Drowned Hopes

There were no dry places out here, not after two days and nights of steady rain. Wet and cold but unwilling to make a sitting duck of himself, Stan hunkered down against a tree where he could see the Peugeot’s lights, the clearing, even a bit of the station wagon.

Hell of a position for a driver.

“Got it!” Tiny cried. “Pull me up outta here.”

Dortmunder and Kelp heaved on the rope. The other end of it was tied around Tiny under the armpits, and Tiny was lying half on and half off the platform at the rear of the Over My Head. He’d been reaching farther and farther down under the boat, trying to find an end of rope or—for preference—monofilament, and now at last he’d done it, and once Dortmunder and Kelp’s combined efforts got him completely back up on the platform he rose and held up a jumble of monofilament in his left hand like a serving of angel hair pasta.

“Beautiful stuff,” Kelp prayed.

Tiny tied the monofilament to the rail, then climbed over onto the deck and removed the rope from around himself.

“Tiny, I’m sorry,” Dortmunder said.

Tiny pointed a fat finger at him. “Dortmunder,” he said, “I want this to be a lesson to you. This is what happens to a person that’s rude. You break off a little discussion before it’s finished, before everybody’s done talking, maybe there’s something you oughta know that you don’t know.”

“I just didn’t like,” Dortmunder explained, “the idea of being on a sinking ship.”

“How about,” Tiny asked him, “being on a sinking ship that can’t go nowhere?”

“That’s worse,” Dortmunder admitted.

Kelp said, “But we’ll go now, won’t we? We got the monofilament, right?”

“I got the monofilament,” Tiny reminded him.

“That’s what I meant,” Kelp agreed. “And the other end of it’s tied to the railroad track in by shore, right? Over where we tried the first time. So now all we do is just tow ourselves in.”

“If it doesn’t break,” Tiny pointed out. “It’s awful ski

“It’s supposed to be very strong,” Dortmunder suggested. He was feeling unusually humble. “For bringing in big fish like tunas and marlins and things,” he said.

“Well, let’s see.” Tiny reached over the side, lifted the monofilament, wrapped it once around his fist, and tugged gently. Then he stopped. “Not bare-handed,” he said. “This stuff’ll take my fingers off.”

“I’ll get you a rag or something, Tiny,” Dortmunder offered, and went away to the cabin, where the water was almost knee deep now, despite the laborings of the boat’s automatic pump. Ignoring that, or trying to, Dortmunder searched around and found two oven mitts hanging from hooks beside the stove. He waded back up on deck and offered the mitts. “Try these.”

With some difficulty, Tiny jammed his hands partway into the mitts, then picked up the monofilament and pulled with a slow and even pressure. “Much better, Dortmunder,” he said.

“Thank you, Tiny.”

A sound of sloshing was heard from the cabin. Sounding surprised, Kelp said, “I think we’re moving.”

“So far,” Tiny said. Hand over hand, he reeled in the monofilament.

Kelp looked over the side. “You’d think Doug would of come up by now,” he said.

Tree stumps, tree stumps, tree stumps. Doug flew back and forth like an underwater bat over the drowned hillsides, his meager light playing in sepia tones across the devastation. There had to be some sort of landmark around here somewhere, but all Doug could see, every which way he turned, was these rotting tree stumps.

His turns, in fact, were slower now, less coordinated, as the strain of constant underwater exertion began to take its toll. These are signs he would normally have heeded, but at this moment there was no room in his brain for anything but this:

I saw the casket full of money, I saw it tonight, I swam down to it, just a little while ago. I held the rope in my hand. I have to be able to get it all back. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise. I have to get it all back.

No tree stumps. Doug in his weariness almost flew on over the spot, but then his laggard brain caught up with his eyes and be reversed, awkwardly, like a manatee, and shone his light on the spot again, and it was true. A clear swath cut through the forest of decayed stumps.

A road; it must have been a road. So it has to lead somewhere, and once there I can orient myself.

This way, or that way? I think it should be that way. Doug set off along the faint line of road, kicking doggedly.

Stan didn’t hear anybody coming, and then all at once people were moving around in the Peugeot’s headlights. People. The boat hadn’t come back, he knew that much for sure. So who were these people?

Maybe the law did have the reservoir staked out, after all. Cautious, doubtful, apprehensive, Stan straightened stiffly from his hunkered-down position and stalked the people moving around out there in the clearing. Who were they? What were they up to?

It was Tiny’s shape he recognized first, and right after that the sound of John’s complaining voice: “Now, where the hell is Stan?”

“Here,” Stan said, stepping forward into their midst and causing all three to jump like little kids in a haunted house. “What’s going on?” Stan asked them. “Where’s the boat?”

“Down there by the railroad tracks,” Andy told him, pointing vaguely away along the shoreline. “We walked here from there.”

“Waded here,” Tiny corrected. He was holding his hands in his armpits, pressing his arms against his sides as though the hands were cold or sore or something.

John said, “Can we go now?”

“Go?” Stan looked around. “Aren’t we missing a couple people?”

“And seven hundred thousand dollars,” Tiny said.

Andy said, “It’s a long story.”

John said, “Let’s tell it tomorrow, okay? Today is finished.”

SEVENTY-FOUR

“The lights are on!” Myrtle cried, in great excitement.

So then Wally crept over to see what was happening, and after that everybody including Myrtle and Edna had to go over to Oak Street, and the whole long story did have to be told tonight, after all. But at least they were all indoors and warm, and the stay-at-homes were willing to wait until the returnees had changed into dry clothes. By then, May had made soup, Myrtle had made toast, and Edna had made a pitcher of what she called “Bloody Marys that’ll iron your socks.” Under those conditions, it was possible to recount the night’s events without too many qualms or expressions of disgust. Kelp did most of the talking, with amplifications by Tiny and occasional color reportage from Dortmunder.

Tom Jimson’s lady friend and daughter bore up very well under the news of his death. “Well, that was overdue,” Edna commented. “I thought I was done with that man years ago, and now I am.”

“I so wanted to meet my father,” Myrtle said with a little shiver, “and then I did. He’ll be much better as a memory.”

The news about Doug was a little harder to take. “Well, I don’t hold much brief for that young man,” Edna said, “as Myrtle well knows—”

“Mother!”

“—but I certainly don’t wish him ill.”

“Doug’s a pro,” Dortmunder said for about the thousandth time. “He’ll be okay. But there was no point our hanging around. He wouldn’t of found us anyway.”

“That’s really true,” Kelp said.

“And John did get back by himself last time,” May said doubtfully.

“Darn right I did,” Dortmunder said. “Without wetsuits and air tanks and all of that.”

“We’ll hope for the best,” Edna said.

“I hope for the best,” Myrtle agreed.

“We all do,” Wally said, but his eyes were on Myrtle.