D b, p.37
D. B., page 37
Outside he flipped up his collar against the rain, and when he retrieved his keys from his pocket he found that the finger bone had wedged itself inside one of the key rings. He dislodged it and went to put it back but stopped and forced himself to take a long, hard look at it. The bone had been polished from years of tumbling alongside loose change, car keys, and the occasional bullet. After all these years it had become just another thing to carry around—a piece of something he should have let be. It had done him no good. He still knew nothing and now even Cooper and his crime had pretty much been forgotten. Without breaking stride, he dropped the bone into a sewer grate and crossed the street.
While he waited for the defroster to clear the windshield he reached under the seat, found the Smirnoff, and had another drink. The liquor pushed some color back into his face as he read the report Woodrell had showed him earlier.
Then he started driving north, getting lucky with the traffic all the way across the Columbia as he turned east into the hills and trees, hoping to get a little clarity on some things.
A LOT HAD CHANGED since Cooper had last seen the Dipner farm. Everything seemed rusted, full of rot, tilted, and tired-looking as if the whole place was just waiting for the bulldozers to come push it down and plow it under. He looked around for some sign of an ambush until he realized he didn't know what he was looking for. It was wet and getting dark and his money was out there and Moe had probably been fucking with him about the FBI guy and, if not, he figured agents had better things to do besides creep around forgotten farms. So he eased the van over the drain culvert and stopped in front of the fence post where he saw his dog tags hanging right where he'd left them thirteen years ago. It was a good sign. He got out and on closer examination saw the Kennedy half-dollar he'd wedged in a crack in the wood. It was nearly part of the post now, and after rousting a few earwigs he pried the coin out and decided to leave the dog tags. He flipped the coin into his pocket, got back in the van, and instead of pulling around to the house veered down the cinder road toward the creek, where he hoped at least some of his money waited for him. He cursed himself for having left even a penny of it, although at the time it seemed an impossible load, just the sheer weight of all those twenties enough to get him caught and sent to jail, where he figured he would not flourish or remake himself into some master criminal. But he'd escaped, and now here he was sneaking around in the rain.
Even through the rain and ground fog he could see the white nose of the Ford Galaxy parked forever beside the rising creek. He got out, goose-stepping over the snarl of baling wire, garden hose, and vines that seemed to sew the whole mess into some unified web. His clothes picked up sticktights and burrs. In the pastures where cows once grazed there were deer and they looked up from their grassy supper, trembled, and then bucked off into the fog. He turned and headed toward the line of abandoned vehicles and farm equipment until he came to the Galaxy. Broad sections of its quarter panels were still impossibly white and there was even some chrome. He cleared the trunk of the bricks, river stones, and rotten barn wood he'd piled over it, only to find that the hinges had rusted shut. He looked around and found a bent stave iron and went to work on the sucker, quiet at first and then swinging and wedging with everything he had until it popped open.
And there it was, just as he'd left it—the drywall bucket and inside the money wrapped in garbage sacks. After wiping away the jungle of spider webs and wayward vines that had found their way inside the trunk, he swung the bucket out and pressed the trash bag until he felt the square edge of bundled twenties. He allowed himself a small silent cheer and sigh of relief, before hustling the bucket back to the van, where he set it beside Rosenbaum's undelivered box.
Even though he was pretty sure the refrigerator was gone, he went back and scouted the small ridge of trash, trying to remember its exact location. He stumbled along the creek until he found the refrigerator door tangled in creek debris fifty yards downstream. It explained how the stash had washed downstream like some message in a bottle all the way to the Columbia, where it had been discovered by the kid. Or at least he thought it did. Either way, it didn't matter, because he figured that what hadn't been washed up had become fish food or maybe fluttered out to the ocean, where salt water and the surf had melted it.
“Fuck it,” he said. “All's well that ends well.” And with that he turned to go, starting back along the creek bank to where he'd parked the van. Just as he rounded a brush pile he saw a car nose down the cinder road. Its headlights were off and the windshield wipers revealed in brief swipes a tall, stoned-faced man stuffed behind the wheel, looking surprised to see him.
Cooper froze. He had no fucking idea what the car was doing, but he didn't like it and quickly began calculating the distance to the van. The car moved closer and he tried to play it cool and think of some story to explain what he was doing in the pasture. But nothing came. All he knew was that everything he needed was in the van and so he kept walking, the plan being to mind his own business back to the van, get in, and haul ass back to Mexico.
But before he could reach the van, the car cut him off. A man got out. He was holding the dog tags he'd found on the fence post in his left hand.
Cooper sized up the situation. The man walked like a cop—chest puffed out, legs bowed, arms swinging, riding some improbable hunch, but under all that maybe a little tired and, yes, surprised to see another person limping around the brush pile.
“Hey,” Frank called out.
Cooper kept walking and got as far as the van door before Frank said, “I bet your friends call you Fitch or maybe D. B., is that it?”
Cooper expected the man to whirl into action, cuff him or pull a gun on him—the whole thing like some crazy, fucked-up bad dream.
“Cooper's fine,” he said. “I never liked Fitch much.”
He could see it on the man's face, first disbelief and then an awestruck acceptance of the impossible.
