Wild Thing: A Novel (25 page)

After a moment she says
“He killed my husband and my daughter.”

I wait for her to say something else, but she doesn’t.

“What makes you think that?”

“I know it.”

“Can I ask how?”

Another pause.
“Reggie wanted to pretend there was a monster in White Lake. He killed my daughter to make it look like there really was. Then he killed my husband to take over the lodge.”

“The hoax was Reggie’s idea?”

“Of course it was. Chris would never have thought of something
like that. He wasn’t like that. Not… devious. Father Podominick wasn’t either. Reggie put them up to it in secret so people wouldn’t be suspicious when he took over. Got them so turned around Chris thought he and Reggie were going to catch the monster and sell it.”

Christine Semmel’s softly crying now. Nice job, Dr. Azimuth.

“Ms. Semmel, we can stop talking if you’d like.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She sounds sincere about that, so I say “Then can you tell me about how they were supposed to catch it and sell it?”

“Right after Chris died, all these hooks and nets and things he ordered got delivered to the lodge.”

“Reggie told me about that.”

“Then I found a list of phone numbers in Chris’s handwriting. I called them. The ones who would talk to me all said they were rare-animal dealers. They said they’d never heard of Chris, but I didn’t believe them.”

“Do you still have the list?”

“I gave it to the police.”

“Did you make a copy?”

“No.”

Understandable: her family had just been wiped out. But it does mean the police have either investigated that angle or decided not to, and either way there’s nothing left to do about it.

“Is there any other—” Evidence, is what I want to say, but I feel that will sound like I don’t believe her. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

There’s a pause, just the hiss on the line. I’m about to repeat the question when she says
“Reggie, I know that’s you.”

She says it without anger, just with exhaustion and sadness. It’s unnerving.

“This isn’t Reggie. I promise. If you want, I can call you back later, with a woman.”

“I don’t care. If you are Reggie, you’re going to hell,”
she says as she hangs up.

Camp Fawn See, Ford Lake, Minnesota

Saturday, 15 September–Sunday, 16 September

As I stare at the phone, thinking nothing productive, I hear the door of the cabin open. Lean back to look.

It’s one of Palin’s Secret Service–type guys. It’s been raining heavily for about an hour, and he’s got a baseball hat and raincoat on and no sunglasses, making him look like a different person. For a second I want to take him out.

I guess I assumed Palin went to the casino with the others, although it makes sense she wouldn’t have if she’s trying to keep people from knowing she’s in Ford.

“What’s up?” I say.

He grunts in a way that sounds like it should be accompanied by a pelvic thrust. I’m not sure why it isn’t, since there are just the two of us in here, and who’s going to believe me that this guy pelvic thrusted? But he just looks around, including behind the desk and into the office, then says into his wrist, “He’s in the registration building. It’s clear. Window green, window red. Coming out.”

As far as I can tell, both windows are closed and unobstructed.

“What does that mean, ‘window green, window red’?” I say.

He leaves.

I wait for a minute or two, but nothing happens, so I get up and go look at the books on the “BORROW ME” shelf. I’d go back to my cabin, but Violet and I haven’t discussed that since this afternoon, and I’m not sure whether it
is
my cabin.

I take a more or less random paperback to the couch and lie down to read it. When I’m on the second or third page the door opens, and Sarah Palin and her young relation come in.

“Dr. Lazarus! We heard you might be in here.”

“I don’t know who from. But it’s Azimuth.”

She’s smiling. As before, it’s weird to be near her. Like it probably would be with anyone you’ve seen mechanically reproduced that many times.

“Can we ask a really big favor of you?” she says.

They’re still hovering by the door. I sit up. “Sure.”

“Sandisk here needs to get her chemistry homework done. My dad was a science teacher, but I guess I kind of missed out on those genes. So we thought
maybe
, you know, what with you being a
doctor
and all… maybe you could help Sandisk with her homework.”

I’m surprised. Both that her father was a science teacher and that she believes in genetics.

Maybe I’ve misjudged the woman.

“I’m happy to try,” I say. “What are you working on?”

The girl stares miserably at the floor. “It’s just Chem One. I don’t really need help with it.”

“Don’t need it
yet
,” Palin says.

Feeling Sandisk’s pain, I say to her “Do you want to sit on the other couch and work, and if you need anything you can let me know?”

“Okay,” Sandisk says.

Palin takes the armchair that faces both of us from the side. It’s distracting. After a while, when it’s obvious Sandisk is doing fine with her binder and her big textbook with colored tabs stuck in it, I pretend to go back to reading, turning pages every now and then for realism.

