Drowned Hopes

“It’s just plugged in,” he whispered, sounding baffled. “Like any computer.”

“You aren’t giving orders to a gang? Or getting orders from a boss? Or anything like that?”

“Well, gee, no. Myrtle, it isn’t a VDT, not like your terminal at the library, it isn’t co

“It isn’t?”

“No, honest. It’s my personal personal computer.”

Could she believe him? What could she believe? What could she believe? And, given her present circumstances, what did it matter what she did or did not believe? She whispered, “Wally, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you,” he promised. “Tonight, they’re all going out to the reservoir to get some money that’s hidden there. I think Tom’s going to try to cheat everybody once they get the money.”

Well, that sounded believable. Myrtle whispered, “Then what?”

“Tom might come back here to, uh, make trouble.”

Myrtle had the feeling she knew what he meant. She had a quick vision of herself pleading for mercy—I’m your daughter! — and she pressed herself closer to the door, imagining the little, squat, round, moist, reliable form of Wally Knurr on its other side. “What should I do?”

“After everybody else leaves,” he whispered, “I’ll get you out of there and we’ll go over to your house. We’ll be able to see what happens from there.”

My house. My house. No other part of the plan mattered. “That’s wonderful, Wally,” Myrtle whispered, patting the door. “I’ll be waiting, whenever you say. I’ll be right here.”

SEVENTY-TWO

“More coffee?”

“Yeah.”

“Another English muffin?”

“Yeah.”

“Marmalade again?”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay? Yeah!”

“Fine, fine, fine. Listen, try Frank.”

“Frank? You think so? Okay: Hey, Frank! I always want marmalade on my English muffin, Frank! Hey, Frank Guffey, you got that?”

Guffey, watching the English muffins in the toaster oven little by little turn brown, like Larry Talbot becoming the wolfman, pondered and pondered and then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t be a Frank.”

“I didn’t think so, either,” Dortmunder admitted.

“I might of been better off if I was a Frank,” Guffey decided, taking out the English muffins and going to work on them with the marmalade. “More self-assertive. Not so much of a patsy.”

“Hey, Patsy!” Dortmunder called. “Give me more marmalade, Patsy! Hey, Patsy Guffey, bring that English muffin over here.”

“Could be my sister,” Guffey said, bringing the plates over to the kitchen table, where Dortmunder sat hunched over his planted elbows, contemplating his hangover. Guffey went back to the counter for the coffee cups, brought them over, and placed them on the Formica with two loud ticks that made Dortmunder flinch.

They sat in silence together while the kitchen clock moved from three-twenty P.M. to three-forty P.M. without anybody noticing or caring. Then, Dortmunder, lifting his head and his eyes while draining the last of his now lukewarm coffee, noticed the clock and found himself thinking about what was or was not going on upstate. Putting down his cup (tick, flinch), he said, “I think I’m go

Guffey looked semialert. “Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah?”

“You make more coffee,” Dortmunder told him. “I go to the living room and make my phone call.”

“Hey, come on, Dortmunder,” Guffey said. (He wouldn’t use Dortmunder’s first name, he’d a

“I’m not trying to be fair,” Dortmunder said, getting with some difficulty to his feet. “I’m trying to protect my interests.”

“Well, I got interests, too,” Guffey exclaimed.

“Not that I am trying to protect,” Dortmunder told him. “I don’t want you listening when I make my call.” Then, seeing Guffey try to be surreptitious about looking around the kitchen, he smirked a little, as much as his hangover would permit, and said, “No, there aren’t any extensions, though a particular friend of mine keeps trying to load them on me. I always said no, I didn’t want the goddamn things, and now I’m go

Sitting at the table, Guffey shook his head and said, “Somehow or other, I lost the advantage around here. I mean, I had it. I had the rifle in my hands, I had the drop on you, I had you scared shitless, I had—”

“Well.”

“Never mind ‘well,’ ” Guffey told him. “I had you scared shitless, admit it.”

“You had me worried for a while,” Dortmunder allowed. “But we’re both reasonable men, so we worked things out. Or we’re working things out. Like right now, I’m go

“It isn’t that I’m reasonable,” Guffey was saying, as Dortmunder left the room, “it’s that it always happens that way. I always lose the advantage. It’s a hell of a thing to live with.”

In the living room, Dortmunder called the number up in Dudson Center, hoping May would answer, and astonishingly enough it was May who answered. Recognizing her voice, he said, “May, it’s me.”

“John! Where are you?”

“Home, like I said I’d be.”

“Safe at home,” she said, sounding wistful.

Looking at the rifle, which still leaned against the wall beside the television set, Dortmunder said, “Well, kinda safe. Safer now, anyway. What’s happening up there?”

“John,” May said, all at once sounding excited, even admiring, “Stan and Andy and Doug came back with a boat! It’s huge! You wouldn’t believe how big it is!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“John, it sleeps two!”

“Sleeps two!” Dortmunder, visualizing the QEII, said, “What are they go

“John,” May said, “it’s going to look like a toy boat in a bathtub. But Doug says it’s better, it’s quieter than an outboard motor and they can put the winch right on the boat and winch the box straight up out of the water and take it to shore on the boat.”

“Well, that part sounds okay,” Dortmunder admitted.

“On the other hand,” May said, lowering her voice, “we’ve had a little trouble around here.”

“Tom?”

“Not yet. He will be trouble, but not yet.”

“What, then?”

“There’s a girl,” May said. “Tiny found her peeking in the kitchen window. Turns out, she’s the girl Doug’s been seeing up here, and she was spying, and she knows a lot about us. And her mother’s the one Murch’s Mom’s been playing canasta with. John, did you know Murch’s Mom’s name was Gladys?”

“Go on.”

“No, it really is. Anyway, that’s what she told this girl’s mother that she plays canasta with.”

Dortmunder said, “Wait a minute. Tiny found the daughter spying?”

“Looking in the kitchen window.”

“Then what?”

“Well, one thing led to another, and now she’s locked in the attic until we’re finished.”