FIFTY-ONE.

Tom Jimson boarded the Amtrak train in Penn Station carrying the same small black leather bag he'd carried both to and from prison, the same bag that would be all he'd need to carry when at last he got his money and unloaded his latest partners and took that plane to Mexico. Sweet Mexico.

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, a.s.s 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 princ.i.p.ality 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 k.n.o.bby 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-a.s.surance 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 s.h.i.t. 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sured 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 attache case ahead of himself into the s.p.a.ce 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 attache 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.

n.o.body 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 b.u.mper 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.

FIFTY-TWO.

When the doorbell rang, Wally rea.s.sured himself it was indeed John down at the street entrance before pushing the b.u.t.ton to let him into the building, and then he hurried off to the kitchen to get the plate of cheese and crackers he'd had in readiness ever since thirty seconds after John's phone call: "You free this afternoon?"

"Oh, sure."

"I thought I'd come over, uh, we could talk, uh, about things."

"Oh, sure!"

"See you in a while."

"Oh, sure!"

What could it be? Turning off the random-scream alarm, Wally wondered again for the thousandth time what John might want to come here to discuss. It had been so long since he'd heard from John, or from Andy, or from anybody, that he'd begun to wonder if maybe they'd gone ahead and finished their adventure without him.

Was that possible? What about the princess, the warlord's daughter? He had only met the princess once; Myrtle Jimson, Wally could see her now in his mind's eye, clear as anything, though in his imagination she did seem to be wearing a high lacy headdress and some sort of long gown out of King Arthur's court. But he had rescued her from no one and nothing, in fact, and there'd been no follow-through at all. His relationships with the warlord and the soldier and the rest were barely into chapter one. Could it all have ended, just like that? Could the entire caravan have moved on, leaving him alone in this oasis?

His doubts had increased with the pa.s.sage of time, even though the computer had constantly rea.s.sured him: The story cannot end until the hero is satisfied.

Which was all well and good, a.s.suming their postulates were correct.

What if I'm wrong? What if I'm not the hero?

Then there is no story.

Wally had begun to think that perhaps the computer didn't entirely understand the way reality works, and seismic disturbances of disbelief had just begun to shake his compact little universe, when lo and behold, John phoned! Fortunately, computers don't say, "I told you so."

The upstairs bell rang, and Wally hurried to open it, surprised to see John by himself out there. Looking around the landing, Wally said, "Isn't Andy with you?"

"Well, no," John said. He seemed ill at ease, less sure of himself than usual. "It's just me," he said. "Andy doesn't know about it. I come over to, uh, talk it over with you."

"Come in, come in," Wally urged him. "I've got cheese and crackers."

"That's nice," John said neutrally, nodding at the plate on the coffee table.

Wally shut the door, gestured John to the comfortable chair, and said, "Would you like a beer?"

"As a matter of fact," John said, "yes."

"Gee, you know, I think I would, too," Wally told him, and hurried to the kitchen to get two cans of beer. When he returned, John was seated in the chair Wally had indicated, gloomily eating cheese and crackers. Wally gave him his beer and sat alertly on the sofa, waiting.

John squinted through his eyebrows in Wally's direction. For some reason, be seemed to be having trouble looking straight at him. "Well," he said, "we're still trying to get that box up out of the reservoir."

"The treasure," Wally said.

"Tom really wants that money," John said.

"Well, sure, I guess he would," Wally agreed.

"He wants to blow up the dam," John said.

Wally nodded, considering that. "I guess that would work," he said. "Only, how does he plan to channel the water?"

"He doesn't," John said.

Wally's wet eyes widened: "But doesn't he know about the towns? A lot of people live down there! John, we have to tell him about-"

"He knows," John said.

Wally looked at John's grim face. The warlord has no pity. Wally whispered, "Would Tom really do that?"

"He'd've done it already," John said, "only I talked him into letting me have one more crack at it."

Suddenly John did look straight at Wally, and in that instant Wally understood just how difficult it had been for John to come here to ask for help. That's why he's here, Wally thought, with a sudden thrill. He's here to ask for help! To ask me for help! Wally blinked, his mouth sagging open at his sense of the importance of this moment.

John said, "May moved up there. Dudson Center. See, I quit, I couldn't do it anymore, so that's what she did."

Horrified, Wally said, "Tom wouldn't blow up the dam with Miss May there!"

"Tom would blow up the dam with the Virgin Mary there," John said.

"Then we have to get that treasure!" Wally cried, bouncing around on the sofa in his agitation. "Before he does it!"

"That's the situation," John agreed. "And here's the rest of the situation. Andy and I went down in that reservoir twice, and that's twice too much. I can't do it again. Just take my word for it, I can't. So it has to be something else. There's gotta be a way to get the money up out of there without me going down in there."

Wally nodded, trying to think but still overcome by the wonder of it. John came to me! "But what?" he asked, caught up in the story.

"I don't know," John told him, putting his beer can down so he could actually wring his hands. "I thought and I thought and I thought, and I just don't come up with a thing. I shot my bolt on this one, Wally, there's nothing left. I'm not finding anything because I can't get myself even to think about that place. And Tom won't wait much longer."

"No, I guess not." Wally felt very solemn at this moment. John leaned toward him. "So here's the idea."

"Yes? Yes?" Wally's damp face gleamed with excitement.

"Our half of the caper," John explained, "the profit for everybody except Tom, is three hundred fifty grand."

"That's a lot!"

"Not when you start cutting it up," John told him. "But it's still some, and those of us in it split it even, all the way down. If we manage, that is, to keep Tom from double-crossing us and getting it all."

Wally nodded. "He'd do that, wouldn't he?"

"Nothing else would even occur to him," John said. "Okay. The way it stands now, there's four of us in it: Me, Andy Kelp, Tiny Bulcher, and a driver named Stan Murch that you don't know." John cleared his throat, hesitated, seemed on the point of flight, then blurted forward, saying, "You come up with the way, Wally, you're a partner."

"A partner? Me?"

"You," John agreed. "That makes it seventy grand for each of us, including you."