Wild Thing: A Novel

by Josh Bazell

  “If I was, I wouldn’t be talking to you. You forgot to pull the hammer again.”

  He looks at it. Says lamely “It’s for safety.”

  “Then stop pointing it at me.”

  “Where is everybody?” Debbie says.

  “Up the hill, mostly. You and Reggie both got lucky: all Reggie’s other guests are out doing tourist shit. You can leave now, before Sheriff Albin gets here, and nobody’ll know anything ever happened. But you should do it soon. You know Del and Miguel?”

  “Course I know those knuckleheads.”

  “Then you should know those knuckleheads have guns, and that they’re watching us right now with binoculars. I’m guessing they won’t take too kindly to your Boys going through their shit.” The Boys have started kicking in cabin doors and looking inside.

  “I’m not here to steal anything,” Debbie says.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Talk to Reggie.”

  “About what?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I didn’t come to Minnesota to see a dinosaur, Debbie. I came to figure out what Reggie’s pulling.”

  “Whatever it is, what he’s making from it is blood money.”

  “Which I gather you want a part of.”

  She moves in front of me. “Watch yourself. He killed my son. I don’t have to let him profit from it too.”

  “Point taken. I heard about your son. I’m sorry.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “I am, actually. It’s awful. But we don’t have to talk about it.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “What we have to do is figure out how to get you out of here. When Reggie called Albin, Albin was already on Highway Fifty-Three west of Ely.”

  “How far west?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why should I even believe you?”

  “I’m not sure there’s an answer for that.”

  “And why the hell would you want to help me?”

  “I’m a doctor. I’m required to try to help people.” Even to me it sounds comical. “And neither you nor these kids needs to go to jail for something this stupid.”

  I look over at one of her mini-thugs. “What is that, an assault rifle?”

  “I’m not leaving till I talk to Reggie.”

  “Fine. Then stay and talk. But send your Boys home. Or at least send some of them home, with the guns, and get the rest of them to wipe off that dumbass face paint.”

  Debbie thinks about it. Goes over and talks to the dork with the Colt. He scowls at me as he goes to round everybody up.

  Debbie comes back with the corner of her fleece vest lifted to show me her waist holster and the pocket Glock that’s in it. “This one I’ve got a concealed-carry permit for. I do what you say and it doesn’t work out, I’m holding you responsible.”

  “Fair enough.” I give it a moment. “Can I ask you a question?”

  She looks at me warily.

  “What is it that makes you think Reggie was responsible for Benjy’s death?”

  She laughs darkly. “You’re here, aren’t you? And a lot of other rich people. Reggie’s getting just what he always wanted.”

  “Do you think he shot Chris Jr. and Father Podominick?”

  “Want to tell me again how you’re not a cop?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Whatever. But yes. I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reason.”

  “So I take it you didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  Debbie shakes her head. “You know, I’ve got no reason to tell you, but I will. I did not shoot Chris Jr. and Father Podominick. I did not order them to be shot or in any other way contribute to their demise.”

  “You didn’t blame Chris Jr. and Father Podominick for planning the monster hoax?”

  “Honey, those two couldn’t have planned a bowling ball dropping off the roof. I don’t know which of them was stupider.”

  “You think Reggie was manipulating them?”

  “That’s what he’s good at. He’s doing it now, to you.”

  Can’t say I’m sure she’s wrong.

  “Seen Dylan Arntz recently?” I say.

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  “Well it goddamn should be illegal.”

  “Well at least for now it isn’t,” Sheriff Albin says.

  “How much is he paying you, Boss Hogg?”

  “Debbie, I’m not gonna dignify that.”

  “I’m calling the real cops.”

  “You know, you do have the right to remain silent.”

  I stop listening. They’ve been at it for half an hour, Sheriff Albin demonstrating his ability to turn any situation immediately boring. Which, now that I think about it, is why people call the cops in the first place.

  I hear something: distant helicopter blades.

  Reggie, looking worried, comes trotting over from where he’s been making a phone call in front of the registration cabin.

  “I’ve got VIPs coming in,” he says.

  Sheriff Albin lets a beat go by before he says “All right.”

  “I’ve got ’em coming in now. Whatever Debbie’s doing here, I’ll drop all the charges if you can get her out of here.”

  “Can’t say it to my face, child-killer?” Debbie says.

  “Debbie, when this is over, I will be happy to discuss anything you want. Just not at this moment.”

  “What’s the rush?” Albin says.

  “It’s this whole secrecy thing. They’re not gonna land the chopper unless everyone down here has signed a confidentiality agreement.”

  The chopper in question beats into view loud and low over the far end of the lake. It’s giant—a Sikorsky Sea King or something. The kind with portholes, like the president uses.

  “Why? Who is it?” Sheriff Albin says.

  Reggie squirms. “Any chance of you signing a confidentiality agreement?”

  “I’m an officer of the law, Reggie.”

