D b, p.11
D. B., page 11
“They can put a point on bamboo.”
“And I suppose that's your justification? I can see right off that you're not the sort of person I'd like to bunk down with during a blackout. I'm afraid your inner looter would emerge.”
Baron snatched the frog gig up again and patted Cooper on the shoulder. “Our chat is over. Good night, Irv. Don't worry about that sixth man. We have plenty of time to lift this burden of yours.”
“Right on,” a voice said.
“Ahisma,” someone whispered.
“So mote it be,” said the woman in plastic shoes.
And with that, Baron and his followers tottered off into the dark to search for Reba. Cooper crawled back in his tent to wait for April.
CHAPTER FOUR
Frank Marshall pushed back his chair, loosened his tie, and stared at the small flower arrangement on the table before him, while Harry Arluck, a lanky, red-faced agent with silver hair and confident, booze-shot eyes, toasted his retirement, punctuating each barb with a tilt of his empty Budweiser and a friendly wink in Frank's direction. It seemed to Frank that the only thing keeping the inevitable maudlin nosedive at bay was the clatter of the busboys clearing the dinner mess into large gray slop tubs and the bustle of waitresses dumping coffee into waiting mugs.
Thankful for all the distractions, he turned his attention back to the vase, poking at the spray of fern to see if it was real (it was) and the roses, one red and one white with pink edges. The roses were no longer tight. Instead the petals were sprung wide, revealing pistil and carpels. Frank knew that the arrangement had served for several days and that tonight it would be flicked into the trash along with the crumpled napkins and spent globe candles. He stuck his thumb into the halo of pollen fanned around the vase, leaving his fingerprints as he mashed the waxy yellow granules into the cheap tablecloth and tried hard to listen to Arluck fumble for moments of phony sentiment between the half-drunk laughs and clink of silverware.
His wife, Clare, sat beside him, smiling her practiced Realtor smile and giggling as Arluck blathered on. In the dim light of the restaurant the others appeared as strangers to Frank even though he'd shared office space with them and made jokes about crime-scene photos, marveling at the carnage and unintended irony of a blood-stained Sorry game box in the upper-left-hand corner of one or the languid, peaceful sleep of the strangled mob informant who'd died clutching a dog-eared copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. So he coaxed his good-sport smile out with the knowledge that there wasn't an agent in the room that he'd call a real friend. He wished they'd just give him the gun and be done with it—let him go without the speeches and whispered promises of staying in touch.
He pushed his thumb into the red rose again, admiring the softness of each new fold—a little mystery that forced him to keep probing its dark center even as petals dropped and the rose ceased looking like a rose and more like a blown eye socket. He continued his destruction as Arluck ran down the list of his achievements, stopping every other sentence to bust balls: “Frank put away Peltz and broke the Boswell murders . . . he can't type, but he can hold his liquor . . . and okay, he got lucky with Gangemi and Franconi . . . Frankie does not wear a dress, the man's got whiskers, and some of you in this room'll know what that means. And he knows who really killed Kennedy, King, and Ruby, and as far as I know, he's the only agent to have been spit on by Squeaky Fromme . . .”