For a long time nothing happened, except rain and some mist sealing up both ends of the road like a curtain. Then the man stuck out his hand and said, “Frank, Frank Marshall.”
They shook. He had a good, tight grip.
“I take it you're some kind of John Q. Law, am I right?”
Frank dipped his chin, rain spilling off his brow. “I was FBI, but now I'm just wet and cold. Same as you.”
Cooper shook his head back and squeezed the rain from his ponytail, nodding, not sure what his next move should be. He tried to imagine running but figured he'd lose the race and possibly even get himself shot.
“All this reminds me of another day a long time ago.”
“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing,” Cooper said, grinning. “How did you . . . I mean . . .”
Frank tossed his hands up. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”
Behind them porch lights clicked on, casting soft shadows over the pasture.
“What happens now?” Cooper asked.
“I don't know, but I have a gun in my car,” Frank said. “And some vodka.”
“I don't think we need either of those thing,” Cooper said, sliding the van door open. “Why don't we talk in here.” He waited until Frank had stepped inside and taken a seat before climbing in behind him.
He slid the door shut and it was just the two of them sitting in there, the rain pinging down on the van, bucket of money behind them, and Rosenbaum's box making a strange scratching sound.
Frank wiped the rain from his face.
“Have you been looking for me?” Cooper asked.
“To tell you the truth, I thought you were dead.”
“I'm not.”
“And I'm not even going to ask why you did it because I was out there looking for you that day you jumped and I didn't really care that much then.”
“You were?”
“Yeah, but I found something else instead.”
Cooper could tell from the look on the man's face that he shouldn't ask what he'd found.
“I just want to know why you came back.”
Cooper looked over his shoulder at the bucket of money.
“I met a woman and one thing led to another and she had me robbed and no way was I staying in Mexico and getting a job.”
“So you stashed some of the money?”
Cooper nodded.
“Smart. Anything else you wanna tell me?”
“I guess you could say I had a pretty good run. I didn't die and I had some laughs.”
“I've never been to Mexico,” Frank said. “Is it nice?”
“I had a little house on the beach, a few friends. I could sleep till noon and drink beer whenever I wanted and eat sausage for dinner. The sunsets were nice and the locals weren't too bad. Yeah, I suppose I did okay for myself. I mean, it's not like I was going anywhere up here.”
“What's in the box?” Frank said, pointing at Rosenbaum's box. “If that's your stash, it's making noise.”
“The money's in the bucket,” Cooper said. “Look, are you gonna arrest me or what?”
“That depends,” he said. He was quiet then.
“Depends on what?”
He didn't answer and Cooper clicked on a dome light to get a better look at his face. “Is there something the matter? I mean, you don't look too good.”
“You're the second person who's told me that.”
“It's just an observation, and if you aren't going to arrest me, I'd like to know what you're doing up here.”
Frank looked at him quietly a minute and then shook his head and began telling Cooper his problems, starting with the pond girl, Clare, the job and finishing up with Anne and J. B. and the kiss.
Cooper listened. It made a fractured kind of sense, but then logic had never been one of his strong suits. He had no words of wisdom or tricky little parables to relate in the hopes of solving this man's problems and he supposed that wasn't the point, but by the time Frank finished, the rain had stopped and the windows were fogged and he looked lighter, as if in the telling some solution had presented itself that did not involve arrest. “One more thing,” Frank said, pointing at the T-shirt Lou had given him. “That supposed to mean something?”
Cooper looked down at the black zero, shrugged, and said, “Probably, but I borrowed it. Same with the van. I suppose it could mean anything you want it to mean.”
Frank then told him about the police report of the diner disturbance and how there was this young FBI agent infatuated with the case who'd dragged him up here looking for clues.
“He gonna know about this?”
Frank shook his head. “I think it's better for him if you're still out there, at large. Now, how much money you have in that bucket?”
“Forty thousand, give or take a few thousand.”
“And can you get by on that?”
“For a while. The exchange rate's in my favor. But sooner or later I'm going to have to make another move or maybe even get a job.”
Frank shuffled to the back of the van and dragged the bucket up between them. “I want to see it.”
Cooper looked at him, not sure what he was asking.
“The money,” Frank said. “I want to see it.”
Cooper told him to go ahead and have a look if he wanted. “It's just money.” He made no move to stop Frank as he gently unwound the bag and peered in. “But if you're gonna rob me, I'll be forced to take the appropriate action.”
Frank looked up from the bucket and smiled. “I'm not a thief, but I am gonna ask you for a donation to a worthy cause.”
“What's in it for me?”
Frank grinned. “Well, we shake hands and you go get lost again and do whatever it is you've been doing.”
“You mean you're gonna let me go?”
“It would be like we never even met.”
“I think I'd like that.”
“Well?”
“How much are you talking? I mean, I've come a long way. It hasn't been a cakewalk.”
“Well, neither has my last couple of months,” Frank said. “But I'd say five thousand oughta do it.”
“And can I ask what you need it for?”
“I'd rather not say.”
Cooper thought about it, not sure if the man was just having some fun with him, dangling a deal only to snatch it away. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “I give you five thousand dollars and you let me walk?”
