Wild Thing: A Novel (17 page)

The truth is that I have no plan. Nor do I have a plan to invent a plan. And even thinking about it makes me feel lazy and frustrated.

I look around for things to do instead.

I suppose I should toss the office for some kind of evidence of Reggie’s guilt in the deaths of the two teenagers and the guys who got shot. Like a diary, or a bag with a meat grinder and a hunting rifle in it.

On the desk there’s a single framed picture. Reggie’s not even in it. It’s of three people on one of the piers of the CFS marina: a couple in their late thirties and a teenage girl who’s clearly their daughter. The father and daughter pink-skinned and reddish blond, the mother with dark hair and a tan instead of freckles. All three of them vibrant and smiling.

The girl I’ve seen before. She’s the one in the video who doesn’t want to answer the question of whether she’s ever seen the monster, but finally says she has.

Which would make her father a good candidate for the person offscreen asking questions, and for the narrator of the
video, too. Which would explain why the video was never completed.

Because obviously these people are the Semmels. The daughter is Autumn, the father Chris Jr., and the mother whatever Chris Jr.’s wife was called. Or
is
called. Unlike Autumn and Chris Jr., she’s presumably still alive.

On a whim, I try to locate her online. I find out her first name from back when she lived in Ford—Christine
^*
—but I can’t seem to track her down past that point. In my e-mail to Rec Bill about the ref not showing up, I ask that if he decides to go through with this thing he also get me Christine Semmel’s contact information. Not that I can really justify subjecting her to a conversation.

After that I send a quick update to Professor Marmoset. I doubt he’ll read it. Getting Professor Marmoset’s attention is like getting struck by lightning while being attacked by a bear, only more surprising. But it seems like good form.

Then I get the fuck out of there.

I wake up with Violet bent over me, shouting because I’ve got her in an arm bar. I let her go.

“Jesus
fuck!
” she says.

“I’m sorry.”

“I was just trying to wake you up. You were screaming.”

“I was?”

I try to figure shit out. We’re in our cabin, no light except
what’s coming through the windows. When Violet got back, a while ago, I pretended to be asleep until I heard her snoring. Then I must have fallen asleep, too, because now I’m in my bed, slick with sweat, and she’s standing back, holding her arm. In her underwear.

Black cotton. The top’s a sports bra. The bottoms as straight across her hips as a censorship mark.

“Are you okay?” I say.

“Yeah, I will be. You were having a nightmare.”

“I guess I was.”

“What was it about?”

“I don’t remember.”

It was about the two of us treading water, naked, in a transparent mountain lake, nothing between us and the boulders on the bottom. Until I lowered my head below the surface and saw that the water was actually thick with murk and marine life, including piranha-headed eels swimming toward us from all directions.

I get out of bed. She flinches, then looks embarrassed to have done it, like it’s going to hurt my feelings. Jesus.

“How’s your arm?” I say.

“Fine.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

We stand for a few moments, getting our breath back.

“How was the casino?” I say, to not just be staring at her.

“It was fun. You should have come. Wayne Teng and his brother played roulette. It was like
Rain Man
, except they lost. And Tyson Grody was really sweet. He posed with all the tourists and the waitresses, even though he didn’t gamble or drink.
He asked me if I wanted to stay behind and have sex with him and some of the waitresses in one of the hotel rooms.”

“Wow,” I say. “That
is
sweet.”

“Don’t be jealous. All right, do.”

“Have you heard that guy’s music?”

“I like it,” Violet says. “I’ve got a lot of his stuff on my iPod. What?”

“Nothing. Did you ask him why he’s here?”

“Yeah. He’s an animal rights guy. He wants to make sure William the White Lake Monster doesn’t get exploited.”

Makes sense. Kid probably grew up in a cage at the foot of his parents’ bed, only getting let out for his dance-like-Michael-Jackson classes and boy band auditions. That he’d identify with a threatened rare animal, no matter how much freedom he has now, isn’t all that surprising.

Then Violet brushes the hair from her neck, revealing her sternocleidomastoid muscle, and I forget about Grody.

“Did you say something?” she says.

“No.”

“Is that an erection?”

I shift to test it. “No. It’s just a stuffy.”

“Which is what?”

“Penis lodged in underwear at an angle suggesting an erection.”

“Really? Can I touch it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because now it’s turning into an erection.”

Violet’s lips part audibly. She slowly drops her arms to her sides, revealing her body in its straining underwear. She looks like a superhero.

She moves her hips. Her pubic bone is just something you have to put your palm on. So I do, and grip her mons, and lift. Put my other hand in the small of her back to pull her toward me.

Our lips and teeth mash, cheekbones like fists, as we kiss.

Out the window, a twig snaps.

As I tackle Violet to the ground, the room lights up above us.

CFS Lodge, Ford Lake, Minnesota

Still Saturday, 15 September

There’s no explosion, though, or bursting glass. Just a run of light-flashes. I push off the floor and get through the door just as it goes off again.

I get around the cabin in time to see someone disappear into the woods that lead up to the outfitters. In a cabin somewhere to my left, Bark the Dog starts barking. I try to run and sniff my fingers at the same time. Violet’s smell gets the hairs on the back of my neck up.

