The Marauders

by Tom Cooper

  They took the diamond ring to a pawnshop just off the highway. Trader John’s.

  “Like to see how much this’s worth,” Hanson told the old woman in the Hawaiian shirt standing behind the counter. He reached into his pocket and chinked the ring down on the hand-smeared glass. The woman picked the ring up and turned it around in her gnarled fingers, forehead seaming as she squinted through a jeweler’s loupe.

  Cosgrove glanced at the merchandise behind the counter, sun-faded bric-a-brac hung from the walls: banjos, taxidermied animal heads, medical apparatus among Saints paraphernalia and anti-Obama bumper stickers. Whole damn parish had its life on consignment. Pretty soon people would be hawking their body parts for beer and cigarette money. Kidneys and corneas on layaway at Trader John’s.

  “Where you find this?” the woman asked.

  Without pause Hanson told the woman that the ring had once belonged to his fiancée. Penelope. Dead.

  The clerk let the loupe drop, and the glass swung from the chain around her neck. She shot back her wobbly chin and clucked her tongue.

  “Car wreck,” Hanson said, adjusting his rodeo belt buckle. “That wasn’t bad enough, there was a guy with her. Young dude.”

  A plump cat, marmalade-orange, leapt onto the counter and strolled up to Hanson, staring with intense yellow-green eyes. “Dude had his pants down,” he said, stroking the cat’s head. “Down to his ankles. Both of ’em got themselves in such a frenzy she drove ’em both right off a bridge into the river.”

  Cosgrove wondered if Hanson had made up all this soap opera bullshit in advance. He hoped to God so. He hated to ponder the kind of warped mind that could conjure this craziness on the spot.

  Hanson went on. Surreally. “Wearing this very ring I bought for her. I didn’t know whether to cry or dig her up and kill her again.”

  Hanson made a show of musing on this. The old woman’s face remained as inert as wood. Maybe she’d heard it all during her seventy-five or eighty years on earth. “Know what,” the woman said. “All this sounds mighty silly to me.”

  Hanson huffed out an indignant breath and raised his eyebrows. He took off his camouflage cap, smoothed back his black ponytail, put the cap back on. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I guess my life is silly then.”

  The old woman offered nine hundred dollars for the ring. Fifteen hundred, Hanson said. Nine hundred, countered the woman. Twelve, Hanson said. Nine, said the woman. Ten, Hanson said.

  Nine, said the woman.

  Their next day off Hanson called a number from an ad in the paper and twenty minutes later they were on their way in Hanson’s Dodge to the other side of Jeanette. When they showed up to the brick ranch house, a stout bald man with a jazz patch and a wad of tobacco bulging his cheek limped out. He shook their hands, his fingers the roughest Cosgrove ever felt in his life, like tree bark.

  The man led them to the backyard, where a T-shaped pier jutted out into a pea-soup-green lagoon. Cosgrove and Hanson looked over the aluminum powerboat, ten feet long and outfitted with an old lawnmower engine. The man stood with hands tucked in his pockets and his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, spitting tobacco juice in the water. Minnows rose up to the surface and nibbled at the bubbles with tiny kissing mouths.

  “So where do we take it?” Hanson asked the man.

  “Take it?”

  “Where do we park it?” Hanson kept edging closer to the man. The man kept edging uneasily back, every so often glancing at Hanson’s shirt, which said METALLICA, KILL ’EM ALL on the front, above a drawing of a bloody hammer and gore-splattered tile.

  It took a second for the man to figure out what Hanson meant. “You don’t have a slip?”

  “No.”

  The man scratched his chin and considered this. “Well, I guess you can rent a slip pretty cheap at the marina. If you don’t have your own pier.”

  “How do we get it there?” Hanson asked.

  The man looked at Hanson as if he were joking. “You drive it.”

  “Can we tow it, I mean?”

  “You got a trailer?”

  Hanson shook his head.

  “Then you got to drive it.”

  “You got one for sale?”

  “Naw. Naw, I don’t have no trailer.”

