Drowned Hopes (33 page)

“That makes no sense at all,” Doug said, continuing to crowd her.

“It makes sense to me,” Myrtle told him, scrinching as far over on the pickup’s seat as possible, keeping her arms folded over her chest as she determinedly gazed out through the windshield at the big outdoor movie screen where Dumbo teetered on a tree branch. “Watch the movie,” she said. “You said you’d never been to a drive–in before, so here we are, so watch the movie.”

“At a drive–in? Myrtle,” Doug said, keeping his hands to himself at last, “you’re driving me crazy.”

Well, if that was true, Myrtle thought, then they were even, because Doug Berry was certainly driving
her
crazy. Not in the same way, of course; not sexually, or romantically. Though Doug was certainly sexy, and he kept doing his best to be romantic, and if everything else had been okay who knew what might happen?

But everything else was
not
okay. Everything else wasn’t okay because Doug Berry was a fake, and up to something, and it more than likely had something to do with her father, and she couldn’t for the
life
of her figure out what it was.

But that he was a fake went without question. When he’d first come to the library, she’d accepted his story about his researches without question, but when he’d suddenly stopped looking at the old microfilm three years before his alleged range of interest was finished, and when he’d suddenly switched to the present day with no explanation, she’d begun to suspect something was wrong. But what?

Lunch with him, at her instigation, had revealed nothing more than that he was fun and flirty and that he wanted to see her again, which was nice, but not enough. That first evening, on her own time, she’d gone through the microfilm of the year when Doug had stopped, the year he’d obviously found whatever he was
really
looking for, and when she’d come to the armored car robbery out on the Thruway all the pieces had come together. That robbery was almost certainly another of the “jobs” her criminal father had “pulled” before he’d been sent to prison for a different “job” several years later, and Doug Berry was almost certainly on the elder Jimson’s “trail” for some reason. It was a good thing she’d resisted the urge to use the Jimson “moniker” with Doug, as she had — frightening and thrilling herself — with nice little Wally Knurr. (It was television, of course, that had given Myrtle this easy familiarity with criminal argot.)

Suspicions aroused, and fearing at first that Doug might actually be an undercover policeman of some sort, hounding her father like Javert (which would be why he’d asked about the state trooper, Jimmy), Myrtle had looked up the Environment Protection Alliance, the so–called organization Doug was supposedly doing research for, and of course there was no such thing. (The VDT at the library, now that Wally Knurr had made its mysteries plain to her, had been a great help in this study of the Doug Berry problem.)

So he was a fake; some sort of fake, specifics not yet known. His real name was Doug Berry, however, because it said so on the credit card he’d used the first time he’d taken her out to dinner, which was the second time they’d met, now being the third time, at this drive–in movie south of North Dudson, one of the few such enterprises still extant in America. Doug Berry was his name, and this ridiculously childish pickup truck with the offensively childish bumper sticker about divers on the back had a license plate from Suffolk County down on Long Island. The Suffolk County phone book in the library not only listed a
Berry Doug
but even gave a second business phone number for him which, when she’d dialed it, had produced an answering machine speaking identifiably with Doug’s voice:

“South Shore Dive Shop. Sorry we’re not open now. Our usual hours are Thursday through Sunday, ten to five. Licensed professional instruction, basic and advanced courses. Dive equipment for sale or rent, air refills, tank tests, all your diving needs under one roof. Hope to see you!”

What did a diving instructor from Long Island have to do with retired (presumably) criminal and former “jailbird” Tom Jimson? That Doug’s initial request for information at the library had been connected to the local reservoir had to have some significance — reservoir, water, diving — but Myrtle couldn’t begin to guess what it might be. One thing seemed sure, though; she should keep this connection to Doug Berry alive, without letting it get out of hand.

Or into hand, rather.

And so tonight’s visit to the drive–in; their third meeting, without either of them getting anywhere. Myrtle knew Doug was feeling frustrated, but doggone it, so was she. Her natural tendency would be to find this handsome and easy–going fellow irresistible, but how could she fall into his arms unless she knew whose side he was on? What if he were, in one way or another, her father’s enemy? (On the other hand, he could conceivably be on her father’s side, in which case falling into his arms would be a double pleasure. He might even — remote hope — be the means by which she could actually get to
meet
her father at last.)

Her researches had done no more than show that Doug Berry was not who he’d claimed; they couldn’t go farther, couldn’t describe who or what he really was. It kept seeming to Myrtle that some sort of subtle indirect questioning during these dates should give her the clues she needed to find out what was going on, but she just couldn’t seem to think what those subtle and indirect questions might be. People in the movies and on television always come up with the appropriate delicate probe, but —

Whoops. Speaking of delicate probes. “Come
on,
Doug,” Myrtle said, putting his hand back in his own lap.

Doug sighed, elaborately long–suffering.

