columbo and the g-man
columbo & dale cooper
teen
2,646 words
California, June 1980; Two timeless men have a conversation over chili and cherry pie.
my fic for @spunkyjacobin for @countdowntotwinpeaks’s wonderfulxstrange!! some diner talks and time/life shenanigans with columbo and coop.
His Peugeot always was a sturdy little car. It coasted along for another mile or so down the side of the busy San Francisco boulevard before it slid to a quiet stop across two parking spaces beside a bold, silver diner, just missing the Dodge Diplomat in the next spot.
Columbo took in the sight, standing by his car and rubbing the back of his neck. It wasn’t that his car looked old—the past twenty years with it had dented the shine, a little, he’d admit, but it still looked good. You knew it was a car, you knew it was a solid car, the kind of car that was going to take you places with minimal fuss, appropriate storage, and could handle a little wear here and there from Dog, as all cars should. It was more, next to his car, the diner looked very, very new.
He went around to the front of his car and hoisted the hood up, bending over to get a good look at the engine. If that was the engine. Unless it was the accelerator. Unless it was the—what was it? The oil tank? He kept one hand palm-flat against the underside of the hood to keep it up, cigar between his fingers, and shuffled himself in closer across the gears. Maybe that was the oil tank. It looked about how he thought an oil tank could look. You learned something new every day, Columbo thought, always amazed. He inched himself back out and gave the whole thing a once-over.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding a little. Twenty years of car ownership still didn’t make a mechanic, even if you loved your car. He closed the hood and gave the side a bracing, sympathetic pat. There had to be a phone inside the diner, and a phone book or an obliging waiter he could ask for a towing company to take it to a local mechanic. His regular one back in L.A. was gonna give him an earful when he got home, that was for sure.
Columbo was pleased to see the inside of the diner had much more character than the polished outside. It was his kind of diner. Just bursting with personality. A blue-hued homey atmosphere, crowded booths you had to peel yourself out of, an impressive rotating dessert rack just to the left of the doors, a very obliging waiter who let him behind the front counter to use the phone and gave him the number of two towing companies, and another number for someone he assured Columbo the best mechanic in the city, bar none. He was a chipper young kid, ready to help. He had Columbo chuckling to himself as he dialed the phone. Columbo loved people, he really did. He saw some of the worst of people, in his line of work, sure, but he got to see the kindness, too, the cleverness, the brightness. Deep down, the whole world spun on that, that brightness, that humanity. And he really, really loved it.
The first towing company said they could be there in an hour, and that was just fine with Columbo. A diner, after all, was one of the best places to kill an hour.
“Lieutenant?”
A young man in a crisp, black suit was raising a hand, standing up from a window booth, smiling broadly. The FBI agent from that big fiber-sample procedure seminar this morning, who’d sat near Columbo and loaned him a pen, talking comfortably with him during the break about their jobs and San Francisco and Los Angeles, a real companionable sort of guy—Dale Cooper, that was his name. Columbo never forgot a name. Had he given Cooper his pen back? He patted down his pockets as he made his way over. Yes, he had. He found the waiter’s pen still tucked in his hand next to his cigar, though, and slipped the pen into the front pocket on his shirt. He’d have to give that back.
“Lieutenant, this is a fortunate surprise,” Cooper said, shaking Columbo’s hand in a short, professional motion. “I had thought you were on your way back to the City of Angels.”
“Well, so did I,” Columbo said. “But my car had a different idea. Second time it broke down this month, can you believe that? You know, my wife, she told me I should’ve taken her car up here, but—” He looked out the window at his car, which was attracting a few stares from people on their way back to their own cars. “—you just can’t leave a quality car like that sitting at home when you leave town.” And, it had an indent from Dog’s weight in the backseat, and the passenger seat still smelled like his wife’s perfume from when he dropped a bottle of it, and you had to take the good things with you. Also, his wife refused to drive the Peugeot, and if he took her car, how was she gonna get to night school? Her sister was out of town too, so—“Now, the towing company said they’d be here in about an hour, so it looks like I’ll be sticking around for a little while longer.”
“Would you like to join me for lunch while you wait?”
“Oh—well I couldn’t impose—”
“The exact opposite of an imposition,” Cooper said. “It would be my treat.” He gestured at the booth seat across from him, and he sat back down once Columbo took the seat.
