“Is he a fish?” Gabriel asked.
“No.”
“Does he look or sound like a fish?”
“No.”
“Then there’s no reason to think Friday would eat him. Play with him, yes; eat him, no.”
“Play with him how, exactly?” Ivy said.
“Don’t know. It might be fun to find out, though.” Gabriel gave her a wicked smile. Ivy whacked him on the arm with her knitting needle.
TRUMAN CAME BACK to the pool top in the afternoon, telling himself he was legitimately responsible for checking on things, but the fact was, if he could have justified it he’d have spent the whole workday watching the goings-on at the killer whale pool instead of revising budget projections for an upcoming executive committee meeting. Harriet Saul had him well-trained: during her tenure if he was gone from his desk for more than fifteen minutes she’d get on the radio, hunt him down, and insist that he come back. Once, when he’d committed the sin of talking for twenty minutes with the zoo’s sloth keeper about a new animal that had just arrived, she had not only run him to ground, she’d lectured him about spending his time doing something that wasn’t related to his job. “During work hours you belong here, not wandering around the zoo,” she’d concluded. “From now on I want you to tell Brenda where you’re going when you leave your desk so I can find you.”
Now he crested the pool top in time to hear Gabriel say to Neva, “You ready?”
“Tah-dah!” Neva Supermanned her hoodie to reveal a brand-new wet suit underneath, at the same time shucking off her waterproof bib overalls. They both greeted Truman, and then Neva asked, “So what do you want me to do?”
“Just sit on the side, for starters. Let him initiate the relationship.”
“Is it safe?” Truman asked.
“It’s fine,” said Neva.
“It’s fine,” said Gabriel.
“Just don’t let him, you know, eat her. Okay?” Truman told Gabriel. “No eating.”
“C’mon—he’s a pussycat,” said Gabriel.
“That sounds like someone’s epitaph.” Truman readily acknowledged that one of his less attractive qualities was that he was perpetually preparing for loss. Every day he imagined the biopic that would be his life, with a dolorous voice-over saying something like What had begun as just another ordinary day would end with the terrible knowledge that the one he loved most was gone forever. The imagined cause of the fatality was an ever-changing multiple-choice question: car accident, sudden brain hemorrhage, random gunshot, serial killer, flesh-eating bacteria, hit-and-run driver, and now a new one, killer whale. He’d never trusted anything good to last.
He turned and walked away, bravely resisting the powerful urge to look back.
NEVA LOWERED HERSELF until she was sitting on the wet walk eight feet away from Friday, who had continued to watch everything, his chin resting on the edge of the pool.
“Splash your hand in the water a little. He’ll come over,” Gabriel said, using his foot to nudge the steel bucket closer to her. “Then reward him when he does.”
Neva did as instructed, and, sure enough, Friday swam right over to her. She tossed a fish into his open mouth and he swallowed it. “Go ahead and scratch him,” Gabriel suggested. “Use your fingernails and really dig.”
Friday narrowed his eyes with bliss as Neva described circles in his skin with her fingernails, leaving tracks in the remaining film of zinc oxide, getting black skin cells under her nails. His blowhole opened, he exhaled loudly, and then his blowhole clapped shut again. Little gobs of mucous fell around her like rain. “Ooh, snot. Is that normal?” she asked Gabriel.
“No. It’s probably from the pollution down in Bogotá. We’ll keep an eye on it. Why don’t you go ahead and get in the water with him.”
Neva slipped into pool, yipping involuntarily as the frigid water splashed her neck and face. Gabriel had asked the zoo’s water-quality staff to keep the temperature as close to forty degrees as possible—roughly the temperature of the North Atlantic. Gabriel grinned wickedly. “Just wait until it gets inside your wet suit.”
“God,” said Neva. “Do you get used to it?”
“A little. Not really.”
Friday, meanwhile, had taken off for the far side of the pool. Neva laughed. “Could he possibly get any farther away from me?”
“It’s going to take time,” Gabriel said. “But he’s a pretty social guy, so I’m betting he’ll be in your pocket by the end of the week.” He went to a fiberglass chest lashed to the pool railing, pulled out a scrub brush, and tossed it to her. “In the meantime, you might as well be useful.”
