15

CFS Lodge, Ford Lake, Minnesota

Friday, 14 September–Saturday, 15 September

The e-mail from Robby, the Australian kid who’s covering for me on the ship, is signed “Fuck you very much, mate,” which I take to be good news. At least he’s still engaged.

Cruise ship doctors tend to burn out into either martyrs or Caligula. I picked Robby because I thought he would stay down the center of the lane as long as possible before veering toward martyrdom. Patients get better treatment from the Peace Corps types than the Love Boat ones.

I did my best to leave him detailed instructions—things like how to argue with the captain to get someone airlifted when they’re having a heart attack and don’t have MedEvac insurance, how to steal supplies, where to hide those supplies given that so many crew members use the examining room of the staff clinic as a fuck pad, and so on.^[40] I told him to watch for groom-on-bride honeymoon violence, since the “security guards” have orders not to interfere with it.^[41] And I told him never to bother the senior physician, Dr. Muñoz, when he’s ballroom dancing with the old ladies, because Dr. Muñoz hates that, plus is incompetent. But Robby always has questions even so, about things I forgot to tell him, or that I purposely left out because I didn’t want to scare him off.

In the office of the registration cabin, which is where Reggie told me to go to use the Internet, I answer the ones he has now and wish him well as sincerely as I can, given that I essentially lured his ass into the job just so I could flee it. And to do what—go on vacation?

Oh, right: to earn enough money to somehow buy my way out of a mafia vendetta. And come up with a plan for how to do that.

I have given it some thought. Mostly about contracting a prison hit on David Locano. But even supposing Locano’s not in protective isolation, I’d still need a way to hire someone in prison to kill him. And as far as I know, there isn’t one.

In real life, even hitmen who aren’t in prison are close to impossible to hire privately. Or even contact. No matter what you think of the FBI, and no matter how justified you are in thinking that, they’ve got to be as good at finding freelance hitmen as some schmuck who wants his wife whacked is going to be. Every real hitman I’ve known, or even heard of, in or out of prison, has tried to work for as few people as possible, generally within the same branch of the same mafia. Usually some mafia that now wants me dead.^[42]

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^[43]—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.