31

CFS Lodge, Ford Lake, Minnesota

Still Thursday, 20 September

Professor Marmoset—whose family, yes, is from Uttar Pradesh, and whose Al Pacino hair does make it kind of hard to guess his age—is on one of the couches in the registration cabin. Legs up, Violet next to him the same way, Bark the Dog between them. Marmoset and Violet loll their heads in my direction when I come in. Violet lolls hers away.

“Ishmael,” Professor Marmoset says. “You look like shit.”

“I am like shit,” I say. The whole cabin smells like Bark’s wet fur. “What are you doing here?”

“Rec Bill called me. He heard that Sarah Palin gave the surprise keynote address to the American Association of Chromium Processors in Omaha this morning, and wondered if something had happened that required her to arrange an alibi.”

“This morning?” Out the window, the sun’s just going down.

“Late morning. Pre-lunch. Still, someone’s got a pretty good booking agent.”

“No shit.” I’m almost as impressed by Palin’s turnaround as I am by the fact that Rec Bill managed to get Professor Marmoset on the phone.

As if he can read my mind, Professor Marmoset looks at his watch.

“How long are you here for?” I say.

“Not long. I’m on my way to the Mayo. I’ve got one of Rec Bill’s planes at Ely Municipal. I can give you guys a ride to Minneapolis if you want.”

“Violet can go. I need to return the car.”

He gestures to the armchair. “Then sit. I at least need to hear your version of this business.”

★★★

I tell him. He doesn’t interrupt much. At the end he says “You know, you can make a passive nightscope out of a digital camera.”

I just stare at him.

“In case you ever need to.”

I say “You can make a passive nightscope out of an active nightscope and a piece of tape.”

“For three times the price.”

“I’m on an expense account. Any thoughts on the lake monster?”

Marmoset yawns. “What’s your take on it?”

“That there’s something fucking down there.”

“Okay.”

“And if it’s mechanical, it’s the best piece of engineering I’ve ever heard of.”

“Agreed.”

“Which means it’s probably not mechanical. Which means it’s probably some kind of actual fucking creature.”

He frowns. “By ‘actual fucking creature,’ you mean an animal not generally understood to exist?”

“Yes.”

“That seems implausible.”

“Of course it seems implausible. It seems fucking insane. But I saw it.”

“You saw it?”

“Felt it. Well enough to be able to tell it wasn’t anything else.”

“So…”

“So I think it’s like that thing Sherlock Holmes says. Where anything’s possible if there’s no other explanation.”

Violet looks at me in surprise.

Marmoset says “That’s actually the one stupid thing Holmes says. You and I discussed it once on the shuttle to Mercy Hospital. That and how Houdini did the removable-thumb trick for Arthur Conan Doyle and Doyle thought it was actual magic. Anyway, it’s wrong: there’s always another explanation.”

Violet doesn’t smile, just keeps looking at me. It’s worse.

“And there will be an explanation for this,” Marmoset says. “In fact, we even know how we’ll get it.”

I turn back to him. “We do?”

“Of course. Why was someone so convinced the monster was real that they felt compelled to chase it down in an amphibious boat? At night, in secret? Reggie doesn’t seem to have believed in the monster. Debbie told you she didn’t. Dr. Hurst’s friends in the bar said they did, but neither of them seems to have enough at stake to feel strongly one way or the other. So what makes the person in the boat so certain? What do they know that we don’t?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “What?”

He raises his palms. “No idea. We don’t even have enough information to say for sure whether the person on the boat shot Chris Jr. and Father Podominick. But I think finding that person, or even identifying him, will get us the answers to every question we have.”

“You’re right,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

Marmoset looks at me sharply. “I didn’t mean you literally, Ishmael. I meant the police.”

“The police have had two years to deal with this.”

“Yes, and I imagine they’ll consider it a higher priority now.”

“Right. Unless Teng’s death gets covered up.”

Marmoset looks skeptical. “To protect Palin?”

“Or Tyson Grody,” I say. “Or the Ficks, whoever they are—or even Teng, or Teng’s company, or his reputation or whatever. Or all of them.”

Marmoset wrinkles his nose. “I think that’s unlikely. And even if someone does manage to keep it quiet, this situation is no longer our responsibility. I wouldn’t have gotten you involved in the first place if I’d known there had been actual deaths at White Lake.”

“And you’re not worried there’ll be more?”

“I think we can rely on Parks and Recreation to put up a ‘No Swimming’ sign.”

“What about a ‘No Getting Shot with a Hunting Rifle’ sign?”

“Ishmael,” Marmoset says quietly. “Do you really think your staying here is going to make people less likely to get killed?”

Oh, snappity.

“The police will find the person with the boat,” he says. “There can’t be that many companies that make amphibious boats, and those companies can’t sell that many of them.”

I’m not about to let it go, though. “What do you want to bet the boat turns out to have been charged to Chris Jr.? Like the nets and harpoons no one seems to have wanted?”

Marmoset nods. “It’s a possibility I’ve considered.”

“I’m going back to White Lake. I’m going to find the guy with the boat and make him tell me what’s going on. Now is when he’ll be there.”

“As will the police.”

“There may be some cops, but not like there will be once they start dragging the lake. Not to mention what will happen when word does get out that Palin was here. The journalists alone will rent every canoe Reggie owns. We know that, and the guy in the boat knows that, so now is when he’ll try again. He couldn’t even stay away when Reggie’s tour was nearby.”

“Assuming he or she was aware of that.”

“Why wouldn’t he have been?” I say. “Everybody else was. You know what I’m saying is right.”

“In some respects, but—”

“I’ll go alone. There won’t be anyone to get hurt.”

“Except you, Ishmael. You do count for something, you know. There are other, more important things you’re capable of.”

“No,” Violet says.

We both look at her.

“Not alone. I’m going with you. Whatever the fuck your name is.”

I stare back at her. “Forget it. No way.”

“You owe me. We started this together and we’ll finish it together. And you’re going to answer some fucking questions on the way.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Both of us or neither of us.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“And you can’t stop me,” she says. “And I’m a lot better at canoeing than you are.”

“But—”

Why would she even want to?

I turn from her to Marmoset. “What have you been telling this woman?”

Marmoset shakes his head with an expression I’ve seen on him a million times before. Dismay without surprise.

“Nothing I don’t now regret,” he says.