  The three men stood in silence, gazing at the boat as if it would solve these dilemmas.

  “Just askin’,” the man said, “you got a license, right?”

  “Driver’s?”

  “Boating.”

  “Sure.”

  The man looked at Cosgrove. Cosgrove shrugged. He imagined the man telling his buddies about them later. You never believe these dipshits came here the other day never been on a boat in their lives.

  “Hell, none of my business,” the man said.

  “It’s a fuckin’ boat,” Hanson said to Cosgrove. “How many aspects is there?”

  Mid-September Cosgrove and Hanson fell into a regular pattern of reconnaissance. Every night after their shift at the bird sanctuary they piloted into the Barataria and explored the archipelago of islands, wandered shorelines by the feeble light of their lanterns like revenants of an apocalypse. The islets and cheniers were innumerable, most of them hardly more than patches of marshy weed. The coordinates Hanson took from the GPS led only to an island with a skeletal willow tree, its branches filled with sleeping white egrets. No marijuana. But they used the island as a reference point. If the twins’ island was anyplace, it was probably around here.

  Sometimes they saw solitary boat lights shining far out on the horizon. Otherwise the bay was eerily bereft of human life. Maybe nobody else was stupid enough to come near this place. Every day the signs posted around the beach were direr in their warnings. AVOID WATER. AVOID DEAD ANIMALS. DON’T SWIM. DON’T BREATHE.

  GET THE FUCK OUT, the signs would probably read in a week or two.

  As far as Cosgrove and Hanson could tell, nobody was around to enforce the rules.

  Cosgrove wondered why he was such a willing accomplice to Hanson’s dumbfuckery. Why he deferred to the whims of this latter-day village idiot. But there really wasn’t any mystery to his acquiescence. He was desperate. Desperate and, yes, curious. Curious to see what would become of all of this. Curious to see if there was any truth to Hanson’s bullshit. He figured all it would cost him was a week or two more of his life. A week or two: he had that. Time was all he had.

  Besides, Cosgrove had nowhere to go, no other prospects on the horizon. He was stuck in the ass crack of Louisiana making fifteen dollars an hour as part of an oil cleanup crew. And this was probably as good as things were going to get for him. Of course he knew that searching for an island of marijuana was crazy. But he also knew that every so often fools stumbled upon fortune, whether by fate or fluke.

  GRIMES

  Grimes parked on the side of the rutted dirt road and got out of his car. For a while he stared at the yard—if that’s what you could call it—crunching on a Granny Smith apple and debating whether to brave the jungle-thick wilderness before him. Then he did. He tossed the apple and cut through the tall briars and weeds, arms working like he was swimming against a current, grasshoppers pinwheeling through the air with a papery rattling of wings.

  By the time he reached the porch of the dilapidated bungalow he was red-faced and gasping, his clothes dusty and stuck with cockleburs.

  A hollow-templed old man sat on a cane rocker in the porch shade. “Fixin’ to get killed today,” he grumbled under his breath.

  “Sir?” Grimes said, though he’d heard.

  “Dis private property you’re on.”

  “Don’t mean to inconvenience you, sir,” Grimes said, still struggling for breath. The number 4 burned in his head like a neon sign. Four signatures so far today. Four months left in the year, four decades on earth, four decades to go.

  Grimes stood in the sun just beyond the shadow of the house and shaded his face with his hand. When the man said nothing, he looked left, where there was a wire chicken coop at the edg
e of the yard. Yard birds jibber-jabbed and strutted around the meal bin. Then he looked right, where a pirogue was propped upright against a tin-roofed toolshed. The door of the shed was open wide, and muskrats and nutria skins hung from the exposed ceiling beams.

  “I’m looking for Donald Baker,” Grimes said finally. “Mr. Baker filed a claim with us. Know him?”

  “I might.”

  “You him?”

  “What’s your business?”

  “British Petroleum.”

  “You have one heartbeat to turn around and get your ass off my property,” the man said.

  “Sir? I’ve come to give you your settlement.”

  The man settled back in his chair. “Settlement for what?”

