Right now, he decided, it was time for some major house cleaning. An unpleasant odor filled the air, a vegetable stink, and for starters he would do away with last night's debris. Tidy up the cottage, then go to work on his life. Wade compressed the idea into a firm resolution. Get up early from now on. Jog a few miles before breakfast, whittle off the campaign flab. Then sort through the larger mess. See if he could figure out a future for himself. Later in the day he'd sit down with Kathy and try to hammer out a few decisions; the first priority was their checkbook, a job of some sort. Make a few phone calls and see what pity could buy.
Shape up, he thought. Start now.
Moving briskly, Wade dug out a plastic garbage bag, marched into the living room, and collected the dead house-plants. He carried the bag outside and dumped it in one of the trash cans at the rear of the cottage. No doubt Kathy had discovered the wreckage that morning, or at least smelled it, and at some point soon he would have to come up with a fancy piece of defense work. Extenuating circumstances, he'd say. Which was the truth. A miserable night, nothing else, so he'd apologize and then prove to her that he was back in control. A solid citizen. Upright and virtuous.
The thought gave him energy.
He did a load of laundry, ran a mop across the kitchen floor. Already he felt better. A matter of willpower. For more than an hour he made his way through a stack of correspondence, setting aside a few items and junking the rest. Tidiness was paramount. He went through the bank statements, knocked off twenty sit-ups, put in another load of laundry, spent a few minutes wandering without aim from room to room. The place seemed curiously vacant. In the bedroom Kathy's slippers were aligned at the foot of the bed; her blue robe hung from its hook near the door. There was a faint scent of ammonia in the air. Quietly, afraid to disturb things, he moved down the hallway to the bathroom, where Kathy's toothbrush stood bristles-up in an old jelly jar. The water faucet was dripping. He turned it off. He listened for a moment, then returned to the kitchen.
It was a little after one-thirty. The fringes of the afternoon had already crossed into shadow.
Wade fixed himself a vodka tonic and carried it over to the kitchen window. Vaguely, without alarm, he wondered what was keeping her. Maybe payback. The plant thing would've turned her upside down, especially in light of other revelations, and no doubt she was now sending a message. Domestic screws: the contemplation of error and misdeed.
The thing to do, he reasoned, was maintain his resolve. Start by compiling a few lists. A self-improvement list, then a list of assets and debits, then a list of law firms in need of cheap labor. He poured another drink and sat down with a pencil and paper, letting the ideas come, cheerfully assembling a detailed list of all the fine lists he would make.
The booze was performing acrobatics on his nerves.
Nothing to it. Go with the lists.
At four o'clock he folded the laundry and did some random dusting. The afternoon had cooled fast. Restless, woozy at the margins, he freshened his drink and carried it out to the sofa in the living room. There was still that ammonia after-scent in the air, an operating room smell, and for a second he felt an illicit little tug at his memory. Something about the events of last night. Antiseptics and jungle smells.
He took a breath and lay back.
Gradually a nice calm came over him, the chemical som ersaults, and for a considerable time he permitted himself the luxury of forgetfulness, no lists, no future at all, just the glide, exploring the void.
And then later, half dozing, John Wade detected movement in the room. Like a breeze, it seemed, as if a window had been left open, a motion so delicate he would both remember it and not remember it. A mind trick, for sure, but he could not ignore the pressure of Kathy's fingertips against the lids of his eyes. The surface tension was real. He heard her footsteps. He heard the low voice that could be only Kathy's voice. "So stupid," she said, "you could've tried me," and then came a fearful silence as she moved away, a drop in the temperature, a subtle relaxation in the magnetic force that one human body exerts upon another.
At six o'clock John Wade put on a jacket, fortified himself with a quick drink, and walked down to the dock. The evening had turned winter-cold. A wind was up, which put white-caps on the lake, and the timber to the west had darkened to a dirty shade of gold.
What was necessary, Wade concluded, was the strictest allegiance to common sense. No cause for worry. Plenty of possibilities. He looked south toward the fire tower, then out at the whitecaps, then up at a sky painted in silky backlit blues. Already the first stars were out; in a half hour the darkness would be solid.
He stood still for a time, studying the shadows, trying to figure things.
"Okay," he said.
Something wobbled in his stomach. It wasn't right—he knew that.
Turning, he hustled back to the cottage, found a flashlight, and started up the dirt road toward the fire tower. He felt slippery inside, the vodka float.