I wish I knew how to get in touch with Wally Knurr, Myrtle thought. I bet
he
could help me figure out what’s going on. But except for that one day at the library when he’d opened the cornucopia of the VDT to her wondering eyes, she’d never seen Wally again. Probably a salesman of some kind, she thought, traveling around, maybe even selling computers or something like that. Will his sales route ever bring him back through North Dudson? And would he have any reason to return to the library?

“Doug,
please.
”

“
Myrtle,
please.”

“Watch the movie, Doug,” Myrtle urged him. “It’s a nice movie, isn’t it?”

“I never miss it,” Doug said bitterly.

For now, though, he was going the other way. The criminal returns to the scene of his crime, he thought, and touched the tip of his tongue to his upper teeth behind his upper lip, a gesture he made whenever he amused himself with his interior monologue. (A man no one can trust is a man who can trust no one, and therefore is a man liable to take to the diversion of interior monologue.) He found a comfortable corner of four seats — two facing pairs — and settled in, ass in one seat, bag on a second, feet on a third, hand on a fourth. The train would have to get a lot more full than this midweek offpeak run was likely to before anybody would attempt to enter the principality Tom had carved out for himself.

Before the train started moving, a big lummoxy kid came along to take the seats across the aisle. About nine feet tall, with a big square head covered by wavy blond hair, he was probably twenty years old, and was dressed in huge clunky hiking boots, white tube socks, khaki shorts — his knees were enormous and knobby and covered with fuzz, like the rest of him — a T–shirt with some kind of stupid philosophical statement on it, a red headband, and a
monster
backpack looming higher than his head.

Tom watched with contemptuous interest as the kid undid all the straps that released the backpack, which then took up two seats all by itself. Glancing at Tom with the self–assurance of somebody who doesn’t know anything yet, the kid said, “Watch my bag?”

“Sure,” Tom said.

The kid went thumping away down the aisle, knees working like hand puppets, and Tom watched him go, then rose to give the backpack a quick efficient frisk. He transferred the two hundred dollars cash and the six hundred dollars in traveler’s checks and the illustrated
Kama Sutra
to his own black leather bag (which he
never
asked anyone to watch), but left the kid his dirty socks and the rest of his shit. Settled in his own four seats again, he got out his paperback of W.R. Burnett’s
Dark Hazard
and settled down.

A few minutes later the idiot came back, carrying a sandwich and a can of beer, and said, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Tom told him, and went back to his book, and a few minutes later the train jerked forward.

Tom read while the train worked its way through the tunnels beneath midtown Manhattan, and he kept on reading when the train emerged into uptown and became an elevated and stopped at 125th Street, where
nobody
got on or off. Slum scenery became industrial scenery became, very gradually, countryside scenery, and Tom kept reading. He’d never been really big for nature.

It was nearly two hours, and Tom had almost finished the book — it wasn’t going to be a happy ending, he could see it coming — when at last the conductor’s voice came over the sound system, crying out, “Rhinecliff! Rhinecliff!”

Good. Tom put his book away, shut his bag — two straps and buckles, no zippers — and got to his feet. The schmuck across the aisle gave him a half salute and said, “Have a nice day.”

“Yeah, I will.”

Tom started away, but a devilish urge made him turn back and say, “You, too.” The kid’s fatuous grin was still all over his face as the train stopped and Tom found his exit.

“My Mom knows what you look like,” Stan Murch had assured him back in New York. “Besides, she’s probably the only lady cabdriver there, and the
only
one all the way from Dudson Center.”

“I’m not worried,” Tom had said, and there she was, no doubt about it, short and chunky, in a cloth cap and zipper jacket and corduroy pants, leaning with arms folded against a green and white car with its name on the door:
TOWN TAXI
.

She was shaking her head when Tom saw her, apparently arguing with another detrainer who’d wanted to hire her cab. As Tom approached, the frustrated customer raised his voice to say, “For Christ’s sake, aren’t you a taxi?”

“No,” Murch’s Mom told him. “I’m a Duane Hansen statue.”

Tom interposed himself between the statue and the detrainer, saying quietly, “Here I am.”

Murch’s Mom, as promised, did recognize him. “Fine,” she said. “Get in.” And she turned to open the driver’s door.

“Hey!” cried the non–customer as Tom opened the rear door. “I was here first!”

“Pay no attention to him,” Murch’s Mom said.

Of course not. Tom shrugged and started to get into the cab, but the non–customer crowded forward, pushing an attaché case ahead of himself into the space of the open door, blocking Tom’s way, continuing to yell and carry on. So Tom looked at him.

He wasn’t sure what it was exactly about this face of his, but usually when there was some sort of unnecessary trouble, if he just looked at the person making the disturbance, that was almost always enough to take care of the problem. What might be in his eyes or the set of his features to make it work that way Tom didn’t really know, nor did he really care; it did the job, that’s all.

