Wild Thing: A Novel (32 page)

Changing tack or something, he says “Did you know Hitler had a painting of Geronimo in his bunker?”

“No,” Violet says.

“Hitler
loved
the First Nations people. You know what the First Nations people thought of Hitler? They joined the
U.S.
Army
to fight him. First Nations got some
history
with the U.S. Army. But Hitler didn’t care about that. He just went on loving us. And here’s another thing: he had syphilis. He did. You can look it up. He had syphilis and he blamed the Jews for it. There’s a whole chapter in
Mein Kampf
called ‘Syphilis.’ ”

“I’ve read
Mein Kampf
,” I say, not realizing how that sounds till it comes out.

“Do you know where syphilis comes from?” Burton says. “That’s right. The New World. Like potatoes. And corn. And tomatoes. But did
that
make Hitler hate us? No it didn’t. Cause he would have had to look at the facts about us to do that. Which he didn’t want to do. He
loved
us, but he didn’t want to
see
us.

“And now you folks come here asking about Wendigos. You’re both
doctors
, man. Do you ask about educational programs? Do you ask about diabetes rates, and whether anyone’s doing anything about
that?
Have you got any idea how many people here are on dialysis? I’ll show you the center if you want.
Teenagers
hang out there, cause if they’re not on dialysis yet, they will be. We show
movies
in there. We got Netflix. We got ladies coming around helping people do their taxes. People running for tribal council, they
campaign
in the dialysis center. If one in four
white
people had diabetes, there wouldn’t
be
diabetes.”

“We’re sorry to have bothered you,” Violet says.

“Don’t be sorry,” Virgil says. “Just be open-minded. You know what a Wendigo
is?
”

We both shake our heads.

“A Wendigo’s a story for children. Children and white people. It’s a guy who’s starving to death in the winter, so he eats his family. As a punishment, his spirit gets cursed to live in that spot forever. Always hungry. Always trying to kill people so he can eat them, but so weak he has to do it by drowning
them. You see where I’m going with this? It’s just more
Road Warrior
shit. You’ve got a people so afraid of starving to death they have to tell their kids not to eat each other. That’s all the Wendigo story is:
don’t eat each other
. Stay human, no matter how bad things get. Now, what
Europeans
hear is the opposite: First Nations people are magic, and they know how to talk to Bigfoot. But if Bigfoot was real, he would have died of smallpox a long time ago.

“White Lake’s a dangerous place.
Anywhere
kids go to party is dangerous—particularly white kids. If there’s something going on there, please don’t blame it on us.”

In the car, at the end of a mud turnoff, looking out at a lake we don’t know the name off, rain battering the windshield, the whole day seems to fold in on us. Violet starts to cry. If I hadn’t been anorgasmic for that shit for years, I probably would too.

“Teng seemed so
nice
,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“He was nice to his brother.”

“Yeah.”

“And now he’s
dead?
And nobody even knows
why?
”

I try to think of something to say that isn’t “Yeah” but can’t.

“I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“You’re not,” I say. “Or at least, if you are, I am too. And a lot of other people. We still have some pretty heavy drugs in our system.”

“That’s not it. It’s Teng. And the fact that there’s something living in White Lake. Which goes against everything we know.”

Or used to know.

“I don’t even feel like I can trust anything back
here
,” Violet
says. She turns her wet face to mine. I can smell her tears. Her lips look slick and soft.

It’s too much.

“Violet,” I say. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

Her eyes widen and she shakes her head almost imperceptibly. She doesn’t want to hear it.

Tough luck, though. For both of us. Among the things that have ceased to make sense in the last eight hours is continuing to lie to Violet Hurst.

“My name isn’t Lionel Azimuth,” I tell her. “It’s Pietro Brnwa. I grew up in New Jersey. I went to medical school in California. Before that I worked as a killer for the Sicilian and Russian mafias.”

She just looks at me. Studying my face for some sign that I’m kidding.

“What?” she says.

“I murdered people.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Even so, it’s true. It’s the one true thing I’ve told you.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

“You were… what?”

“A killer. For money. For the Mafia.”

“Really?” She just seems puzzled. “Does Rec Bill know?”

A question I deserve. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Then, all at once, it hits her.

“Oh, my fucking
God
.”

She slams out of the car.

I get out on my side. It’s pouring. “Violet—come back. I’ll drop you off somewhere.”

“Stay away from me!”

“Then at least take the car. It’s too far to walk.”

“Fuck off!”

I back away from the car. “The keys are in the ignition.”

She pauses, scared and confused.

“You
killed
people?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Around twenty.”

“You don’t
know?
”

“There were some situations where some of them might have lived.”

“So you’re a serial killer.”

“Yes, technically.”

“
Technically?
Oh,
fuck
.”

There’s stark fear in her eyes, and disgust. But what am I supposed to say? That I’ve never killed anyone like
her?
That I once went eight whole years as an adult
without
killing anybody? That I’m almost back up to three?

I keep backing away toward the road. Try to get far enough from the car that she can run to it without worrying I’ll attack her.

I squelch along the highway till I get to the CFS Outfitters. It takes about an hour and a half.

Now that the rain’s letting up, a kid I don’t recognize is rebuilding the barrier to the lodge road, this time with sawhorses instead of traffic cones.

“Help you, sir?” he says. He looks at me like not all that many people stop by this place on foot. Or soaking wet.

“I’m Lionel Azimuth. I was on Reggie’s tour. Did a woman come through here in the last couple hours?”

“The paleontologist lady?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s down at the lodge. Are you the doctor?”

“Yes. Did she leave a message for me?”

“Not her. But some Indian guy was looking for you.”

“What Indian guy?”

“He came into the outfitters.”

“When?”

“Bout an hour ago.”

“So where is he now?”

“I don’t know. He probably left. I told him you weren’t down at the lodge.”

“Did he give his name?”

The kid scratches guiltily. “He might have.”

“Was it Virgil Burton?”

“I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“What did he look like?”

He shrugs. “Older’n you, I think. He had gray hair, but he didn’t look
that
old.”

Sounds
like Virgil Burton.

“I’m gonna need a ride,” I say. “Or to borrow your car.”

It’s raining hard out of a bright white sky, and the community center is closed and locked. Henry, the kid who drove me here, stays in his Subaru while I look in the community center’s windows. I hold up a “one minute” finger to him and jog across a baseball diamond and a small gully to the first house I can see. Clean planks of wood. No one answering the door.

I keep moving. A couple houses down, a woman in her early
thirties answers. Around my age, which is weird to see on someone who so clearly has a life.

“Yes?” she says. Suspicious but, thank God, not scared-looking.

“Do you know Virgil Burton?”

“Why do you ask?”

There are tire noises in the driveway behind me. I assume it’s Henry, who’s been rolling along the street after me at a more or less even pace.

It isn’t, though. It’s Virgil Burton, getting out of his pickup. When I glance back, the woman is closing the door.

“What’s going on, mister?” Virgil says.

“I heard you were looking for me.”

“How? From smoke signals?” He sees my face and stops moving toward me. “Look, man, are you all right?” He nods toward Henry, parked along the street. “That your friend?”

“You didn’t tell him you were looking for me?”

“No. I promise.”

“Sorry. I don’t—”

“No need to apologize,” he says. “Just get yourself some help. Take care of yourself.”

There’s nothing more to say. I go and get in the passenger seat of Henry’s car.

“Is that the guy you said was looking for me?”

Henry looks surprised.

“No. I didn’t say he was First Nations. I said he was Indian. Like from India.”

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.”