In the Lake of the Woods (10 page)

At the cottage, where the road widened out, Claude cut the engine and let the car roll down the slope to the boathouse. For a few moments they sat quietly in the dark, letting their eyes adjust. The old man pulled a flashlight from the glove compartment. "How's the gyroscope? You can walk okay?"

"Perfect. I can walk
great.
"

"Just a question." Claude made an indifferent motion with his shoulders. "Your breath, man—devil rum, smells like. Even an old goat like me, I can tell rum from crapola." He opened his door. "Let's see this terrific walk of yours."

The fog had stacked up thick along the shore, moist and
oily, and Wade felt an unpleasant weight in his lungs as he followed the old man over to the boathouse. Claude swung open the double doors and aimed his flashlight at the boat rack. Very pure, Wade thought. All that emptiness. After a time Claude tipped his cap back, squatted down, ran a hand along the dirt floor.

"Yeah, well," he said. "We got a gone boat."

"I told you."

"Sure, you told me." The old man stood up. He seemed to be listening for something. "Took herself a little ride. Don't mean diddly."

"She's not back yet."

"No kidding. That's what I admire about you, Senator. Plenty of optimism."

 

They went outside, checked the dock, then moved up through the rocks to the cottage. Inside, Wade snapped on the kitchen lights. Immediately he felt a new stiffness to the place, like a museum, everything frozen and hollow. He followed Claude from room to room, vaguely hopeful, but already a great stillness had entered the objects of their lives: her blue bathrobe, her slippers at the foot of the bed, the book of crossword puzzles folded open on the kitchen counter. That quick, Wade thought.

In the living room, Claude stopped and surveyed things. He looked puzzled. "The phone, man. Where's it at?"

"Around," Wade said. "I unplugged it."

"Unplugged?"

"What's the difference? We needed quiet, I put it away somewhere."

The old man sucked out his upper denture. He seemed to
be computing a run of numbers in his head. "Well, sure. Quiet's fine. Except I don't see why you had to go and hide the damn thing."

"I didn't
hide
it. I told you, it's here."

"Unplugged, though?"

"Yes."

Claude's eyes roamed. "So in other words there's no way your wife could've called? Like if she got stuck in town or got delayed or something?"

"I suppose not."

"You suppose?"

"Right. She couldn't."

Wade turned away. It took a few minutes to locate the telephone under the kitchen sink. He felt the old man's eyes tracking him as he carried it out to the living room and plugged it in.

Claude dialed, listened for a moment, and hung up.

"Busy," he said. "Ruth's probably got your lady on the horn right now."

"You think—"

"I think we cool our heels, don't get all panicked up."

"I'm not panicked," Wade said, "I'm worried."

"Fair enough, you're worried." The old man took off his cap and ran a hand across the top of his head, smoothing down hair that wasn't there. "No harm in worry, but I'll tell you a true fact. This place here, I've run it twenty-four straight years. Haven't lost one single paying customer. The factual truth. Not even one, except for a few dumbass fishermen, which I'm pissed to say wasn't permanent."

Wade shook his head. "Doesn't mean she's not in trouble."

"Right. It means we wait."

"Just sit?"

"Hell no, we don't just sit. Where's that knockout rum of yours?"

 

They moved out to the kitchen. Wade fixed a pair of drinks, passed one over to Claude, and looked up at the clock over the stove. Almost two in the morning. She'd been gone fifteen hours, maybe longer, and ugly pictures were beginning to form. Seaweed hair. A bottom-up boat.

Claude's voice seemed to come from Canada.

"I say, can she
swim?'

"Swim?"

"Your wife."

Wade blinked and nodded. "Yes. Good swimmer."

"Well, there you are then, hey?"

"But it seems like—I don't know—like we should get out there and start looking."

"Look where?"

"Anywhere. Just look."

