After the seventh time, John said, “No more, Wally, no more. I can’t take it.”

“You’re right,” Wally agreed. “There just isn’t any safe way to send all that water downstream. Not all at once.”

“That’s the way dynamite works, though,” John pointed out. “All at once.”

“Let me explain the situation to the computer once more,” Wally said, “and see if it comes up with anything new.”

“Just so we don’t have any more of that killer blue.”

So Wally asked his question, and after a brief pause the computer responded with its green-lettered series of suggestions, crawling slowly up the screen. Wally and John watched, neither saying a word until it was finished, and then John said, quietly, “This computer really has a thing for Zog, doesn’t it?”

Wally cleared his throat. “I don’t have the heart to tell it Zog isn’t real,” he admitted.

“Wally,” John said, “I don’t know that I’m getting anywhere here. I thought I’d come over and talk to a person, but I’m here talking to a machine that thinks a planet called Zog is a real place.”

“You’re right,” Wally said, abruptly ashamed of himself. He felt now as though he’d been using the computer for a crutch, that he was hiding behind it. John had come here for help, and Wally had run straight to his computer. That’s not the way to treat people, Wally told himself, and he reached out to hit the power button, shutting the computer down. Then, standing, turning, he said, “I’m sorry, John, that’s just a bad habit. I always talk things over with the computer. I don’t know why.”

“Yeah, I always talk things over with May,” John told him, “but there comes a time when you got to make your own decision.”

“I’m going to,” Wally said. The excitement he felt now was different from before, more tremulous and frightening. He was going to be on his own! In the real world! “Let’s talk it over some more, John,” he said, “just the two of us. Not the computer at all.”

“Good.”

So they sat around the cheese and crackers, ignoring them, and John told him about the way he and Andy had learned how to do underwater things from a fellow on Long Island, and how they’d tried once to walk into the reservoir and once to drive in, and how the reservoir almost drowned them both times, and all about the turbidity and the flotation power of Ping-Pong balls, and after about twenty minutes Wally said, “Gee, John, why don’t you ask that guy on Long Island?”

John blinked. “Ask him what?”

“He’s a professional diver, John,” Wally said. “And you told me you went to him because he already does some things that aren’t absolutely legal.”

John shrugged. “So?”

“So I realize,” Wally said, “that would mean there were six of us to share the money now, instead of five, but that would still be about sixty thousand dollars each, and—”

“Wait a minute wait a minute,” John said, rearing back. “Bring Doug aboard, you mean.”

“Is that his name? Yes, sure, bring Doug aboard. Wouldn’t he know how to go down into the reservoir and get the box?”

John looked at Wally without speaking for quite a long time. Then he sat back, shook his head, and said, “You know why I didn’t think of that?”

“Well, no,” Wally admitted.

“Because,” John said, “whatever it is I’m doing, I’m used to it I’m the one does it. I figure out how and I do it. I get people to help, but that’s help, that isn’t to do it instead of me.”

Wally wasn’t sure he understood. “Do you mean,” he asked carefully, “it would be like against your principles or something to have somebody else do things instead of you?”

“No, I don’t mean that,” John said. “I’m simply trying to explain to you why I’m as stupid as I am.”

“Oh,” Wally said.

“Why I could never think about anybody going down into that goddamn water except me,” John went on, “and I knew damn well it wasn’t about to be me, not again, so that’s why I was stymied.”

“I see,” Wally said.

“But you took one look,” John told him, “once you got out from behind that machine of yours, you took one look at what I couldn’t see at all, and you said it’s obvious. And it is.”

Wally wasn’t sure exactly how far he was supposed to go in agreement with John’s self-insults, so he made a quick defensive move, shoving cheese and cracker in his mouth so he wouldn’t be able to do anything but nod and say, “Mm. Mm.”

Which was apparently enough. John sat back, his whole body a study in looseness and relief. Pointing over at the computer, he said, “Sell that thing, Wally. You don’t need it.”

FIFTY-THREE

“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!”

Everybody in May’s new living room watched Dortmunder’s face as he listened yet again to that goddamn irrelevant infuriating long announcement. At the end, he snarled savagely into the phone, “Don’t you ever listen to your messages? You’re worse than Andy.”

“Aw, come on,” Kelp said from his perch on the sofa arm, beside May.

Ignoring him, Dortmunder told the phone, “This is John again. Call me, dammit. I’ve been out to your place, you’re never there. Time’s running out.”

“And that’s no lie,” Tom said happily, seated primly on the wooden chair in the corner that had become his favorite waiting place. Murch’s Mom gave him a dirty look, which he seemed not to notice.

Laboriously, Dortmunder stated May’s new phone number into Doug Berry’s machine, area code and all, then said, “Call collect, if you want, dammit. Just call. We’ve been trying to reach you for three days now.” And he slammed down the phone.

In the ensuing silence, Dortmunder, Kelp, May, Stan Murch, and Murch’s Mom—everybody but Tom—all sat or stood in the living room, thinking the same furious thought: Where is that waterlogged jerk?

FIFTY-FOUR

How the old glider groaned under their weight! Or was that Doug, moaning as he nuzzled his nose down into the softness at the side of her throat, his lips caressing the pulse that beat so wildly there? Or was it—good heavens! — herself, losing control, giving in to the sensations, the warmth flooding her body from his lips, his tongue, his hands, his body pressed to hers as they half reclined here?

The glider swayed on the front porch in bright daylight, moving rhythmically and suggestively with their movements, and when Myrtle opened her eyes, looking past his ear, past his wavy blond hair, her vision blurred and she could barely see Myrtle Street and the houses across the way and the glimpses beyond them of the houses fronting on Oak Street far away. The glider swayed in the somnolent day, no traffic at all moved on the street, and Myrtle felt again the flutter of a faint moan rise up through her throat, past his warm mouth, out her own trembling lips.

But this was supposed to be safe! Broad daylight! She had nothing to fear, she’d been sure of that, just sitting with him on this front porch in the middle of the day, in front of the world, with the sun beaming down. That’s why she’d agreed.

Suggested. Ohhhhhhhh…

Edna isn’t home.

The house loomed empty behind them. “Myrtle,” he murmured, lips moving against her throat, “Myrtle, Myrtle, Myrtle…”

She closed her eyes. The heat rose from them, rose around them, surrounded them like a sauna, an invisible ball with them inside, steaming. The strength flowed away, out of her shoulders and arms, out of her knees and legs, concentrating in her belly. Her head lolled against the silkiness of his hair, unable to sustain its own weight. Her breath flowed like jasmine through her parted mouth, her lips were swollen and red, her eyelids heavy.