Friday's Harbor (10 page)

“He’s either insane or he’s an idiot,” he fumed when he saw her.

“Actually, I think he’s brilliant. Haven’t you ever heard the old saying, ‘Hold your friends close and your enemies closer’?”

“Sure, but she’s a nut job. She’s going to be a pipeline straight from here into the activist camp. You don’t know what these people are capable of.”

“You know, I don’t think so. She may be misguided, but she’s very earnest. What she needs is a teacher, someone to interpret what you’re doing—and who’s better than you?”

Gabriel just shook his head. “I have to tell you, I’m strongly considering walking away.”

“What do you mean, walking away?”

Gabriel made two fingers walk along the food prep counter. “I’ve been in this business for a long time, longer than anyone except a handful of other old guys. We’re understaffed as it is. I don’t need the headache of having to babysit a lunatic who’s under my feet all day.”

Ivy regarded him blandly. “I assume you believe in what you’re doing here.”

“Absolutely.”

“Then for god’s sake stop pouting and take the high ground. She may be a nutcase, but she has Friday’s best interests in mind. So do you. That gives you common ground. Educate her about what you’re doing, and then put her to work helping to make it happen. It’s a strategy called co-opting, by the way. My brother, Truman’s father, does it better than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Gabriel stacked two boxes of frozen herring in Ivy’s arms. “Come on,” she wheedled, putting the boxes on the food prep counter. “She’s too socially awkward to be working on behalf of any group. Teach her what you know. If you can turn her around—and I know you can—think what an asset she could be later, if we need someone to run interference with the real crazies.”

Gabriel stared at her. Shaking his head, he said, “My God, you’re a wily old thing.”

“That I am,” she crowed, clapping him on the back. “That I am.”

G
ABRIEL WAS NOT
a vitriolic man. He had opinions on many things, but he didn’t feel obligated to impart them. He readily accepted that other people had other viewpoints, and believed that for the most part the world was the better for it—except when it came to animal rights advocacy. On that topic he had waged and would wage war against those who believed that all captivity was bad. That was a load-of-crap opinion, held by the ignorant and anthropomorphically confused. More and more, the wild was not a safe place. Animals were regularly slaughtered in African sanctuaries, habitats were shrinking, and zoos were the last safe havens for dozens of species that would otherwise have disappeared already. The wild, in short, could be a place of wholesale peril and death.

As far as he was concerned, Libertine Adagio was embedded firmly in the traditions of wingnutism and lunacy. He’d met scores of people like her, been picketed by them, fought with them, even been threatened with bodily harm by them. In the 1970s—the Wild West of marine park development—when he’d been collecting animals for first-time exhibits, he’d traveled the world on behalf of a half-dozen marine parks, using false identities and passports because someone had put out a contract on him.

And now, thanks to Truman and Ivy tag-teaming him, one of the most objectionable weirdos he’d met in years was being welcomed into the bosom of the family. He drank through the evening, and by his fifth beer, he’d decided, for Friday’s sake, to stay. Before he could change his mind he called the number Libertine had given him, connecting to what he recognized as an even worse motel than his own. He had a sudden vision of her sitting all alone on a stove-in, spring-shot bed or bad upholstered chair marinated in years of cigarette smoke. She answered the phone on the first ring.

“Hey, this is Gabriel Jump.”

“Oh!”

“You know this is going to be really hard work, right? Hard physical work.”

“Yes. I do.”

“And you know you can’t slack off and blame it on the whale, saying he’s told you he’s tired or whatever.”

“Mr. Jump, you may not approve of what I do, but please give me some credit. I put myself through college waiting tables at a truck stop near Bellingham. I’m not afraid of hard work. Nor am I an idiot.”

“Fair enough,” he said, giving her that much credit. Waitresses were among the most hardworking people he knew.

The line fell silent for several beats. “Hello?” said Gabriel.

“Hello,” she said.

“All right, listen. You’re going to need to go to Seattle Marine and Fishing Supply and pick up commercial grade, waterproof bib overalls and a rain slicker, and a pair of XtraTufs. Get the steel-toe ones. What size shoes do you wear?”

“Five and a half. Call it six, because no one ever has five and a halfs.”

“You could have trouble finding them that small, but don’t get kids’ ones even if they fit—they’re not going to have steel toes, and you’re going to want them, trust me. Get the smallest adult pair you can find and then buy a ton of socks.”

