Authors: Donald Westlake
A secret is revealed.
But why is it a secret? The treasure is hidden, but it isn’t a secret. Comment.
Tom plus treasure is the secret.
That’s right. So it matters to Tom that he has a secret. Comment.
One secret means more secrets.
Tom is a man with many secrets. Also, Andy and the one called John were both afraid of Tom, but they tried to hide that. Comment.
Tom is the warlord.
Does Andy work for Tom?
The warlord stays in his castle, surrounded by his minions.
Are Andy and John minions?
Yes.
What are the roles of minions?
Guard. Soldier. Knight. Spy.
So Andy is a knight, employed by Tom. Andy does knight errands for Tom. Andy is a knight–errand. What of John?
John is the spy.
No. The characteristic of spies is that they look trustworthy but are not. John does not look trustworthy. Comment.
Tom is the warlord. Andy is the knight. There is nothing to guard, so John is the soldier.
But what do they want?
The treasure beneath the water.
The cascade of doom, yes. But why do they want it? What is it?
More information is necessary.
They changed the description of the treasure when we needed precision for the tunnel models. First it was a small box, one foot per side, containing a ring. Then it was a large box, eight feet long, three feet wide, three feet high. The second version must be the truth, so the contents must be something other than the ring. What is eight feet by three feet by three feet?
A telephone booth.
No.
A bathtub.
No.
A Zog spaceship.
No.
A refrigerator.
No.
A voting booth.
No.
A coffin.
Yes! The coffin of doom! But what is in the coffin of doom?
A dead person.
No. It isn’t in a cemetery, it’s behind a library. Comment.
A book. The book of the history of the race/planet/encounter.
No. Too big for a book. Comment. What could be in the coffin of doom?
Valuables.
Yes. Valuables hidden before the reservoir was made. What are valuables?
Rubies. The blue rose. The defense plans. Pirate gold. The cloak of invisibility. The kingdom. Bearer bonds. The letters of transit. The princess. The Maltese falcon. The crown jewels. Money.
Yes! Stolen money?
One secret means more secrets.
Tom and Andy and John buried stolen money in the coffin of doom. Then the reservoir was made. Why didn’t they save the coffin of doom before the reservoir was filled?
The warlord was on a journey.
Andy said Tom had been away for a long time, but he didn’t say where. The journey must be for more than eighteen years because the reservoir was made eighteen years ago. What journey takes more than eighteen years?
The return to the planet Zog.
Is that all?
There is no more information on that topic.
There must be something else that takes eighteen years. Comment.
Tom is the warlord.
Comment further.
Tom is not the hero.
No. I am the hero. Comment further.
The hero is put in prison for eighteen years with the magic tablecloth. Every time he spreads the tablecloth, another meal appears on it. But Tom is not the hero. Wally is the hero. Tom is the warlord.
If Tom did not spend those eighteen years returning to the planet Zog, could he have been the prisoner, even though he’s the warlord?
An interesting variant. Possible.
Could Andy and John have been in prison with him?
The knight and the soldier can do nothing without the warlord.
So they didn’t have to be in prison. Only Tom had to be in prison. Comment.
Tom is the warlord.
Tom hid the money in the coffin of doom in the field behind the library more than eighteen years ago. Then Tom went to prison. Then the reservoir was made. Where did Tom get the money that he buried?
The warlord raids the peaceful villages.
Tom stole the money. Then he buried it. Then he went to prison. Then they made the reservoir. Then he came out of prison. Then he asked Andy and John to help him get the money back from under the reservoir. Then Andy asked me to help but didn’t tell me the truth because there are crimes in it. I have helped. I can go on helping. Should I go on helping?
The warlord is dangerous when defied.
So I should go on helping. Is there anything else I should do?
The hero is impregnable. The hero waits and is patient. The hero gains more knowledge. When the hero knows everything, he will know how to proceed.
Wally pushed back from the keyboard. Right. Time to ask the
New York Times.
Not rising from his wheeled swivel chair, Wally propelled himself diagonally across the room to another table beating another keyboard and terminal, this one his primary contact with the real world.
The word is
access,
and Wally had it. The computer age could not exist without the telephone lines that tie all the massive brilliant idiot mechanical brains together, and the telephone lines are accessible to us all. To some of us, to a gifted few Wallys among us, the accessibility of the telephone lines means access to the world and all the riches within it. Wally now had the capability to roam at will inside the computers belonging to the Defense Department, United Airlines, American Express, Internal Revenue, Citicorp, Ticketron, Toys–R–Us, Interpol, and many more, including, most significantly at this moment, the
New York Times.
