Bertha came in with the coffee but stood politely in the doorway, holding the tray while her father continued.
"So this Professor Chace, yesterday he gave a lecture in Seattle, and he’s staying tonight with his old friend Mr. Roy Linger in Port Townsend. And guess what? He reads that wonderful article about you, and he wants to meet you. So this Mr. Roy Linger calls the university to see if they know where you are, and they refer him to me, and so on and so forth."
"I hope," Gideon said, "that you’re not about to tell me that you’ve invited him here. Abe, I really don’t want to meet the number one expert on Bigfoot."
"Certainly not. Of course not." He looked over his shoulder. "Bertha, don’t just stand there. Bring in the coffee."
She poured the coffee, a rich, black Italian roast, into tiny green and white cups that Gideon had once sent as gifts from Sicily. Abe sucked in half a cupful with a smack of the lips.
"Certainly not," he said again. "Would I invite him here without asking you first? Hah?"
"I apologize," Gideon said somewhat dubiously, sniffing the coffee and taking a small sip. "I jumped to conclusions."
"You certainly did." Abe swallowed the rest of his coffee. "No. I told him we would go there… Bertha, what time is it?"
She twisted to look behind her at the wall clock he could have seen merely by looking up. "Eight-thirty."
"In three quarters of an hour."
"Go where?" Gideon said.
"To Port Townsend, to Linger’s house. For after-dinner brandies. Very fancy."
Gideon put down his coffee cup and rotated it slowly, between thumb and forefinger, in its saucer. "Abe, you don’t give any credence to the Bigfoot stories, do you?"
"No, but I don’t rule it out either. It seems crazy to me, but maybe I don’t know everything."
"I did check those prints near Quinault, you know. They were obvious fakes, very amateurish."
"And if you found some fake human footprints, that proves there’s no such thing as human beings?"
"I know, but there’s so much junk written about Bigfoot, so much charlatanism and plain bad science… I just don’t want to get involved in it."
"Look," Abe said gently, "a man who’s written books about it, a professor at a big university, I’m willing to give him a little of my time. Maybe I’ll learn something."
Gideon smiled and turned to Bertha. "How old is this man now?"
"Seventy-five years young last July."
"Don’t patronize, goddamn it," Abe said testily.
"Seventy-five and still giving me lessons in open-mindedness."
"That goes for you, too," Abe snapped. "You’re coming or you’re not coming?"
"Okay, let’s go," said Gideon, still smiling. "But I’m warning you, I’m going to take some convincing."
Abe brightened immediately. "Fair enough. Come, give a listen, keep an open mind. Unless you got some other answers?"
"Answers?"
"To how this Eckert guy got a spear stuck through his T-7. If not a nine-foot gorilla, what was it? Bertha, where’s my black shoes with the buckles that don’t need shoelaces?"
Chapter 6
Roy Linger and Port Townsend were made for each other; a pair of handsome, elegant anachronisms only faintly gone to seed. The town, especially the part on the hill, would not have been out of place a hundred years before. The houses were all Victorian, most of them modest, but many with French mansard roofs, gabled cupolas, and widows’ walks that looked far out over Admiralty Inlet and Port Townsend Bay.
Linger himself was pure F. Rider Haggard, an extraordinarily good-looking, silver-haired man in bush jacket and cream-colored ascot.
"Professor Goldstein?" he said in a polished Bostonian accent. He pronounced it the German way: Goldshtine. "Professor Oliver? How good of you to come."
He led them through a long entryway, the walls of which were covered with mounted heads of tigers, leopards, deer, ibex, and animals Gideon couldn’t name. Below each head was a small gold plaque. Gideon managed to read one, under an open-mouthed tiger’s head, as they walked by: Bihar, May 7, 1957, 440 lbs.
The living room, down two carpeted steps, was completely modern, with a huge, rectangular fieldstone fireplace in the middle, rising twenty feet to the canted ceiling. The carpet was a pale rose, most of the furniture white.
Linger paused, smiling, at the entrance. "I’d like you to meet my good friend Professor Earl Chace."
