“If,” John said, “we could see, which we can’t. And if I was ever gonna go underwater again, which I won’t. And if we could find the old rail bed, which we can’t.”
“Well, uh,” Wally said hesitantly, “that part would be easy. The tracks are still there.”
Again he got the general stare, and again his reaction was to turn bright red.
This time it was Andy who picked up the ball, saying, “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s true, though,” Wally insisted.
Andy said, “Wally, they took out all the buildings they could use. They cut down all the trees. You’re telling me they left the railroad tracks? Hundreds of pounds—no, what am I saying? Thousands of pounds of reusable steel, and they left it there, under the reservoir?”
“Well, it’s kind of interesting what happened,” Wally said. “It was all ecology and conservation groups. I guess in the old days, if New York City needed more water, they’d just go up and pick a valley and move everybody out and put in the dam. But now there’s all kinds of different groups and impact statements and all that stuff, so they always have to do compromises, and this time one of the groups was one that was trying to preserve the old railroad lines anyway, because there’s people that want the railroads to come back because of all the traffic jams on the highway, and the pollution, and—”
“Close with it, Wally,” Andy suggested.
Wally looked embarrassed again. His feet, which didn’t reach the floor, started swinging back and forth. “Well, that was the compromise,” he said. “They’re trying to keep the railroad lines, not let them get torn up and housing developments put on them, so they can be used again someday.”
“Underwater?” John asked.
“Well, only that one stretch of the line was underwater,” Wally explained. “It was all mixed in with a great big negotiation, all kinds of problems and construction projects and other stuff, so part of the compromise was that these groups wouldn’t complain about the reservoir and a couple of other things, and the government wouldn’t tear up the railroad line all the way from Endicott up to the state line at Vermont. So it’s all still there.”
“Even the underwater part,” May said faintly.
“Well, that was the way it was written,” Wally told her, “in the compromise agreement, the whole line was supposed to stay. I guess they didn’t think about the reservoir part of it when they wrote the compromise. Then later on nobody felt like they could go against what it said.”
“And to think,” John said, “my old parole officer—what was his name? Steen—he wanted me to become a productive member of society.”
Tom said, “You see why I favor dynamite. Direct action startles those people.”
Everyone looked uncomfortable, but nobody answered Tom directly. After a brief awkward silence, Andy said, “Well, you know, that’s gotta make it easier. We go down in there—”
“Huh,” John said.
“—and we just stay between the tracks,” Andy went on. “And we don’t get lost.”
“No,” John said.
Andy said, “John, I hear you. If we can’t see, we don’t go. But if this Normandie book—”
“I’m gonna get it,” Wally piped up, all eagerness and bounce. “I really am.”
“And if it shows us,” Andy said, “how to solve the seeing problem, then, John, you know, just maybe we still got a chance.”
John busied himself scraping the last bit of ice cream out of his bowl with the edge of his spoon. The sound of spoon against bowl was very loud in the small living room.
May said, “John, you put in so much time and effort on this already. And you learned all that scuba-diving knowledge. It seems such a waste, not to use it.”
John looked at her. “May,” he said. “You want me to go down in there again? When I just barely got outta there the last time? When if I go down in there again, what we’re mostly talking about is what they call a watery grave? May? Do you really want me to do that again?”
“Of course not, John,” May said. “Not if the problems can’t be solved. I don’t want to lose you, John. I don’t want you to risk your life on this.”
“Well, that’s what I was risking,” John told her. “More than I knew. And that’s the end of it.”
“All I’m asking, John,” May said, “is you keep an open mind.”
“And let all that muddy water run in.”
“Just to see,” May persisted. “Just to see if it’s possible, to explore the options. And then, if it isn’t, it isn’t, and Tom goes and does it some other way.”
“Boom,” said Tom cheerfully.
“Okay,” John said to her. “And if we keep this thing going, if we keep looking around for some kind of magic three-D glasses to look through mud with, then while we’re doing all this, where’s”—he jabbed a thumb at Tom, sitting comfortably to his left—“where’s this gonna live?”
May was sure she looked as stricken as she felt. “Well,” she said, “well, umm…” And she turned to Tiny, on her left, raising her eyebrows, hoping for a volunteer.
But Tiny looked embarrassed, and fumbled with his spoon, and wouldn’t meet her eye. “Josie,” he mumbled, “she wouldn’t, uh, it wouldn’t work out so good.”
May’s pleading gaze slid onto Andy, who flashed three or four quick panicky smiles and said, “Gee, May, I’d love to, but you know, my place’s so small, I can barely fit me in there, I been planning to look for somewhere bigger for a long…”
May sighed and looked toward Wally on her right, but he was already shaking his head, saying, “Oh, I wish I could help, Miss May, I really do, but my little apartment’s so filled up with electronics and computers and all, well, John and Andy can tell you, it’s so cramped in there you can’t barely sit down anywhere, and, uh…”
Sighing, May looked across the table at John, who met her gaze with grim satisfaction, saying, “Let’s put it this way, May. I leave it up to you. You want me to forget this thing, and send everybody away? Or you want me to keep looking for underwater Seeing Eye dogs?”
May refused to look toward Tom, knowing he would be at his blandest and most careless, just sitting there, toying with his spoon. Tuna casserole curdling within her, she turned to Wally again. “How long will it take you to find that book, Wally?” she asked.
THIRTY-ONE
The book was called Normandie Triangle, and the writer was called Justin Scott, and according to the book the divers didn’t solve the problem of cruddy, black, filthy water, also known as “turbidity.” What they did was, they made a model on shore of the parts of the ship they wanted to work on, and they practiced on the model until they could do the work with their eyes closed, and then they went down into the water and did it; and it might just as well have been with their eyes closed.
So the book itself wasn’t that much help. However, Wally, with his incredible unlimited computer access to what was apparently every piece of knowledge in the world, had come up with the fact that Justin Scott lived in New York and had a telephone. Wally had the number.
“We’ll call from my place,” Kelp decided. “I got a speakerphone.”
“Of course you do,” Dortmunder said grumpily. Andy was well known to have surrounded himself with all the latest in telephone technology, and Dortmunder was too proud to admit he didn’t know what a speakerphone was.
At least Kelp wasn’t one to put out cheese and crackers, though when Dortmunder arrived at his place—which wasn’t that small, actually, a one-bedroom with a separate kitchen—Kelp had apparently anticipated some sort of party, because he looked past Dortmunder at the hall and said, “Where’s everybody?”
“Who everybody?” Dortmunder asked, walking into the living room.
“Well, Tiny,” Kelp said, standing there with the door still open. “Maybe Tom or Wally. Or could be May.”
Dortmunder stood in the middle of the living room and looked at him. “Why don’t you close your door, Andy?”