Friday's Harbor (9 page)

“I know, I know, it’s the whole conservation thing, making kids better stewards for tomorrow’s world. I get that—we say the same thing about elephants when people say it’s inhumane to keep them in captivity. People won’t take care of something they don’t know anything about, blah blah blah. And I have no problem at all with captive-bred animals. I’m just not sure I’d be able to grab a young animal from the wild. That’s just me.”

“Well, hardly any are taken from the wild anymore anyway. Hell, SeaWorld wrote the book on successful captive breeding, and their whales are on their fourth generation. Turn any of them loose in the wild and they’d be dead inside two months.”

“Do you really think our guy would have died, if he’d been left there—in Bogotá?”

“I know it.”

“I wonder if he was scared,” she mused.

With closed eyes Gabriel said quietly, “Nature restores a state of grace at the end. By the time you die, you don’t feel a thing.”

“And you know this how?”

“I’ve been there.”

Neva looked at him.

Gabriel opened one eye. “What?”

Neva whacked him with a loofah. “Tell me the story.”

Gabriel shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. It was my own fault. We were collecting killer whales in the North Atlantic off Iceland and I got caught in the net. I was trying to untangle one of the calves. It was a stupid mistake.”

“So what saved you?”

“Not what, who. Christian. A Frenchman—we were collecting animals for an aquarium in Nice. I should have died. I was dying. And there really is a white light, because I was headed there when he dragged me up. I wasn’t scared, and it didn’t hurt. It was beautiful. So now I know it’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Neva shook her head. “I’ve always been afraid of drowning.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Well, if this job doesn’t get you over that, nothing will,” said Gabriel.

“You think?”

“Sure. And if it does happen, remember, you’ll be dying among friends.”

“There’s a comforting thought,” Neva said.

“Yup,” said Gabriel, closing his eyes again. “I thought it would be.”

L
ATE THAT AFTERNOON
Ivy stopped by the pool to reassure herself that all was well. The office was empty and she was peering through the office window to see some sign of Friday when Gabriel came out of the locker room with a towel around his neck, wearing a fresh, dry wet suit folded down to his waist. Ivy turned to look at him, and took in the greenish-yellow remnants of the deep, ugly bruise on his chest. Even from across the room she could also make out the scars up and down around his arms and several longer, deeper scars on his sides and back. “Good god!”

“It looks worse than it is,” he said of the bruise.

“Did you get hit by a bus?”

“Sea lion. Same thing.”

“Yowza.”

Gabriel shrugged with a certain degree of pride. “Goes with the territory. In this industry all us old guys look like we’ve been mauled by tigers. I’ve broken both ankles—one of them twice—both wrists, all my fingers, most of my toes, and blown out both knees and an eardrum.”

“Talk about a leaky ship.”

Gabriel pulled on the upper part of his wet suit and reached over his shoulder, feeling for the zipper pull.

“Here,” she said, stepping over and efficiently zipping him up. “You must be taking the evening watch.”

“Yep. I want to keep an eye on him for at least one more night.”

“If you call the Oat Maiden, Johnson Johnson would probably send over a pizza.”

“I’m fine.”

“Well, you can’t object to a little company, at least.”

Together they climbed the metal stairs, Ivy with one of her oversized tote bags, Gabriel with a bucket of fish, a security radio, and a flashlight. Dark was moving in and one by one the automatic lights sputtered on. Friday was fast asleep in his corner.

Ivy fetched Julio Iglesias from her car, where he’d been methodically chewing through the passenger’s seat belt, brought him upstairs, set him down on the pool deck, and watched him trot away on skinny tweezer-legs to pee on a coiled hose. “He’s such a little martinet,” she said. “You know, in one of his lives he was either a pharoah, a king, or a fascist. I’m serious.”

Gabriel dragged two Adirondack chairs to Ivy, who had bought the second one to the pool yesterday, complaining that the lawn chairs were going to do them all in. Now she pulled a cushion from her bottomless tote and put it on the chair. “Sciatica,” she said, sitting down with a soft grunt. “Handiwork of the devil.”