In a deeply upholstered white couch sat a large, beefy, smiling man in a three-piece peach-colored suit that might have been chosen to go with the rose and white and gray of the room.
"A pink suit?" Abe murmured in Gideon’s ear. "Already I don’t like him."
Chace strode forward to greet them, hand extended. "Professor Goldstein?" (He said Goldsteen.) "Professor Oliver? I’m truly glad to meet you, truly privileged."
He had very white teeth, a great many of them, and abundant black hair that was slicked back, except for full sideburns down to the corners of his jaw and a single, curling lock that tumbled boyishly over his forehead. A big, strong grip with a palm so clean and dry that it rustled when he shook hands, a redolence of musky cologne, and a palpably oleaginous aura made him seem half country singer, half country preacher, and not at all Berkeley professor. When he shook hands he revealed a large expanse of smooth, lilac-colored French cuff with a diamond-spangled cuff link that matched a heavy gold ring on his pinkie.
Already I don’t like him either, Gideon thought, as they seated themselves in the white sofa grouping.
"We were having some Courvoisier," Linger said. "Eighteen sixty-five. Remarkable stuff. Would you care to join us?"
He went to a fieldstone bar built into a corner of the room and poured four generous measures from an old bottle. While the others were turned in his direction, Gideon saw Chace quickly pick up one of the two snifters on the coffee table and toss off most of it, choking slightly before it all got down. Linger brought them their cognacs and then noticed with a small frown the two glasses on the coffee table. He took them to the bar and poured their contents down the drain.
It might well have been meant to impress—the cognac had to be wildly expensive—but his action seemed to come naturally to him. So, for that matter, had Chace’s.
In near-unison, they all raised their glasses, swirled the dark, golden liquid, sniffed it appreciatively, drank, and said, "Aah."
Linger elegantly crossed one trouser leg of powder blue over the other, being careful first to hitch up the material. He cupped the belly of the glass between his first and second fingers and continued to swirl the contents.
"Gentlemen, I want to thank you for coming. As…yes, Earl?"
Chace had politely raised his forefinger and waited for Linger’s attention. "Roy," he said, "I think we ought to start taping now."
"Oh, yes. Would you mind," he said to Gideon and Abe, "if we tape-recorded our conversation this evening?"
"I’m not sure if I do or not," Gideon said, faintly uneasy. "Why do you want to tape it?"
It was Chace who answered, when Linger deferred to him with a nod. "It’s for our own protection. There are people out there who twist our words for their own ends, who have their own sinister purposes. There are those who are just out for the money, who don’t—"
"What Professor Chace means," Linger said, "is that the Sasquatch Society, having been involved in more than one unfortunate controversy, now makes it a point to record all pertinent discussions. With your permission, of course?"
"Sure," said Abe. "It’s okay by me."
"I think I’d rather you didn’t," Gideon said.
Chace spoke after a moment of silence. "Would you mind explaining why?" he said, his eyes fixed on his glass.
Gideon minded. He was offended by the implication behind the taping and annoyed by Chace’s manner. "Yes, I’d mind," he said curtly.
Chace’s cheeks flushed an angry purple, but Linger cut smoothly in. "Fine. No need to tape if you’d
rather not." He uncrossed his legs, then recrossed them the other way around. "Now, as I’m sure you know, I’ve spent most of my life in the attempt to further man’s knowledge, and I like to think that, in my small way, I’ve succeeded." He paused, looking down into the swirling brandy.
"You sure have, Roy," Chace said, "and we all appreciate it."
Linger continued, "I believe that this evening presents an unparalleled opportunity to share and increase our understanding of one of the most fascinating and mysterious creatures known to science."
Gideon shifted in his chair. Linger was as oily as Chace once he got going. This would not be the first time Abe’s enthusiastic eclecticism had gotten them into an uncomfortable situation.
With the placid assurance of the rich and powerful that he would not be interrupted, Linger slowly sipped his brandy, then let his eyes rest on the ancient maps on the wall across from him, as if gathering inspiration. "In this room tonight," he said, "we have three of the finest scientific minds of our times: the dean of American anthropology, the world’s leading authority on giant anthropoid behavior and morphology, and one of the foremost younger anthropologists of his day."