He’d talked with Cooper for a while at the seminar, but here, under the bright lights of the diner, Columbo got a real good look at him. Cooper had to be a good twenty years younger than him, maybe more, but there was nothing green about the man. He carried himself with a calm, collected expression and a genuine joy that intrigued Columbo, because it still couldn’t hide the hollowness in his cheeks, like he’d lost too much weight and never quite recovered it all. Cooper had said before that he’d been in violent crimes for some time and was now on his way to counterintelligence, but Columbo didn’t think that accounted for everything. The age in Cooper’s eyes, the slight tremble in his hands when he picked up his fork, the way his whole person just didn’t seem to sit right on him. The two times Columbo had seen him, he was alone. Sometimes people liked to be alone, sure. But Cooper looked like he was waiting.
All of a sudden, Columbo got the feeling Cooper wasn’t the kind of person you could get a real, true straight answer out of, not if you asked him something important. Not that that mattered, because he wasn’t a murder suspect, and Columbo didn’t poke and prod and push his friends, most of the time. It was just something he noticed, because Columbo noticed everything.
If Cooper knew that Columbo was watching him, he didn’t show it, because Cooper was contentedly digging into the big slice of cherry pie on the plate in front of him. It was a nice piece of pie.
“Say, that’s some lunch,” Columbo said, leaning across the table. He brought his cigar close to his mouth, and Cooper’s shoulders shifted, a flinch quickly caught and stopped and pulled back down. “Oh, uh—excuse me,” Columbo murmured. He considered his cigar. It was well on its way to quietly smoldering out, so he placed it gently in the pocket of his raincoat.
Cooper’s posture relaxed fully, and he adjusted his grip on his fork, that grin returning to his face. “I believe the quality of a diner can be judged on how they proportion the filling of their desert pies to the crust, with cherries in particular—and when it is especially well done, it is only fitting to indulge oneself on a well-made pleasure.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Columbo said with his own grin.
Cooper motioned the young waiter over, and Columbo traded the waiter the pen for a menu. He didn’t keep it for long. He caught the word chili and it was all he needed; that was his own diner test. He ordered it with a coffee, plain black, because it was pretty hard to go wrong with coffee. Possible, but unlikely in a diner. “That chili, that comes with crackers, doesn’t it?”
“Yes it does, sir,” the waiter said.
“Could I have some extra crackers?” Chili wasn’t chili without good crackers to crumble.
“Of course.”
“Could I have an additional piece of pie, as well?” Cooper asked.
“Of course.”
The waiter took the menu back and disappeared into the kitchen. Columbo folded his hands together on top of the table to wait for the chili, missing his cigar just a little.
Cooper took the bite of pie that was still on his fork. When he swallowed, he said, “You mention your wife a great deal, Lieutenant. How long have you been married?”
“About sixteen years now,” Columbo said.
Cooper smiled again, so pleasantly. “You must love each other a great deal. I’m very happy for you, sir.”
“Thank you,” Columbo said, nodding his head, feeling a little bashful. “Thank you, very much." There was something waxy about Cooper’s smile, even when it was that pleasant. Like he was trying harder than he should’ve been, for a conversation about someone’s marriage. Columbo didn’t feel bad for him—feeling bad for anybody never helped them, not really. Pity, in his opinion, just made people feel better about themselves. You helped when you did something for someone else. He cast around for something to ask in return that would be easier for Cooper to talk about. “So, where do you stand on donuts? Cause, for me, I think they’re the top dessert.”
Cooper’s eyes lit up immediately.
They chattered back and forth about desserts until the waiter returned again, putting down Columbo’s chili, cracker packets tucked all along between the bowl and the plate, and his coffee, and then Cooper’s next slice of pie. Columbo tore a few of the packets open and shook the crackers into his hand, crumbling them up over the chili. He scooped a great pile of chili onto his spoon, while Cooper made quick work of the rest of the first pie slice before pushing the plate away and pulling the new one closer.
