Thefts of Nick Velvet (9 page)

But then men like Earl Crowder came along to change his mind. Crowder was a middle-aged businessman running to overweight, who gazed at Nick through his thick glasses and never smiled.

“You steal things,” he said, but of course he already knew that.

“Some things. Unusual things.” Nick lit a cigarette. “Nothing of great value, like money or jewels.”

“Could you steal a sea serpent?” Crowder asked, still unsmiling.

“I never, tried,” Nick admitted. “I don’t think I could steal it unless it really existed.”

Earl Crowder sighed and settled back in the chair. They were in his hotel room in midtown Manhattan, on a sunny day in early June, and the world of sea serpents seemed far away.

“It exists,” he said, “in some form or another. I own a resort up in northern New England—it’s called Crowder’s Cover—and we’re coming into our busy season now. We’re on Golden Lake, near the Canadian border. A great swimming and boating place during the summer, and good hunting territory in the fall.”

“And you have a sea serpent?”

“No! That’s just the trouble! The serpent or whatever it is resides in Silver Lake, about twenty miles away. And that’s where all the tourists go now! I’m being ruined by that guy and his serpent!”

Nick Velvet frowned through the cigarette smoke, decided the man was serious after all, and asked, “What guy?”

“His name is Larry Pike, and he’s the manager of the Silver Lake Hotel. It started last season, and from the looks of things it’s going to be worse this year. First it was just some fishermen out in a boat one night—or early in the morning. People just thought they had been drinking. But then others saw it too. One lady even got a picture of it, kind of blurred and off in the distance.”

“A sea serpent?”

“Or a damned good imitation! When I first heard about it I was sorta happy. I figured it would hurt Pike’s business—after all, who wants to swim in a lake with a sea serpent? But it didn’t work like that, not at all! Seems it’s just a
small
serpent, and the people are flocking to Silver Lake in hopes of seeing it.”

Nick vaguely remembered seeing something in the papers about it the previous year, but it had vanished into the depths of his memory along with the reports of flying saucers and poltergeists. As a rule he didn’t believe in things like sea serpents, even small ones, but for thirty thousand dollars he could bring himself to believe in almost anything.

“This was last year?” he asked.

Crowder nodded. “Late in the season. But it’s starting again this year too. I heard last week that a couple saw the thing, swimming across the lake one night when the moon was bright.”

“Perhaps there is no serpent. Perhaps he only pays a few people to see it.”

“There’s something out there, all right. Pike was once an animal trainer with a circus. He …”

“You’re surely not suggesting he has a trained sea serpent!”

“I don’t know what he has! Maybe it’s a submarine of some kind. Whatever it is, I want it.”

“I charge thirty thousand for high-risk assignments.”

“It’s worth it, to be rid of that damned thing. Or to have it in Golden Lake instead.”

“You’ll have it,” Nick promised him. “If it exists.”

The mountains of northern New England were strange to Nick Velvet. The area of Silver and Golden Lakes was completely unknown to him, and somehow unlike his memories of the Catskills. Perhaps it was only that he’d been young in those days.

Driving up along dusty dirt roads, he saw the signs of winter pointing the way to nearby ski resorts, disregarding the high June sun that filtered through the trees to speckle the earth with shadows. He wondered if he should take a look at Earl Crowder’s place on Golden Lake, then decided against it and took the left fork direct to his destination on Silver Lake.

Larry Pike’s resort was low and rambling, a hodgepodge of buildings and random additions that must have collected over the years until now they stretched for nearly a quarter of a mile along the lakefront. Though the season was still young, there were a number of boats already in the water, and everywhere there was the odor of fresh paint and the look of annual rejuvenation.

Nick parked his car near the main building and stopped the first pretty girl he saw. “Could you direct me to Larry Pike’s office?”

She was blonde and tanned, wearing a sleeveless pullover above white shorts. “I’m his secretary,” she answered. “I’ll take you there.” And as he followed her up the steps, she asked, “Could I say who’s calling?”

“My name’s Velvet. I’m a writer.”

“You’ve come about the serpent?”

“That’s right,” he admitted.

“It’s really put us on the map! This should be the biggest summer in our history.”

She ushered him into a little office behind the registration desk, where a youngish man with thinning hair and the beginning of a belly was just putting down the telephone. “A visitor, Miss Martin?” he asked, not looking directly at Nick.

