reset b.u.t.ton."

Why did they care about the weather? What in the world did Doug Berry and Wally Knurr have in common, and how did they even happen to know each other? And had Edna's new friend Gladys been among those capering on the lawn beneath the cloud?

Myrtle couldn't sleep. Her digital clock's luminous numbers told her it was 01:34 in the morning, which would be later than she had ever been awake in her life. But the questions were so many, and so insistent, that they just wouldn't let her go.

What did it all mean? First, a couple of months ago, Edna had seen a man she was sure was Tom Jimson ride by in a car. Then Wally Knurr had made himself known to Myrtle, in a way she now realized must have been planned and deliberate. Then Doug Berry had done the same thing and had made himself suspect to her as well by seeming to have some sort of hidden link to her father. And then Gladys had just happened to strike up an acquaintance with Edna.

Could all four of these be coincidence? Four people, apparently separate and having nothing to do with one another, but then three of them are suddenly together among a weird group dancing on a lawn, pointing at a cloud.

New Age cultists? The dawning of the age of... What comes after Aquarius? Pisces. Fish. A water sign, that's why they were pointing at the cloud, waiting for rain.

No, her night thoughts were getting outlandish. She'd be seeing those people as aliens from another planet next, scheming against the human race.

Hmmmmm...

No. More realistically, they could all be part of some giant conspiracy. James Bond, or Robert Ludlum? Neither seemed quite right. That big blubbery blue Lincoln in their driveway was no Aston Martin, nor could she imagine anyone in that crowd on the lawn playing baccarat or using a cigarette holder. On the other hand, Doug and Wally both lacked that manic manliness, that completely daft take-charge self-a.s.surance of Ludlum characters. (The ultimate Robert Ludlum character, of course, being Al "I'm in charge here" Haig.) The old man. The old man who'd come out of the house just before Myrtle and her mother had turned the corner, the old man just barely glimpsed in the rearview mirror... would that have been her father?

This last thought agitated Myrtle right out of bed, but when she found herself standing on the floor in her white cotton knee-length nightgown, she was at a loss what to do next. Floundering, disoriented, she turned and looked out the window at the darkness of Dudson Center.

And saw lights in it. Over there, the next block over, seen past the shoulder of the Fleischbacker's house, were lit rectangles of light. Upstairs windows, in rooms with lights on. Over on Oak Street. That house?

Quick, the bird-watching binoculars; where were they? It had been years since... moving swiftly, but silent as possible so as not to wake Edna in the next room, Myrtle felt in the dark through dresser drawers until her fingers closed on the remembered blunt weaponlike heaviness of the binoculars.

Now! Hurrying to the window, she put the binoculars to her eyes, adjusted the focus, and there, swimming into view, with its flat light and muted colors and foreshortening like a Hopper painting, astonishingly close, all of a sudden there was Wally!

What was he doing? He sat in that room very intently, bent forward, hands moving at... at a computer terminal. Look at the tension in that pudgy face! Look at the hobnails of perspiration on that broad low forehead!

Conspiracy. Was Wally the mastermind? Or was he even now in contact with the mastermind, either in an experimental laboratory concealed within Mount Shasta (Bond) or in an unknown cavern deep beneath the Pentagon (Ludlum)? Absorbed by Wally's absorption, feeling that secret pleasure known to peeping Toms everywhere, Myrtle rested the front edge of the binoculars against the window and watched that round, gleaming, wet-eyed, pa.s.sionate face. Aliens? SPECTRE? A conspiracy at the very highest levels of government?

Or could it, could it somehow be... the Mafia? Good G.o.d! Was she going to have to read Jackie Collins?

It seemed a good idea to approach the reservoir this time at a different spot, far from the sites of the first two attempts and also far from the dam itself, with its nighttime staff of employees. A minor county road crossed Gulkill Creek over a one-lane bridge not far from the upper end of the reservoir, and Gulkill Creek was one of the four small waterways that had in the old days meandered through the now-drowned valley, the four eventually combining into Cold Brook, which was still the name of the runoff stream below the dam. Where it pa.s.sed under the narrow bridge on the county road, Gulkill Creek was about six feet wide, perhaps three feet deep, lined with bagel-sized rocks, and icy, all year. About forty yards downstream, having widened a foot or two, the creek pa.s.sed beneath the fence encircling the reservoir, continued to widen and deepen as it sprinted down a gradual slope through scrub forest, and after another thirty yards entered the reservoir at a point just about opposite the dam, which even on a sunny day was barely visible from way over here. On a cloudy night, forget it.

