In the Lake of the Woods (25 page)

Much later, it seemed, Claude clapped his arm. They stood up and walked over to where Pat and Art Lux were conversing in the dark. Vinny Pearson had disappeared.

Wade zipped up his jacket.

"Convicted?" he said pleasantly.

 

They went out again in the morning, and every morning for the next two weeks. The lake was huge and empty.

On October 8 the Minnesota State Police recalled its three search aircraft. Four days later the U.S. Border Patrol downgraded its operations to routine, and by October 17 only three private boats still remained on active search.

The weather mostly held—crisp days, cold nights. There
was a snowfall on the morning of October 19, a light frost two days later, but then the skies cleared and a warming wind came up from the south and the autumn sunlight remained bright and steady.

The routine kept Wade going.

In the mornings Ruth Rasmussen would be ready with a cooler of sandwiches and soft drinks. Claude and Pat would look over the chart book, marking it up with a red pencil, then they would troop down to the boat and spend the day cruising back and forth in long silvery sweeps. The wilderness was massive. It was a place, Wade came to understand, where lost was a rule of thumb. The water here was the water there. Nothing in particular, all in general. Forests folded into forests, sky swallowed sky. The solitude bent back on itself. Everywhere was nowhere. It was perfect unity, perfect oneness, the flat mirroring waters giving off exact copies of other copies, everything in multiples, everything hypnotic and blue and meaningless, always the same. Here, Wade decided, was where the vanished things go. The dropped nickels. The needles in haystacks.

There was nothing to find—he knew that—but he felt a curious peace looking out on the endless woods and water. Like the box of mirrors in his head, the way he used to slip inside and just disappear for a while.

 

"No can do," Claude said.

"We'd cover more country."

"No."

"But it wouldn't be ... I'd have maps."

"Maps my ass. No means no."

"I could do it anyway."

"You could."

"So why not?"

The old man sighed. "Just no."

 

At dinner that night Wade brought it up again. It wasn't a question of practicalities. It was something he should be doing.

The old man stared at him. "Agreed," he said. "You're already doing it."

"Alone, I mean."

"Don't con me."

"I'm not conning."

"Either way. Still no."

Wade looked over at Ruth, who shook her head, then at Pat, who rolled her shoulders in a gesture that suggested something close to ridicule. "Seriously, I'd be fine," he said. "A compass and maps, no problem. Maybe a radio."

"So?" Claude said. "And then what?"

"Just look."

"Right. End up same place as your wife."

"It's something I have to try."

Pat lifted her gaze. "God, such chivalry. I love it. I bet Kathy would too."

"I don't mean—"

"The Lone Ranger."

Claude glared across the table. He pulled out his upper plate, dipped it in his cup of coffee, and slipped it back in. "Whatever your personal problems, let's be real extra-clear. There's this word
no,
it means not a chance. It means forget it."

"He's good at that," Pat said. "A good chivalrous forgetter."

"Quiet," said Claude.

"I'm just commenting."

"Oh, yeah."

"All that gallantry," Pat said. "Hi ho Silver."

 

There was snow the next morning, which turned to heavy rain, and at noon Claude swung the boat back toward the cottage. They spent the day waiting. By midafternoon it was snowing again, with a hard slanting wind, and from the cottage windows there was nothing to be seen of the dock or the boathouse or the lake beyond. For a couple of hours they played a listless game of Scrabble in front of the fireplace. Around five, Wade went outside with a shovel, slowly working his way from the porch to the driveway. His thoughts were mostly on magic. He scooped up the heavy wet snow, digging hard, his mind ticking through the mechanics of a last nifty illusion. A piece of causal transportation. It could be done. Like those two crazy snakes in Pinkville.