“Think sitting out in the cold and dampness could have anything to do with it?”

“Nah. My doctor—who, by the way, sits at Satan’s right hand—would tell you it’s my own damned fault. Lose a little weight, exercise more, turn the clock back fifteen years, and I’d be perfect.” Ivy fished out her flask and took a good swig, then offered it to Gabriel. “Scotch.
Excellent
scotch. Go on—it’s not going to kill you to break the rules once.”

As they passed the flask back and forth, Ivy extracted a sky-blue afghan-in-progress from her bag, peered at it, consulted a dog-eared pattern, and ripped out some of the stitches. “You know, the last time I spent this much time with a man, I was engaged to him.” She gave him a puckish look before setting to work, the metal knitting needles briskly clicking.

“And?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “I came to my senses.”

“Any regrets?”

“None,” said Ivy. “He died at forty-nine. I’d have been a grieving widow.”

“Better to have loved and lost than never to have—”

“There’s a crock,” said Ivy. “How about you? Ever been married?”

“Once. Back before the flood. If you believe her, and you probably should, I’m not cut out for domestic life.”

“What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

Gabriel shrugged. “I travel. I put my work first.”

Ivy nodded, holding a cable needle loosely between her lips like a forgotten cigarette.

“The real deal-breaker, though, was kids,” Gabriel said. “She started to want them, and I didn’t—if you’re going to have kids, you should stay home and have some sort of relationship with them, which I obviously would not be doing. It was all very amicable, though. She’s married again and has two sets of twins. I see her on Vashon sometimes when I’m home. She looks happy.”

Barely visible in the darkness, Friday exhaled and inhaled, clapping his blowhole closed, his warm breath steaming. Ivy put the empty flask away and Gabriel sipped coffee from a mug that said I ♥
MY WALRUS
. He watched her, after a while saying, “My grandmother used to knit. Socks, mostly. She said it was an act of contrition.”

“For what?” “She’d never tell me, and I can’t imagine. The woman was a saint. Married at fourteen, five kids by twenty-one. She grew up on a cattle ranch in Alberta and single-handedly fed twenty ranch hands three hot meals a day.” He gazed across the pool. “She used to say she had kids so if she ever had to go back there at least she’d have help.”

“Did she? Ever go back?”

“Nope. She moved to Vancouver, B.C., all by herself, taught herself typing and shorthand, and met my grandfather taking a night-school class on modern English literature. She married him a month later, when she was twenty-two, and they moved to Vashon Island. She loved it there. I remember someone once told her she was a good woman, and she said she was motivated because she’d already been to hell and she wasn’t about to go back. You’d have to work her over with a crowbar to get her to talk about her growing up. She was ashamed of her family.”

“Because they were poor?”

“Because they were uneducated. She brought up my dad on Vashon, but sent him off to the University of Washington in Seattle with a promise that he’d never come back except to visit. He got a PhD in English Literature, met my mother, and waited until my grandmother died to come home and be a scholar-janitor. Cleaned the church every Sunday, shops and the bank every evening. Good honest work, he called it. He always had a book in his back pocket so he could read while he waxed the floors. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Joyce, Vonnegut, Clancy.”

Ivy smiled. “Eclectic tastes.”

Gabriel nodded. “He died when he was fifty-four, had a heart attack in the nave of St. John the Divine. Father David found him with a book in his hand and a smile on his face.”

“And your mother?”

“She still lives on Vashon, still does some light cleaning for my dad’s old clients.”

“Do you see her often?”

“Not as often as I should, but I go when I can.”

They fell silent while Ivy considered her work, employed her cable needle, then tucked it back between her lips. She hadn’t thought of Gabriel as coming from an educated family; to her he’d seemed more elemental, like the son of a milkman or a plumber. “Shouldn’t he be breathing more?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like an animal that big should need more oxygen.”

“First, they’re much more efficient at using oxygen than we are, and second, he’s dozing.”