Claude was chewing on an ice cube. He squinted down at his drink, then sighed and swallowed. "Maybe you didn't notice," he said, "but it's dead dark out there. Black as sin—that's item one. Plus we got fog. Plus a couple thousand square miles of water, not to mention forest, not to mention God knows how many islands and sand bars and crap. Can't accomplish a damn thing."

"The police, then."

"What police? Vinny Pearson, he runs the Texaco station, Vinny's the police. Gets eighty bucks a month part-time—what's he gonna do? I'll
tell you
what. He's gonna say, 'Man, get your ass back to sleep,' which is pretty much what I say.
Nothing we can do till morning, that's a fact. Worst it can be, your wife's beached up somewhere."

"No way," Wade said.

"You sound awful certain."

"A feeling. I know."

"You know?"

"That's right."

Claude removed his cap again. He was silent for a while, studying a spot at the center of Wade's forehead. "One thing I'm curious about. You two lovebirds didn't ... There wasn't like a fight or something?"

"No."

"A spat, I mean?"

"Of course not."

The old man frowned. "No big deal. Like with Ruth and me, sometimes we get itchy in the temper. She'll say something, I'll say something, pretty soon we're pitching hand grenades across the kitchen. It happens that way."

"Not with us," Wade said. "I woke up this morning, Kathy was gone."

"That's it?"

"Everything."

"Well, good. There we are." The old man leaned back in his chair. There was a question in his eyes, something that hadn't yet shaped itself. He gazed thoughtfully at a stack of empty flowerpots on the kitchen counter.

"No fight, no problem," he finally said. "I was you, Senator, I'd just give it time, see what Ruth comes up with."

"Let's dispense with the senator shit."

"Wasn't meant to offend."

"Just lay off. I'm no senator."

Claude smiled. "Got thumped pretty bad. Three to one, I guess."

"Close enough."

"Damn pity. Democrats, they're a tough bunch to please. Like with me, I'm what you call a real true-blue Minnesota DFLer. Hubert and Orville and Floyd B. Olson—that crew—the old kickass corn-farmer boys. Meat and potatoes, so to speak. Say what you mean, mean what you say. One thing I don't care for, it's pussyfoot politics."

There was silence while the old man refilled his glass.

"Anyhow," he said, "can't say I voted for you."

Wade shrugged. "Not many can."

"Nothing personal."

"No. It never is."

Claude gave him a sidelong glance, amused. "Other hand, I'm not saying I
didn't.
Maybe so, maybe not. What surprised me—the thing I don't get—you never once asked for help. Money-wise, I mean. You could've asked."

"And then what?"

"Hard to say. People claim I'm a sucker for lost causes." The old man hesitated. "Truth is, you didn't have a Chinaman's prayer, not after all that nasty shit hit the papers. Even so, I might've tossed in a few bucks."

"Well, good. The thought counts."

"A hatchet job. Made you look ... I guess it's not something you care to talk about?"

"I guess not."

The old man nodded. He glanced at the clock and pushed himself up. "Sit tight, I'll try Ruth again."

Wade's head was pounding. That fuzzy, seasick feeling had settled back over him; he couldn't make the ugly pictures go
away. The debris was bobbing up all around him. Ghosts and algae and bits of bone.

He listened as Claude dialed. The old man spoke quietly for a few minutes, then sighed and hung up. "No luck. Ruth'll keep at it, plenty more names to call."

"The police," Wade said.

"Maybe."

"Not maybe. Kathy's out there, we need to get something started. Right now."

The old man stuffed his hands in his back pockets. Absently, frowning slightly, he looked at the stack of clay pots near the sink. "Well, see, I already explained, Vinny ain't no Kojak. All he can do is call down to the sheriff in Baudette. Put out some boats, line up a plane or two."

"That's a start," Wade said. "It's something."

"I guess."

"So let's move."

Claude was still evaluating the empty pots. He waited a moment, then crossed over to the kitchen sink. "Those flowers, man. What the fuck happened?"

"Nothing," Wade said. "An accident."

"Yeah?"

"Claude, we're wasting time."