Neva began scrubbing the light growth of algae that had already started growing on the wet walk. “Is there anything in particular you want to do with him today?”
“Get a blood sample. That’s it. Mostly what I want him to do is eat and work some of the kinks out of his muscles. We’re taking his food up to two hundred twenty-five pounds. Double what he was getting in Bogotá.”
“Where are we taking the sample from?”
“His flukes.”
“Really?” Neva said skeptically. “How does that work?”
“Piece of cake. You just ask him to roll over and put his tail on the wet walk.”
Half an hour later, after Neva had been repeatedly spurned, she climbed out of the water and Gabriel called Friday to the side of the pool, fed him a couple of herring, and then asked him via a hand signal to roll over. When Friday complied, Gabriel pulled his flukes into place, laying one on the wet walk, where it was supported, then stooped down, swabbed a spot with alcohol, and inserted a hypodermic needle into the road map of veins. Friday didn’t even flinch. When he was done Gabriel blew a shrill blast on his whistle to signal to Friday that he’d done what he’d been asked to do, and slapped his flukes affectionately. Friday rolled over and put his chin on the side of the pool, and Gabriel fed him half a bucket of fish.
“Get back in,” he suggested to Neva. “He may be in a more playful mood now.”
For the next hour—until she was shivering uncontrollably—Neva alternated between scrubbing algae and water play, floating on her back or paddling around, trying to project a safe but come-hither attitude. Friday continued to keep his distance, dozing on the far side of the pool.
“Okay, c’mon out,” Gabriel finally said. “That was a good start.”
Neva climbed out of the pool, her teeth chattering.
“Can you feel your hands?” Gabriel asked.
“Not for the last fifteen minutes.”
“Excellent,” said Gabriel, grinning. “Welcome to the world of marine mammal care. Go on down and sit in the shower until you stop shivering.”
Neva thought nothing had ever felt better than sitting in the locker room’s huge shower on the teak bench Gabriel had had the foresight to order, letting hot water cascade over her, and allowing her mind to wander. She had known some extraordinary zookeepers in her career, men and women who had invested their hearts as well as their backs and minds, spending day after low-paying day in all kinds of settings and the worst kinds of weather. Her ex-husband, Howard, had described what she did as slopping the hogs and shoveling shit, and in a narrow view of the profession he was right. But he’d left out the passion that elevated their work to one continuous, arduous act of love. Neva had seen that passion in Sam as plain as day when he had worked with Hannah; now, she saw the same quality in Gabriel, amplified manyfold. Gabriel was also calm to the core, focused, reassuring, wordlessly eloquent. He would be an excellent mentor.
And what he couldn’t teach her, she suspected Friday would.
ON THE POOL top late that afternoon, Gabriel put on flippers, dive weights, a mask, oxygen tank, and regulator. This would be his first dive; he was going to clean feces, dropped fish, and algae from the bottom of the pool. It was slow and tedious work, like vacuuming a ballroom with a Dustbuster. And cold; very, very cold.
From the middle of the pool, Friday watched with keen
interest as Gabriel slipped into the water, and when he went under, Friday went, too, following him down, staying just out of reach. Gabriel ignored him: he intended to set a precedent during this dive. People without scuba gear were in the water to interact with him, but the presence of tanks and masks meant that business was at hand.
Gabriel pulled the clumsy vacuum hose out of a sump on the bottom of the pool’s south end, struggling with the heavy grate and the hose that bloomed into a huge arc overhead. Even with exertion, his breathing was easy and regular; he had been diving for twenty-two years, in all kinds of conditions and with all kinds of animals. Still, what he had told Sam was true: an animal looking for fun could be just as dangerous as one who meant you harm. He had developed a sixth sense about his animals’ whereabouts whenever he was in the water. He worked steadily, slipping into a lovely Zen state. Friday watched raptly from a distance for five minutes before coming closer, until he hovered head down directly above Gabriel. Then, with exquisite politeness, he rested his chin on Gabriel’s shoulder. Gabriel reached back to touch him in gentle acknowledgment, and they finished the vacuuming together, man and whale moving in companionable slo-mo along the bottom of the pool.
