“Yeah?”
“Well, he isn’t dead.”
“Course not,” Tiny said. “I just gave him a lullaby.”
“But he is unconscious,” Doug said, “and I’m afraid he might drown.”
Dortmunder frowned at that. “In the water?”
“In the rain. What should we do with him?”
Kelp said, “Leave him. He’ll wake up.”
Tom said, “And go straight to the law before we can get finished and outta here. I don’t know about you sometimes, Al. Maybe we should just help him drown.”
“Aw, hey,” Doug said.
Dortmunder said, “He can come with us.”
Everybody hated that idea. Dortmunder listened to all the arguments, wishing he’d thought of some other explanation for Guffey, and when they were all finished yammering he said, “Put it this way. I don’t wanna kill him. We can’t leave him. So we’ll take him with us. I got reasons with this guy, and I’ll explain them later. Tiny, how you coming?”
“Done,” Tiny said, lumbering to his feet. “Dortmunder,” he commented, “you get weird notions sometimes.”
“Maybe so,” Dortmunder said. “We’ll put him in the boat now, with Doug.”
So Guffey’s limp light body was picked up by Tiny and handed up to Doug, who would ride the boat out into the water so they wouldn’t lose it once it was finally launched.
Which this time at long last happened. Dortmunder, Kelp, Tiny, and Tom all stood to one side; Doug braced himself against the wheel of the Over My Head; and Guffey lay like a bag of laundry on the floor around Doug’s feet. Stan put the station wagon into low-low, tromped the accelerator, and the double vehicle lunged down the slope. The hauler wobbled left and right, slowing down as it hit the muck, wanting to jackknife, but Stan kept correcting with tiny movements of the wheel, and steadily and inexorably the boat backed down through the mud and the ooze and into the reservoir.
Stan never let up on the accelerator till the headlights were underwater and wavelets were breaking on the hood, and the instant he lifted his foot the engine died; probably never to live again. But the Over My Head was, just barely, in water deep enough to float.
Now Doug went to work unattaching the straps that held the boat to the hauler, and Stan climbed through the foundered wagon to exit out the tailgate and go wait in Dortmunder’s car. At the same time, Kelp and Tiny and Tom waded out to climb aboard. Halfway there, Kelp looked back: “John? Aren’t you coming?”
The rain beat down. The nasty little wind pressed wet clothing against cold flesh. You couldn’t even see the reservoir out there. But a man’s gotta do— Well, you know.
“Shit,” said Dortmunder, and waded into the water.
Edna said, “When I think of the foolish young girl I was then, I could slap my face. And when I think, Myrtle, of the foolish young girl you’ve never been, I could slap both our faces. I know it’s partly my fault for stifling any impulse you ever might have had to fly from the nest, and I know it’s partly Tom Jimson’s fault for turning me into a bitter old woman before my time, but good heavens, girl, don’t you have one single rebellious bone in your body? Whatever happened to heredity? Don’t interrupt when I’m talking. The point is, Tom Jimson may, just may, be doing some good for once in his life, even if he didn’t intend it and doesn’t know about it. If all this hadn’t happened, you and I could have just drifted along the same way, day after day, year after year, all the way to the grave, you just another dim little obedient country spinster taking care of her bad-tempered nasty old mama—now just let me finish, if you don’t mind—but we’ve been shaken out of that, the two of us, and that’s good. That diving fella’s no good for you, Myrtle, and you know it as well as I do. He’s just a paler Tom Jimson, that’s all, less cold-blooded but just as untrustworthy. If you’re going to have your head turned by a pretty face, go right ahead, but please try to reassure yourself that there’s some sort of reliable brain behind it. Which brings me to you, Wallace. I know your type, and don’t think I don’t. I used to see little boys like you all the time when I ran the library at Putkin’s Corners. Intelligent little boys who weren’t any good at sports, boys the other children used to make fun of, and they’d come into the library for a refuge and a fantasy. But you aren’t a child anymore, Wallace. It’s true you’re still funny-looking, but most adults are; it’s time for you to come out of your shell. Fantasy has led you into dangers you can’t possibly deal with, and you know it. Never mind, never mind, there are things that computer of yours doesn’t know, either. I say it’s New York City did it to you, having to lock yourself away for protection all the time, and what you should do is move to a real place, a good small town where you could get to meet people and know people and be part of the real world. Now, we have that spare room upstairs. Myrtle and I have been talking forever about fixing it up and renting it, and—yes, we have, Myrtle, don’t be a goose—and I know Mr. Kempheimer at the bank, I’m sure they could use a computer expert there, he’s always complaining about modern times, you know how men get. Well, you’ll look into that when you make your mind up.”
Murch’s Mom said, “Edna—”
Edna said, “Now about the money. It’s dirty money. I don’t care how long it’s been in the water, it’s still dirty. Myrtle and I don’t want any part of it, and you shouldn’t want it either, Wallace, and you certainly won’t need it if you’re working at the bank, and however would you report it on your income tax? Gladys, I understand your son is a professional in this sort of thing and therefore he would want his share of the money, and I accept it if you say he isn’t a vicious monster like Tom Jimson but simply a very good professional driver, but I’m really afraid he should never have gotten involved in this. Tom Jimson will be going to Mexico, all right, and glad to see the back of him, but he’ll take all that money with him when he goes. Miss Bellamy’s friend John was right when he left, and I think your son Stanley should have gone with him, because there is simply no depth to Tom Jimson’s wickedness. I’m sure, by now, out there on that dark water, he has started doing something terrible.”
Tom went down into the cabin of the Over My Head to have a look around. The curtains had been shut over the windows down here and one dim light over the sink switched on, in which glow he saw they’d put Dortmunder’s hitchhiker, still out cold, on the sofa where Tom had stashed the Ingram Model 10 when he’d left the house briefly and surreptitiously much earlier today. That was all right; when the time came, the hitchhiker could be target number one.
The Ingram Model 10, named for its designer, Gordon Ingram, was manufactured from 1970 in the United States by the Military Armament Corporation. A machine pistol less than a foot long and weighing only 6.5 pounds, the Model 10 fires.45-caliber ammunition from a 30-round magazine that fits into—and juts down from—the pistol grip. It fires in fully automatic mode, using the blowback principle, has fixed sights fore and aft, and the cocking handle, mounted on the top (convenient for both right- and left-handed shooters), is grooved down the middle so as not to interfere with sighting. It is factory-fitted with a suppressor to reduce noise.
Tom had removed from his copy of the weapon its usual retractable metal-pipe shoulder butt that, when extended, just about doubled the weapon’s length. After all, he didn’t expect ever to use it for targets more than a couple of feet away, so he would never have to aim from a shoulder stance. Like tonight, for instance; how far can a target go on a boat?