“Do you know how much this will cost?” she asked, and he could hear her voice falter.

“About three hundred bucks should cover it, three-fifty.”

The line went quiet.

“Is that a problem?” he said. He could be such a dick when he drank.

She answered quietly but with surprising dignity. “I don’t have three hundred dollars.”

He wasn’t a total dick, though; not even when he was drunk. “All you have to do is pick up what you need and tell them it goes on Ivy’s account. Ivy Levy.”

Her relief was palpable, even over the phone.

“And let’s have you start on Monday.”

“What time do you get in?”

“I pretty much live there. Let’s have you work eight to five, unless we have something special going on. Doable?”

“Absolutely.”

“All right then. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, and in her voice he heard the full-throated emotion most people reserved for lovers. “I’ll be there. You won’t regret this—taking me on, I mean.”

“We’ll see,” said Gabriel.

L
IBERTINE’S FIRST ASSIGNMENT
on Monday morning was to scrub every inch and tread of three used tires in graduated sizes—car, tractor, truck—that a local tire store had donated to the zoo and Gabriel intended to introduce into the pool as toys. “They need to be clean,” he’d told her. “Completely. He’s immune-suppressed, so we can’t afford to introduce any foreign pathogens into the pool.” He handed her a pack of twenty sponges, an industrial-sized can of scouring powder, and a pair of heavy-duty rubber gloves. Then he helped her haul the things to the pool top. There, three hours later, she knelt in a foul-smelling puddle of cleanser and rubber residue and reconstituted mud. She had only finished half the truck tire and thought her arms might break if her knees didn’t go first. She was not and never had been a physically strong person; men and even women usually sized her up and sprang to help her lift suitcases from airplane overhead compartments and baggage carousels.

But she scrubbed on. If this was Gabriel’s way of breaking her, she refused to give him the satisfaction. Nevertheless, it was a welcome distraction when, at lunchtime, a small Chihuahua muzzle inserted itself under her rubber-jacketed arm. “Julio!” she said, slipping off a rubber glove to give him gentle noogies between the ears. “How’s my favorite dog?” She rose—with difficulty—and scooped him up so he wouldn’t wade through the mess she was making on the concrete deck. Ivy waved as Libertine came around the pool toward her.

“I think you lost something,” Libertine said, holding out Julio Iglesias.

“Wishful thinking,” said Ivy. “Are you hungry? I’m starving. Come on, let’s get out of here—my treat.”

“I’d love to, but I can pay my way.”

“By what, eating saltines and ketchup soup?” Libertine could feel herself flush. Ivy looked stricken. “I’m sorry—that was insensitive.”

“That’s all right.” Libertine climbed out of her bumblebee-yellow slicker and bib overalls, her XtraTufs and rubber gloves, and hung them all neatly on a series of pegs on the loading dock. “Let me just clean up. Do I reek? I feel like I do.”

“Dunno,” said Ivy cheerfully. “I have a sinus infection and Julio Iglesias eats poop, so clearly he’s no judge.”

As they walked to Ivy’s car, Libertine noticed that when the two of them walked together, she always let Ivy lead the way, walking a half-step behind and to her right, like a Chinese wife. In animal terms, Ivy was clearly the alpha female.

Near the parking lot they heard one of the zoo’s dozen free-roaming peacocks scream. “God,” said Ivy, shuddering. “It’s like hearing someone’s death.”

Ivy unlocked Libertine’s car door and then went around to her own. Julio Iglesias hopped in as soon as Ivy opened her door, springing into Libertine’s lap.

“He’s a suck-up,” said Ivy, miffed. “I give him the best of the best for nine years, and he’s thrown me over without a second look, the little bastard.”

“He’s just trying his wings,” Libertine soothed. “It’s good for him.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“No, basic animal behavior told me that.”

“I guess,” Ivy said grudgingly, pulling out of the zoo. “So listen, now that you’re going to stick around down here, you can’t commute from Orcas Island, so do you have any ideas about where you might live?”

“Actually,” said Libertine in a rare moment of frankness, “I may stay in my car. I’ll manage.”

“No, listen,” Ivy said. “I have an idea.”

As Libertine had learned from her previous encounters with Ivy, she belted herself in, gave herself over, and held on for the ride.