Frank attacked the white rose next, knowing that the rest of the evening would be an endurance test of sloppy farewells and teary hugs from the wives and women agents, most of whom considered Frank some dinosaur from the agency's old-boy days. And that was okay with him. He'd learned early on to play the game, keep his enemies within the Bureau close, and avoid office politics. But the truth was that something had been lost and he did not know what that something was, only that he woke most days with it sitting on his chest and couldn't figure out whether it was the job or the loom of his mandatory retirement that had changed or him. Despite what others said, he was not looking forward to quitting as he slogged through the late innings of his career—the endless phone calls, computer problems, paperwork, case file updates, endless meetings with superiors, or dozens of new tech specialists who had invaded every field office. They were younger than Frank and as bland and humorless as their suits suggested, but they would get ahead. Frank was certain of it, just as he was certain that his whole career had been one large case, a stream of crimes, questions, and murky motives that when all was said and done offered no easy answers and very few happy endings. It was a conclusion that every agent in the room would come to sooner or later because part of the job required that you plug into the never-ending hum of the large crime story that employed them all, the statistics of which could be boiled down into facts and figures that he supposed said something deep about society and human nature. But down in the trenches the whole thing felt more like a machine designed to leave bodies in its wake and keep agents at their desks late into the night pondering files brimming with toxicology reports, counterfeit plate proofs, entry-wound conjectures and mushroomed slugs, fibers from a '79 Ford, boxes of tape-recorded conversations, phone and credit card records, VIN numbers, photos of gruff-looking men in suits standing outside certain restaurants, ransom notes, hair, soil, blood, saliva, and semen samples, eyewitness statements, and even the bits of flesh that arrived in clear plastic bags from the lab, like the pieces scraped from under the fingernails of a fifty-year-old oral surgeon who'd been beaten and drowned in his own lap pool simply because he'd had the bad luck to have the wife of a drug dealer die during a routine wisdom tooth extraction.
Clare slipped her hand into his lap and stirred him back to the party. Arluck finished up by making a gun with his hand and pointing and firing it at Frank. “We got you a little something, Frankie,” he said, snapping open a black case to display a brand-new Heckler & Koch 9mm. “Just in case the squirrels give you trouble.”
Claps and hoots filled the room and Clare pinched him. “You okay?” she asked.
He nodded, snapping out of it just in time to toss Arluck a polite wave. “I'm fine,” he said, but it was too late because she'd spotted what was left of the roses.
“Frank,” she hissed, “look at the mess you made. I mean, you've ruined them. What were you thinking?” He looked at the bare stem and then the red half-moon stain under his thumbnail, shrugged, and said, “Nothing.”
As he watched her sweep the bruised petals into a napkin and stow them inside her purse he reached into his pocket and nudged aside the loose change until he felt the cool smoothness of the finger bone.
She snapped her purse and looked at him impatiently, letting him know that he'd embarrassed her, as Arluck made his way through the tables toward them and she was forced to bury the little incident with a smile.
“Hello, Clare,” Arluck said. He slapped Frank on the shoulder and set the gun down in front of him. “I had them put extra long grips on it and custom sights.”
“It looks great,” Frank said, popping open the case.
“Thanks, Harry, that was sweet,” Clare said.
Arluck pulled a chair over and collapsed into it. “Now, I don't know about that,” he said. “But it looks like the big guy's getting sentimental on us?”
Frank shook his head and noticed folks gathering their coats and searching pockets for car keys. “I'd better go make the rounds, the early birds are starting to fade,” he said.
“Go on,” said Clare. “Harry'll keep me company, won't you, Harry?”
Arluck nodded. “Hey, Frank, if you see the waitress, send her over. I'm about three scotches shy of good company. Five away from inappropriate limericks.”
Frank laughed and went to say his good-byes, dipping his large frame over tabletops to shake hands and politely grin at bad jokes, parting shots, and awkward introductions to significant others, wives mostly, who smiled and asked him about his family and then only half listened as he told them about his daughter, Lucy, who was living in Seattle. He kept moving, bon mots and nifty conversation closers flowing effortlessly in his quest to be done with the night and get out.
Agent Hawkens told him to come by the office and see him, making the universal stroke-off sign for paperwork and rolling his eyes. “You're not officially out just yet. We still have our tendrils wrapped.” Then he told Frank about his son who was working as a freelance cult deprogrammer. “His first job was this timber exec's wife who'd run off with Rajneesh.”
“The Rolls-Royce Swami.”
Hawkens nodded. “They confiscated seventy-two Rolls-Royces and a dozen air-hockey tables. Now that's what I call enlightenment.”
“Did he get her?” Frank asked.
“The wife?” Hawkens said, nodding. “Yeah, she was banging the swami, even helped plan that salmonella in the salad bar, trying to rig the election. It almost worked and I tell you what, it put me off salad bars for a while.” Hawkens gulped his drink and straightened his tie. “Well, my boy had to chloroform her, and when he brought her back the husband served her with divorce papers and shipped her off to a sanatorium.”
