Drowned Hopes Part 43

"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 G.o.dd.a.m.n 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 a.s.sured him.

"It's G.o.dd.a.m.n 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.

SIXTY-SIX.

"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 n.o.body 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?"

"From the friends of mine that'll say they're done doing what they're doing, and then-"

Guffey was getting that lost feeling. He said, "Doing what? Who? What are they doing?"

"Well, no," Dortmunder said.

"By G.o.d," Guffey said, taking a bead, "you can kiss that ear good-bye."

"No, I don't think I could, really," Dortmunder told him. "And I don't think I can tell you who's doing what, or where they're doing it, or anything about it. But if you shoot my ears off, I won't be able to answer the phone, and then you'll never get your hands on Tom Jimson."

Guffey nodded and said, "So why don't I forget about your ear and just drop a cartridge into your brainpan there and wait for that phone call myself?"

"They won't talk to you," Dortmunder answered. "And what do you want to sit around with a dead body for?"

"They'll talk to me," Guffey said. "I'll tell them I'm your uncle, and they'll believe me. And the reason I want to sit around with a dead body is, if you're alive I won't be able to sleep or turn my back or go to the bathroom or nothing for two, three days until the phone rings. As a matter of fact," he added, having convinced himself with his own logic, "that's just what I'm gonna do." And he adjusted his aim accordingly, saying, "Good-bye."

"Wait!"

"Quit shoutin things," Guffey told him irritably. "You throw off my concentration, and that could spoil my aim. I'm givin you a nice painless death here, so just be grateful and-"

"You don't have to!"

Guffey knew it was rude to sneer at a person you're about to kill-it adds insult to injury, in fact-but he couldn't help it. "What are you gonna do? Give me your word of honor?"

"I got handcuffs!"

Guffey lowered the rifle, intrigued despite himself. "Handcuffs? How come you got handcuffs?"

"Well, they kinda come in handy sometimes," Dortmunder said with a little shrug.

"So your idea is, I should cuff you to the bed there-"

"Maybe to the sofa in the living room," Dortmunder suggested. "So it's more comfortable and I could watch television if I wanted."

Was this some sort of trick? In Guffey's experience, everything pretty much was some sort of trick. He said, "Where's these cuffs?"

Dortmunder pointed to the dresser along the wall to Guffey's left. "Top drawer on the left."

By standing beside the dresser, back against the wall, Guffey could keep an eye on Dortmunder while he pushed the drawer open and studied its contents by means of a number of quick peeks. And what contents! Mixed in with gap-toothed combs and nonmatching cufflinks and broken-winged sungla.s.ses and squeezed-out tubes of various lotions and ointments were worn-looking bra.s.s knuckles, a red domino mask, a Mickey Mouse mask, a ski mask, three right-handed rubber gloves, a false mustache mounted on a white card in a clear plastic bag, a sprinkling of subway slugs, and as advertised, a pair of chrome handcuffs with the key in the lock.

One-handed-the other hand keeping the rifle trained on Dortmunder-Guffey removed the handcuffs, dropped them on the dresser top, and pulled out the key, which he pocketed. Then he tossed the handcuffs at Dortmunder and said, "Good. Put em on, why doncha?"

"Well, hey, you know," Dortmunder complained. "I just woke up. Could I get dressed? Could I at least go to the bathroom?"

"Just a minute," Guffey told him. "Don't move."

So Dortmunder didn't move, and Guffey stepped sideways to the doorway, then backed through it and looked to the left (apartment door) and right (kitchen, with stove visible) before saying, "Okay, Mr. Dortmunder. I'm gonna go in the kitchen there and make me some coffee. And I'll keep an eye down this way. And if your head shows past this door before I say okay, I'll blow it off. You got that?"

"Oh, sure," Dortmunder agreed. "I'll just stay in here until you say."

"Good." Guffey started to back away toward the kitchen, then stopped. Grudgingly, he said, "You want coffee?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"Okay." Guffey started to back off again, but Dortmunder raised his hand like a kid who knows the answer. Guffey stopped. "Yeah?"