“How do you know he’s not cowering in fear?”

“If he were afraid, his respirations would be faster,” Gabriel said.

“Do you really think he’ll be okay here?”

“Absolutely. We’re going to be throwing a bunch of new stuff at him that’ll keep him busy and challenged.”

“I hope so—I really do. I have to admit that some of what that animal psychic said shook me up a little,” Ivy said.

“Such as?”

“Thinking that he might still miss the wild, even after all these years. Who are we to play God?”

“For one thing, animal psychics are frauds—there’s no such thing. For another thing, Friday would be dead inside a week if he were released back to the wild. He’s used to being hand-fed dead fish, not having to figure out where the schools of fish are today and tomorrow. He’s immune-suppressed, so he’d pick up the first infection he came across. And the North Atlantic is a big, big place—the odds of him finding his pod, or of them finding him, are remote. Reality bites.”

Ivy nodded, only slightly heartened.

L
IBERTINE SAT AT
the celestial table at the Oat Maiden and talked softly into her cell phone. On the other end of the call was Katrina—Trina—Beemer, a grim-faced, sour woman in her early fifties at whose hammer toes Libertine had been unable to keep herself from staring in fascination during a Sea Shepherd gathering in Seattle two summers ago; and to whom she hadn’t spoken since. Trina headed an organization called Friends of Animals of the Sea and often tagged along when the big animal activist organizations like PETA and Sea Shepherd staged protests.

“I won’t ask you how you infiltrated that place, but you’re a hero,” Trina was saying. “Everyone’s saying so.”

“What place?”

“What place?—you silly woman!” Trina said coyly. “The Breederman Zoo or whatever. You’re all over the Internet.”

Libertine’s heart sank. She believed in the animal welfare groups’ efforts to improve the lives of captive whales and dolphins, even to shut their programs down when the conditions warranted it, as they clearly had in Bogotá, but that wasn’t her work. She merely represented those individuals who couldn’t represent themselves. She’d had no intention of taking a political stand when she talked to Martin Choi. She was just telling him what she knew to be true. It wasn’t the first time she’d talked before she’d thought things through, and while it probably wasn’t the last time, either, she longed for a do-over.

Trina was still talking. “—reconnaisance,” she was saying.

“I’m sorry?”

She heard Trina sigh and start over, using the vaguely singsong tone women used when talking to small children and the mentally challenged. “We’re hoping you’ll do some reconnaissance for us, since you’re there. If you could make a map of the whale building, filtration plant, entrances, exits, and which ones are locked and when, that would be really great.”

“I don’t think I’d be comfortable doing that,” Libertine said.

“Well, you’re not doing anything else, are you? I assume you don’t have direct access to him.”

“Him?”

“Viernes or Friday or whatever his latest name is,” Trina said impatiently. “The whale.”

“Oh. No, not physical access.” She hadn’t had psychic access to him, either, since the day after his arrival. Not that she would tell that to Trina. “I guess I ought to get online and see what people are saying.”

“Listen to the radio, too. Joe Minton did a whole piece on the whale’s background and prospects on NPR. You can probably find it on their Web site.”

“Oh.”

“Look, we really, really need that information. Will you at least think it over?” The phone line went silent until Libertine finally said, “I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, that’s great!” said Trina. “That’s my little guerrilla warrior.”

Chapter 6

E
ARLY THE NEXT
morning Truman received a call over his security radio.

“Ah, sir, we seem to have someone sneaking around the whale facility. Over.” Truman had been trying to get the security officers to stop calling him “sir” for three months, but so far, no luck. On the other hand, they’d been trying equally unsuccessfully to get Truman to say, “Roger” and “Over,” so Truman guessed they were even.

“Is this Toby?” he asked over the radio.

“Yes, sir, this is Security One. Over.”

Truman sighed. “What do you mean, ‘sneaking’?”

“Well, sir, we have a woman walking the fence line. She appears to be looking for a way in. Over.”

“Is she heavyset?”