  Seeing Reggie hold his bad hand to the good side of his mouth so he can chew his nails isn’t that pleasant. “Sheriff, this is really important. And far as I know, I’m not breaking any laws.”

  Albin watches the helicopter track around the lake. Finally says “You gonna be here tomorrow? Say at one-thirty p.m.?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You won’t have left by then?”

  “No sir.”

  “I take Debbie home now, you’ll be here?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Debbie says. “Civil disobedience.”

  “We’re gonna throw your ass out, civil disobedience,” says Miguel, who’s come over to help.

  “Everybody relax,” Albin says, so slowly that he makes it happen.

  To Reggie he says “Three o’clock I have to be in Soudan. So I’d need to be finished up here by two-thirty. And by ‘finished up’ I mean I’d need you and I to have sat down and you to have told me everything you have planned for this situation. And convinced me that it’s not something I need to worry about.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “The way I see it, I’m doing you a pretty big favor by doing it that way. Is that how you see it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “All right then.” Albin opens the passenger door of his cruiser. “Ms. Schneke? Back or front?”

  I’m confused.

  Where I come from, cops talking about favors and how you need to convince them of shit just means you’re supposed to pay them. But I don’t get the sense that’s what’s going on here. As far as I can tell, Albin and Reggie have just made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.

  But if the helicopter means the ref is arriving now, aren’t we leaving in the morning? And if we are, and Reggie’s planning to blow Albin off, just how desperate is Reggie? Albin seems reasonable, but he’s the law, and it’s stupid to fuck with him.

  The helicopter’s turning in a wide circle, getting ready to land
in the parking lot of the outfitters, so we all start trudging up to meet it. I try to drift toward Violet on the way, but she gives me such a go-thither look that I leave her alone.

  The rotors take forever to stop turning. You can feel the dust moving across your scalp and the heat of the jet fuel coming off the turboshafts.

  The parking lot’s been emptied and a turnaround of traffic cones set up by the highway entrance. Guarding the perimeter are about twenty serious, healthy-looking young people of the Davey and Jane variety. The rest of the employees of the outfitters have been sent home.

  Eventually the helicopter’s gangway folds down. Three goons get off. Black suits and mirror shades, with curly-tube earpieces going down the backs of their collars. They walk what’s obviously a rehearsed security grid, moving their heads robotically and occasionally commenting into their wrists. It makes you wonder why Secret Service agents—or people who want to look like them, or whatever these guys are—still use curly-tube earpieces. There’s got to be a smaller piece of electronics.

  One of them goes over and talks to Reggie. Then into the wrist. A fourth goon gets off the helicopter and stays by the steps.

  Two kids in their twenties but wearing suits come down and also stand around. Interns or assistants or something. After them comes Tom Marvell, the Vegas stage magician.

  I might have recognized Marvell anyway, as the first black entertainer to permanently headline a casino. But I also heard an interesting story about him once from a connection I have in the Justice Department.* When Dominique Strauss-Kahn got arrested in New York in May of 2011 and was looking at seven felony charges, a French law firm supposedly tried to hire Marvell to get Strauss-Kahn out of the country, the best opportunity was being thought to be during Strauss-Kahn’s transfer from Rikers Island to house arrest. “Marvell was supposed to turn him into some doves or something,” was how I heard it.

  Marvell’s a smart choice for referee. He may not have anything to do with the federal government like Reggie’s letter promised, but he’s glamorous enough that people will probably overlook that. In theory he’s as qualified to spot a fake as it gets. And the Vegas angle, which I’m guessing is where the bit with the pseudo–Secret Service guys comes in, never hurts.

  He just mills around the gangway, though, as more people come down.

  First a tall guy in a gray suit with an open-necked shirt, who looks like a model in a watch ad. Odd, but there’s no way he’s the ref: he looks too bored.

  Next comes a girl around fourteen years old, so gangly that an adult that thin would be rushed to a hospital.

  Another Secret Service–looking guy gets off the helicopter.

  Then Sarah Palin comes down the steps.

  21

  Camp Fawn See, Ford Lake, Minnesota

  Still Saturday, 15 September

  You probably want to know how MILFy she is in person. Or GILFy, or RILFy or whatever.

  She looks fine in person. Smaller than you’d think, and jowlier. Too much makeup but you knew that. It’s strange to see the back of her head.

  All I feel when she gets off the helicopter, though, is depressed. I knew my time with Violet Hurst was short, but I didn’t think it was this short. No way in hell is Rec Bill going to bet two million dollars on the opinion of someone who’s as famous for being uninformed as Sarah Palin is. And who, for the record, doesn’t have anything more to do with the federal government than Tom Marvell does.