“You know, I am a real big supporter of Israel,” Palin says, causing me to jump.

“Oh?”

“Definitely. Big supporter.”

“Huh.”
^*

“Cause you have that tattoo,” she says.

“Right,” I say. “Why
were
you and the reverend so interested in my tattoos?”

“They just—it seems pretty meaningful when someone gets a symbol like that put on them permanently.”

“Like the Star of David, or the Staff of Hermes?”

“Both.” She smiles a smile I’ve seen on her before, although catching it in person is like watching Fox News on some newly
immersive form of technology. It’s smug and ironic, but in a way that seems more defensive than anything else. Like if I don’t like what she’s saying, she was only kidding. It’s semi-detached, like a townhouse in Bensonhurst.

“Meaningful in what way?”

Now she’s blushing. “Well… you know.”

“No. Seriously. What?”

“I was hoping maybe I could ask
you
about them.”

“Go ahead.”

I can see sweat on her hairline. “Am I even making sense?” she says. “Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

“No. I’m sorry, I don’t.”

Sandisk shakes her head in resignation as she does her homework. Whether it’s me or Palin she’s exasperated with I don’t know.

“Reverend John
thought
you wouldn’t,” Palin says. “I just wanted to ask you is all. In case you did. I get impatient sometimes. Sorry.”

She gets up from the armchair.

“Wait,” I say. “It’s okay. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

“I should probably not be saying anything.”

“Why? Who
is
Reverend John?”

“He’s my pastor.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“That I
definitely
shouldn’t be talking about. Sandisk, honey? You ready?”

“We just got here,” Sandisk says.

“You can finish up in the cabin. You can text your friends on the sat-phone.”

Sandisk pauses for a moment in blank frustration, then starts to pack up her books and papers.

“You’re not going to tell me what’s going on?” I say.

Palin hesitates. Waits for a moment when Sandisk is distracted by packing, then bends down quickly. For a second, I think she’s going to kiss me.

“Isaiah 27:1,”
she whispers. She puts a fingertip on my lips and stands back up.

“What about it?” I say. Assuming it’s not just someone’s name.

“You should look it up.”

“You can’t just tell me what it says?”

“Sandisk? What does Reverend John always say about telling people what’s in the Bible?”

“He’s like, ‘Go look it up yourself,’ ” Sandisk says.

“He says any time you can send someone to the actual text is a blessing for you and a blessing for them.”

“It sounds more like a way for him to avoid having to memorize scripture, but whatever.” Sandisk stands, tottering under her bag. Palin herds her to the door.

“You can’t paraphrase?” I say.

“I’d better not,” Palin says. “Say good night to Dr. Lazarus.”

“Good night,” Sandisk says.

They go out, and one of Palin’s Secret Service–type guys steps into place to block the doorway after them. Maybe the same one I saw earlier, maybe not.

“Fuck,” I say.

Fucking
fine
. I go look it up online:

In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent,
even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Because shit around here wasn’t crazy enough as it was.

When the party from the casino gets back I go outside toward the lights and the noise. The rain has stopped. It’s a little past three in the morning.

I’m done with the book. Liked it: it was old, from when all bestsellers were like X-rated
Dynasty
. At one point the heroine asked the “arbitrageur” bad boy to snort cocaine off her thigh, hoping he’d cut her with the razor.

Down by the water, Palin’s talking angrily into her satellite phone, three of her guys walling her off from the rest of us.

Violet comes up to me. “Did you hear from Rec Bill?”

“Yeah. He wants us to stay.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” I look for some sign that this is good news to her, but maybe she’s just too tired. “What’s going on? What took you guys so long?”

She shakes her head. “You are not going to believe this shit.”

Chippewa River Casino

Eastern Ojibwe Reservation, Minnesota

Sunday, 16 September
^*

Celia wonders if humidity can shrink your jeans. If it can, she could be in trouble. A mosquito could bite her through these jeans. Pop them like a balloon.

There’s a curtain of rainwater falling just a few feet in front of her face, coming off the overhang of the roof. She has to keep her back pressed into the cement block wall to stay dry.

Even so, it’s a good spot. The wall’s well lit but doesn’t have any windows, and this time of year there’s no one parked on this
side of the casino except employees and people looking for trouble. The lighting makes it a little too easy for men to see her without her being able to see them, but some guys get turned on by that, or need the low-pressure time to make up their minds.