"If it isn't too much trouble," Dortmunder said, "uh, orange juice?"

SIXTY-SEVEN.

Shoulders hunched against the steady rain, Myrtle leaned her chest against the side of the house on Oak Street and stood up on tiptoe. Watching through the kitchen window, she could see Doug standing next to the refrigerator, telephone to his ear. Across the back yards and across Myrtle Street, she could hear faintly the sound of her own phone ringing.

When will he give up? she wondered, and at last he did, the ringing sound from the next block cutting off at the same instant. Shaking his head, Doug turned from the wall phone to say something bewildered-"She's never home!"-to Gladys, who had just marched into the kitchen, wearing a zipper jacket and a cloth cap. But Gladys gave him an unsympathetic shrug, opened the refrigerator, took out a can of beer, and was just popping the top when someone tapped Myrtle on the shoulder.

That touch made Myrtle jump so high that both people in the kitchen turned to look out the window at the movement, and when she landed she sagged back against the rain-wet wall of the house like an overwatered clematis. In growing horror she stared upward at what appeared to be the Abominable Snowman standing before her in a yellow slicker and rainhat that made him look like a walking taco stand. This creature, spreading out ma.s.sive arms with catcher's-mitt hands at the ends of them to pen her in and keep her from running away (as though her legs had the strength to run or even, without the help of the house, to hold her upright!), growled low in his throat and then said (in English! like a person, a human being!), "You don't look like my idea of a peeping Tom, lady."

"I'm not, I, I, I, I, I-"

The monster lifted one of those hands and waved it back and forth, and Myrtle's voice stopped. Then he said, "You, you, you, I got that part. Now try me on the next word."

Never had Myrtle felt so thin, so frail, so vulnerable and defenseless. She stammered out the only words that seemed to suit the case: "I'm sorry."

"That's nice," the giant said. "That's good. That counts on your side. On the other hand, 'sorry' isn't, you know, an explanation."

While Myrtle's brain ran around inside her skull, looking for a bouquet of words that might placate this monster, the monster looked up at the window, raised his monster eyebrows, pointed at Myrtle a monster finger with the girth and toughness of a rat's body, and mouthed elaborately, "You know this?"

Myrtle turned her head, looking up, and at this extreme angle Doug's face, seen through the rain-drenched window, looked as scared as she felt. He was scared? Oh, good heavens! And when Doug nodded spastically at the monster, it seemed to Myrtle that her last hope, not even noticed till now, had just fled.

"Okay," the monster said, and lowered his cold gaze on Myrtle once more. "It's raining out, little lady," he said. "Let's us be smart. Let's get in out of the rain."

"I want to go home now," Myrtle said in her tiniest voice.

For answer, the monster lifted his right hand and made a little move-along gesture. Myrtle, not knowing what else to do, obeyed, preceding the monster around to the back of the house and through the door and into the kitchen, where Doug and Gladys both looked at her with surprised disapproval.

The monster shut the door, and Doug said, "Myrtle, what are you doing here?"

Desperate, betrayed, feeling that Doug at least should be on her side, Myrtle said, "What are you doing here? You and the computer man and the so-called environment protection man and Gladys and my f-f-f-f-everybody else? You were here all along, lying to me, waiting for rain!"

The looks these three people gave one another at that outburst suggested to Myrtle, somewhat belatedly, that she might have revealed a bit more knowledge there than she should have. (At least she'd had sense enough not to mention her father.) Confirming this fear, the monster said, "This friend of yours knows a lot about us, Doug."

Doug shook his head, protesting with a tremor in his voice. "Not from me, Tiny! Honest!"

Tiny? Myrtle stared, but was distracted from this exercise in misapplied nomenclature by the sudden appearance in the kitchen of her father.

Yes. No question. She knew it at once. And almost as quickly she also knew, after one look in those icy eyes and at that gray, fleshless, hard-boned face, that this wasn't a father into whose arms one threw oneself. In fact, as instinctively as she'd grasped their relationship, she also grasped that it might be a very bad idea to inform him of it.