Chapter 5
THE DAY AFTER Friday’s arrival, the zoo’s executive committee began exerting increasing pressure on Truman to open the killer whale viewing gallery to the public. Adding urgency was the fact that the previous quarter’s attendance figures had been even worse than they’d projected.
“Hell,” the board president, Dink Schuler, declared at the executive committee meeting. “There’s a ton of money to be made here. This fish is a star.”
“Mammal,” Truman said mildly.
“What?”
“He’s a mammal, not a fish.”
“I don’t care if he has wings and can fly. All I know is, when I went to Rotary yesterday, people were jumping all over me about when we plan to open up. Money, money, money—the hospitality industry guys are drooling all over themselves about the out-of-town business we’ll bring in, and chamber’s mentioned several times that they’re willing to give us the front cover of their brochure the next time they reprint it. Oh, and get this—a couple of guys were visiting from Tacoma and they said, over there, there’s a rumor that the whale actually died a few hours after he got here and we’re hiding it by handing out canned footage to the TV guys instead of even letting them in to shoot their own.”
“That’s crazy,” said Truman, appalled.
“Sure, it’s bullshit, but what I’m saying is, keeping the guy off-limits could turn into a PR problem.”
Truman was also taking flak from visitors who knew full well that the killer whale they were hearing about on the evening news was right there; from the zoo grounds they could see staff working with him on the pool top. So when the executive committee meeting ended, Truman called Gabriel and explained the situation. “Do you see any downside to opening the gallery tomorrow?”
“Not as long as he’s still doing well—actually, having people in the gallery will give him some stimulation. I’m assuming that we can shut the gallery down if he gets into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, nothing in particular. Death, say.”
“Is he still that frail?” Truman asked with some alarm.
“No, but you still have to have protocols in place for how to deal with it. I’m just saying.”
“Oh,” said Truman. “Whew.”
Over the phone he could hear Gabriel snort with amusement. “Man, you really need to lighten up.”
“I know, I know. Then let’s open the gallery tomorrow. That’ll give us the chance for the maximum number of visitors over the weekend.”
“Fine by me,” said Gabriel.
So Truman called Dink Schuler to confirm that the gallery would open tomorrow; and Dink called the mayor of Bladenham and the president of the chamber of commerce and the county commissioners and a long list of other VIPs; by which time Truman had called Martin Choi, the reporter at the Bladenham News-Tribune who had been so instrumental, if unwittingly, in manipulating Harriet Saul into releasing Hannah to the Pachyderm Sanctuary in California, who called his radio buddy, who put the information out, which was picked up by the regional wire service; which prompted Dink to call Truman to pull together a ribbon-cutting ceremony; at which point Truman called Ivy, who, thanks to the vast experience she and her money had had with this sort of event, helped Truman plan a speech and photo opportunity with the additional input of Lavinia and Matthew, who strongly recommended that Truman not only invite Martin Choi, but include him in the ceremony as “one of our most important community partners” because, as Matthew put it, “Son, he’s an idiot, which means we can’t overestimate his strategic value if we need him down the road.”
MEANWHILE, ANIMAL COMMUNICATOR Libertine sat in her camp chair by the side of the street next to the killer whale pool. For the second full day Friday maintained his silence, which perplexed her. She was certain he’d been the one to summon her, but it was clear he’d withdrawn from her now. Did he want her there at all, or had he solved whatever problem he’d intended to bring to her? In that case, her work here was done. She never forced herself on any animal, but made herself available as its agent, leaving it to the animal to make use of her if it chose to. Though she had no doubt that it had been Friday who’d summoned her from Orcas Island, now she was at a loss.
At three o’clock she had just decided to take a walk—she was probably at risk for deep-vein thrombosis, with all the sitting she was doing—when a pleasant-looking man wearing zoo apparel came through a gate to her side of the chain-link fence and said, “Is there anything we can help you with?”
Libertine pushed herself out of her chair and staggered as she found that one of her feet was asleep. “Will you be putting the killer whale on exhibit anytime soon?”