“Another writer, about the serpent.”

“Well. Well, we’re always pleased to show you fellows around. I’m Larry Pike. I gather you’ve met my secretary.” He got up from the desk to shake Nick’s hand. “What magazine are you with? A big one?”

“You might say I’m a freelance,” Nick told him. “But I think your sea serpent is certainly worth a good deal of money. I’d like to hear all about it.”

“Certainly, Mr.—?”

“Velvet.”

“Velvet. Odd.”

“It’s in the nature of a pen name,” Nick said.

Pike smiled. “I understand about you authors. Judy, would you bring us some coffee?”

Nick noticed that the blonde secretary had been returned to a first name basis quite quickly. He decided he’d been accepted by Larry Pike. “Just how many people have seen your serpent, or monster, or whatever you call it, Mr. Pike?” he asked.

The youngish man smiled. “What is it, Judy?” he called to the outer office. “Maybe a dozen or so?”

“About that,” she answered.

“Have either of you ever seen it?” Nick asked.

“No, but there’s a woman here now who was only a few feet away from it last September. She can give you quite a vivid description.”

“Any idea what it might be?” Nick asked.

Larry Pike shrugged. “Who knows? It’s making money for me—that’s all I know.”

“There’s been some hint that the thing is a hoax.”

“Talk to Mrs. Foster and the others who’ve seen it. There’s a man who lives across the lake—he was the first to see it while he was out fishing. Talk to him, too. I think their descriptions will convince you it’s no fake. We even have a few pictures, but they’re not too good because it never comes to the surface in broad daylight.” He reached nervously for a cigarette from the half-empty pack at his elbow. “It’s that Crowder over on Golden Lake! He’s the one who keeps yelling fake, because he’s afraid of losing a little business!”

“I’d like to speak with Mrs. Foster if I could,” Nick said firmly.

The blonde secretary, Judy, offered to take him, and with a few further words to Pike he left the office and followed her to one of the freshly painted cottages down by the water. He had to admit it was a pleasant place, with a gentle breeze just rippling the surface of the lake. He could almost imagine himself settling down here with Gloria.

“This is Mrs. Foster,” Judy said, introducing him to a stout motherly woman who was playing bridge with three other ladies on the porch of her cottage. “Mrs. Foster, Mr. Velvet here wants to hear all about our sea serpent.”

“Indeed I do,” Nick said, smiling to put the woman at ease.

He needn’t have worried. It seemed that the monster was her favorite subject, and she launched into it with gusto, addressing herself as much to her bridge partners as to Nick, though they had obviously heard the story many times before. “Well, it was just at twilight, and I was out there on the dock. It was September, remember, when most of the summer people had gone back home. Mr. Seeley across the lake had already reported seeing the thing while he was fishing one morning, and I had to admit I was sort of looking.”

She paused dramatically and Nick prodded her. “Yes?”

“Well, I saw it! Way out in the middle of the lake, just swimming along. A head and two—well, like coils. You know the way sea serpents always look in pictures! I’m an old lady, but I’ve still some spirit left. I took the little motor boat and went out there after it. I didn’t believe in such things, you see.”

“How near did you get?”

“Oh, maybe twenty or thirty feet. It wasn’t big—I’d say its head was only a few feet long—but it was enough to scare the devil out of me. All green, with seaweed clinging to the head here and there, and these two coils or spines or lumps breaking the water about a foot or two behind the head. It had a fairly long neck, but the water here isn’t clear so I couldn’t see if it had a body or legs or if it was truly a serpent.”

“What happened then?”

“I must admit that good sense got the better of me. It turned in my direction and I high-tailed it for shore. The last I saw of the thing, it was making for the opposite shore, near Mr. Seeley’s cottage.”

“And it was alive? It wasn’t a fake of any sort?”

“Mr. Velvet, believe me—it was alive.”

Strangely enough, Nick did believe her.

He drove around the lake to the little cluster of private cottages where Judy had told him that Mr. Seeley lived. The ruddy-faced man was waiting for him on the porch, and Nick knew that Judy had called to warn of his coming. It might mean something—it probably meant nothing.

“I’ve come about the lake’s serpent,” Nick said after he’d introduced himself. “I understand you were one of the first to see it.”