“No, sir, more like an elf sort of a person. Small like that. She doesn’t look dangerous, but she’s walking back and forth a lot like she’s maybe looking for something. Over.”

Truman sighed again. “All right, why don’t you introduce yourself and bring her to my office?”

“Roger that. Over and out.”

Truman couldn’t help smiling as he set down the radio. Most of his security employees had wanted to be in the military or the police force, but were unfit in some way: Toby was severely asthmatic; another was an aging Vietnam veteran with lingering PTSD; a third had epilepsy; and the fourth had suffered a serious head injury which, while he adhered absolutely to the zoo’s security rules and procedures, made him somewhat lacking when it came to assessing complex situations. Truman believed strongly in giving people chances, and he was very proud of his motley team, which he’d originally assembled six years ago, when, as the zoo’s business manager, he’d supervised the security department. They were among the zoo’s most dedicated employees, tenacious in their loyalty to the zoo and to Truman himself. This year, for the first time in what he intended to make an annual practice, he’d invited them to undertake the facility-wide security audit he’d originally proposed to former director Harriet Saul way back when and which she’d flatly rejected as busywork.

He cleared his desk of sensitive papers, pulled two teacups from his credenza, and turned on the electric teapot just as a knock on his door announced that Toby and Libertine Adagio had arrived. Truman indicated to Libertine that they’d sit at a small round table by the window, and said to Toby, “Would you find Miss Levy and ask her to come see me? I’d like her to join us.”

Toby self-consciously removed and reseated his Biedelman Zoo ball cap—briefly exposing hair as sparse and fine as duck down—and then hitched up his radio holster in a pair of tandem tics. “Roger that.”

Once he’d left, Truman stepped to the doorway and asked Brenda to keep an eye out for Ivy. Then he joined Libertine Adagio across the table. She smiled at him nicely. He was surprised to find her slight and messy; her small hands flew around her like birds, checking the lay of her hair and clothes. He’d remembered her being larger and more assertive. He offered her tea and she accepted.

“I’ve asked Ivy to join us,” he said, stalling for time. “I gather you met her at the Oat Maiden.”

Libertine nodded. “She’s been very nice to me. I don’t always get that.”

“Really?”

“It’s a hazard of my profession.”

“Oh?”

“You think I’m crazy.”

“The thought had occurred to me.”

She nodded sadly. “Most people do.”

From the reception area Truman heard a small yip and then Ivy swept into the room and summarily tossed Julio Iglesias into Libertine’s lap. “You may turn out to be the only person on earth he really likes,” Ivy told her.

“Well, he certainly doesn’t like me,” Truman said wryly, watching Julio Iglesias hop down, walk smartly to his desk, and pee on the leg.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Ivy said. “Julio.
Really
?”

“He has puppy issues,” Libertine said while Ivy cleaned up the floor and desk with a baby wipe from her enormous tote.

“You’d better be careful, or I’ll send him home with you,” Ivy told her.

“No, no, we can help him work through them. He’s very smart, you know.”

“Well, he’s certainly smarter than me,” said Ivy. “I’m pretty sure we can all agree on which of us is winning.”

Truman gently cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” Ivy said, dropping the dirty baby wipes in Truman’s wastebasket, which in his eyes was only marginally better than having dog pee on his desk leg. Julio Iglesias hopped back into Libertine’s lap and looked at Ivy smugly.

“So what’s the deal here?” Ivy said.

“I’m not sure,” said Truman, addressing himself to Libertine. “Zoo security thought you might be trying to gain access to the pool without permission. The word
skulking
comes to mind.”

The woman blushed. “No, I would never skulk. I was just trying to check on him—you saw me there yourself when we met. It’s so crowded on the other side it’s hard to hear.”

“So I gather our whale talks to you,” Truman said, steepling his fingers over the tabletop.

“Something like that. I feel his feelings.”

“And how is he feeling?”

“I don’t know—he hasn’t been communicating since he got here.”

“Does that mean anything?”

