Wild Thing: A Novel Read online

  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.

  22

  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. L
azarus.”

  “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.”

  EXHIBIT G

  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.

  She hears footsteps. A man coming down the narrow space between the water and the wall. Well dressed, good posture, expensive overcoat. Wingtips. Celia always notices wingtips, because her grandmother once told her they’re made to be durable, so men who wear them are cheap. Celia’s not sure anyone born after 1940 is aware of that, but still.

  “Excuse me. You work here?” the man says. Smiling. Not out here for his car.

  “I’m working right now,” Celia says.

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  He stands with his hands at his sides, not too close, like he’s trying not to scare her. It makes her back crawl.

  Celia remembers Lara, who taught her how to do all this, telling her If it feels wrong, it is wrong. Get the fuck out of there.

  Like Celia has that luxury.

  At least the man’s too well dressed to be a cop. An honest one, anyway.

  “Why?” she says. “You need some work done?”

  “I was thinking about it.” He turns to look out into the rain. “Do you have someplace we can go?”

  “I got a van right over there. It’s clean. It’s nice. What kind of work were you thinking about?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” the man says. “Nothing too weird.”

  Celia wishes just one of these creeps would say that what he wants is too weird. It would probably involve space aliens or something.

  The guy says “You know: you blow me, I fuck you from behind, maybe with a little choking, you call me John, I call you Sarah. You don’t act too Indian.”

  “You’re in luck, John. My name is Sarah.” Celia checks it off on her fingers. “You want me to suck your cock, you want to do me doggy-style, and you want to choke me, and I keep the wigwam talk to myself.”

  His eyes narrow, not sure if she’s making fun of him.

  “It’s good you know what you like,” she says to reassure him. “Are we talking bareback?”

  “Yes, on both. How much would you charge for something like that?”

  “For double bareback with choking? Two sixty. Nonnegotiable. I got a kid.”

  “Two sixty?”

  “Up front, baby. Can’t take promises outside a casino.”

  “Fine.” The man reaches inside his overcoat.

  “Not here. We don’t want to get busted.”

  She turns her back on him and runs to the van, holding her collar up against the rain. She’s wearing hooker shoes, and the jeans are ridiculous, but having her back to the man inspires her to move as quickly as possible. At the van she turns around. Says “All right. Show me.”

  The man leans over to keep his flat European-style wallet dry while he counts, and to keep her from seeing how much is in there. “Two forty?”

  “Two sixty.”

  The bills are crisp and mealy, like they’re fresh from an ATM. Celia counts them and fans them up to the light. The rain causes blooms to form on them. She sticks them in her pocket.

  “We’re good to go,” she says. “We’ve gotta be careful, though. Okay?”

  “Fine. Let’s do it.”

  “You know this is illegal, right?”

  “Of c—” The man stops himself. “Why would you ask that?” he says.

  “You do know this is illegal,” she says flatly.

  For a moment she thinks the guy’s going to hit her. But instead he just turns and runs, splashing through puddles toward the front of the casino.

  “Stop! BIA!” she says, pulling her badge and gun out of her jacket pockets. “You’re under arrest for soliciting on property patrolled by federal agents!”

  He doesn’t stop. Whatever. The back door of the van’s already open, and Jim and Kiko—both Hispanic, like Celia—played football in college.

  She watches them tackle the creep face-first into the asphalt. Sees no reason to go over and help with the arrest.

  Jim and Kiko are in Asics and tracksuits. But in these shoes and pants?

  Negro, please.

  23

  Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Minnesota

  Sunday, 16 September–Wednesday, 19 September

  We get kind of a late start.

  Shortly before four in the morning Palin makes a speech in front of one of the cabins about adversity being whatever and Reverend John would have wanted and it’s a trial we’ve been given and so on. It’s actually kind of inspiring, mostly for its assumption that anyone other than Palin gives a fuck whether Reverend John Three-to-Sixteen-for-Soliciting, as Del and Miguel have started calling him, comes with us or not.

  Afterward everyone’s strangely giddy but not all that psyched about waking up in two hours to go canoeing. So we end up not pushing off onto Ford Lake until around noon—a slim ninety minutes before Reggie’s supposed to meet with Sheriff Albin. Someone’s problem, not my own.

  The flotilla is eleven giant flat-bottomed canoes, with an early-twenties guide at the front and back of each. Where Reggie gets these kids, who all seem to know what they’re doing despite being from places like Santa Fe, remains mysterious. We passengers sit two to a boat in the middle, facing each other with our backs against tarped-down piles of camping shit.

  Not once in three days do I end up sharing this inter-baggage space with Violet. Del’s dog is along with us even though Del and Miguel stayed back at CFS to run the outfitters, and she and Violet and Palin’s young relation Samsung form a pack on the first day. Violet and I sleep in the same small tent, so I get to spend six hours every night rock hard and breathing her in, but as we set up the tent for the first time, she says to me “Can we just, maybe, act like professionals?”

  “Professional whats?” I say. Because apparently shit comedy is how I respond to stabbing feelings in my chest.*
r />   “I don’t know. Professional Hardy Boys?”

  Which only makes it worse.

  The setups and teardowns are elaborate.* I don’t know why I thought going into the woods would require less high-tech equipment than, say, golfing or designing race cars, but I was wrong. And this is a luxury cruise: Reggie’s guides are cooking three hot meals a day on white gas stoves. Freeze-dried courses out of Mylar bags, maybe, but these days you can get freeze-dried lobster bisque.

  The guides, with their sun-blond forearm hair, also do all the portaging. At one point I have to relocate one of their shoulders. The guests aren’t even supposed to paddle, although once the guides decide they can trust us to at least not slow the boats down they let us, to fight the boredom.

  I’m fine with that. There might be nine other people on this trip whose job it is to pay attention, but without an organized schedule—which not even Palin’s guards are on, because it’s too hard to sleep in the canoes—having that many eyes just gives you a sense of complacency. Which sets in fast: Palin’s guards don’t even find the meth camp we pass on the afternoon of the first day. Violet and Samsung and Bark do.

  It’s small, but it’s near the trail, and Palin’s guards shouldn’t have missed it. Next to a modern octagonal tent there’s a wrecked wooden picnic table with one end on a tree stump and an organic chemistry setup across the top. Someone’s been bad about washing their glassware. On the other hand, they’ve managed to string a tarp overhead and get an industrial fan out here. The fan, leaning up against a tree, isn’t connected to anything but turns slowly in the wind anyway, Coke Zero bottles tied to its blades.

  Inside the tent itself—besides body stench, three sleeping bags, and a whole lot of food wrappers—there’s an empty cardboard bullet box marked “7.62 x 39.” Like you’d use in an AK-47.

  Nothing about this facility says it’s been vacated for any other reason than to wait till we’re gone. Palin’s guards are in favor of breaking all the cooking equipment to encourage the owners to go elsewhere, but my feeling is that we should live and let live, because pissing off a bunch of junkies who might have us in their sights right now seems like kind of a bad idea. Grody’s guards are with me on that. It’s like a convention for bodyguards, that clearing.