All the way out from town, sitting in the back of the truck, Kelp and Doug went over the plans for the night, including their signal system. This time, their primary light sources would be underwater miner's lamps worn on their foreheads, though they'd have regular flashlights hooked to their utility belts as well. The signals they'd use to communicate with each other underwater involved switching the forehead lamp off and on while facing the other guy: One off-and-on meant, "Come help me," while two off-and-ons meant, "Ascend to the surface." That was it; there wouldn't be much by way of small talk at the bottom of the reservoir.

There was no traffic along this road at this hour. Stan stopped the slat-sided truck right on the one-lane bridge, and everything was off-loaded onto the weedy roadside. At this point, their boat was merely a bulky package looking something like extra blankets folded on a shelf in the closet, plus a bottle of compressed air. Guiding themselves by light spill from the truck's head- and taillights, Doug and Tiny carried these components down beside the creek. Doug untied the boat package, inserted the bottle onto the nipple, and a low windy rushing sound started, soon joined by m.u.f.fled thaps and boops as the boat uncreased itself, stretching and twisting like an Arabian Nights genie waking up.

Meantime, Stan took the empty truck away. Once it was gone, the overcast night was as dark as the inside jacket pocket of a suit that's worn only at funerals. Doug put on his headlamp and lit it so they'd be able to see what they were doing.

The whoosh of wind inside the boat grew stronger, the pops and whaps louder, and before their eyes appeared the kind of rubber raft in which people survive miraculously for eighty-three days in the open sea. Or not.

The boat was pushed into the shallow rapid water and held in place by Tom while a number of long pieces of rope, the winch, the scuba tanks, the 10hp motor, and a lot of other stuff were piled inside. Then they headed toward the reservoir, Doug holding the boat by its rope like a large frisky dog on a leash, finding his way through the underbrush at the edge of the stream by aiming his forehead light almost straight down at his feet. The others, following, were a little less lucky in their illumination, and therefore frequently in their footing. Splashes, curses, stumblings, and anonymous thumps and oofs punctuated their way.

At the chain-link fence, Tiny went to work with the wire cutters, announcing, "I'm having deja vu again."

It took almost twenty minutes to cut away enough fence so that the boat could go through on the stream and the people could go through more or less on dry land. Once they were all past that obstacle, Dortmunder called softly, "Doug. Hold on a second."

Doug turned his head, the forehead light flashing around the dark forest. "Yeah?"

"From here on," Dortmunder told him, "we better go without light. We're getting too close to the reservoir."

Tom said, "Al? How do we find the reservoir, if we don't have any light?"

"The boat knows the way," Dortmunder explained. "Doug follows the boat, the rest of us follow Doug. We each hold on to the shirt of the guy in front of us."

"Sounds good," Kelp said.

It turned out to sound considerably better than it was. The level of splashing, thumping, cursing, and stumbling to one's knees increased dramatically behind the boat as it bobbed along, happily in its element, followed by Doug, trying to hold on to the boat's rope while not getting decapitated by tree branches he couldn't see, followed by Kelp clutching the back of Doug's wetsuit, followed by Tiny clutching both of Kelp's shoulders, followed by Tom with a bony finger hooked into one of Tiny's belt loops, followed by Dortmunder holding gingerly to the back of Tom's collar.

Finally, in exasperation, Tiny called out, "Are we going the right way? Doug, where the h.e.l.l's the reservoir?"

"Uh," Doug said, and splashed around a bit. "I think I'm in it."

He was. For a minute or two, they all were, but then they got themselves sorted out once more and refound the land.

The sh.o.r.e here, where stream met reservoir, was very wet and soft and mucky. They had to range a ways off to the left before they found solid enough ground for Tiny to set up the winch and other equipment. The boat was emptied there, the motor attached at the stern, and at last the three seafarers-Doug, Kelp, and Dortmunder-prepared to set off. It was necessary for somebody to be in the boat while the other two were on their dive, and Dortmunder was the only one available for that job, unfortunately. Also, with Kelp volunteering to join Doug in the descent, there hadn't been much Dortmunder could do to complain.