F Wilson: Deep as the Marrow

“We found Poppy Mulliner,” Decker said.

“Alive?” Dan’s heart and lungs suspended operations while he waited for an answer.

Please say dead.

“Very much alive.”

He almost sobbed as his heart and lungs kicked back into action in triple time. Oh God oh shit oh Christ!

“Is she talking?”

“I said we found her—we don’t have her.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She’s in a motel in a town called Tuckerton—the Adamston Motel. She’s got the little girl with her. We could pick her up now, but since they both seem pretty safe and healthy, we decided to wait and see what she does. We’ve got her phone tapped. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll call one of her accomplices. We’ll give her the day. If nothing shakes out by tonight—or it looks like she’s moving out—we’ll pick her up.”

Dan’s mind screamed: It’s over! They’ve got the woman, they’ll get the tape. What do I do now?

“Dan?” Dan cleared his throat and managed to keep his voice calm.

“Great work. Has she called anyone yet?”

“Nope. But it’s still early.”

“That it is. Keep me informed, will you?”

“Want to come up here and be on the scene?”

“I’d love to. Bob.” That was the last place he wanted to be right now. “But you guys are doing such a great job, I’d feel redundant. I’ll hold the fort here. By the way, any word on how the patient’s doing?” Dan had tried every avenue he knew to ferret out details on Winston’s condition, but it was as if a wall had been erected around the presidential suite at Bethesda, and only one message filtered through: “The President’s fine. Nothing but routine tests that should be finished soon.” Which told him nothing. Winston could be sick as a dog right now and the message would be the same.

“All I hear is that he’s doing fine. How about you?”

“Same thing. I hope that’s true.”

“We’re all praying for him,” Decker said.

Not all of us, Dan thought as he hung up. He dropped his head into his trembling hands and squeezed his eyes shut.

Only a matter of six or eight hours—maybe less—before Decker got that tape. He wanted to run, but where? He had no place to go. He had to stick this out.

He took a deep breath. All right. Six or eight hours. Maybe that was time enough for Salinas to do something. His fat ass was on the line too. What was the name of that motel… ?

Pulling on his jacket, he hurried down to ground level and out onto Sixth Street. He’d already called Salinas once today—to give him those phone numbers and frequencies he’d demanded. Now he was calling again, but this time he wouldn’t be Salinas’s fucking errand boy.

He chose a different phone from last time—this one on Maryland Avenue—and scanned the area to make sure no one was too close. All clear. Only a guy with a soft-pretzel cart heading for the Mall.

He dropped the quarter, spoke to someone, then hung up. As he waited for the return call, Dan glanced at the sky. Another hot one. The pretzel guy was still down the block, fiddling with his cart. Looked like one of the wheels had jammed. On a day like today he’d set up shop near the Smithsonian and make out like a bandit—and probably declare only a small portion of it.

The phone rang.

“Yes?” said Salinas’s voice.

Dan jumped to the heart of his message. He didn’t want to spend a second more than necessary on the line with this toad.

“The woman’s been located—the Adamston Motel in Tuckerton, New Jersey. They’re watching her to see who she contacts. If you can do something, better do it now. Your fate is in your own hands.” And then he hung up.

There. Done. My fate is in your hands as well, Salinas. Do something, dammit!

And then he stopped. Listen to me. I want Salinas to kill someone. And if he succeeds, he’ll probably kill that little girl too. For what? To save my worthless ass. But I did start off with the right intentions. I got involved for a good reason, a just cause. I did it for the country, dammit. That should count for something. Maybe it did. Somewhere. But it did nothing for the cold, sick weight sitting in his chest.

As Dan walked away, the pretzel man started kicking at his jammed wheel. What a life when the worst thing you had to deal with was a jammed wheel. For a moment, Dan wished they could trade places. I’ll push the cart and let him swim this river of shit I’ve got myself into.

3

“Was that an Esso sign we just passed?” Bob Decker said as he drove toward Sooy’s Boot.

“Yeah,” said Canney from the passenger seat. “It’s like we’ve hit a time warp.”

Some kind of warp, Decker thought. A Pine Barrens town seemed to consist of a gas pump, a canoe rental place, and half a dozen plywood boxes on cement slabs that they called homes. Here they were on a county road with no shoulder and only an occasional isolated house, usually with a sign offering decoys for sale. A graveyard tended to have half a dozen headstones and no more. He saw lots of signs for rod and gun clubs, hunting clubs, even a muzzle-loaders club. He got the feeling there might be more guns per capita here than anywhere else in the country.

Bob glanced in the rearview mirror at Vanduyne in the big rear seat of the rented Buick Roadmaster. He’d said little since they’d picked him up for breakfast an hour ago. He looked terrible—pale face, sunken eyes, sloppy shaving job, wrinkled clothes.

“I picked this up by the registration desk,” Canney said, holding up a pamphlet. “All about the Pine Barrens. You know it’s as big as Yosemite Park? A million acres of scrub pine. And we’re in one of its least populated areas—averages only one person per eight square miles around here. And it says here there’s places in the pinelands that no human eye has ever seen. Can you imagine that?”

“Seems hopeless,” Vanduyne said from the back, finally showing signs of life.

“That’s why we need those helicopters,” Bob said.

“You think they’ll help?”

“They can cover a helluva lot more ground than we can. They’ll start their search pattern from Sooy’s Boot and move outward. They’ll call in anything that looks remotely like a red panel truck, and we’ll check it out from the ground. We’ll—”

A cell phone chirped. Decker checked to see if it was his but it turned out to be Canney’s.

“He did?” Canney said. He looked at Bob and nodded significantly.

Oh, shit. Bob thought. Oh, no.

Canney was peering through the windshield as he spoke into the phone.

“Wait. Let me get to a pay phone and—” He glanced out at the woods and shook his head.

“What am I—crazy? All right. Give me the barest details and no names. This is a cell phone, remember.”

As Canney went through a series of nods and uh-huhs, Bob silently cursed himself. He hadn’t believed it could possibly be Dan Keane. If he had, he would have come up with better disinformation—chosen a real motel and watched it in the hope that whoever Keane was feeding would make a move and reveal themselves, Finally Canney ended the call.

“All right,” Bob said, knowing what was coming. “Give it to me.”

“It’s him, all right. We have these vendor carts rigged with minicams and parabolic mikes. One of them got within a hundred feet of him at a pay phone. That was close enough. We don’t know who he called but we know he mentioned Tuckerton and the Adamston Motel.”

“Aw, no.” Bob felt sick. Dan Keane… what on earth could have possessed him? “There’s got to be an explanation.”

“What’s wrong?” Vanduyne said.

“Nothing,” Canney said.

“Might as well tell him,” Bob said. “We found our leak.”