“I think I can figure it out.”

“Because it’s a bit special, this tractor, because-”

“Dad. I can figure it out.”

Dad held up his hands. “Okay, okay, you’re the expert, I don’t know a goddamn thing.”

“Whatever,” I said, heading out the door.

“Yeah, whatever!” Dad shouted as the door slammed shut. I was tempted to go back, say “Good comeback!” but decided someone had to be the mature one. An hour ago, I was a genius and a hero, coming up with the plan to talk to a lawyer about evicting the Wickenses, but now I was an idiot again.

I decided to tackle the garbage run first, loading half a dozen plastic cans jammed with green garbage bags filled to bursting into the back of Dad’s Ford pickup. Leonard Colebert strolled over, hands parked in his front pockets so as to reduce the risk of being asked to lift something.

“So, this is garbage day?” he asked, smiling. I decided Leonard was probably undeserving of a smartass response-although that could change-so I merely nodded. “That was a good time last night,” he said, referring to the party at Dad’s cabin. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you even a fraction of what’s involved in the diaper business, or all the plan for my big resort.”

“Well, it was pretty busy,” I said, loading a can into the back of the truck and making sure the lid was secure.

“You mind if I tag along with you?” he said, one hand already on the passenger door. I couldn’t think of a way to say no, so I motioned for him to hop in.

“I rode with your dad to the dump one day,” he said. “You pass right by the property I’m getting to build my resort on. I’ll show you.”

Oh boy.

When we were on the highway, Leonard said, “God, I love it up here. I could go anywhere, you know, Club Med, you name some fancy place, I could afford it. But there’s nothing like being up here.”

“There a Mrs. Colebert?” I asked.

“Not at the moment, but you never know, that could change,” Leonard said, puffing out his chest. “I’ve had my share of ladies over the years, that’s for sure. But never really found the right one.”

There had to be a girl somewhere, I figured, who wanted to listen to diaper talk all day.

The road took a slight bend to the right when Leonard shouted, “Here! Here’s the spot! Slow down.”

I pulled over onto the shoulder and brought the truck to a halt, leaving it running in drive with my foot planted on the brake. Leonard was pointing into dense forest. The lake was probably no more than a couple hundred yards away, but you couldn’t see it.

“Okay, this is where you’d drive in, there’d be a big sign here, maybe something like ‘Colebert Lodge,’ I don’t know, and a huge neon fish jumping out of the water, a line coming out of its mouth. Can you picture it? It’d be super vivid, like a Vegas sign, but tasteful, you know?”

“Right,” I said.

“It’d be bright in the daytime, but at night, it would light up the sky, you know? There’s nothing like that around here, let me tell you.”

“You’re right about that.”

“So we take down about two acres’ worth of trees over there to put in some parking, and once we do that, you’ll be able to see right through to the lake, where there’ll be the main hotel, about five stories high, I figure, and restaurants and snack bars, a huge bait shop. Just huge.” He shook his head in wonderment. “Can you imagine it? Huh? Can you?”

“Actually, yes,” I said, doing a very good job of concealing my excitement, and wondering, for the first time, what Leonard, sitting next to me, was wearing under his khakis.

“Come on,” Leonard said, already opening his door. “I’ll show you.”

He was out of the truck before I could say no, so I killed the engine and followed him through the tall grass at the edge of the highway and into the forest. For a short, not particularly fit-looking guy, he was hard to keep up with.

“You think we’re going to need the bear spray?” he called back to me.

“Let’s chance it,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, once we were shrouded in trees. “Okay, hotel over there, maybe a swimming pool over there, although we’ll have lakeside swimming, too. There’s some weedy areas, a bit of marshland along the shore, but we can backfill that in, landscape it, you’d never know there was anything natural there before.”

“Well,” I said.

“Hey, here’s an idea,” Leonard said. “Looks like I’ve already got Bob Spooner talked into working for me, running a charter.”

“I wouldn’t be so-”

“But there’d probably be something here for you, too. You could help me write up press releases, the literature, that kind of thing? Be my PR guy, my media relations officer. Because every big resort, you gotta have one of those. I’d make it worth your while.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

We were climbing now, the ground gradually sloping upwards. When we got to the top, I instinctively leaned back. We were standing at the edge of a sharp dropoff. It was a good thirty feet down to another section of heavily wooded forest.

“Down there, we clear the trees, that’s where I’m going to put in the children’s playland. I’m thinking of a huge model of a whale, the kids can run through it, pretend they’ve been swallowed by Jonah. And there’ll be a fountain, shooting water out of the blowhole, the water’ll come down the side, like one of those splash pads. Even from out in the middle of the lake you’ll be able to hear the kids laughing and screaming.” He smiled with self-satisfaction. “I’ve got lots of conceptual drawings, if you’d like to see them.”

“Maybe sometime,” I said, turning and heading back to the road. “I’ve got a lot to do, Leonard.”

He came after me. “I’m going to bring Bob out here, win him over. I don’t think he’s quite sold on the idea yet.”

Back in the truck, I let Leonard guide me to the dump, which amounted to an excavation in the middle of the wilderness overseen by an old guy sitting in a small metal shack. Leonard wouldn’t shut up about his dream, the resort, the diaper business, his reality show where a mother and father trick their child into thinking they’re dead. But I had pretty much tuned him out, and merely nodded mechanically every minute or so, like a fake dog in a rear car window.

I was grateful Leonard had decided to go fishing the moment we returned, so once I had the truck parked I was able to head over, alone, to the outbuilding that sat back behind the fourth cabin. A small, open-air garage was attached, and inside were a green lawn tractor, stacks of cottage shutters, wood scraps, old gas cans. Inside, I found a freezer and an old refrigerator. There were a few bottles of beer inside, a couple of cans of Coke, and a plastic container that appeared to be full of dirt.

I hauled it out, set it on top of the freezer, took a deep breath, and then dug my fingers in. As I raised out clumps of dirt, dozens of worms squirmed out between my fingers, slipping back into the bin.

“Okay,” I said. “We got worms. We got more than enough worms.” There was a roll of paper towels hanging from the wall, and I tore off three or four to wipe the dirt from my hands just as Hank Wrigley rapped on the door, wanting a dozen of the little wigglies for his bait can. I counted them out, then wiped my hands off a second time. “Just put it on my tab,” he said. I wished him good luck, then went around to the garage and planted myself into the seat of the lawn tractor.

There was a floor-mounted gearshift in front of me, a throttle lever on a panel under the steering wheel, and a single, tiny key inserted in the ignition. I guess Dad wasn’t too worried about tractor thefts up in these here parts.

I turned the key and the tractor roared to life. It was fitted with a variety of switches and levers for lowering the housing that enclosed the lawn-cutting blades, but before dropping it down, I wanted to drive over to where I was going to be doing the cutting. The area where the camp first came into view when you rounded the last bend as you came in from the highway was looking pretty shaggy, I’d noticed.