Tapping into that fact–filled know–it–all, Wally typed out his request for information on all robberies, thefts, burglaries and other illegal removals of cash in Vilburgtown County, New York, beginning eighteen years from the present date and extending backward in time through the twentieth century. Then he sat back and watched an unreeling string of
New York Times
items on that subject, in reverse chronological order, crawl upward across his terminal at an easy–reading pace.
Vilburgtown County, even before the city of New York drowned it, had been a quiet, peaceful, law–abiding sort of territory. Tom Jimson’s armored car heist on the Thruway stood out against all that rustic quiet like a spaceship from Zog.
But what else was May to do with herself? At the end of a long day standing at the supermarket cash register, she wanted to
sit down,
in her
living room,
with her
television set.
She wasn’t going to cower in the kitchen or the bedroom with a lot of old magazines just because this pathological killer happened to be infesting the apartment at the moment.
Actually, if truth be told, under other circumstances May might have found any number of things to keep her occupied in the kitchen during this Jimson siege, but John was out there right now, the kitchen table covered with maps and charts and lists and photos and lined yellow pads and pencils and pens of different colors and compasses and protractors, the floor around John’s and the table’s feet littered with crumpled sheets of yellow paper, the expression on John’s face thunderously intent. Somehow, May wasn’t sure how, it had become some kind of contest, a duel between John and the computer, like those early–nineteenth–century races between a locomotive and a horse, or John Henry trying to beat the spike–driving machine.
Was this a good idea? May was pretty sure it wasn’t.
On the television screen, a lost infant crept up onto the railroad tracks; a distant train whistle was heard. Tom’s nasal chuckle was heard. May sighed, then looked up as the living room doorway filled with the hulk of John, his face the grim picture of a man determined to outrun the hounds of hell. And the locomotive, too, if need be. “Tom,” he said, his voice hoarse, as though he hadn’t spoken in days, maybe weeks.
Tom reluctantly looked away from the infant on the tracks. “Yeah?”
“Those stashes of yours,” John said.
“The ones the lawyers got,” Tom said.
“They didn’t get them all, Tom, did they?” John asked. He asked it as though he really and truly wanted the real and true answer.
May was also reluctant to look away from the baby in peril, for quite different reasons, but she just had to turn her head and observe Tom’s face. And what
was
that expression? It seemed to be part dyspepsia, part migraine, part the after effects of knockout drops. Showing John this astonishing face, Tom said, “Well, they didn’t get the one under the reservoir, no, that’s why we’re all here.” And May realized this was Tom’s idea of innocence.
Which John wasn’t buying. “There’s others, Tom,” he said. “Maybe not
big
stashes, but stashes. The lawyers didn’t get them all.”
“They sure tried,” Tom said.
“But they failed, Tom,” John pursued.
Tom sighed. “What is it, Al?” he asked. “What’s the problem here?”
“We may need some equipment,” John told him. “You want to go fifty feet underwater, it’s probably gonna mean you’re gonna need equipment of some kind.”
Tom, his words very careful, his voice sounding as though there were some sort of constriction in his throat, said, “You want
me
to pay for this equipment?”
“We’ll divvy at the end,” John said, “after we get the big stash, divide the expenses equal. But in front, ahead of time, what do you want to do? Go to somebody that charges a hundred percent interest? You’re not gonna take out a bank loan on this, you know, Tom. Filling in the form would already be a problem.”
“How about a permanent bank loan?” Tom asked, lifting his eyebrows slightly to show he was being a good sport about all this.
“One job at a time, Tom,” John said. “I’ll work with you on this reservoir thing, but I don’t want to go in with you on any bank jobs.”
Tom spread his hands. “You’re above robbing banks, Al? You’ve never spent the bank’s money?”
“We got different ways of doing things, that’s all,” John told him.
“You don’t like my methods, Al?”
John sighed. “Tom,” he said, “they lack …” He looked around, looked at May, looked back at Tom. “Delicacy,” he said.
Tom made that chuckle sound. “Okay, Al. If we got equipment we gotta get, expenses, within reason, you know, I mean, I’m not rich, but maybe I could come up with a little of the necessary here and there.”
“Good,” John said. He nodded at May, as though remembering now she was someone he’d met somewhere once before, and turned away. His feet could be heard thudding back to the kitchen.
May and Tom looked back at the television screen, where now two grown men tried to sell the audience a lot of bad wine mixed with a lot of bad fruit pulp. Tom said, “What happened to the kid?”
“I don’t know,” May admitted.
“Doesn’t matter,” Tom said, sounding disgusted. “On TV, somebody always manages to grab the kid in time. Ever notice that?”
“Yes,” May said.
“That’s just the way they do it,” Tom said. Then, brightening slightly, he said, “Well, of course, there’s still real life.”