It was a fine lunch, with great company, and the chili was one of the most remarkable bowls of chili he’d ever eaten, helped considerably by the crackers and Cooper’s company. He liked to listen, and Columbo liked to talk, and he spun stories about the lighter side of his work, said nothing more about his wife, mentioned Dog a few times—Cooper didn’t seem to like dogs a great deal, but Columbo assured him, he’d like Dog. Nobody didn’t like Dog, he told him. A low-to-the-ground hound with big droopy eyes, that was hard for anybody to resist. His story about the ducks in the park near his house, Cooper especially enjoyed that one. Columbo finished his chili, Cooper ordered another piece of pie, and then Columbo could feel it, like a breeze running through his fingers. Time was slowing down. Columbo was no stranger to time moving around him. That was what time did, it shifted and moved and went on, sometimes when it should, sometimes when it shouldn’t.
He wasn’t sure if Cooper noticed, but Cooper’s fork had paused over the pie again. When he looked up at Columbo, a shadow was passing over his face, and it stayed there, like it belonged there, at home on Cooper’s thin face. The undercurrent thing that ran through Cooper’s whole person. Columbo was not surprised to see that it looked like fear. It made Cooper even younger.
He caught a quick look at himself in the reflection of the window. Age suddenly cast him in a distinguished, crumpled grey, deep crows feet pulling at the corner of his eyes. He looked back at Cooper.
“One day you won’t be here,” Cooper said.
Columbo smiled and inclined his head. “No, I won’t,” he said. His voice had faded too, into a soft gravel. That was going to be something to look forward to, when it happened for real.
Cooper’s face distorted into a pale and reversed version of it, his eyes a deadly blank.
“That’s how it goes, you know,” Columbo pointed out, not unkindly.
Cooper’s expression turned over, and he was different again, much, much older, his face drawn and shrunken in, hair greasy and shoulder-length. Then he looked the same age, but closer to the way he was supposed to look now, before that fear had unsettled itself inside him. The sadness on him was bone-deep.
Columbo squinted at him. His left eye was gonna do it even more as he got older and older. Cooper wouldn’t be here either, it looked like, but in a different way. Sometimes that happened. You lost yourself, until you only had pieces left. Columbo had never had that problem. He knew who he was, inside and out, where he was going, where he’d end up. He was content with the life he led and what he would do. When you weren’t so sure, it could be dangerous.
“What will I do?” Cooper asked.
“I’ve never really been one for all those philosophical questions,” Columbo said. He scooped up the last of his chili. “What do you wanna do?”
He was young again, younger. A line of blood ran down the front of his shirt. “I don’t think it matters,” he whispered. “I’ve done nothing to stop the evil in this world.”
Columbo chewed thoughtfully. “Is that what you think’s out there?”
“I know,” Cooper said. “I know.” He sounded like he could say it again and again and never stop. Columbo could hear it echoing around them.
He didn’t think you could argue or reason with evil. It was only one piece of the puzzle, after all, and just one little piece at that. Cooper probably didn’t want to hear it. Nothing was gonna change his mind, not now. So Columbo offered what he always did.
“You gonna finish your pie?” Columbo asked, nudging the plate closer to Cooper.
Cooper looked down at the plate. Then he dug his fork into it and took another bite.
Time started up again, flowing back through the diner. Columbo looked once again like the version of himself he was supposed to be right now, and so did Cooper. They continued like nothing had happened, because sometimes that was all you could do. Cooper finished his pie.
A loud, impressive rumble came from outside the window, and he and Cooper turned. The tow truck had pulled into the parking lot, a man getting out of the cab and stopping when he saw Columbo’s car.
“Oh, that’ll be for me,” Columbo said. He stood up from the seat and brushed the crumbs off of his pants. Cooper stood up after him.
“It’s been a pleasure, Lieutenant,” Cooper said. “A lunch I will not soon forget.”
“You take care of yourself, now,” Columbo said, shaking Cooper’s hand. “And if you ever find yourself down in L.A., my wife and I would just love to have you come over for dinner. She makes this lasagna—well, you’ll just have to stick around and see for yourself.”
Cooper smiled. It looked pretty genuine. “I’ll keep that in mind, Lieutenant. Thank you.”
Columbo made sure Cooper had turned back to his pie before he found their waiter and slipped him the cash for the lunch. Columbo told him to give his compliments to the chef for the chili, and the cherry pie, and then made his way back outside, into the bright summer afternoon, taking his cigar out of his raincoat pocket again.