  Regarding the woman herself, I have almost no curiosity at all—something she gets accused of all the time, but I have an excuse: I’m sick of her shit. God may be present in the company of the righteous, and Zeus in the swans and the rain, but Palin is fucking everywhere, and has been for years.*

  Although my interest in her does improve a bit when, on the kind of receiving line that forms before dinner to introduce her and her entourage to the guests and employees, she pumps my hand, makes eye contact vacantly, moves on to Del, then notices the tattoo on my right shoulder and halts, staring at it.*

  The tattoo is of a winged staff with two snakes twined around it. When I got it, I thought it was the symbol of Asclepius, the god of medicine, but that would have been an unwinged staff with one snake. A staff with wings and two snakes turns out to be the symbol of Hermes, the god who takes people to the underworld.

  Palin reaches out and touches it. Says “John. Come look at this.”

  To me she says “Why do you have this?”

  “It was supposed to be the symbol of Asclepius, the god of medicine.”

  “But it’s the symbol of Hermes.”

  Great. Even people who can’t name all three countries in North America know that.

  I wonder if Violet’s ever noticed it’s the wrong symbol. If she did, but didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, I should confront her about it. It might make up for my not telling her the French toast was frozen. Which would at least be something.

  “What is it, Sarah?” the tall good-looking guy says, coming over.

  “Look at this.”

  He does, with a California squint. Puts his hands on my shoulders to try and turn me so he can see my other arm.

  “I’m Lionel Azimuth,” I say.

  He smiles with pained condescension. “Sorry. Reverend John 3:16 Hawke.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s my name.” He moves to the side to be able to see the tattoo on my other shoulder without moving me.

  Star of David.

  “Ah,” he says.

  Palin moves around to see. The reverend doesn’t get out of her way, which forces her to awkwardly press up against him. “Oh, my goodness,” she says.

  “We’re close, Sarah. Really close.”

  He pulls her back and they continue down the line. Violet, like everybody else, is staring. I shrug and try to keep her gaze, but she looks away.

  At dinner Palin’s oddly hunched over her food, frowning with concentration as she listens to whatever the Reverend John 3:16 Hawke is saying in her ear. Sitting on her other side is the fourteen-year-old girl—a distant relation of Palin’s, it turns out, named Sanskrit or something. At present the girl’s bright red and silent, possibly in reaction to being across from Tyson Grody.

  There’s a strange hush over the room. People keep referring to Palin as “the Governor,” but in whispers, like they don’t want to distract her. The Ficks, who on some instinct stopped by on their way out of town to make sure the ref wasn’t someone worth rejoining for, only to discover that she easily was, are beaming now in Palin’s vindicating presence.

  I say as little as possible, and nothing at all to Tom Marvell, who’s at my table. Marvell seems nice enough: earlier, on the lawn, he did a magic trick for Stuart Teng that involved a business card bursting into flames, then repeated it about fifteen times while Stuart cried with laughter and Palin’s young relation, mortified, tried not to look like part of Marvell’s intended audience. And I’d love to know what his connection to Palin is—where’d they meet, at a Westbrook Pegler convention? But no one who lives in Vegas and is smart enough to be both black and an ongoing success in that mafia theme park is someone I want noticing me.

  Violet’s over at the grown-ups’ table, near Grody. I’m not jealous. It’d be like a Doberman hooking up with a Chihuahua. It’s annoying that he gets to talk to her, though.

  After dinner, when she and Teng talk about going back to the casino, and the idea spreads to the whole group, I consider going with them just to try for some time with her. Decide not to. I don’t need to know any of these people any better. Violet included.

  Instead I go back to the office in the registration cabin and do my best not to look at the photo of the Semmel family as I check my e-mail. There’s already a reply from Rec Bill to the message I sent him before dinner about the ref turning out to be Palin. Since I know it’ll tell me to go home, I leave it for later.

  Instead I read the e-mail from Robby, the Australian kid covering for me on th
e ship. It just says “barfing all over.” No capitalization, even.

  I ask for details and wish him a speedy recovery if he’s the one doing the barfing. Then I open the message from Rec Bill.

  “I approve of Palin as the ref. Proceed as planned.”

  No fucking way.

  Grateful as I am to stay out here with Violet, particularly if she starts speaking to me again, I’m astonished. Wasting two million dollars is repellent, no matter how rich you are. At least in the Gilded Age they gilded shit.

  Rec Bill comes through on a couple of other points, though. Looks like there really is a Desert Eagle Investigations in Phoenix, Arizona, employing—in fact owned by—a guy named Michael Bennett, who matches the description of the guy who was here. And apparently Christine Semmel, mother of Autumn, now lives in San Diego and has a phone number.

  Still wondering why Rec Bill so badly needs the White Lake Monster to exist, I call her.

  “Yes?” she says. Her voice is a whisper.

  “Ms. Semmel?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Lionel Azimuth. I’m a physician. I’m sort of assisting in an investigation into some possible criminal activity here in Minnesota.”

  Nothing.

  “It’s a long story, but I’d be happy to give you the details.”

  “Is this Reggie?” she says.

  “No.”

  “You’re calling from the lodge.”

  “I am. I’m staying here. But like I say—”

  “Has he killed someone else?”

  All right, then.

  “Someone else other than who?”

  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.”