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

"Lus-cious," she said, pulling the covers down, revealing a breast with each syllable.

Nate walked out of the room. "Put on some clothes and come out here. I'm not going to try to talk to you like that."

"Fine, don't talk," she called after him. "Just crawl in."

"You're just bait," he called from the kitchen.

"Hey, buster, I'm not that young."

"This conversation is over until you come out here fully dressed." Nate sat down at his little dining table and tried to will away his erection.

"What are you, some kind of fruitcake, some kind of sissy boy, some kind of fairy, huh?"

"Yes, that's it," Nate said.

For a moment nothing but quiet from the bedroom. Then: "Oh, my God, I feel like such a maroon." Her voice was softer now. She came stumbling out of the bedroom, the sheet wrapped around her. "I'm really sorry, Nate. I had no idea. You seemed so interested. I wouldn't have —»

"Ha!" Nate said. "See how it feels."

The Old Broad had given them iced ginger tea and set Kona up at one of her telescopes to look at the moon. She sat down next to Clay on the lanai and they listened to the night for a while.

"It's nice up here," Clay said. "I don't think I've been up here at night before."

"Clay, I'm usually in bed by now, so I hope you don't think me dense if I get things clear in my mind."

"Of course not, Elizabeth."

"Thank you. As I see it, for years you and Nate have been telling everyone that I'm a nut job because I said I could communicate with whales. Now you drive up here in a froth — in the middle of the night — to deliver the earth-shattering news that what I've been telling you all along is possible?" She leaned her chin on her fist and looked wide-eyed at Clay. "That about right?"

"We never called you a nut job, Elizabeth," Clay said. "That's an overstatement."

"Doesn't matter, Clay. I'm not mad." She sipped her tea. "And I'm not angry either. I've been in these islands a very long time, Clay, and I've lived on the side of this volcano for most of it. I've spent more time looking down on that channel than most people have spent on the planet, but not once did you or Nate ask me why. Didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess. Easier to think I was just a few bananas short of a bunch than to ask me why I was interested."

Clay felt sweat running down the small of his back. He'd been uncomfortable around the Old Broad before, but in a totally different way — the way one feels when a matron aunt pinches your cheek and starts to ramble inanely about the old days, not like this. This was like getting sandbagged by a prosecutor. "I don't think that Nate or I could answer that question, Elizabeth, so it's not out of order that we didn't ask you."

"That's a load a shark balls, old Auntie," Kona said, not looking away from the eyepiece of the eight-inch mirror telescope.

"He's a sweet boy," the Old Broad said. "Clay, you know that Mr. Robinson was in the navy. Did I ever tell you what it was that he did?"

"No, ma'am, I just assumed he was an officer."

"I can understand how you might think that, but all the money came from my family. No, sweetheart, he was a noncom, a chief petty officer, a sonar man. In fact, I'm told he was the best sonar man in the navy at the time."

"I'm sure he was, Elizabeth, but —»

"Shut up, Clay. You came here for help, I'm helping you."

"Yes, ma'am." Clay shut up.

"James — that was Mr. Robinson's first name — he loved to listen to the humpbacks. He said they made his job a damn sight harder, but he loved them. We were stationed in Honolulu then, but submarine crews were on and off on hundred-day duty shifts, so when he would have time in port, we would come over to Maui, rent a boat, and go out in the channel. He wanted me to be part of the world he lived in all the time — the world of sound under the sea. You can understand that, can't you, Clay?"

"Of course." But Clay was getting a not-so-good feeling about this trip down memory lane. He had things he needed to know, but he wasn't sure that this was part of them.

"That's when I bought Papa Lani with some of my father's money. We thought we'd live there full-time eventually, maybe turn it into a hotel. Anyway, one day James and I decided to rent a little powerboat and camp on the ocean side of Lanai. It was a calm day and an easy trip. On our way over, a big humpback came up beside the boat. It even seemed to change course when we did. James slowed down so we could stay with our new friend. There were no rules then about getting close to the whales like there are now. We didn't even know we were supposed to save them back then, but James loved the humpbacks, and I had come to as well.

"There was no one but the pineapple-company workers on Lanai at that time, so we found a deserted beach where we thought we'd build a fire, cook some dinner, drink highballs from tin cups, swim naked, and… you know, make love on the beach. See there, I've shocked you."

"No you haven't," said Clay.

"Yes I have. I'm sorry."

"No you haven't. Really, I'm fine, tell the story." Old ladies, he thought.

"When the trade winds came up that evening, we pitched the tent a little ways off the beach in a small canyon sheltered from the wind. Well, I gave James my best hummer, and he fell asleep right away."

Clay choked on his iced tea.

"Oh, my dear, did an ice cube go down the wrong pipe? Kona, come here and Heimlich Clay, dear."

"No, I'm fine." Clay waved the surfer away. "Really, I'm okay." Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he wiped his nose on his shirttail. He was suddenly incredibly grateful he hadn't brought Clair. "Just need to catch my breath."

Kona sat down cross-legged at their feet, having suddenly found that he was interested in history. "Go ahead, old Auntie."

"Well, I got a little bit of a headache. So I decided to go back to the boat to get an aspirin from the first-aid kit. Come to think of it, it must have been from the tension in my neck. I always got a crick in my neck when I did that, but James loved it so."

"Jesus, Elizabeth, would you get on with the story," Clay said.

"I'm sorry, dear, I've shocked you, haven't I?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm just curious to find out what happened."

"Well, as long as I didn't shock you. I suppose I should be more discreet in front of the boy, but it is part of the story."

"No, please. What happened on the beach?"

"You know, we could fuck like mad monkeys, all night long, and it never gave me a headache, but one —»

"The beach, please."

"When I got to the beach, there were two men near the boat. It looked like they were doing something to the engine. I ducked behind a rock before they saw me. I watched them in the moonlight, a short one and the tall one. The tall one seemed to be wearing some sort of helmet or diving suit. But then the short one said something, and the tall one started laughing — snickering, really — and I saw his face in the moonlight. It wasn't a helmet, Clay. It was a face — a smooth, shiny face, with a jaw full of teeth. I could see the teeth even from where I was. It wasn't human, Clay.

"Well, I went back and woke James, told him he had to come see. I took him back to my hiding place. The two men, or the man and that thing were still there, but behind them, right there almost on the beach, was also a humpback, a big one. The water couldn't have been ten feet deep where he was, yet he was sitting there calm as could be.

"Well, all James saw was the two men messing with our boat. We had drunk quite a few cocktails, I guess, and James had his big, strong man act to do. He told me to stay where I was and not to move for anything. Then he went after them — shouting at the top of his lungs for them to get away. The tall one, the nonhuman thing, dove under the water right away, but the man looked around like he'd been trapped. He started wading out toward the whale, and James went right in after him. Then, at last, James saw the whale. He just stopped there in the surf and looked. That's when the thing came up out of the water behind him. Suddenly it was just there, looming behind James. I wanted to yell, but I was so afraid. The thing, it hit James with something, maybe a rock, and he fell forward into the water. Then I screamed for all I was worth, but I'm not sure they even heard me over the noise of the wind and the surf.