“I’ve seen it, young man,” he said, stuffing his mouth with a great wad of tobacco. It was the first time in fifteen years that anyone had called Nick young. “Seen it twice, once last Labor Day and again just a few weeks ago. Great thing, with a flapping tail and red eyes. Came up on me while I was fishing, almost overturned the boat.”

“Oh? I just spoke to a woman who was a bit more subdued in her description.”

“People see what they want to. It was all green and slimy, and probably fifty feet long if you stretched it out.”

“You’re a fisherman, Mr. Seeley?”

“Yep, and lots of people say it was just another one of my tall tales. But they’ll sing a different tune when I catch the damned thing and tow it in on the back of my boat!”

“Just how do you propose to do that?”

“Look here.” He led Nick around to the side of the cottage and displayed a large heavy-duty net of the type used by ocean-going trawlers. “This’ll stop anything in Silver Lake. I’ve been taking it out in the boat with me mornings and evenings, when the thing’s most likely to surface.”

Nick nodded in admiration, already thinking that the heavy net might very well fit in with his own plans. He was by nature a makeshift sort of thief, and often the contingencies of the moment contributed to the methods he used. One did not go after a sea serpent with guns or trickery.

He stayed with Seeley for another half-hour, listening to more tales of the lake as it used to be, of the big ones that had just managed to get away, of broken lines and shattered dreams. Perhaps all these little lakes and summer resorts had someone like Seeley to talk of past glories. But they all didn’t have sea serpents, and he was ready to believe Seeley on that one.

Nick had taken a room for a few nights at Larry Pike’s Silver Lake Hotel. He was convinced that at least one look at the monster was essential before he made the final plans for the theft, and he was just as convinced that the monster would turn up during his stay. Pike would see to that.

He was settling down in his room just after ten o’clock when he found he was out of cigarettes. Reluctantly he went downstairs to the desk to purchase some, then decided to phone Gloria at home. She knew nothing of the true nature of his work. For her, he was a consultant on plant sites for new industry, a job that could take him anywhere in the world on short notice. She never questioned the deception, but then Gloria questioned very little of their life together.

He finished the brief phone call and went back up to the room, pausing with his hand on the doorknob as some sixth sense warned him. Someone was inside. He pushed open the door slowly, saw a motion across the room at his suitcase, and flipped on the lights, ready to move quickly.

It was Judy Martin, still in her pullover and white shorts, crouched before his overnight bag. She turned, startled, a frightened gazelle trapped by the lion.

“Good evening,” he said, relaxing a bit. “Find what you’re looking for?”

She stood up straight, with a measure of dignity, brushing the tumbling hair from her eyes. “I want to know who you are, Mr. Velvet,” she admitted frankly. “Who sent you here?”

“I told you I was a writer.”

“But you’re not! We had dozens of writers and reporters here last fall, and all through the winter. You didn’t ask any of the right questions. You never even mentioned the Loch Ness Monster!”

“Silver Lake isn’t Loch Ness.”

“And you’re no writer. You were sent here by that terrible Earl Crowder, weren’t you? He’s been trying to ruin us for years!”

“Miss Martin, I have …”

His sentence was interrupted by a shout from downstairs. “The serpent!” someone was yelling. “It’s out there!”

Nick grabbed for his jacket. “Come on!”

Downstairs, about a dozen people were clustered around the dock, pointing out into the night where a full moon had turned the water’s surface into the shimmering silver that gave the lake its name.

“See it?” Mrs. Foster shouted excitedly. “Out there near the center!”

Nick looked, and saw a head breaking the surface. A head, and something else behind. The thing, whatever it was; seemed to be swimming toward the far shore, toward Seeley’s cottage.

“I’m going after it,” Nick told the girl. He was looking around for Pike, but the owner of the place was nowhere in sight.

It was perhaps a mile from shore to the center of the lake, and Nick steered the outboard carefully, trying for an arc that would intersect the monster’s route somewhere before it reached the shore. Mrs. Foster and Judy had both tried to join him, but he’d kept them out, wanting to make the trip alone. He had to find the place where the serpent slept, its home somewhere along that shore. He didn’t doubt for a moment that the thing lived at least part of its existence on dry land. In this northern climate, a body of water the size of Silver Lake would be frozen during much of the winter. The creature obviously needed air to breathe, and thus could not remain on the bottom of the lake during the long, freezing winter.