Fluke or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings - By Christopher Moore Page 0,107

no end to have a big H painted on the deck. There was a budget for painting a big H. The ship had efficient, if not quite state-of-the-art, navigation equipment, radar, autopilot, and some old but functioning sonar arrays left over from its days as a fishing ship. It had twin twelve-hundred-horsepower diesel engines and could distill up to twenty tons of freshwater a day for the crew and passengers. There were cabins and support for forty. It was also rated a class-three icebreaker, which was a feature that Clay hoped they wouldn't have to test. He really didn't like cold water.

Through another broker Clay hired the crew of ten men, sight unseen, right off the docks of Manila: a group of brothers, cousins, and uncles with the last name of Mangabay, among whom the broker guaranteed that there were no murderers, or at least no convicted murderers, and only petty thieves. The eldest uncle, Ray Mangabay, who would be Clay's first mate, would sail the ship to Honolulu, where Clay would meet them.

"He's going to be driving my ship," Clay said to Clair after he'd gotten the news that he had a crew and a first mate.

"You have to let your ship go, Clay," Clair said. "If he sinks it, it wasn't really yours."

"But it's my ship."

"What are you going to call it?"

He was thinking about the Intrepid or the Merciless or some other big-dick, blow-shit-up kind of name. He was thinking about Loyal or Relentless or the Never Surrender, because he was determined now to find his friend, and he didn't mind putting that right on the bow. "Well, I was thinking about - »

"You were thinking deeply about it, weren't you?" Clair interrupted.

"Yes, I thought I'd call her the Beautiful Clair."

"Just the Clair will be fine, baby. You don't want the bow to look busy."

"Right. The Clair." Strangely enough, on second thought, that pretty much encompassed Intrepid, Merciless, Relentless, and Loyal. Plus, it had the underlying meaning of keeper of the booty, which was sort of a bonus in a ship name, he thought. "Yeah, that's a good name for her."

"How long before she gets here?"

"Two weeks. She's not fast. Twelve knots cruising. If we have somewhere to go, I'll send the ship directly there and meet it at a port along the way."

"Well, now that she's called the Clair, I hope they bring her in safe."

"My ship," Clay said anxiously.

"So," Nate said, "You're what, in your nineties? A hundred?"

"Don't look it, do I?" Amy posed: a coquettish half curtsy with a Betty Boop bump at the end. Indeed, it would have been a spry move for a woman in her nineties.

Nate was really glad he was sitting down, but he missed the sensation he would have had of needing to sit down.

"Your whole attraction was based on my age, wasn't it?" She sat across from him. "You were working out your male menopause on the fantasy of my young body. Somehow you were going to try to recapture your youth. Once again you'd feel like more than a footnote to humanity. You'd be virile and vital and relevant and all alpha male, just because a younger - and decidedly luscious, I might add - woman had chosen you, right?"

"Nuh-uh," Nate said. She was wrong, right?

"Wow, Nate, were you on the debate team at Moose Dirt U? I mean, your talent - »

"Sasketchewan in the Sticks," he corrected.

"So the age thing? It's a problem?"

"You're like a hundred. My grandma isn't even a hundred, and she's dead."

"No, I'm not really that old." She grinned and reached across the table, took his hand. "It's okay, Nate. I'm not Amelia Earhart."

"You're not?" Nate felt his lungs expand, as if a steel band around his chest had broken. He'd been taking tiny yip breaths, but now oxygen was returning to his brain. Funny, he was pretty sure that none of the other women he'd been with had been Amelia Earhart either, but he didn't remember feeling quite so relieved about it before. "Well, I should have known. I mean, you don't look anything like the pictures. No goggles."

"I was just messin' with you. I'm her daughter. Ha!"

"Stop it! This isn't funny, Amy. If you're trying to make a point, you've made it. Yes, you're an attractive young woman, and maybe your youth's a part of why I'm attracted to you, but that's just biology. You can't blame me for that. I didn't make a move