“That sounds about right.”
“What kind of lawman are you?”
But Frank didn't answer that. Instead he set out several bricks of bills and stuck out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you do,” Frank said. “But I think it's better for the both of us if you take the deal.”
Cooper nodded. They shook on it. Then Frank popped open the van door and stepped out.
“That's it?”
“It was good meeting you.” And with that Frank shut the door and walked through the mud to his car, the money tucked under his jacket.
FRANK WAITED UNTIL after dark before he crept up to Anne's trailer and set the envelope inside the screen door. The envelope contained five thousand in musty twenty-dollar bills and a note that read “Go to Aspen.” He was sober and tired and did not bother to look in the dark trailer windows to see her. He just left, walking along the road to where he'd parked the Buick. The moon was behind some fast-moving clouds and he could see his breath puffing away out in front of him. A dog broke silently from the shadows and trailed him for fifty yards before it peeled off after a cat. The only noise was the hum of a television from a nearby trailer and the wind stirring up dead leaves into dramatic little whorls. He did not look back or think about what might happen next. Although two weeks later Peck would shoot J. B. Blackwood dead and Frank would stop by one chilly morning to help Anne load boxes. And she would thank him and give him a hug that scared him.
But for now he drove home and found Clare waiting for him and didn't even bother telling her where he'd been. She was mad and confused and tired of his little breakdown. The look she gave him said it all.
So he lumbered into the laundry room and stepped out of his muddy and wet clothes and changed into some fresh ones and then went to sit next to his wife on the couch, with the knowledge that whatever he said or did this night or even the next would simply be inadequate. What was needed was a slow turning until he was once again just dependable, steady, and even-keeled Frank Marshall. It was just about the only way he could figure out how to make it back.
ON HIS WAY to drop off the van, Cooper pulled over and waited to see if there were any unmarked police cars or copters tailing him. There were none and so he stepped out to take a leak, his hands still shaking as he puzzled over the strange meeting with Frank.
He shook, zipped, and shivered and kicked his legs until he felt blood coming back into them. Then he opened the back door of the van and hid the drywall bucket under an old army blanket as a tractor trailer hissed by, its taillights blinking a warm red. He had another look at Rosenbaum's box, shaking it until he felt something stir inside.
Curious, he found a utility knife, slit the packing tape, and pulled back the flaps to reveal a clear plastic case. Inside the case were thousands of teeming wine-colored ants and across the top was a piece of tape with Latin written on it. He figured it was some old fancy name for the ants and tore it off.
Then he held the box up to the dim van light and watched the ants crawl all over one another. It was hard to tell if they wanted out or if they were just enjoying the scrum, reveling in their common destiny. He watched them for a long time, the headlights of oncoming cars momentarily lighting up the box like an X-ray machine until he could see right through them to his hand holding the box on the other side. The ants looked hungry.
Cooper thought a minute. The ants were probably intended for some elaborate torture or confinement in a bug enthusiast's dank basement. He could change that—it was the least he could do. Lou would get the van and some bucks for his troubles, but the ants had a lucky turn coming.
And so he grabbed a flashlight and tucked the box under his arm, determined to set them free.
After locking the van, he walked into the woods and scrambled up a narrow game trail, dodging rotten logs and low-slung branches, until he came to a small depression surrounded by the dark outline of trees, their limbs throbbing with rain. He heard animals retreating from him through the wet underbrush and saw in the distance the dim glow of a house tucked away in the trees. His shirt was wet, his socks soaked, the air tasted like exhaust, and he couldn't stop thinking of how close he'd come with the agent back there on Moe's farm. He'd dodged something, and although he was five thousand dollars poorer, he was still at large and liked the way that sounded. The headline D. B. COOPER STILL AT LARGE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!! ripped around his own private newsroom.
He figured that if he were the boss ant this dark and sheltered patch of woods would be as good a place as any to start over. So he knelt on a bed of pine needles and pried open the box. For a minute nothing happened. The ants seemed to shrink together, huddling as if discussing their next move.
Impatient, he shook the box and tipped it on its side, watching as they finally poured forth from their confinement. He expected them to disappear into the mulch but instead they began massing into an undulating fist-shaped pool, their shiny shell backs catching tiny bits of light.
“Go,” he said. “Get out of here.” He looked around, feeling foolish for talking to the ants.
He bent down and blew on them, but they wouldn't budge and seemed to be waiting for something. He checked the box and discovered the queen lying on her back, her too-small legs grasping at nothing but air. He shook the box gently. She slid out and landed atop the mosh pit of antennas and outstretched legs and was quickly carried away on the river of her subjects into the damp Pacific Northwest woods, ready for empire or slow, cold death—he did not know.
He followed their progress with the flashlight beam until they disappeared and were gone and it was just him alone in the woods, good deed done and all that. Only then did he pick his way back down to the van, ready to get back to Mexico and settle on some new sandy beach, get warm and tan and anonymous again until he could figure out the next move. Because after all the hiding and running around looking for that elusive something, it occurred to him that perhaps there would always be a general lack, a slackness in everything, and that life was just an elaborate shuck and jive.