Curiously, as he worked out the details, Wade found himself experiencing a new sympathy for his father. This was how it was. You go about your business. You carry the burdens, entomb yourself in silence, conceal demon-history from all others and most times from yourself. Nothing theatrical. Shovel snow; diddle at politics or run a jewelry store; seek periodic forgetfulness; betray the present with every breath drawn from the bubble of a rotted past. And then one day you discover a length of clothesline. You amaze yourself. You pull over a garbage can and hop aboard and hook yourself up to forever. No notes, no diagrams. You don't explain a thing. Which was the art of it—his father's art, Kathy's art—that magnificent giving over to pure and absolute Mystery. It was the difference, he thought, between evil and a bad childhood.
To know is to be disappointed. To understand is to be betrayed. All the petty hows and whys, the unseemly motives, the abscesses of character, the sordid little uglinesses of self and history—these were the gimmicks you kept under wraps to the end. Better to leave your audience wailing in the dark, shaking their fists, some crying
How?,
others
Why?

When dusk had come, Wade put his shovel aside and moved down the slope to the dock. The snow had let up.

He didn't think about it. Quickly, he stripped naked and filled his lungs and dove to the bottom where Kathy was.

To his bemusement there was no chill, or else the chill was lost on him. He did not open his eyes. He located a piling at the point where it had been driven into the gravel, took hold and propelled himself beneath the dock, belly-down, feeling only the discomfort of his own vague intentions. There was the quality of a rehearsal. Like a test run. Maybe his father had once done things very much like this in the musty stillness of the garage, emboldening himself, examining the rafters with an eye for levitation.

For a few moments Wade considered opening his eyes, just to know, but in the dark it wouldn't have mattered.

He came to the surface and went down again.

The possibilities were finite. She was there or she wasn't. And if she wasn't, she was elsewhere.

And even that didn't matter.

Guilt had no such solution. It was false-bottomed. It was the trapdoor he'd been performing on all these years, the love he'd withheld, the poisons he'd kept inside. For his entire life, it seemed, there had been the terror of discovery. A fat little kid doing magic in front of a stand-up mirror. "Hey, kiddo, that's a good one," his father could've said, but for reasons unknown, reasons mysterious, the words never got spoken.
He had wanted to be loved. And to be loved he had practiced deception. He had hidden the bad things. He had tricked up his own life. Only for love. Only to be loved.

The cold pressed into his rib cage. He could taste the lake.

Eyes closed, deep, he glided by feel along the water-polished pilings beneath the dock. He could sense her presence. Yes, he could. The touch of her flesh. Her wide-open eyes. Her bare feet, her empty womb, her hair like wet weeds.

Amazing, he thought, what love could do.

He let out the last of his air, pushed to the surface, hoisted himself onto the dock, dressed quickly, and trotted through the snow to the cottage.

 

Shortly after eight Art Lux called. He spoke first to Pat, then to Wade. The man's dairy-farmer voice rode the scales of apology as he explained that the official search was being discontinued. Purely a formality, he said. Paperwork to file. Red tape and so on.

Wade shifted the receiver to his other hand. He glanced over at Pat, who was crying. "Give it up?" he said. "Just like that?"

"Not exactly."

"It sounds—"

"No, sir, we're not quitting. Still places to look, if you know what I mean."

"I don't," Wade said.

"Sir?"

"I don't know."

Lux paused. "Well. Places."

There was a sound on the line that Wade took to be someone else's voice. After a second Lux asked if he could speak with Claude.

Wade handed the phone over. He stood awkwardly at the center of the kitchen, off balance, wondering if there was something he should be doing or saying. Some overlooked gesture. Tears, maybe, except he was tired of pretending. He went to the refrigerator, took out a tray of ice cubes, built himself a vodka tonic. Pat's low crying irritated him. It seemed profoundly wrong. When all was lost, he thought, the thing to do was grab a hammer or mix a drink. Like father, like son.

In a few minutes Claude hung up and motioned at Wade. They went out to the living room.

The old man looked very tired. "Whole thing's ridiculous," he said, "but I guess you know what's gonna happen."

"Pretty much."

"I can't say no."

"That's fine."

Claude slumped on the couch, massaged the pouches under his eyes. "Wouldn't help none anyway. Lux was clear. Either way, they'll rip this place apart. They got this idea—you know—they figure probably she's around here somewhere. The boathouse. On the grounds."

"She's not," Wade said, "but it doesn't matter."

"Fucking
does
matter. Christ, I just wish—"

The old man closed his eyes. Watching him, Wade was struck by the notion that he had a genuine friend in the world. Unique development, he thought.