"Thank you, Roy," Chace said.
Gideon said nothing.
"You got maybe a little seltzer in the icebox to go with this?" said the dean of American anthropology, holding out his glass. "Gives me heartburn."
With the merest tic of irritation at his chiseled lips, Linger took Abe’s glass to the bar, added soda water from a cut-glass siphon, and returned with it.
"Now, gentlemen," he said, sitting down and crossing his legs as meticulously as before, "the quest for accurate and unimpeachable data on the last of the great anthropoids, the being we call Bigfoot or Sasquatch—"
Gideon could sit still no longer. "Mr. Linger, pardon me, but I’m not quite sure just what this meeting is about."
It was Chace who leaned forward, his big-boned elbows on his thighs, the snifter cupped in both hands, in a posture of warm sincerity that showed he forgave Gideon his gauche performance over the tape recorder. "That’s my doing, Professor. I read about your interview in Quinault, and I knew you were on a dig up this way, so I asked Roy—Mr. Linger—if he’d have the kindness to bring us together. It’s an unanticipated honor"—he bowed toward Abe—"to meet the eminent Professor Goldstein as well."
He leaned back and crossed his legs, not delicately like Linger, but in an expansive, masculine way, right ankle on left knee. "Now, the Sasquatch Society is always delighted to find a reputable scientist with whom we can begin a meaningful dialogue. As I’m sure we all know all too well, the halls of academe are sometimes just a little bigoted about certain things."
"I’ve found them pretty open-minded," Gideon said.
"Ah-ha-ha," said Chace. "Now, as you may know, the Sasquatch Society sponsors a massive educational program of seminars and institutes, and we are always looking for highly regarded academics to serve on panels and so forth."
"Thanks," Gideon said. "I don’t think I’d be interested."
"We’d pay your expenses, of course, and there’d be compensation, substantial by academic standards, for your participation."
"Professor Chace, I don’t believe that Bigfoot exists."
"But you were quoted as saying—"
"I was quoted out of context."
"Surely," Linger said suavely, "you don’t mean that you would refuse to accept legitimate evidence because it’s contrary to your views?"
"Legitimate evidence, no. But I’ve never seen any."
"Professor," said Linger, "were you quoted accurately on the matter of superhuman strength having been required to drive that spear point in?"
"Well, yes, that was accurate."
"Then what do you think killed that unfortunate man?"
If the question kept coming up this often, he was going to have to find an answer. "I don’t know," he muttered lamely. He was anxious to leave. It was unlikely that the evening was going to improve, and the sooner it was over, the better. He looked over at Abe, but the old man was clearly enjoying himself, sitting up as straight and interested as an eager puppy.
Chace took a large swallow of the brandy and said, "Professor, I don’t see how you can say there’s no legitimate evidence. Have you ever seen the Rosten-Chapman film? That’s indisputable." He raised his glass and grinned. "In my poor opinion."
Not in Gideon’s. He had seen it—with Abe, as a matter of fact—ten years before, at the Milwaukee national conference of the American Society for Physical Anthropology. He could still recall his disappointment with the much-talked-about film. The focus had been poor, the action jerky. All that could be seen was a blurry, dark figure, more or less apelike, walking away from the camera—with what seemed to the assembled anthropologists to be an extremely exaggerated stride, less compatible with general anthropoid locomotion than with a poor actor’s interpretation of a giant ape’s manner of walking.
"We’ve seen it," Abe said with a cheery smile. "Indisputable it ain’t."
Linger laughed heartily, and Abe beamed at him.
Chace was very serious. "All right, even if you don’t accept the film—and you have that right—you can’t just wish away the thousands of years of verified, responsible sightings of similar species like the yeti."
"I’m afraid," Gideon said, "that the Abominable Snowman doesn’t seem to me any better verified—"
"It’s not just the Abominable Snowman—which, incidentally, isn’t abominable at all; the term is a misinterpretation of a Sherpa word meaning manlike wild thing." Obviously, Chace was getting into a familiar speech. "No, it’s much bigger than that. There’s the wudenwasa seen and reported by the Anglo-Saxons; the Fomorians that inhabited Ireland when the Celts invaded it; and the hairy men of Broceliande in Brittany. What about Grendel? Knowledge of these beings goes back to Beowulf."
