Friday's Harbor: A Novel

by Diane Hammond

  Lost in thought, he was startled to find Libertine bringing him a menu. “Do you work here, too?” he asked.

  She blushed. “I’ve been helping out when it gets busy, so. . . .” They both looked at the one other table that was occupied, hardly the sign of a busy café. Truman saw her blush deepen. “It helps him sometimes to have me around.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Truman said. “I want to run something by you.”

  “I’d be honored. Let me just check on this other table, and then I’ll be right back.”

  Truman watched her cross the restaurant. He wasn’t proud of the way he’d forced her to leave the zoo yesterday. She’d been treated as guilty until proven innocent, and he, of all people, should have upheld a higher standard. Plus he’d known she wasn’t capable of such a heinous act. They all knew it, even Neva, once Friday had rallied and she’d had time to calm down.

  When Libertine came back, she brought along two slices of pizza, two cookies, and a couple of cups of coffee, which she divided between them before sitting down.

  “Carbs, caffeine, and sugar—life’s essential stimulants,” Truman said, smiling.

  “I don’t think any of us are sleeping well right now. I thought they might help.”

  “Absolutely,” said Truman, taking a bite of pizza. He couldn’t remember when he’d eaten last—yesterday, he thought, before he got the call about Friday. “Okay,” he said with his mouth full, and then, remembering his manners, held up a finger and waited to say more until he’d chewed and swallowed. “Here’s what I’m thinking.” He laid out his plan. “And I’d like to do it tomorrow morning. Want to help?”

  Libertine gave a small, sad smile. “Of course.”

  “Good,” said Truman. “When you’ve lined it up, please let me know, and Gabriel, too. I’m going to alert the police chief, so we can have an officer on standby just in case.”

  “Have you talked this over with him?”

  “Not yet—you’re the key player.”

  Libertine nodded and pressed up a few cookie crumbs from the tabletop with a finger. “May I tell you something?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Friday trusts you—all of you. I think it’s why he hasn’t needed me.”

  “But you knew he was sick—that came to you.”

  She waved that away. “It was like overhearing a scream. It wasn’t meant for me—I just happened to intercept it.”

  “Which makes all this just that much worse,” said Truman. “He deserves much better than he’s gotten. We’ll try everything we can to compensate for what we can’t give him.”

  “I’m sure he knows that.”

  Truman nodded. “Then let’s make this right. If you’d make the call and then let me know what time they’ll arrive, we’ll get the rest worked out. And thank you again for this.”

  “Believe me,” Libertine said firmly, “it’s my pleasure.”

  FOR AS LONG as she could remember, Libertine had always thought one of her faults was her compulsive honesty. Hardly anyone else was honest, she’d noticed. She had asked her mother about this and her mother had said, “Oh, grow up. Of course no one’s completely truthful. Can you imagine telling Mrs. Brubaker that her mole repulses everyone who sees her?” Mrs. Brubaker, Libertine’s babysitter, had a mole on her left cheekbone the size of a pea. It was all Libertine—and, she assumed, nearly everyone else—could think about when they looked at her.

  “But maybe if we did tell her, she’d have it taken off,” Libertine had argued.

  “No, she’d just rethink every single face-to-face encounter she’d ever had as far back as she could remember.”

  “So you don’t really mean it when you say not to lie?”

  Her mother had snapped at her, “For god’s sake, don’t be so literal. Of course I meant it—except for the little lies that spare people’s feelings. Little lies make the world go round. There’s a difference between lies and lies.” But Libertine had never been able to see the difference. Until now. Now, driving away from the Oat Maiden to make her call, she would have to give the performance of a lifetime, based on the lie that she agreed philosophically with Trina Beemer and her followers that animals were better dead than captive. And yet her conscience would be crystal clear. As soon as she was inside, she rang a small bell she’d begun to use to tell Chocolate and Chip that she was home, and took a strengthening deep breath or two. Then she pulled her phone from her pocket and punched in Trina Beemer’s number.

