He probably should have locked the doors to the Wagoneer. That’s all it would have taken to avoid this.
Frank Allman shuffles up next to Irv and wipes some sweat from his face with a napkin he used earlier to blow his nose.
“Holy shit, Irv.”
“I know. I didn’t see this coming.”
“You realize this could be considered terrorism. Don’t you?” Frank says.
“Oh, knock it off.”
“I’m just saying.”
“She’s trying to slow us down so we don’t kill her brother. Besides, the Feds never get to visit nice places. If you call that in, and if you bring them down here, by the lake, in the wealth of summer, they will not leave until the last leaf falls. Imagine the joys of federal involvement for a few minutes.”
“You got to admit, though, Irv,” says Frank. “This really flips things around. I’m not going to say ‘turns up the heat’ or anything dumb like that but . . . it does.”
“The facts of the case are the same as they were before she went all postal on us, Frank. I’m assuming no one’s hurt?”
“No,” says Frank. “I should at least call the state police. And the insurance company. Hard to write this off as an accident.”
“I shouldn’t have let go of the reins,” Irv concedes. “This is my fault. Goddamn politicians are going to have to learn that the people closest to a problem are the ones best suited to dealing with it. That’s why I became a Republican in the first place, but that’s not how things are working anymore. This election has got people all fired up. Now everyone’s pushing us locals around from up high. Democrat, Republican, makes no difference anymore. Fuckin’ Howard.”
“It’s a job, Irv,” says Frank.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Listen, Frank, let’s go calm down the men with the machine guns. I don’t want them getting riled up over—”
“Being firebombed?”
“She sent them away first.”
“I know, but this is not Beirut, Irv. It’s Lake Flower, for heaven’s sake.”
“There are no lakes in Beirut.”
“What do we know about Beirut?” Frank asks.
“Nothing,” snaps Irv.
They watch the smoke.
Frank takes a piece of wintergreen gum from a white packet in his pocket.
“So. Now what?” asks Irv.
“Well . . . same thing as before, I guess, only slower,” Frank reasons aloud. “If we can’t make those boats start working again we’ll have to go over to Calypso Marine off the Three past Bloomingdale and see whether they’ve got a Zodiac in stock and whether we can take it on credit. Mr. Vance is not the kind of man who likes working with credit, so we may have an issue, because I don’t have a budget line for something like this and God knows I’m not plunking down my own Visa. And then, well, I guess these guys’ll go do whatever they were gonna do before.”
“I’m going with them,” says Irv. “I’m not leaving this to Hogan’s Heroes over here. She may have gained some time on us, but now she’s got us mad, and that goes in the other column.”
Frank pulls up his gun belt so that it nestles nicely under his gut in the way that annoys Irv. “I really don’t see why a normal person would do something like this,” he says, looking around at the smoldering boats.
“She doesn’t trust us, Frank.”
“Why doesn’t she trust us, Irv?”
“I think it’s the cowboy boots, Frank,” Irv says.
Frank looks at his own feet. “I’m not wearing cowboy boots. I’m wearing Hush Puppies.”
“She may not understand Hush Puppies, Frank. She’s from a foreign land across a great ocean.”
Sigrid’s phone rings in her pocket as she nears the far end of the lake.
“Hello?” she says, without looking at the screen.
“Sigrid,” says her father. “How are things with you and Marcus? You haven’t called.”
“I’ve been rather busy.”
“What’s that sound?” Morten asks.
“I’m on a boat. This isn’t a very good time.”
“I’ve been doing some thinking since your last call. I need to ask you a question.”
“Can this wait?”
“Over the years, has Marcus talked to you much about your mother’s death?”
“Pappa . . . this does not sound urgent.”
“You know Marcus took it very hard. Very, very hard. Has he talked to you about it at any length?”
“She was my mother too, pappa. I took it hard also. I was a little girl when she died. I really need to go.”
“He took it harder.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, agitated. “I’m not simply on a boat, pappa, I’m driving it. I’m also running from men with guns.”
“I think the correct term is piloting. You’re piloting the boat. Though I might have to look it up. Nautical terms in Norwegian are quite extensive and specific.”
“Goodbye, pappa.”
“I’m wondering if his last letter was alluding to your mother. I’m wondering if Lydia’s death isn’t somehow connected—in his mind, of course—to your mother’s. He said in his last letter that it was all happening again.”
“It’s not relevant right now.”
“If it’s relevant at all, Sigrid, it’s relevant to everything and definitely right now. If Marcus blames himself for Lydia’s death, the way he blamed himself for your mother’s death, he may be in a very delicate frame of mind. You are in a fragile situation.”
“You may have a point, and I am impressed you can see all this from the farm. But I really am on a boat running from men with guns, so I’ve got to go. OK?”
“Try not to antagonize them.”
“For that you should have called an hour ago.” And she hangs up.
The edge of the lake approaches her like a green wall. The natural run of the lake is to the east, where Oseetah splits like devil’s horns into Kiwassa Lake to the north and Second Pond farther south, but she isn’t going either direction. Instead, she runs the raft over the green algae that grows heavy and dense from