“So he likes his work?”
“He has his complaints like we all do, but he's never bored. You should see his hotel bills. He writes everything off as a business expense,” said Hawkens. “He's taking notes and plans to write a how-to manual. And after that a field guide to cults and cult leaders, a handy pocket reference that will help people identify some of these groups. He's very ambitious. Now, what about Lucy?”
“She's in Seattle,” Frank said, “working temp jobs and finding herself.”
Hawkens smiled. “Music to a parent's ears.”
“She'll be okay. She's got good instincts.”
“Don't they all,” Hawkens said, letting him go with a wink.
He moved on, thanking Bob Depalma and Special Agent in Charge Woodrell for coming. Woodrell told him about a lake that the Fish and Wildlife Service had stocked with golden trout. “I'm giving you this on the hush, hush,” said Woodrell, drawing Frank a quick map on a napkin and handing it to him. “Your retirement present. Try corn niblets with a worm and you won't be able to haul them in fast enough.”
Frank said a quick good-bye and circled back to his table to find Arluck gone and, sitting in his place, Tim Peck, who was chatting up Clare, his hands folded politely on the table in front of him.
Peck had been with the Bureau only three years and was still green, eager to right wrongs, full of all that good stuff every new agent charged into the job with. He had a pudgy, enthusiastic face and was always trying to shake a few pounds. He stuck out because he was smart and perhaps a little body shy, unlike the ex-military guys, former detectives, and overachievers whom the Bureau seemed to attract. They called him Pitter Patter behind his back because he wore pastel ties, had a high voice, and was not married or divorced. It didn't matter one way or the other to Frank whether or not Peck was gay because he approached the job with old-fashioned head-down vim and vigor, quietly solving the tough and unglamorous cases tossed his way. He was also constantly pumping Frank for information on the D. B. Cooper case, wanting to know what he thought had become of the skyjacker. At first Frank thought the younger agent was slyly busting stones—going on about an old unsolved case—but after he'd helped Peck out a few times, showing him ways to slip stuff past the SAC and how to smooth things over with the local sheriff's department, he realized that Cooper's crime had put its hooks into the younger agent. Frank, for better or worse, was one of the few guys left who'd been assigned to the case and who endured Peck's endless questions and far-fetched theories.
He sat down and nodded at Peck.
“I'm gonna find Tim a house,” said Clare. “Two-bedroom Craftsman or—”
“Something like that,” Peck said.
Frank watched him blush and knew that he had no intention of leaving the cheap one-bedroom he kept south of town.
Arluck returned clutching a tumbler of scotch, ready to talk shop, and Clare, sensing a round of guy talk, stood and made her way across the room to speak to Fran Drucker, the wife of one of the agents.
“You really think he got away?” Peck asked.
“Who?” Arluck asked.
“Lemme guess,” Frank said. “Cooper, right?”
“Of course,” Peck said, nodding. “What else is there?”
“That was a long time ago,” said Arluck. “He's probably dead now. All that money can and should get you in trouble.”
“Tropical island,” Frank said. “Or maybe he didn't run, maybe he stayed local and bought himself some acreage and watched the grass grow. The mistake the Bureau made was in assuming he'd done something like this before and that he'd do it again.”
“Mistake?” Arluck roared. “We don't make mistakes!”
“I'd say it was his first time and that's what made it the perfect crime,” said Frank. “He just put all his chips on one number and spun the wheel. You gotta like his guts.”
Arluck said, “If he did make it to some tropical island, he's probably knee-deep in booze and LBG's. I know I would be.” Peck looked at him blankly. “Little brown girls—Jesus, Peck, don't act so fuckin' innocent or else they're gonna promote your ass.”
Peck blushed as Arluck tossed back his scotch and signaled the waitress for another.
“No, really,” Peck said. “I want to know if you think he survived.”
Frank shrugged. “I hope so, but I doubt it. It would be nice to know we haven't been looking for a pile of bones all these years. Maybe someday we'll pass each other on the street, but I don't hold my breath. It's a frigid fucking trail. But I still go by the shelter and look at their faces, see if maybe he's found his way back.”