“Just that he doesn’t need me to advocate for him right now. That’s good. Really good.”

“And you?” Truman asked her, not unkindly. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, too,” Libertine said, blushing. “He’s safe.”

“Really? I was under the impression you thought we were jailers.”

“He must sense that you’re good people.”

“So good jailers,” Truman said.

“I think that’s a little harsh, don’t you?” Ivy objected.

“Is it?”

“I told you this before: remember two little words,” Ivy said. “Martin. Choi.”

“Did he at least get the basics right?” Truman asked Libertine. “Because he doesn’t always.”

“More or less,” said Libertine. “Not really.”

“That all captivity is bad?”

“Absolutely not. I believe captivity is a blessing for animals who are captive-born, as long as they’re treated well. It’s animals who’ve come from the wild that have a harder time.”

“And that includes our whale?”

“I don’t know—I haven’t gotten to know him that well,” Libertine said, blushing deeply. “But he was wild-born.”

“Has he said anything to you about wanting to go home?” Ivy asked. “You know I worry.”

“No,” Libertine said. “The reporter played a little fast and loose with what I told him. Again, I haven’t heard anything from him since he arrived.”

“Martin Choi’s an idiot,” Ivy told her. “Just so you know.”

“I gathered,” said Libertine. “But thank you for telling me.”

“So what exactly
did
Friday tell you when he was still, ah, communicating?” Truman asked. “If it didn’t have to do with going back to the wild.”

“Stop,” Ivy warned him. “You’re being rude.”

Truman sighed. To Libertine he said, “I apologize—I have been rude. It’s just, you can probably understand our skepticism. Especially at a time like this and with an animal like this. For all we know, you’re trying to get access to him to sabotage us in some way.”

Libertine put her small hand on his wrist and said, “I would never do that—never ever. I probably can’t prove that to you, though.”

“No,” said Truman. “Probably not. But if I have your word, that means something.”

“You do,” Libertine said fervently. “You have my word.”

“Plus he’s being treated like a king,” Ivy told her reassuringly. “You should see his digs.”

“Oh!” said Libertine. “Oh, can I? I’d so love that! You can’t see anything from my car, and it’s hopeless in the visitors’ gallery.”

Truman sent Ivy death rays from his eyes. She smiled sweetly.

“I need to run it by Gabriel first,” Truman said. “I owe him that.”

“Well, of course you do!” said Ivy, grabbing the security radio from Truman’s desk and transmitting, “Ivy to Gabriel. Are you there?”

“Go for Gabriel,” responded a crackling voice.

“Can you come over here to Truman’s office?”

“Now?”

“Yes, please.”

“On my way.” Gabriel said. “Gabriel out.”

Truman dropped his head. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

“I know, dear, but we both know you have a tendency to dither when you’re left to your own devices. It’s one of your less attractive qualities.”

“Clear and measured thought is not the same as—”

Ivy reached across the table and patted his hand. “Don’t fuss—we don’t choose the faults we come with.”

Ivy proceeded to engage Libertine in mindless chatter until Gabriel arrived, in boots, rubber overalls, and a rain slicker. The strong smell of fish instantly filled the room.

“Ah,” Ivy breathed. “
Eau de poisson
.”

Feeling that he had no choice but to press ahead, Truman called out the door to his receptionist, “Brenda would you bring in an extra chair, please? One of the plastic ones, not the upholstered.” Once a chair had been secured, he said to Gabriel, “Ms. Adagio would like to see the pool and Friday.”

Gabriel looked at Truman, appalled. “Is this the animal psychic?”

“Communicator,” said Libertine in a small voice.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Gabriel.

Truman said, “I’m not, actually.”

Gabriel shook his head, looked out the window for a minute before saying, “I’ve met a lot of so-called animal psychics—”

“Communicators,” said Ivy.

