In the summer, at least, I could swim in the lake every day and get some exercise and keep the fucking spare tire off. But with winter here, I’d just let my beard go and belt size, too. I tried to make myself do laps in the pool across the way, but mostly I sat in the hot tub and drank Coca Cola and thought about my past. I wasn’t sure why-it wasn’t the kind of past you got anywhere with by thinking about it. The only thing I knew for sure was, this winter was making me fat and lazy and, now, fucking sleepless.

The cupboard was bare so I threw on my thermal jacket and-since I was alone on my stretch of Sylvan Lake-took the ten-mile ride to the nearest junk food. At this time of night a shabby little convenience store, Ray’s Mart, with its one self-service gas pump, was the only thing open fifteen miles in either direction.

The clerk was a heavy-set brunette named Cindy from Brainerd. She was maybe twenty years old and a little surly, but she worked all night, so who could blame her.

“Mr. Ryan,” she said, flatly, as I came in, the bell over the door jingling. She was engrossed in a telephone conversation and this effusive greeting had been both an effort and a concession to a regular customer.

“Cindy,” I said, with a nod, and I began prowling the place, three narrow aisles parallel to the front of the building. None of the snacks appealed to me-chips and crackers and Twinkies and other preservative-packed delights-and the frozen food case ran mostly to ice-cream sandwiches and popsicles. In this weather, that was a joke.

I was giving a box of Chef Boyardee lasagna an intent once-over, like it was a car I was considering buying, when the bell over the door jingled again. I glanced up and saw a well-dressed, heavy-set man-heavy-set enough to make Cindy look svelte-with a pockmarked, Uncle Fester-ish face and black-rimmed glasses that fogged up as soon as he stepped in.