Multiple calamities had come to mind. A bad fall. Lacerations, broken bones. Kathy was smart, yes, but she didn't know shit about this wilderness. A suburb slicker. That was the joke between them: how she adored nature but didn't see why it had to be outside. Opposites were built into her personality. Contradiction was the rule. She enjoyed her morning stroll, the solitude and fresh air, but even then she conceived of nature as a department store with potted trees and a gigantic glass roof.
Which could turn unfortunate.
He moved fast, at times trotting, conscious of the approaching dark.
After ten minutes the road curved west and dipped down into a shallow ravine. Off to the left, a narrow footpath led into the woods toward the fire tower. Wade paused there, switched on the flashlight, scanned the cattails and deep brush. He edged forward a few steps, using the flashlight as a probe. Tempting, he thought. Plunge in and head for the fire tower. Except he was no trailblazer. The path wound off into soiled twilight purples, lavish and darkly tangled, vanishing altogether after a few yards. Everything blended with everything else, trees and brush and sky, and already he was on the edge of lost.
He stepped back onto the road and turned off his flashlight. There was a familiar breathing sound, something both distant and nearby.
"Kath?" he said.
He listened hard, shook his head.
Right now, he reasoned, she'd be back at the cottage. Not probably. For sure.
The notion calmed him. To be safe he hiked another quarter mile up the road, occasionally swinging the flashlight's yellow beam into the woods on both sides. At the old iron bridge over Tyne Creek, he stopped and called out her name a couple of times, softly at first, then louder, but there was only the near-far breathing in the dark.
Yo-yo, he told himself.
He turned back up the road.
It was a little past seven when he reached the cottage. He checked inside again, knowing she wasn't there, then transported a fresh drink out to the porch. The night was dull and ordinary. Waves foaming up against the dock, a few tired loons. It was as if she'd gone next door to borrow something from a neighbor. Except there weren't any neighbors. A mile to the nearest occupied cottage, another eight miles to the nearest paved road. He looked down at the boathouse, then at the sky, then back to the boathouse. It occurred to him that he might call someone—Claude Rasmussen, maybe—but the idea seemed excessive. Any time now she'd come skipping up the road.
He could see it.
Absolutely.
It had to happen like that.
At nine o'clock he took a hot shower. At ten-thirty he finished off the vodka and switched to rum. Just after midnight a swell of nausea rose up into his throat, which turned to terror, and for the first time it came to him what must have happened.
He found the flashlight again and made his way down to the boathouse.
Not drunk, he told himself.
Unsteady, yes, but he could see things clearly. For more than an hour he'd been watching the image compose itself, a slow sha
rpening, the boathouse gradually taking shape. The tarpaper walls and sagging roof and stone foundation. The big double doors facing the lake.
There was no hurry. Obvious, really. He knew exactly what he would find.
The night fog had settled in, which gave the earth a slick, mossy feel, and Wade found it necessary to assess each step for the possibility of hazard. He counted the reasons not to be afraid. She could handle herself. A good strong swimmer. And he loved her. That was the best reason, so much love, therefore nothing more could happen to them.
He nodded at this.
Ahead, the flashlight punched pale holes in the night. A gusty wind pressed in off the lake, and in the darkness there were numerous snappings and collisions. Oddly, he felt the desire to weep, but not the need.
Outside the boathouse, Wade paused to collect himself. The double doors stood partly open. The right panel dangled from its upper hinge, swaying slightly, its rusted hinge producing a soft, musical squeak.
It wasn't fear now. It was certainty.
He pulled the doors back, stepped inside, swung the flashlight across the dirt floor. There was no surprise. The boat was gone, as it had to be. The outboard was gone, too, and the gas can and the orange life vest and the two fiberglass oars.
Wade considered the facts. They had been married sixteen years, almost seventeen, and there was now the powerful cer tainty that the dominant track of his life had been permanently rerouted.
He stepped outside, closed the boathouse doors.
"So," he said, which sounded conclusive.
Briefly, he allowed Kathy's presence to make itself known. The trim, well-cared-for body. The campaign wrinkles at her eyes. The little-girl hands and summer skin and polished white smile. She knew things. No more secrets. She'd seen the headlines; she understood his capabilities.
In the dark she seemed to smile at him. Then she jerked sideways. Puffs of steam rose from the sockets of her eyes.
Impossible, of course.
He turned away, dug out his keys, and hurried up the slope to the Buick.
"I'm not drunk," Wade said.
