Mouthpiece in; breathe normally: well, breathe, anyway. Sinking like a stone. Goggles on. Goggles off; full of water.
Oh, boy. Feeling the water rush upward into his nose as his body rushed downward toward the bottom of the reservoir, Kelp stuck his left arm straight up, pressed the button, and filled the BCD. Immediately he stopped sinking, started soaring instead, and suddenly broke through into air.
But where? Anonymous reservoir in the dark. Dortmunder and the boat were nowhere to be seen. I am not going to get lost, Kelp told himself sternly. Ignoring the tiny voice telling him he was already lost, he emptied the water from the goggles, put them on, reassured himself the headlamp was in the right place, released some of the air from the BCD, and floated down through the black water like a discarded love letter.
During the descent, he switched on the headlamp and kept turning his face this way and that, hoping either to see Doug’s light or show Doug his own. But when his flippered feet finally found the bottom, he still had seen nothing, and in fact he couldn’t even see what he was standing on until he bent almost double. Then, through the brown water, he saw he was on a flat pebbly surface covered with hairy slime. Yuck.
Still, when he straightened again and stomped both feet around, flippers flapping, he could tell he was on something solid, and not even very muddy. A road? Wouldn’t that be good luck!
Kelp walked back and forth, noticing the evenness of this surface, noticing how little he was increasing the turbidity by his movements, and wondering if he were actually on a street in the town. And if so, where was the curb? Where was the side of the road so he could get some sense of where he was and where he should go?
Treading slowly, having to lift each knee unnaturally high because of the drag of the flippers on his feet, Kelp walked in ever-widening circles, looking for the side of the road or whatever this was. A parking lot? It could take him an hour to find the edge of a parking lot.
Wall. Low brick wall, about knee height. Kelp bent down, resting his hands on its slimy surface, and tried to see what the bottom was like on the other side before stepping over.
At first, he just couldn’t see a thing. Brown water drifting and floating, but then also the bricks. Row after row of brick, on down out of sight.
What the heck? Kelp leaned lower, one arm still clutching the wall, most of his body over its edge now as he aimed the headlamp down, trying to see, following the lines of brick wall down, down… to some sort of dark rectangular opening, several feet below.
So hard to see through this murk, everything so distorted and deceptive, if Kelp didn’t know better he’d think this brick wall went right on down and down, and that black rectangle there was…
… a window.
AAA!! Flailing back across the wall, flinging himself to the safety of the roof—the roof! — Kelp overshot and drifted upward, turning slowly, absolutely helpless for just an instant, but then floating back down to the roof again and standing there, gasping through the mouthpiece, staring around, trying to think what he could possibly do next.
I’m on a roof! What miserable luck. I don’t even know how tall this building is. How am I going to get down off—
Wait a second. I floated down here. The roof was under me. What do I care how tall this building is?
Moving now with long penguinlike hops, like astronauts on the moon, Kelp made his way back to the edge of the roof, added just a teeny bit more air to his BCD, and floated off into space, actually putting his arms out to the sides like a kid playing airplane.
Superman! The feeling of exhilaration was suddenly so intense that Kelp laughed out loud into his mouthpiece. Kicking his legs, waving his arms, ducking his head downward, he made a complete forward roll in the middle of the water, beside the roof, heels over head. Leveling out afterward, he looked around, the headlamp beam flashing this way and that, and stared out through his goggles like a kid in a playground looking for somebody to ride the seesaw with.
This was so much fun! All the practice sessions, both times descending into the reservoir with Dortmunder, and neither of them had ever known how much fun this was. Oh, if only John knew it was like this, Kelp thought, he’d change his mind completely. Even John would. Even John.
Kelp cavorted beside the brick building for maybe five minutes before remembering Doug and the buried money and the job he was down here to perform. Okay; time to quit playing hookey and get to work.
With more control over his movements every second, Kelp swam back to the brick wall of the building, and made his way down its face, learning it was three stories high and that he was probably on the side of it, since there was nothing here but windows; no doors.
Choosing arbitrarily to go to the right, he kicked steadily and easily, the fins doing all the work of moving him along as he made his way to the corner, then turned left and discovered he’d guessed right: this was the front of the building, with gunk-covered slate steps leading up to a big blank opening where an elaborate doorway must once have stood. And above that opening was a broad stone lintel with words carved into it. Moving very close, putting the headlamp directly on the scum-filled letters, Kelp read:
PUTKIN’S CORNERS MUNICIPAL LIBRARY
This was it! He’d jumped out of the boat any old way, and he’d landed exactly precisely on top of the very building they were looking for. Tom’s stash was buried in the field right behind here. So all he had to do now was find Doug, and they could go collect the money.
Well, that should be easy. Their first goal had been the railroad track, and then they’d intended to follow that down to the railroad station in Putkin’s Corners, because the library—this library right here—was directly across the street from that station. So if he went over there, sooner or later Doug would show up.
Fine. Kelp turned away from the library and sailed across a street he couldn’t see to the front wall of the railroad station, which he could see, once he was right on top of it. Or it was on top of him. A big old stone building, from back when people hadn’t yet known that the railroads were a transitional technology. Again, the window and door frames and other useful parts were gone, but the stone pile was still there, easily identifiable as railroad architecture.
Unwilling to swim—sail, fly—through the building, Kelp made his way around it instead, and there was the concrete platform, much the worse for wear; and beyond it the tracks. Kelp floated over there and descended almost to the ground to study the tracks and then to look all around. No Doug, not yet. But gee, it would have been fun to pole in here in that car! Kelp could just see it.
Oh, well, it wasn’t going to happen, that’s all. Still, Kelp thought, we’re here. One way or another, we’re here. At least I am. Here, and raring to go.
Come on, Doug.
This, Dortmunder thought, is what I don’t like about fishing. One of the things. Sitting here in a boat, pitch-black darkness all around. Getting cold. All alone. Not a sound.
SPLASH!
Dortmunder about jumped out of the boat, staring around in frenzy, and when he first saw Doug’s head in the water below his right elbow he had no idea what it could be. A bomb? A coconut?
The coconut removed its mouthpiece and goggles and spoke: “Where’s Andy?”
“Oh, my God, it’s Doug!”
“Of course it’s Doug,” Doug said. “Andy isn’t here?”