  “For your troubles. If you’re Mr. Baker. Who filed the claim. You him?”

  “You came here to give me money is what you’re saying.”

  “I have the check right here.”

  “I don’t keep no bank account.”

  “I’m sure you can still cash it. With your ID. With identification.”

  “Don’t have none that either.”

  “Are you Donald Baker?”

  “I might or might not be.”

  Grimes put his hands on his hips and looked down at his muddy shoes. “I can tell maybe it’s the wrong time.”

  “It’ll never be the right one.”

  At a loss for what else to say, Grimes half-heartedly raised his hand and turned, waded back through the weeds toward his car. When he glanced over his shoulder, the old man was still staring, his face hard as stone.

  Next day Grimes returned and slogged through the tall grass and brambles of the old man’s yard. Not a cloud in the sky and the sun was glaring over everything like molten pewter. By the time Grimes reached the hardpacked clearing around the house, he was already sopping with sweat.

  The old man watched him from his porch chair. “You got cash?” he asked.

  “Cashier’s check,” Grimes said.

  “You’re telling me all I have to do is sign a paper and you give me the money.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

  “I’m Donald Baker,” the man said.

  “Well, then, Mr. Baker,” Grimes said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  The old man rose from the cane chair, waved him inside.

  Grimes stepped into the cabin and glanced about, taking in the hanging swatches of flypaper, the swaybacked sofa upholstered with stitched-together nutria skins, the holes in the walls patched over with flattened sardine tins and scraps of cardboard. Five hours of daylight left, Grimes thought. If he got this visit over with quickly, he could visit ten or twelve other houses.

  “You thirsty?” the old man asked.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Let’s get you some water.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I bet you parched.”

  At the kitchen table Grimes sat straight-backed and tight-shouldered with his leather satchel in front of him. He snapped it open and withdrew a manila folder and from this pulled a sheaf of Xeroxed papers. The old man went to a tin bucket on the counter and ladled some water into a porcelain mug with a cracked-off handle. He walked over to the table and placed the mug in front of Grimes.

  Grimes stared down, hands in his lap. The mug had a lip-smudge on the rim.

  The old man pulled back his chair and sat across from him. “Have you a drink,” he said.

  Hesitantly Grimes brought the mug to his lips and took the daintiest sip. Grimaced. Swallowed. Then he sat the cup back down and pushed the paperwork across the table.

  The man stroked his chin, made a show of studying the paperwork. Grimes doubted the coon-ass understood a word. “And you ain’t from the government,” he said.

  Grimes shook his head.

  “A thousand dollars for nothing.”

  “Well, your community has suffered. We want to make good on the promises we made. To rebuild the community.”

  “Gotta piss,” said the old man, rising with surprising quickness, his knee bones popping.

  After the old man thumped down the hall, Grimes sat brooding about his mother. Every day he dreaded more the prospect of his visit. He pictured her face, her lips rumpled, her wet eyes tight and scolding. “You’ve been in town how long?” she’d ask. Then would come the moment he dreaded most of all, the moment he reached into his satchel and drew out the papers. She would harrumph and look them over and tell him how disappointed she was. Like a year ago, the last time they spoke on the phone.

  Grimes decided he would see her today. Definitely today.

  No, not today. Tomorrow.

  Today.

  Grimes’s mind was still seesawing when the old man barged back into the kitchen, peacock feathers in his hair like a half-assed Indian headdress. Muttering gibberish, eyes rolling like a gutted sow’s, he clutched a glass brimming with amber liquid that looked like apple juice.

  Grimes half stood, mouth agape, not knowing what to think. “Mr. Baker,” he said.

  “Putain!” the old man said. “Nique ta mere!”

  “Mr. Baker,” Grimes said. His eyes ticked between the man’s face and the glass.

  The old man jerked his arm and doused Grimes with what was in the glass. Piss. Grimes knew right away from the smell. He let out a strangled sound of shock and jerked upright. His chair tipped back and smacked the floor.

  “What’s this?” he said, glowering. “This fuckin’ piss?”

  “Nique ta mère!”