"Who said drunk?"
"I'm not."
Ruth Rasmussen laid out a vinyl tablecloth, smoothed the edges, and brought over a mug of coffee. "Big swallow," she said. "It'll seal up the leaks."
"I'm sober."
"Sure you are. Down the happy hatch."
Ruth touched his shoulder and turned back to the stove. She was a large, sturdy woman in her mid-fifties, tall and rugged looking, with a graceful way of carrying the extra thirty pounds at her hips and belly. A spray of silvery black hair fell well below her shoulders.
"So just relax," she was saying. "Your wife's fine. One of those things."
"The boat, though. The boat's gone."
Ruth made an exasperated clucking sound. "Right, I believe you mentioned the fact a couple thirty, forty times now. That's what boats are mostly for, they go places." She dropped a log into her wood cookstove, adjusted the flue valve, clanged down the iron cover. "Some dumb screw-up. The Evinrude clunked out on her, for sure that's what happened. Plugs or something. Cord got busted."
She turned and looked down at his coffee mug.
"Sugar?"
Wade shook his head. "It's not right. She wouldn't ... It feels bad."
"Wait and see. Claude'll drive you back, check things out. Come on now, drain it."
The coffee was lukewarm and bitter, worse than bad, but Wade drank it down and started on another cup. After a minute Ruth put a loaf of bread in front of him.
"This much for sure," she said, "it don't help one bit to be negative. I bet it's that cruddy old outboard. Million times, I told Claude to spring cash money for a new one—billion times. Think he'd do it? No, sir. Not if it involves a wallet."
She chuckled at this and sat down across from him.
"Trick is to think positive. Think bad, get bad. Always works that way, seems to me."
Wade looked blankly at the table. His head hurt. His elbow joints, too, and other parts he couldn't locate. "It still feels wrong. Gone all day. Almost all night."
"Well, so the lady got herself stranded—so what? People run out of gas, lose an engine, all kinds of nutty stuff. Happens more than you think. Besides, your wife strikes me real solid, like somebody who can take care of herself." Ruth sprinkled brown sugar on a wedge of bread and slipped it across the table. "Great big bite, it'll soak up the poisons. Then we'll see what we see."
"Ruth, I don't think—"
"Eat."
Behind him, at the rear of the house, there was the sound of a toilet flushing. Claude Rasmussen came out carrying a pair of work boots and a corduroy hunting jacket. The old man went to the sink, hacked up some phlegm, spat, and bent forward to examine the discharge. He turned and looked up at Ruth.
"So how's our good senator?"
"Like a judge," she said. "Sober almost."
"No shit?"
"Better every second."
The old man grinned. He was pushing eighty, and showed it, but his eyes were still sharp and clear. After a moment he sat down and began lacing up his boots.
"Sober enough to navigate?"
"Just fine," Wade said.
"Sure you are. Finely lubricated, I'd say." Claude grinned again. "What we'll do is, we'll head down to the cottage, poke around a little. Ruth'll make a few calls into town." He shot a coded glance at his wife. "Try Vinny Pearson, the Mini-Mart, whoever else you can shake out."
Claude slid in a denture plate, bit down once, pulled on a filthy Twins baseball cap.
"There's the program. Amendments, Senator?"
"Cute," Wade said.
"Well, yeah. I try."
Ruth slapped her big hands together. "Go on now. Things'll sort out."
Outside, Wade surrendered the keys and sat back as the old man swung the Buick into the fog. None of it seemed real. Like riding through someone else's life: the car and the road and the oncoming darkness. Claude drove one-handed, braking hard at the curves, his quick shrewd eyes scanning the road. The old man's health was failing—a bad heart and a half century of Pall Malls—but he still had the sly intelligence that had long ago made him a wealthy man. Though he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, the man was no hick caretaker. He owned the cottage and plenty more—seven miles of shoreline, twelve thousand acres of prime timber butting up against state forest. He had the road access rights, too, which were leased out to Weyerhaeuser, and a major share in the two big resorts on the lake. Originally from Duluth, he'd made his money hauling taconite, trucks at first and then a small lake fleet, and for ten years Wade had known him casually as one of the old-time party contributors.
They were not friends in any meaningful sense. Barely acquaintances, really. But after the primary the only phone call that mattered had come from Claude Rasmussen. He'd offered the cottage and clean air and two weeks without newspapers. Which was enough. A tough bird, obviously, but right now toughness was a comfort.
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 tol
d 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."