Chain of Fools Read Online Free PDF

Janet said, "that either the guy was blind and couldn't see me or—what it actually looked like—his
    eyesight was perfect and he meant to run me over. So the third time I dived I took a deep breath first and just headed back for the dock underwater. I didn't come up until I saw these pilings on my right. And by then, Dale was down here yelling her head off and the guy had doubled back again and was gone, back around the bend."
    Timmy said, "How far did you have to swim underwater?"
    "She was sixty or eighty feet out, for chrissakes!" Dale said. "If that maniac had hit her, I don't know if I could have gotten out there in time to drag her back—assuming she hadn't been killed by the impact and gone straight to the bottom "
    "I know the water here," Janet said, "and my lung capacity is probably better than the average forty-six-year-old's. But I'll tell you, I was damn shaky when I climbed out of the water that night. The thing is, the one time I caught a quick glimpse of the guy's face, he seemed to be looking right at me. And he didn't look confused; he looked mean and purposeful."
    I said, "Had the sun set yet? Is it possible the setting sun was shining directly in his eyes and the look on his face that you saw was actually some combination of disorientation and fear?"
    Dale gave me a "duh" look. "Donald, do you think the sun might have been jumping back and forth from one side of the lake to the other? The guy went after Janet three times "
    Janet said, "Anyway, the sun had already set. It was dusk with some red in it, and just a couple of low, dark clouds in the southwest. It's a perfect still time for an after-dinner swim, or a slow canoe ride. Once you get out a ways, you're only aware of the water around you and the sound of your own motion through it, and then as the light fades and the stars come out, the sky. It's always been my favorite time of day or night on the lake "
    "The other nice thing about that time," Dale said, "is that you see fewer power boats after sunset, and hardly ever Jet Skis It's the time of day when the owners of such devices tend to be enjoying their cocktails—which more often than not come in packs of six and are bound with thin strips of plastic."
    Timmy said, "It's tempting to place a Freudian interpretation on men achieving a sense of power by v-room-v-rooming around a body of water with internal-combustion engines wedged between their legs "
    "That's right," Dale said, "when the only thing most men need to do
    to achieve the same effect is to eat more beans, sit in their bathtubs, and blow it out their butts."
    I said, "Janet told us you were a doctor, Dale. What are you, a gas-troenterologist?"
    "No, I'm a heart surgeon "
    "Ah."
    Timmy said, "Where do you practice, Dale? At Albany Med?"
    "Yes, I'm on vacation for the month of August. The rest of the year I work seventy to ninety hours a week, but I do make it a point to stay up here all of August every year and rediscover nature and literature and my lover. So, what's the deal? Are you guys going to find out who's after Janet and protect her' Eldon said you were some kind of hot-shit private eye in Albany, Don."
    Timmy said, "Yes, he is."
    "Let's slow down for a minute," Janet said. "It does look as if someone tried to run me over with a Jet Ski. But that was over a week ago, and nobody has come after me since then. I've been wary and alert, but there haven't been any suspicious or threatening incidents at all. So the Jet Ski thing could have been a weird, isolated event with no explanation we'll ever have. Or is that wishful thinking?"
    "What it is, is bullshit," Dale said.
    Janet gave Dale an affectionate look, as if Dale had just uttered a familiar endearment, and said, "I admit that the Jet Ski scare coming on top of Eric's being killed makes me nervous. I'm just not sure, Don, what you or anybody else can do about it. The sheriff sent a deputy over, and he checked out the cove the skier came out of. There was no sign of the guy