“—communicators,” Gabriel granted, “and all they’ve ever done was stir the pot. Things are hard enough with these animals. They’re usually very sick, scared, and alone, and they have no idea that without us they’d be dead. And then you bring in the media and propaganda and emotion that has nothing to do with these guys and everything to do with you. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but if you’ve heard voices, I guarantee you they weren’t his.”

Libertine held her ground. “I didn’t say anything about bringing in the media.”

“No? I read a newspaper article this morning with your name all over it.”

Truman, watching, saw the faintest flicker in her eyes. It could have been guilt, or it could have been something else. Gabriel had seen it, too. He said to Truman and Ivy, “You haven’t been through this before, so you don’t know, but that’s the way it’s done. The activists get an inside look and then they go straight to the media with allegations. From there, there’s no way to get the toothpaste back in the tube.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit harsh?” said Ivy.

“It’s all right,” said Libertine, and then, to Gabriel, “Most of what I communicate on behalf of my animals is very straightforward, mainly concerning food and safety.”

Gabriel shook his head. “Not this time—from what I read, you scored a political bull’s eye for the anticaptivity community.”

“I hear you talking to that whale constantly,” Ivy pointed out. “
Constantly
. How is that any different?”

“I don’t claim to know his inner thoughts, or expect him to know mine.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room.

“Do you believe in God?” Libertine finally asked Gabriel.

“What?”

“Do you believe there’s such a thing as God.”

“I don’t know. Yes, sure.”

“And yet, you haven’t seen Him.”

“What does that have to do with your ability to communicate with animals? You can’t possibly mean you’re working for God?”

“Of course not. What I’m saying is, sometimes you have to take things on faith. I
feel
Friday. I can no more explain it than you can; all I know is, he’s chosen to confide in me. Maybe I can explain what you’re doing. If he’ll let me.”

“Which I’m totally in favor of,” said Ivy. “By the way.”

“If he’s even open to it,” Libertine said. “The fact is, he hasn’t been reaching out to me, which means right now he doesn’t need me. That’s to your credit.”

Gabriel turned to Truman. “Look, the decision’s obviously not mine, but we have too much work to do and too few people doing it to have someone I don’t trust in the first place taking up space or time.”

Truman took a long moment, looking out the window for a beat before turning back. “I appreciate your frankness,” he said. “All of you. Here’s what I’d like to do.” To Libertine he said, “Are you planning on staying in Bladenham for long?”

She nodded. “I feel I should, at least for now.”

“Are you willing to work while you’re here?”

She looked at him, confused. “Of course.”

“Then I’d like you to be a volunteer at Friday’s pool.”

Gabriel stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m not,” said Truman evenly. “If she wants to be near Friday, then she shouldn’t mind working for the privilege.” He turned back to Libertine. “But let’s be very clear. If you get argumentative, or if you try to influence anything about our rehabilitation program as Gabriel lays it out, no matter how minor, I’ll revoke your access immediately and permanently. I’m also going to ask you to sign a confidentiality agreement acknowledging that you are in no way authorized to speak to the media or to represent the zoo. No blogs, no Twitter, no Facebook, no anonymous tip-offs, no unattributed quotes,
nada
. If I so much as suspect you’ve been talking to the media or trying to manipulate public opinion, you’re gone. Does that seem fair?”

“Yes,” said Libertine.

Gabriel stood and walked out of the room without another word, emitting wave after wave of pissed-offness. Truman watched him leave and then said to Libertine and Ivy both, “Don’t give me any reason to regret this.”

He took down Libertine’s cell phone number and told her Gabriel would be in touch. Libertine thanked him profusely as she left. Ivy stayed on, crowing, “So you
are
your father’s son!”

Truman smiled sheepishly. “It seemed like a good idea. Now I just have to convince Gabriel to see it that way.”

“Let me help,” Ivy said, gathering up Julio Iglesias and stuffing him, flat-eared, into her tote.

“Gladly,” said Truman.

W
EAVING THROUGH THE
throngs of visitors heading to Friday’s viewing gallery and through two security gates, Ivy found Gabriel in the walk-in freezer, slamming around boxes of frozen herring.