  Chip popped out of the cat-tube, elegant as ever in his neat black morning coat. He wound around her legs as she paced, waiting for her to give him her lap. She sat and he jumped up, allowing her to run her fingers absently through his silky fur. Libertine gave a silent prayer that her blood pressure would go down because of his presence. Her heart was pounding so hard she was light-headed.

  When she got Trina on the line she said, “I guess you know that it didn’t work—he’s actually getting better. They think he wasn’t given enough—either that, or he could have vomited. Anyway, he’s definitely not going to die.”

  “I know,” said Trina, whose voice sounded nasal, as though she’d been crying. “We heard. That poor, poor animal.”

  “But here’s the thing.” Libertine lowered her voice to what she hoped was a conspiratorial level. “I’ve asked if I can bring you in for a VIP tour.”

  “And?”

  “They said yes!”

  “Really?” Trina said excitedly. “My god, how stupid can they be? Still, that’s great, Libby. Absolutely great. So when can we do this—how soon?”

  “I think the sooner, the better, don’t you? He’s still in relatively bad shape, so it won’t, ah, take as much.”

  They made the necessary arrangements, and as soon as they disconnected, Libertine called Truman. “Two o’clock this afternoon. Do you want me to call Martin or will you?”

  “Me,” said Truman. “Oh, let it be me.”

  MARTIN CHOI WAS beside himself with excitement. This could very easily be the story of a lifetime: militant animal rights wingding meets captive-care pioneer, with animal psychic on hand.

  The wingding arrived first. She was a big, big woman with a voice that was weirdly flat while at the same time being loud enough to penetrate a concrete bunker. Her teeth were gray—he was not making this up—from, what, a vitamin deficiency when she was a kid? Scarlet fever? Poor dental hygiene? She wore a flowing skirt and rubber boots, and carried an enormous purse. He couldn’t imagine what was in there—a phone book? Several extra meals? A seal pup? Not that it mattered. He subscribed to the to-each-his-own approach to life.

  Libertine was the next one upstairs, hailing the wingding. They embraced—Jesus, it was like watching a walrus hug a penguin—and together they approached the pool. Neither one of them acknowledged him. He’d noticed a long time ago that if you were behind a camera, people seemed to think you were on some other astral plane.

  The wingding headed for the wet walk, toting her enormous bag.

  “You know, you can leave that on the deck if you want,” Libertine told her.

  “What’s the matter with you? Isn’t this what we came for?” Martin overheard her hiss to Libertine without even looking back. For a big woman, the wingding moved fast.

  Gabriel Jump arrived on the pool top silently and moving fast, wet-suited and handsome in an older-guy kind of way. He reached the wingding just as she stepped into the wet walk near Friday, who was awaiting them, his chin on the edge of the pool. When he opened wide, Martin almost dropped his camera. Jesus—the whole inside of his mouth, which had always been a nice light pink like the belly of a puppy, was now dotted with thousands and thousands of little, dark red dots.

  Then he caught Libertine shooting Gabriel a look. His acute reporter instincts homed in: something was about to go down. Martin had kicked on his auto-winder and started shooting, watching it all through his lens, when he saw the wingding pull from her tote a string bag holding four or five fish.
Fish. What the hell?

  From then on, at least from what he remembered later, things happened at lightning speed. The wingding leaned in to feed Friday the first fish; Gabriel vaulted forward to stop her, inadvertently throwing an elbow directly into Libertine’s diaphragm; Libertine flew into the icy pool with the wind knocked out of her; Gabriel took the wingding down in the wet walk, wrestling away the fish and then the tote; and Martin snapped photo after photo after photo: What a story! This was the stuff Pulitzers were made of. Hello, HuffPost; hello national byline.

  And then, as abruptly as it began, the whole mess was over. The wingding was sitting in the wet walk on her fat ass weeping; Gabriel was throwing her confiscated fish into a cooler and locking it with a padlock; Friday was nowhere to be seen. Martin lowered his camera, scanning the pool top. Where was Libertine? He’d seen her fall into the water, but come to think of it, he hadn’t seen her since. Could she still be in the pool? Holy crap! There wasn’t so much as a ripple on the surface, so if she’d gone down, it had been a while ago, maybe a minute, minute and a half. Enough time to drown.