A little vein wobbled at the old man's forehead. He picked up one of the pots and turned it in his hands. "Accident," he said. "Some accident."

It has been said that a miracle is the result of causes with which we are unacquainted. Once these causes are discovered we no longer have a miracle, but natural law ... In a way, all of us dislike the laws of nature. We should prefer to make things happen in the more direct in which savage people imagine them to happen, through our own invocation.
²²

—Robert Parrish (
The Magician's Handbook
)

 

He actually
thought
of himself as Sorcerer, that's how it seemed to me, and Kathy was his main audience. I can't see how she put up with it. Maybe she hoped he'd pull off a real miracle or something. For her own life, I mean. I guess sometimes my sister thought of him as Sorcerer too.

—Patricia S. Hood

 

For the spectator there is the complementary pleasure of yielding passively to an omnipotent and mysterious force, of submitting helplessly to mounting swells of excitement where reason is overthrown and judgment scuttled.
²³

—Bernard C. Meyer (
Houdini: A Mind in Chains
)

 

He was a charmer. Literally. Wrap you up in charms till you couldn't fucking move.

—Anthony L. (Tony) Carbo

 

A nice, polite man, if you ask me.

—Ruth Rasmussen

 

Kathy
knew
he had these secrets, things he wouldn't talk about. She
knew
about the spying. Maybe I'm wrong but it was like she needed to be part of it. That whole sick act of his.

—Bethany Kee (Associate Admissions Director, University of Minnesota)

 

... you may find yourself crying in corners and vowing that his buddies may have died on him in Vietnam, the brass may have turned its collective back on him, but you will never desert him. He needs you. Whether he can say it or not, whether he can act like it or not, he needs you.
²⁴

—Patience H. C. Mason (
Recovering from the War
)

 

I guess Kathy loved him so much she couldn't see what was happening all around her. Like this pixie dust. Sprinkle on the love, you end up fooling yourself.

—Patricia S. Hood

 

Audiences want to believe what they see a magician do, and yet at the same time they know better and do not believe. Therein lies the fascination of magic to modern people. It is a paradox, a riddle, a half-fulfillment of an ancient desire, a puzzle, a torment, a cheat and a truth.
²⁵

—Robert Parrish (
The Magician's Handbook
)

 

Exhibit Eight: John Wade's Box of Tricks, Partial List
Chinese Rings
Lota Bowl
Sponge balls
Stripper deck
Magician's wax
Postcard from father (dated July 19, 1956, photograph of unidentified granite building, handwriting largely illegible, "... out of here soon ... can't wait to ... Dad")
Magician's milk (2 cans)
Silk load
Book:
Time Telepathy
Book:
Tarbell Course in Magic, Vol. I
Assorted catalogs, Karra's Studio of Magic

 

That summer when John was eleven it got to where I didn't have any choice. The drinking just got worse and worse. His father would be down at the American Legion all afternoon and half the night. Finally I got up the nerve to check him into the state treatment center up north. I hate to say it, but it was a relief to have him out of the house. John and I, we both adored the man, but suddenly all the tension was gone and we could have supper without sitting there on the edge of our seats ... A couple of times John and I drove up to visit him on weekends. We'd go out on this grassy lawn and eat picnic lunches and Well it was nice I remember one time—we were getting ready to leave—I remember his father walked us over to the car and put his arms around me and kissed me and almost cried and said he loved me and he was sorry and everything would be better now It wasn't though It never got much better.

—Eleanor K. Wade

 

In every trick there are two carefully thought out lines—the way it looks and the way it is. The success of your work depends upon your understanding the relationship of these lines.
²⁶

—Robert Parrish (
The Magician's Handbook
)

 

I'm no psychiatrist, but if you ask me, politicians in general are pretty insecure people. Look at me—fat as a pig. Love-starved. [Laughter] So we go public. We're performers. We get up on stage and sing and dance and do our little show, anything to please folks, anything for applause. Like children. Just suck up the love.

—Anthony L. (Tony) Carbo