A
S USUAL THE
air inside the Oat Maiden was rich with delicious smells. For a moment after they’d ducked in, Ivy closed her eyes to breathe it in, thinking that homes should smell like this, even though they almost never did, any more than they harbored perfect safety, love, and respect. Still, it was a nice thought, like praying for world peace, and it warmed her a little just to have had it.

Even on this gloomy, rainy day, most of the tables were filled. Ivy recognized several associates from Matthew’s law firm, and several zoo employees. She steered Libertine to a small round table just outside the kitchen. Around the tabletop trotted cats, lots of cats, each one holding the very tip of the tail of a small but unalarmed-looking mouse. There were no predators or prey here; Johnson Johnson lived in a kinder world.

The man himself approached them swaddled in several layers of flannel shirts—despite the heat in the kitchen, he was impossibly thin and always cold—and a cotton apron that tied in the back and was so blotchy with tomato sauce it looked like he’d been repeatedly stabbed.

Ivy beamed at him and said, “Johnson Johnson, meet Libertine Adagio. Libertine is an animal psychic.”

“Communicator,” said Libertine.

Johnson Johnson mumbled a greeting, blushing. Ivy saw Libertine’s face color, too. She looked from one to the other and said with delight, “You’ve met before, haven’t you!” To Johnson Johnson she said, “Has she told you she’s going to work with our killer whale at the zoo? Well, she is, and she needs a place to stay. Do you have a tenant in your apartment right now?” Neva Wilson had lived in a converted garage behind Johnson Johnson’s house for nearly a year when she first came to the zoo to work with Sam and Hannah.

“No,” said Johnson Johnson. “Lots of people are allergic.”

“To what, mold?”

“Cats.”

“Are you allergic to cats?” Ivy asked Libertine.

“No, but—”

“Then it’ll be perfect. Can we look at it?”

“Yes,” said Johnson Johnson.

“Is there a key hidden someplace? We’d like to swing by today, if we can.”

“It’s under the mat.”

“Well, that’s not very original, is it,” Ivy chided. “Especially from a man with your creativity.”

Johnson Johnson clasped his hands together and looked at his shoes.

“Oh, honey, I’m just saying.” To Libertine she said, sotto voce, “I make him nervous. He told me once I remind him of his third grade teacher, which I gather is not a compliment.”

Johnson Johnson asked Libertine, “Do you like cats? Because you pretty much have to like cats.”

“I do,” Libertine assured him. “I communicate with them all the time.”

Johnson Johnson’s face lit up.

“She doesn’t mean her own cats, you understand,” Ivy couldn’t resist saying. “
Random
cats.”

“Not random,” Libertine corrected her. “They’ve looked for me.”

“I like cats,” Johnson Johnson said and then, apparently believing the subject to have been thoroughly exhausted, he walked away. The kitchen door swung open and shut behind him like a fit of indecision.

“One of God’s gentle people,” Ivy said, looking after him fondly.

“What do you know about him?”

“You mean besides the fact that he’s a sexual predator?”

Libertine paled.

Ivy poked her arm. “Honey, you have just
got
to lighten up. I’m teasing you—he’s a sweet man through and through. His parents had some money—not a lot, but more than enough to provide for him. He lived with them until they passed a few years ago, and they left him the house, plus some kind of a trust that my sister-in-law Lavinia administers. There was enough for him to buy the Oat Maiden when it came up for sale a couple of years ago.”

“And he runs it himself?”

“Yes and no. He came up with the menu and the recipes, plus he cooks. But Neva helps him with ordering supplies and taking care of the books. You could say it’s a collective effort.”

Libertine nodded, then cleared her throat. “What’s the monthly rent?” she finally asked.

“What do you care—I’ll be paying for it. You know, for someone who claims to be psychic you certainly misread a lot of signals.”

“I never claimed to be psychic when it comes to people,” Libertine said, coloring. “I don’t even
get
most people.”

“Frankly,” said Ivy, “neither one of you has the social sense God gave a goose.” She nodded in the direction of the kitchen.

Libertine looked at her water glass.

“And that,” Ivy declared, “is why the two of you are perfect.” A moment later Johnson Johnson placed their pizza in front of them as gravely as if he were delivering a religious relic. After they’d eaten they drove straight from the Oat Maiden to Johnson Johnson’s house, a beautifully maintained craftsman bungalow in Bladenham’s tiny historic district.