  But before he could even yell, he heard a chuff, loud and deep, as Friday surfaced. Libertine was sprawled across his back and one outstretched pectoral flipper like wet laundry. The whale swam to the side of the pool and gently tipped until she’d rolled onto the concrete. She retched, vomited water, coughed explosively. Gabriel ran over. Friday stayed nearby, his mouth closed, eyes inscrutable.

  And Martin had gotten it all—the weeping wingding, the gasping psychic, the weird stuff with the fish. What was the deal with those fish?

  “They were poisoned,” Gabriel was saying over his shoulder, though Martin hadn’t been aware of speaking out loud. “Did you get pictures of all of it? Because you’ll be a key witness, and the photos will be evidence.” In the distance he could hear police sirens, growing closer. Silently he uttered his thanks to God for dropping this überopportunity upon him.

  “HOW DO YOU think he knew you were drowning?” Neva asked Libertine. Swimsuited, they sat on one of the teak benches in the shower. Neva sat behind Libertine, chafing her arms to try and warm her up.

  “He must have heard me,” Libertine said, her teeth chattering violently.

  “But none of the rest of us did.”

  “Not heard me; heard me. In his head. I remember him swimming up to me and picking me off the bottom with his teeth. He had ahold of my sweater, the hem of it. After that there was nothing but a white light. There really is one.”

  “Gabriel’s said the same thing.”

  Libertine nodded. “Next thing I knew, I was on the deck with his pectoral flipper under me. And I could feel him saying. Don’t. That’s all it was, over and over: Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” Neva asked.

  “I don’t know. He was vocalizing like crazy, too. Did Gabriel say anything about hearing him?”

  Neva shook her head. “I think he was focused on stopping her from giving him those fish.”

  They heard a knock on the door and Truman called, “Is she okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Libertine called weakly.

  “She’s fine,” Neva hollered. “Just cold. What’s going on out there? Did the police come?”

  “Right on schedule. They took her with them. You’ll be a witness, you know.”

  “Me?” Neva asked.

  “Libertine.”

  “Go ahead and open the door so we can hear you,” Neva yelled over the sound of the shower. “We’re decent.”

  Truman looked in. Neva thought he looked grim. “So did she say anything?” she asked. “Trina Beemer?”

  “Not really,” said Truman. “She kept crying and babbling about how she’d ruined the whale’s one real chance to escape this earthly hell. Those were her exact words—‘escape this earthly hell.’ ”

  “Some ninja warrior, huh?” said Neva.

  THAT EVENING THEY all gathered for dinner at the Oat Maiden: Neva, Truman, Gabriel, Libertine, Ivy—everyone but Sam, who volunteered to take the evening watch at Friday’s pool. They’d agreed that someone should be with him around the clock until the medical crisis had passed: as soon as he had deposited Libertine on the pool deck, Friday had gone back to his corner, winded and exhausted. A security guard would also be stationed at the pool all night, every night, from now on.

  “So how much time do you think she’ll get?” Ivy asked Truman. She was disappointed that she hadn’t been on the pool top to see Trina Beemer apprehended.

  “You’d have to ask my father. It should be a watertight case, though.” He smiled wanly. “So to speak. We have eyewitnesses, plus Martin’s photos, plus my hidden video camera. I doubt it’ll even go to trial. I think she’ll plea-bargain.”

  “Maybe she’ll rat out the rest of the FAS people,” Neva said.

  “Doubtful,” said Gabriel.

  “Why?”

  “They don’t do that. They martyr themselves. It’s part of the creed.”

  Libertine brought a tray of drinks to the table and joined them. Johnson Johnson followed with two pizzas.

  “What creed?” Ivy asked.

  “Better dead than captive,” Libertine, Neva, Gabriel, and Truman all said as one.

  While Neva handed around pizza slices, Ivy considered Truman for a long beat.

  “What?” said Truman.

  “What if there was a third alternative?” Ivy asked. “Besides dead and captive, I mean. What if we really do release him?”

  That got everyone’s attention. “Oh, boy,” Gabriel said.

