Fluke or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings - By Christopher Moore Page 0,14
about whale song, had taken his seat, opened a menu, ordered coffee, and completely missed the fact that he was alone at the table. He looked up to see Jon Thomas Fuller holding his assistant by the waist. He dropped his menu and headed back to the site of the intercept.
"Well, partly" - Amy smiled at the three young women sitting at Fuller's table - "partly because I have some self-respect" - she curtsied - "and partly because you're a louse and a jamoke."
Fuller's dazzling grin dropped a level of magnitude. The women at his table, all dressed in khaki safari wear to approximate the Discovery Channel ideal of what a scientist should look like, made great shows of looking elsewhere, wiping their mouths, sipping water - not noticing their boss getting verbally bitch-slapped by a vicious research pixie.
"Nate," Fuller said, noticing that Nate had joined the group, "I heard about the break-in at your place. Nothing important missing, I hope."
"We're fine. Lost some recordings," Nate said.
"Ah, well, good. A lot of lowlifes on this island now." Fuller looked at Kona.
The surfer grinned. "Shoots, brah, you make me blush."
Fuller grinned. "How you doing, Kona?"
"All cool runnings, brah. Bwana Fuller got his evil on?"
There were neck-snapping double takes all around. Fuller nodded, then looked back at Quinn. "Anything we can do, Nate? There are a lot of our song recordings for sale in the shops, if those will help out. You guys get professional discount. We're all in this together."
"Thanks," Nate said just as Fuller sat down, then turned his back on all of them and resumed eating his breakfast, dismissing them. The women at the table looked embarrassed.
"Breakfast?" Clay said. He herded his team to their table.
They ordered and drank coffee in silence, each looking out across the street to the ocean, avoiding eye contact until Fuller and his group had left.
Nate turned to Amy. "A jamoke? What are you, living in a Cagney movie?"
"Who is that guy?" Amy asked. She snapped the corner off a piece of toast with more violence than was really necessary.
"What's a jamoke?" Kona asked.
"It's a flavor of ice cream, right?" Clay said.
Nate looked at Kona. "How do you know Fuller?" Nate held up his ringer and shot a cautionary glare, the now understood signal for no Rasta/pidgin/bullshit.
"I worked the Jet Ski concession for him at Kaanapali."
Nate looked to Clay, as if to say, You knew this?
"Who is that guy?" Amy asked.
"He's the head of Hawaii Whale," Clay said. "Commerce masquerading as science. They use their permit to get three sixty-five-foot tourist boats right up next to the whales."
"That guy is a scientist?"
"He has a Ph.D. in biology, but I wouldn't call him a scientist. Those women he was with are his naturalists. I guess today was even too windy for them to go out. He's got shops all over the island - sells whale crap, nonprofit. Hawaii Whale was the only research group to oppose the Jet Ski ban during whale season."
"Because Fuller had money in the Jet Ski business," Nate added.
"I made six bucks an hour," Kona said.
"Nate's work was instrumental in getting the Jet Ski parasail ban done," Clay said. "Fuller doesn't like us."
"The sanctuary may take his research permit next," said Nate. "What science they do is bad science."
"And he blames you for that?" Amy asked.
"I - we have done the most behavioral stuff as it relates to sound in these waters. The sanctuary gave us some money to find out if the high-frequency noise from Jet Skis and parasail boats affected the behavior of the whales. We concluded that it did. Fuller didn't like it. It cost him."
"He's going to build a dolphin swim park, up La Perouse Bay way," Kona said.
"What?" Nate said.
"What?" said Clay.
"A swim-with-the-dolphins park?" said Amy.
"Ya, mon. Let you come from Ohio and get in the water with them bottlenose fellahs for two hundred dollar."
"You guys didn't know about this?" Amy was looking at Clay. He always seemed to know everything that was going on in the whale world.
"First I've heard of it, but they're not going to let him do it without some studies." He looked to Nate. "Are they?"
"It'll never happen if he loses his research permit," Nate said. "There'll be a review."
"And you'll be on the review board?" asked Amy.
"Nate's name would solidify it," Clay said. "They'll ask him."