Christopher Moore: Fluke, Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

"Meaning what?"

Meaning that I'm starting to see things, he thought. Meaning that despite the fact that you're yelling at me, I really want to grab you and kiss you, he thought. Oh, I am so fucked, he thought. "Meaning I'm still a little hungover. I'm sorry. Let's see what we can put together from the notes."

Amy slipped off the stool and gathered the field journals in her arms.

"Where are you going?" Nate said. Had he somehow offended her?

"We have four days to put together a lecture. I'm going to go to my cabin and do it."

"How? On what?"

"I'm thinking, 'Humpbacks: Our Wet and Wondrous Pals of the Deep — »

"There's going to be a lot of researchers there. Biologists — " Nate interrupted.

" - and Why We Should Poke Them with Sticks. »

"Better," Nate said.

"I got it covered," she said, and she walked out.

For some reason he felt hopeful. Excited. Just for a second. Then, after he'd watched her walk out, a wave of melancholy swept over him and for the thirtieth time that day he regretted that he hadn't just become a pharmacist, or a charter captain, or something that made you feel more alive, like a pirate.

The old broad lived on a volcano and believed that the whales talked to her. She called about noon, and Nate knew it was her before he even answered. He knew, because she always called when it was too windy to go out.

"Nathan, why aren't you out in the channel?" the Old Broad said.

"Hello, Elizabeth, how are you today?"

"Don't change the subject. They told me that they want to talk to you. Today. Why aren't you out there?"

"You know why I'm not out there, Elizabeth. It's too windy. You can see the whitecaps as well as I can." From the slope of Haleakala, the Old Broad watched the activity in the channel with a two-hundred-power celestial telescope and a pair of "big eyes" binoculars that looked like stereo bazookas on precision mounts that were anchored into a ton of concrete.

"Well, they're upset that you're not out there. That's why I called."

"And I appreciate your calling, Elizabeth, but I'm in the middle of something."

Nate hoped he didn't sound too rude. The Old Broad meant well. And they, in a way, were all at the mercy of her generosity, for although she had «donated» the Papa Lani compound, she hadn't exactly signed it over to them. They were in a sort of permanent lease situation. Elizabeth Robinson was, however, very generous and very kindhearted indeed, even if she was a total loon.

"Nathan, I am not a total loon," she said.

Oh yes you are, he thought. "I know you're not," he said. "But I really have to get some work done today."

"What are you working on?" Elizabeth asked. Nate could hear her tapping a pencil on her desk. She took notes during their conversations. He didn't know what she did with the notes, but it bothered him.

"I have a lecture at the sanctuary in four days." Why, why had he told her? Why? Now she'd rattle down the mountain in her ancient Mercedes that looked like a Nazi staff car, sit in the audience, and ask all the questions that she knew in advance he couldn't answer.

"That shouldn't be hard. You've done that before, what, twenty times?"

"Yes, but someone broke in to the compound yesterday, Elizabeth. All my notes, the tapes, the analysis — it's all destroyed."

There was silence on the line for a moment. Nate could hear the Old Broad breathing. Finally, "I'm really sorry, Nathan. Is everyone all right?"

"Yes, it happened while we were out working."

"Is there anything I can do? I mean, I can't send much, but if — "

"No, we're all right. It's just a lot of work that I have to start over." The Old Broad might have been loaded at one time, and she certainly would be again if she sold the land where Papa Lani stood, but Nate didn't think that she had a lot of money to spare after the last bear market. Even if she did, this wasn't a problem that could be solved with cash.

"Well, then, you get back to work, but try to get out tomorrow. There's a big male out there who told me he wants you to bring him a hot pastrami on rye."

Nate grinned and almost snorted into the phone. "Elizabeth, you know they don't eat while they're in these waters."

"I'm just relaying the message, Nathan. Don't you snicker at me. He's a big male, broad, like he just came down from Alaska — frankly, I don't know why he'd be hungry, he's as big as a house. But anyway, Swiss and hot English mustard, he was very clear about that. He has very unusual markings on his flukes. I couldn't see them from here, but he says you'll know him."

Nate felt his face go numb with something approximating shock. "Elizabeth —»

"Call if you need anything, Nathan. My love to Clay. Aloha."

Nathan Quinn let the phone slip from his fingers, then zombie-stumbled out of the office and back to his own cabin, where he decided he was going to nap and keep napping until he woke up to a world that wasn't so irritatingly weird.

Right on the edge of a dream where he was gleefully steering a sixty-foot cabin cruiser up Second Street in downtown Seattle, plowing aside slow-moving vehicles while Amy, clad in a silver bikini and looking uncharacteristically tan, stood in the bow and waved to people who had come to the windows of their second-story offices to marvel at the freedom and power of the Mighty Quinn — right on the edge of a perfect dream, Clay burst into the room. Talking.

"Kona's moving into cabin six."

"Get some lines in the water, Amy," Nate said from the drears of morpheum opus. "We're coming up on Pike's Place Market, and there's fish to be had."

Clay waited, not quite smiling, not quite not, while Nate sat up and rubbed sleep from his eyes. "Driving a boat on the street?" Clay said, nodding. All skippers had that dream.

"Seattle," said Nate. "The Zodiac lives in cabin six."

"We haven't used the Zodiac in ten years, it won't hold air." Clay went to the closet that acted as a divider between the living/sleeping area and the kitchen. He pulled down a stack of sheets, then towels. "You wouldn't believe how they had this kid living, Nate. It was a tin industrial building, out by the airport. Twenty, thirty of them, in little stalls with cots and not enough room to swing a dead cat. The wiring was extension cords draped over the tops of the stalls. Six hundred a month for that."

Nate shrugged. "So? We lived that way the first couple of years. It's what you do. We might need cabin six for something. Storage or something."

"Nope," said Clay. "That place was a sweat box and a fire hazard. He's not living there. He's our guy."

"But Clay, he's only been with us for a day. He's probably a criminal."

"He's our guy," said Clay, and that was that. Clay had very strong views on loyalty. If Clay had decided that Kona was their guy, he was their guy.

"Okay," said Nate, feeling as if he had just invited the Medusa in for a sandwich. "The Old Broad called."

"How is she?"

"Still nuts."

"How're you?"

"Getting there."

When a visitor first drives into the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale Sanctuary — five baby blue shiplap buildings trimmed out in cobalt, crouching on the edge of the huge Maalaea Bay and overlooking the ruins of an ancient saltwater fish pond — his first reaction is usually "Hey, not much of a sanctuary. You could get maybe three whales in those buildings, tops." Soon, however, he realizes that these buildings are simply the offices and visitor centers. The sanctuary itself covers the channels that run from Molokai to the Big Island of Hawaii, between Maui, Lanai, and Kahoolawe, as well as the north shores of Oahu and Kauai, in which there is plenty of room for a whole bunch of whales, which is why they are kept there.