As a flashlight switches on ahead of me and I enter the woods, I suddenly understand why Sheriff Albin is so obsessed with
cleared paths. Even though the trees have skinny trunks, like the whole area’s been logged, their branches form an airborne web.
^*
Ducking the small, stabby, eye-level branches just makes you more likely to get clotheslined by the chest-high thick ones. It’s like oozing at high speed through a filter made of wood. And unlike the lawn, which was as moist and springy as a cake, the ground here feels like rocks and thumbtacks.

It’s a bad place to be in your boxer briefs, but it’s not doing any favors for the guy I’m chasing either. Even with my thumbs up at my temples so my forearms will protect my face, and never putting all of my weight on one foot, I’m gaining on his flashlight beam.

As soon as I can see his collar, I dive for it. Yank it backward and down, landing him hard on his back.

I shine his flashlight on him.

Overweight guy around forty in an anorak. Winded and squirming from the light. He’s got a camera with a gigantic white telescopic lens held tightly to his chest.

“Who are you?” I say.

He breathes in and out a couple of times. “Nobody.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was lost. Get off of me.”

Bark comes tearing out of the woods like a disembodied set of eyes and fangs, dark on dark. Hops on the guy’s groin with all four feet and joyfully bounces off.

“Who are you?” I say when he recovers slightly. “Don’t make me ask you again.”

“What’s the situation?” Miguel says, coming up behind me. He’s in a robe and slippers, holding a 9mm in a two-handed military stance. Through the trees, I can see lights turning on in the cabins.

“Put that away,” I say. “This guy was taking pictures through the window.”

“Were you yelling before?” Miguel says to me.

“Yeah.” Bark starts licking the side of my head.

“Why?”

“Nightmare.”

“About what?”

“Don’t remember.”

Del arrives, in his own robe-and-handgun ensemble. “Who’s he?”

“He hasn’t said yet,” I say.

“He’s about to,” Miguel says. He jams the 9mm into the guy’s temple. “Who are you, motherfucker?”

“Ow, fuck!” the guy says.

I say “I said, put it away.”

“Soon as he tells us who he is.”

I take Miguel’s gun, eject the magazine, rack the chambered bullet out, and toss it into the woods.

“Fuck!” he says, going after it.

“You’re both fucking crazy,” the guy on the ground says.

“What’s going on?” Violet says, reaching us. She’s dressed, which makes me realize how sweaty I am, and how cold out it is. Reggie’s right behind her in a fleece shirt and his microshorts. There’s a lot of shining flashlights in each other’s eyes while Bark jumps around deliriously.

“Yo!” one of Tyson Grody’s guys yells from down by the lawn. “What’s going on up there?”

“It’s under control! No guns!” I shout. To Reggie and Violet, I say “This guy was snooping. Taking pictures.”

“Of what?” Violet says.

“I don’t know.”

“Who is he?”

Reggie says “Was there someone screaming?”

Miguel, searching through the brush, says bitterly “It was Dr. Azimuth. He was having a nightmare. Then he threw my gun over here.”

One of Wayne Teng’s bodyguards is next to Violet, though I don’t recall seeing him arrive. No gun, at least.

“All right. Out with it,” I say to the guy on the ground.

“Fuck you. Call the police if you want. I wasn’t doing anything illegal.”

“I’m pretty sure trespassing’s illegal,” Reggie says.

“This is private property?” the man says. “I need to get a better map of the easements around here. And if anyone touches me again I will sue the shit out of all of you.”

“No, you won’t,” I say, patting down his coat pockets. I fake a punch to his gut to make him flinch to one side, then pull the wallet from his back pocket.

“You’re mugging me!”

“You’ll know when I’m mugging you.”

In among the crap in the wallet there’s a driver’s license and a bunch of different business cards, all with the same name, “Michael Bennett.” One says “Michael Bennett, Desert Eagle Investigations, Phoenix, Arizona.”

“Who are you working for?” I say.

“Bite me. I wouldn’t tell you if I knew.”

I notice Jane, wife of Davey, coming up through the woods with some of the other lodge staff.

“You don’t know who hired you?”

“They used a middleman. It’s standard practice.”

Del leans down with what is, I realize too late, a drawn combat knife. For a second I think he’s going to stab the man, but he just cuts through the strap of his camera. Says “Mind if I take a look at this?”

“Yes—I do. Don’t touch that,” the man says.

“Is this thing self-stabilized?”

“God damn it, give it back!” He tries to sit up. My hand is still on his collar.

“What’s the assignment?” I ask him.

“I’m looking for wildlife—”

“Are these the pictures?” Del says, prying the memory card out. “Watch this.”

Pretty much everyone yells “Don’t!” as Del pinches the memory card in half and lets it drop.

“Oops,” he says.

Then he realizes he’s just ruined our chance to find out what the guy was here to photograph.

The guy realizes it too. Stands up, brushes himself off, and takes the camera from Del’s hands. Looks at me and says “Wallet.”

I give him his wallet. Del looks mortified.

“Gentlemen, ladies,” the photographer says as he turns to go uphill.