  “Wait, wait, let me talk,” Ivy said. “Clearly captivity’s been no great shakes. He’s been hit, bullied, parboiled, starved, and now poisoned, and he’s hung on through it all. Obviously here it’s better, but what if there’s an even better choice? He was wild once.”

  “As a calf,” Neva pointed out. “He was collected right out of the crib, so to speak.”

  “Why do you all say ‘collected’?” Ivy said irritably. “He was captured. Call a spade a spade. He was separated from everything he knew—and yes, including his mother. He spent a year in a small holding pool in Norway, getting some basic training—open your mouth, swim, eat this dead fish.” She turned to Gabriel. “All of which is stuff that would help you, right?”

  “You’re starting to sound like one of the animal activists,” said Neva, staring at her. “And not in a good way.”

  “Look, I’m just reviewing the facts,” said Ivy. “Have I gotten anything wrong yet? No.” She turned to Gabriel and said, “How old was he when he was caught?”

  “One. Give or take a few months.”

  “Do you know that?” Neva asked in surprise.

  Gabriel nodded.

  Ivy said to Neva, “Ask him how he knows. Go on—ask him.” When Gabriel sent her a look she said, “Oh, come on—let’s not be coy.”

  Neva said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Gabriel was the one who ‘collected’ our little boy in the first place,” Ivy said.

  “Who?” Neva said.

  “Friday,” Ivy said impatiently. “Gabriel was the one who caught him.”

  Gabriel stared at her.

  “One of the board members at the Whale Museum put it all together last week.” She turned to address the rest of the table. “They went out with a fishing boat with a bunch of nets and they separated him from his pod and brought him back to a tank in a little town on a fjord in Norway and started training him up, so he’d know a few things by the time he was bought and taken to whatever zoo or theme park was willing to pay the most. That’s how Gabriel knows he’s a North Atlantic whale. That’s why he went to see him every few years. And that’s why Friday recognized that signal Neva accidentally gave him. Gabriel was the one who taught it to him in the first place.”

  Stunned, they turned to Gabriel as one.

  “Is that true?” Libertine finally asked.

  “Yep,” he said, unfazed, reaching for another piece of pizza. He looked up, saw ever
yone looking at him, and stopped with the pizza halfway to his mouth. “What?”

  “But you’ve never said a word,” Libertine said. “Why haven’t you ever told us?”

  “Would it have made any difference if I had?” he asked, taking a big bite. “No, it wouldn’t. And that sort of information in the wrong hands can be dangerous.”

  “Oh, come on,” Ivy said. “That’s a little hole-and-corner, don’t you think?”

  “Is it? I traveled under assumed names with fake passports for years because there’d been death threats made against me. Threats, plural.”

  “But didn’t it just rip you up to take him like that?” Libertine asked incredulously.

  “No.”

  “Really?” she said. “I can’t believe that.”

  Gabriel sighed, lowered his pizza slice, and looked at them all. “Look, for one thing you’re being anthropomorphic—this is an animal, not a child. Second, I’m not a heartless bastard and I didn’t do it for financial gain. It all comes down to conservation. There’s a huge need for zoos and parks to educate people. You don’t save animals and habitats you’ve never seen before and know nothing about. If there’d never been Shamu, people wouldn’t give a damn about killer whales. Now they do.”

  “Blah blah blah,” Ivy broke in. “I’m sorry, but all of that is just so much mealymouthed hokum. Let me ask you a question. What if we let him go back there, to where you caught him?”

  Truman stared at her. “What?”

  Gabriel put his head in his hands.

  “What if we let him go?” Ivy said. “I’m serious. Tell me why we can’t.”

  “I’m not saying we can’t. I’m saying we shouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “You may not believe in captivity,” Gabriel said, “but he’s spent nearly his whole life being cared for by humans. Yes, the conditions were miserable, and yes, he’s been a victim. But there’s captivity and then there’s captivity. Here, he’s healthy—well, you know what I mean, except for the poisoning thing—and challenged. He has great food, people to watch, games to play, and people to swim with. He’s safe. Yes, we failed him by allowing him to fall into the wrong hands, but that’s over now.”