“Friday.”
“Yes, Friday. Do you know when you’ll let people see him?”
“No, I meant on Friday—tomorrow. You’ll able to see Friday on Friday. My god, it’s like a bad Abbot and Costello routine. Who’s on first?”
“What?”
“No, what’s on second. Who’s on first?”
They both started laughing. “I’m sorry,” said the man, rubbing his face. “It’s been a long couple of days.”
“I’m sure.”
“I noticed you were here yesterday, too.”
“I came down from Orcas Island when I heard you were going to be bringing him up.”
“Do you know him somehow?”
“No,” said Libertine, not quite truthfully. “I’ve just heard a lot about him.”
“Really? Such as?”
“Mainly, that he deserves a lot of breaks.”
“No kidding,” said the man, holding out his hand. “I’m Truman Levy.”
“Libertine Adagio.” For now she decided to leave it at that.
ACROSS TOWN, BLADENHAM News-Tribune reporter Martin Choi was scratching around for a new story angle. The killer whale’s arrival was all well and good, but he’d gotten the same story as everyone else, and that wasn’t good enough. If you were to know just one thing about him, Martin Choi would tell you, it should be his unwavering ambition. Firmly believing that upper-level journalism classes were unnecessary—that in fact, they stifled a young reporter’s unique voice—he’d come to the Bladenham News-Tribune four years ago, fresh from an introductory journalism class at the community college. His current plan was to become an online feature writer for the Huffington Post. He used to dream of becoming an investigative reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, but he saw all too clearly now that paper-and-ink newspapers were doomed to become nothing but a headline or two, a couple of advertorials, and a bunch of grocery store ads and True Value Hardware supplements. He had more on the ball than that—a lot more. He was a hard-nosed reporter waiting for the story that would blast him out of this rat pit town and into cyberfame.
He’d
been trying to reach Truman Levy all morning, unsuccessfully. Martin was pretty sure Truman was avoiding him. If Harriet Saul had still been around, he’d have been in like Flynn; she’d never said as much, but he knew she’d had a crush on him, and justifiably—he’d stood on the front steps of Havenside three years ago and declared her a hero, blowing the lid off her secret intention of relocating Hannah to a sanctuary in California. In fact, he’d parlayed that great moment into his current title, Lead Feature Writer, which now ran beside his byline. Sure, he still wrote marriage and birth announcements, but he’d drawn the line at obituaries. Everyone knew obituary writing was a dead-end job. (And he’d come up with that amazing pun on the fly while outlining his demands to his editor. That was the kind of nimble wit he had.)
Truman Levy, on the other hand, was a tougher nut, and now a brand-new lawyer to boot, which meant he wasn’t going to go for the easy, hand-in-glove relationship that local newspapers and nonprofit organizations so often shared. No, he’d need to find another angle on this Friday business that was his own.
Then he’d gotten the phone call from none other than Truman himself about the ribbon-cutting at the whale pool the next morning. Who said good things didn’t go to those who waited, or whatever the hell that saying was? His life was charmed; this was just another sign of it.
WHEN TRUMAN LOOKED out his office window the next morning he saw a line leading all the way to the main parking lot and disappearing around a corner of the gift shop—more visitors than the zoo hosted during an average peak-season weekend. And the zoo wouldn’t even be open for another half hour.
Acting fast, he had his IT guy add to the zoo’s Web site basic information about Friday, the hours during which the public could see him, and a link to accept donations. He asked Brenda to create a Facebook page and a Twitter account on Friday’s behalf. Then he instructed security to take down the ribbon for the noon ribbon-cutting ceremony so visitors could get into the gallery immediately, and asked the two front gate employees to open early and capture guests’ zip codes—which, in the first two hours, included people from as far away as San Diego and Calgary. The Web site crashed under the weight of nearly a quarter of a million hits per hour, and children showed up with jars of pennies and crumpled dollar bills from the tooth fairy. When the day’s mail arrived it included an avalanche of greeting cards, hand-scrawled good wishes, and checks—lots and lots of checks.
Friday's Harbor: A Novel Page 7