"So does knowledge of griffins, and devils, and goats that fly."
Chace laughed. "I guess we differ on the reliability of myth."
I guess we do, Gideon thought.
"But what about scientists? Modern scientists with unimpeachable credentials? What about Ivan Sanderson? Bayanov? Bourtsev? Kravitz, right here at Washington State? How do you respond to them?"
Gideon could respond, all right, but he wasn’t interested in an argument. He shrugged. "All I can do is look at the data and draw my own conclusions."
"Professor Chace," Abe said, "I’m a little curious. What does Sherry Washburn think about your theories? Or Howell?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You don’t know Washburn?…You’re not with the University of California?"
"Yes, I am."
Abe’s eyes narrowed. "Sherwood Washburn is—"
Chace laughed easily. "Oh, I see. Are they on the biology faculty? Well—"
"Anthropology," Gideon said.
"Yes, well, I’m in supervisory development."
"Supervisory development?" said Abe. "This is a university department?"
Chace seemed to find that very funny. "No, goodness me, I’m not technically on the faculty, you see. I teach evening courses in Extension—public speaking for managers, office organization, that kind of thing. Just do it to keep my skills up."
"You’re not a professor, then?" Gideon asked.
Chace slapped his thigh and chuckled with the air of a man who was above overly fastidious distinctions of academic rank. "Never said I was."
No, and never denied it either, Gideon thought.
"You got a Ph.D.?" Abe asked bluntly.
Chace’s face became solemn. "I have a D.B.A., a doctorate of business administration. My formal education is in marketing and public relations."
Gideon looked at his watch. "Mr. Linger, I’ve certainly enjoyed this evening, but I’m afraid I have to be up early tomorrow—"
Chace put down his glass with a thump. His expression had changed from solemn to earnest. He leaned tensely forward. "Gideon—may I call you Gideon?—I’m not
one of your kooks, or one of these UFO nuts, or someone out to make big bucks. I’m a scientist like yourself, even if I’m self-taught, and I don’t go off half cocked. But I’m sitting here telling you"—his first two fingers began tapping on the coffee table, keeping time with his words—"that I know Bigfoot exists." His fingers curled into a fist, and he banged on the table. "I know it!"
"Dr. Chace," Gideon said, "neither contemporary nor fossil evidence support you. No one has ever found an ape bone on this continent. The only primates that have ever lived in North America are people."
Abe corrected him at once. "And what about the Eocene prosimians? They weren’t primates?"
Gideon deferred. "All right, but they were gone by the middle Oligocene, thirty million years ago. Bigfoot’s still supposed to be around. Does anyone have even a single tooth? One bone? One conclusive photograph?"
"Don’t get mad at me," Abe said, his hands outspread. "I only asked a question."
Linger smiled and tilted his handsome, silvered head to the side. "But isn’t there evidence?" he said, addressing them all. "I’ve seen a thousand-year-old scalp in a Tibetan lamasery—more than a thousand years old, they say—that no scientist in the world has been able to identify."
Gideon leaned forward. "If you give a decently sized piece of skin, in good condition, human or otherwise, to a laboratory, they’ll be able to tell you what it is very quickly. But once it’s tanned, or rotted, or simply desiccated from the passage of time, it becomes unidentifiable. The thing is, you have to remember there’s a big difference between finding an unidentifiable piece of skin and saying it’s from an unidentified species."
"The yeti’s beside the point anyway," Chace said. "It’s a different species altogether." He turned toward Gideon, his face set, seemingly on the edge of anger. "I have in my files," he said slowly, "verified and certified by me, personally"—he waited for a challenge—"hundreds of cases in which Bigfoot sightings or unmistakable Bigfoot tracks have been positively identified."
"Yes," said Gideon, "I saw some of those unmistakable tracks myself near Quinault a few days ago."
Aaron Elkins - Gideon Oliver 02 - The Dark Place Page 6