  “Goddamn lunatic.”

  “Ta gueule!”

  Grimes shouldered his satchel and, still facing the man, scuttled backward like a crab out of the kitchen. He wiped furiously at his face with his shirtsleeve. In the den he turned around and flung the door open, cursing as he vaulted down the porch steps two at a time.

  THE TOUP BROTHERS

  Working the motorboat’s tiller, Victor picked up speed where the canal opened into the bayou proper. Before long they passed an enormous dead willow, its branches full of slumbering egrets. Hundreds glowing like white ornaments in the dark. This was the place where people usually turned back, the point of no return. They’d have no reason to venture this far unless they were looking for trouble. Or trying to escape it.

  Tonight the twins were out to check on their island. On the floor of the boat were gunnysacks full of tools and traps.

  “You remember ‘Spy vs. Spy’?” Victor asked Reginald, shouting above the motor.

  Neither of them had said a word in twenty minutes.

  “Yeah,” Reginald said. They’d collected Mad magazines when they were boys and they’d especially liked “Spy vs. Spy.”

  “I loved those books,” Victor said. “Bet they’re somewhere in the attic. I should find them.”

  “They’d probably suck now.”

  “I bet some of those booby traps would work. Medieval shit.”

  For a while only the sound of the motor, the soft roar of wind in their ears.

  “You feel sorry for this guy?” Reginald asked.

  “Fuck him.”

  “It’s obvious something’s wrong.”

  “Fuck him.”

  “You blunted the teeth on those traps?”

  “You asked me a million times.”

  “Did you blunt the teeth?”

  “Yes, Mother Teresa.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want another body out here.”

  “Well, I blunted them.”

  They banked on the island and hopped from the boat, sweeping their flashlight beams. In the underbrush they stepped over the waist-tall barrier of fencing and slogged through the night-damp vines and brush, careful to avoid the traps they’d already set. In the middle of the island their crop, raised on wooden platforms and ceiled with camouflage shade cloth, was untouched. Thriving, rankly fecund. In their separate pots the plants sagged under the weight of their heavy buds and filled the night air
with their skunkiness. Soon they’d be ready to harvest.

  “See,” Reginald said. “Worried for no reason.”

  “Fuck him,” Victor said.

  They went back to the boat and hauled out the gunnysacks and began laying their traps. Victor set a bear trap with filed-down metal teeth on the ground. He prized open the jaws, raked leaves over the trap with his boot. Then he stepped backward and crouched on his heels and began to place another.

  Meanwhile Reginald dug into the dirt with a garden trowel. He gouged a divot a foot deep, stabbed a shish-kebab skewer point-side up into the hole, covered over the trap with sleech.

  The brothers worked this way for the better part of an hour until they’d set all the traps. Then they met at the boat, their faces sweaty and shining in the dark.

  “Probably enough,” said Reginald.

  “Fuck him,” said Victor.

  LINDQUIST

  Like a child counting down the days till Christmas, Lindquist waited a few days, all the time he could stand, before he resumed searching in the bayou. Any longer and he would have been too torqued up to function, like those tin windup toys his grandparents used to keep in their playroom for the kids. He remembered turning the toy’s butterfly key until it would go no farther, the tin dinosaur sputtering and jerking in fits as if it were possessed. Lindquist felt a clenching nerve in the very center of him, the tightening of an enormous screw. He worried he’d snap like one of those cheap tin toys, running amok in a grocery store with his limbs crazily aflail, knocking bottles and cans and boxes off the shelves until the clerk drew a gun from beneath the counter and took him down.

  Lindquist left the harbor at half past twelve. A horror movie fog rose off the water and the air stank of oil. From the wheelhouse window Lindquist could see scores of floating dead fish, bellies flashing white in the boat’s perimeter of light.

  He took out his Pez dispenser and flicked the plastic duck head and popped a pill in his mouth. Then another. A one-two punch of Oxycontin and Percoset. He chewed the pills into a fine powder and swallowed the narcotic dust. His body filled slowly with a warm pink euphoria.