And it did the job this time, too. Tom looked at the non–customer and the man stopped yelling. Then he blinked. Then he looked worried. Then he kind of pulled his jaw back in, trying to hide it behind his Adam’s apple. Then he got the attaché case out of Tom’s way. Then Tom got into the cab.

They were on the wrong side of the Hudson River here, the train tracks running up along its eastern bank, giving occasional beautiful views and vistas that could just as well be from before the European incursion into this continent, not that Tom had noticed, or cared. The Thruway, and the Vilburgtown Reservoir, and drowned Putkin’s Corners, and all the Dudsons living and dead, were over across the river in the main part of New York State.

It happens there’s a bridge across the Hudson right there at Rhinecliff. Steering across it, Murch’s Mom glanced in the rearview mirror at Tom, who had removed his book from his bag and was reading it. “Have a good ride up?” she asked.

Tom looked up from his book, catching Mom’s eye in the mirror. Marking his place in the book with his finger, he said, “Yeah, I did. And the weather’s nice this time of year. And I’m not hungry yet, thanks. And I haven’t been keeping up with the sports teams much lately. And I have no political opinions at all.” Lowering his eyes, he opened his book and went back to reading.

Murch’s Mom took a deep breath, but then held it awhile. With little white spots on her cheeks, she concentrated on the road ahead, looking for somebody to try to cut her off.

Nobody did, though, and Mom fumed in frustration for several minutes until, across the river and onto the Thruway, she saw out ahead of herself a car from Brooklyn, and all her rage transferred itself to that innocent vehicle. Why would anybody come here from Brooklyn, from
home,
if they didn’t have to?

The reason Mom knew that maroon 1975 Ford LTD was from Brooklyn was the license plate: 271 KVQ. The first letter in New York plates gives the county: Kings, in this case, which is Brooklyn. (Queens is Queens, and there’s no Jacks.)

The driver of the offending vehicle, a curly–haired young guy, was going along minding his own business when all of a sudden this Town Taxi came swooping out of nowhere, cut him off with micromillimeters to spare, and fishtailed away as though giving him the finger with its tailpipe. Apart from slamming on his brakes, clutching the wheel hard with both hands, and staring wide–eyed, he made no satisfactory reply to this opening remark, so Mom dawdled in the left lane until the other car had nearly caught up, then shot across the lanes again, shaving the distance from the Ford’s front bumper even closer than before.
There! That’s for nothing! Now do something!

That was when the cold unemotional voice came from the cab’s backseat: “If that guy’s bothering you, I could take him out.”

Which brought Mom to her senses. “What guy?” she demanded, and floored the accelerator, taking everybody out of danger. Half an hour later, with no further incidents, she steered the cab up onto the driveway beside her new home and braked to a stop just shy of the chain–link fence. “This is it,” she announced.

Tom had finished
Dark Hazard
about eight miles back, and had spent the time since just sitting there, looking at the back of Mom’s head. (He knew this area, knew what it looked like, wasn’t curious about any changes that might have taken place around here of late, and sure wasn’t likely to be keeping an eye out for old friends.) Now he looked out at the house and said, “Fine. Looks pretty big.”

“It is.”

The cuteness that had bothered Dortmunder didn’t bother Tom because he didn’t notice it. Picking up his leather bag, he climbed out onto the gravel and shut the cab door.

Mom, giving him a sour look out the window (which he also didn’t notice), said, without joy, “See you at dinner.” And she backed out of the driveway, spraying gravel, and drove off to become a profit–making industry again.

Tom crossed to the porch, went up the stoop, and May opened the front door for him, saying, “Have a nice trip?” (She was determined to be pleasant, to behave as though Tom were a normal human being.)

“Yes,” Tom said. Then he grinned at May and said, “You got Al on the hop, all right.”

May’s face closed right up. “John doesn’t think of it that way,” she said.

“Good,” Tom told her, and looked around this little hallway. “Where do I bunk?”

“Top of the stairs, second door on your left. Your bathroom is right across the hall.”

“Okay.”

Tom went up and found a small neat sunny room with a view through two windows of the fenced–in back yard and the rears of the houses on Myrtle Street. The bed had been made (May, downstairs, regretted now having done that), with a set of fluffy pale blue towels folded atop it. The drawers in the tall old dresser were all empty, and were still nearly empty when Tom was done unpacking. Once his few clothes were put away, he placed his shaving and toilet gear atop the dresser and hung his old suit jacket in lonely splendor in the closet.

Finally, he salted the place. While certain other armaments remained in the false bottom of the leather bag, the others were distributed in his usual manner: .45 automatic duct–taped to the underside of the box spring, handy when lying in bed; spring knife rolled into a windowshade, so it would drop into his hand when he pulled the shade all the way down; tiny snub–barreled .22 duct–taped to the underside of the water closet lid in the neat old–fashioned bathroom.

There. Home sweet home.