Arluck spun his empty scotch glass. “What the fuck are you talking about, Marshall?”
“The bums. I keep thinking maybe that's how a guy like Cooper ends up.”
“My uncle's a bum in Lake Tahoe,” Arluck said. “Not a bad place to be a bum. He eats pretty good.”
“Ski bum?” Peck asked.
“No, a bum bum. Carries all his belongings in a garbage sack, writes poetry on napkins, eats ketchup, shares malt liquor, and mutters. He's the real deal and he's happy as hell. We visit him once a year and bring him a change of clothes. He calls me Freddy and tries to kiss my wife, says he could make her happy.”
“Well, I don't believe in coincidence,” Peck said. “I don't think you're just going to run into this Cooper panhandling on the street.”
“Ah, bull semen!” Arluck shouted. “You want coincidence, Peck, I've got some coincidence for you. Lincoln was elected in 1860. Kennedy in 1960.”
“Yeah, and both were assassinated,” Peck said. “I've heard this before.”
Arluck waved him off and charged ahead. “On a Friday, with their wives sitting next to them and bullets in the back of the head. I'm not making this shit up. Lincoln was killed in the Ford Theater and Kennedy in a Lincoln convertible.”
“Made by Ford,” Frank added, getting in on the act. “You want more?”
Peck threw up his hands, grinning.
“Both men were succeeded in office by southerners named Johnson,” said Frank. “One born in 1808, the other in 1908. The names Lincoln and Kennedy have seven letters. And the names of their vice presidents, Andrew and Lyndon Johnson have thirteen letters. Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth have fifteen letters. I've got more.”
“Okay, okay, I give.”
Arluck said, “Strange shit happens out there, Peck. Work the job long enough and you'll see.”
“A butterfly flaps its wings over Brazil and there's a tornado over Texas.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Order in the chaos that is impossible to detect,” said Frank. “Some guy jumps out of a jet and I get a 9mm instead of a gold watch tonight. They have equations for this stuff.”
Arluck pounded the table. “Woodrell ever tell you about the Hoyle case?”
Peck shook his head and let Arluck continue. “Ten years he looked for that guy. Hoyle's thing was he'd take cruises and put the moves on lonely old women, marry them, and take all their money. He killed three of them. We called him the Cruise Artist because he had impeccable manners and was an internationally ranked bridge player.”
The waitress arrived and set fresh drinks down in front of them, spilling a little of Arluck's scotch on her uniform.
“Now, this Hoyle,” Arluck continued, “was supposed to have some sort of magnetic gaze.”
“Like Manson?” Peck asked.
“No, that would be the crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat gaze, Peck. Do not confuse the two. Not in this line of work. That would be a mistake.”
“He was also a good listener,” Frank added. “Which as you know is catnip to women. He wore a pinky ring and could foxtrot. Left a trail of broken old hearts and empty bank accounts, that's how he charmed his way on to the Most Wanted list.”
“And let's not forget the three dead ladies,” Arluck said. “He chopped the last one up, stuffed her into a Samsonite, and tossed it overboard.”
“And what was the coincidence?”
Arluck looked at Frank and winked. “Woodrell's mother took a cruise . . .”
Peck laughed.
“True story,” said Frank. “You never know how the case is going to sort out. Some solve themselves, others just fade away until you forget about them. Point being, you can't let a little thing like coincidence put you off. Things line up all sorts of ways. The good cops—I mean the ones that slam cases—are the guys who refuse to let patterns take over.”
“What he means,” said Arluck, “look at things the same way twice and you get locked into thinking one way when the bad guy's thinking the other way. But that's only half the job.” He gave Frank a look of grim joy before continuing. “Then there's the rest of the mess, mothers and wives—the ones who think their husbands and sons are somebody else and you gotta tell them how they shot somebody or grabbed a little boy from a park and left his body in the cattails or how they've embezzled a million dollars and disappeared with their twenty-year-old secretary. At first they don't believe you, so you tell them again, maybe show them some photos until they get that look and you know it's time to leave.”