Claude blinked and looked up pensively from the couch.

"A situation, isn't it?"

"That's what it is," Wade said.

"No win, no tie. They don't find anything, you're still a sinner. After what happened with the election, all the garbage
that leaked out—" The old man looked at Wade's drink "You mind?"

Wade gave him the glass. They were quiet for a time, passing the drink, then Claude reached out and put a hand on Wade's knee.

"I don't want to be sappy. She was all you had, right?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't do zilch."

"I did things. Not that."

"Right." Claude took his hand away. "And there ain't nothing else—you know—nothing else you can say?"

"There never was."

"Naturally. That's what I keep telling people. Guy yells wolf, he gets stuck with the mistake, can't say a goddamn thing to change anybody's mind." The old man sighed, finished off the drink. "Same with how you been acting, right? No use blubbering. Wouldn't help a bit."

"Maybe that's it," Wade said. "You get tired of the politics."

Claude nodded. "Which is how I'd handle it. The same. Let the bastards think what they want."

The old man got up and went to the kitchen and came back with two tall drinks. He switched on a lamp, but even so, the cottage had the feel of a funeral home. They didn't speak. Outside in the woods, a pair of owls were having their own conversation.

Claude finally sighed. "Well, anyhow, I guess you won't want to be here for the festivities. When they tear things up. There's the car. You could head back to the Cities, just sit tight. Right now you're still free to go."

"You know I can't do that. I'll want a boat, Claude."

"Sure you will."

"Gasoline. A full tank."

"Not from me. We been all through that. I don't need two good clients out there."

"And the chart book."

"I'm sorry."

"I'll find a way."

"Yeah, no doubt." Claude looked up with his tired old-crow eyes. It occurred to Wade that the man was not well. "No lie, Senator, I
am
sorry. Conscience and all that. Get to be my age, a guy needs his sleep at night." He took out a red hankie, ran it across his forehead. "You understand?"

"Yes, of course. How much time do I have?"

"Day after tomorrow. Or the day after that. Lux's got the State Police coming up, criminal-investigator types. Couple sniffer dogs."

"Lovely," Wade said.

"It had to happen."

"Sure it did." Wade winked. "Senator. I like that."

 

By morning the snow had mostly melted and the temperature was up in the high forties. They spent the day out on the lake, searching north and northeast of Magnuson's Island. There were no other boats out. No aircraft, no motion at all. On occasion the sun appeared low over the horizon, yet even then the sky had a dull grayish cast that seemed to take its color from their mood. The tensions were beyond coping. No one bothered. Pat sat like a rock at the rear of the boat. She wouldn't look at him, or even through him; when necessary, she addressed her remarks to the lake.

Wade preferred it that way. His own thoughts had mel
lowed. Certain burdens had already been put down. Others soon would be.

He regarded the lake without terror. One thing he'd learned: the world had its own sneaky little tricks. Over the past days, despite everything, the lost election had come to seem almost a windfall. He felt lighter inside, nothing left to hide. Thuan Yen was still there, of course, and always would be, but the horror was now outside him. Ugly and pitiful and public. No less evil, he thought, but at least the demands of secrecy were gone. Which was another of nature's sly tricks. Once you're found out, you don't tremble at being found out. The trapdoor drops open. All you can do is fall gracefully and far and deep.

And soon other issues would be settled. Sanity, for instance. Courage, for another. Love, for a last.

He gazed out at a pair of small islands passing by. For the first time in many years, maybe ever, he felt a sense of sureness about himself.

At three o'clock Claude pulled up to the docks in Angle Inlet to take on fuel. They walked up to Pearson's Texaco station, where Wade excused himself and crossed the street.

In the Mini-Mart he purchased two loaves of bread, sandwich meats, a fifth of vodka, a large tourist map, three cans of Sterno, a small plastic compass endorsed by the Boy Scouts of America. The plump girl behind the counter gave him a long look as he paid. Myra Something. Albino blood—very nosy. The idea came to him that he should bare his teeth, but instead he wished her a pleasant day and walked out with the goods.