CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Booty and the Beasts

The second time Amy came out of the bedroom, she was dressed in her familiar hiking shorts, flip-flops, and a WHALES ARE OUR PALS T-shirt. "Better?"

"I don't feel any better, if that's what you're asking." Nate sat at the table with a can of grapefruit juice and a pint of vodka in front of him.

"I mean, are you more comfortable now that I'm dressed? Because I can be naked again in a flash —»

"You want a drink?" Nate needed to forget the whole naked encounter as quickly as possible. Applying alcohol seemed like the most efficient method at this point.

"Sure," she said. She pulled a glass out of one of the kitchen cubbies, the clear door folding back like the protective cover of a frog's eye. "You want a glass?"

Nate had been sipping alternately from the juice can and the vodka bottle until he had enough room in the can to pour in some vodka. "Yeah. I don't like reaching into the cupboards."

"You're kind of squeamish for a biologist, but I guess it does take some getting used to." Amy set the glasses in front of him and let him mix the drinks. There was no ice. "You adjust."

"You seem to have adjusted. When did they take you? You must have been really young."

"Me? No, I was born here. I've always been here. That's why I was perfect to work for you guys. The Colonel has been teaching me cetacean biology for years."

It occurred to Nate that he had seen a few human children around and hadn't really thought about growing up in Gooville. Someone had to teach them. Why not the infamous Colonel? "I should have known. When you were trying to locate the whale by listening for it that last day. I should have known."

"Correction, when I did locate the whale by listening for it, for which you still owe me dinner."

"I think this is one of those all-bets-are-off situations, Amy. You were a spy."

"Nate, before you get too angry, you need to remember the alternative to my spying and finding out what you were working on in detail. That would have been to just kill you. It would have been much easier."

"You and Ryder act like you did me a favor. Like you saved me from some great danger. The only danger I was in was from you in the first place. So stop trying to impress me with the quality of your mercy. You did it all — tore up the lab, sank Clay's boat, all of it — didn't you?"

"No, not directly. Poynter and Poe tore up the lab. The whaley boys sank Clay's boat. I took the negatives out of the packet at the photo lab. I kept them informed, and I made sure you were where they needed you to be, that's all. I never wanted to hurt you, Nate. Never."

"I wish I could believe that. Then you show up here like that, trying to convince me that this is a great place to live right after Ryder has given me the speech." He drained his glass, poured himself another drink, this one with just a splash of grapefruit juice over the top.

"What are you talking about? I haven't seen Ryder since I've been back. I just got in a few hours ago."

"Well, then it's always been a part of the plan: Let Amy lure the biologist into staying."

"Nate, look at me." She took his chin in her hand and looked him right in the eye. "I came here of my own free will, without any instructions from Ryder or anyone else. In fact, no one knows where I am, except maybe the Goo — you can never be sure about that. I came here to see you, with all the masks and the role-playing out of the way."

Nate pulled away from her. "And you didn't think I'd be mad? And what was with the whole 'Look how luscious I am' act?"

She looked down. Hurt, Nate thought. Or acting hurt. If she cried, it wouldn't matter. He'd be useless.

"I knew you'd be mad, but I thought you might be able to get over it. I was just trying to be floozish. I'm sorry if I'm not very good at it. It's not a skill you get to use a lot in an undersea city. Truth be told, the dating pool is sort of shallow here in Gooville. I was just trying to be sexy. I never said I was a good floozy."

Nate reached over and patted her hand. "No, you're a fine floozy. That's not what I was saying. I wasn't questioning your… uh, floozishness. I was just questioning its sincerity."

"Well, it's sincere. I really do like you. I really did come here to see you, to be with you."

"Really?" What was the biological analog for this? A black widow spider male falling for one of her lines, knowing innately where it was going. Knowing right down to his very DNA that she was going to kill and eat him right after they mated, but he would worry about after. So time and again Mr. Black Widow passed his dumb-ass, sex-enslaved genes on to the next generation of dumb-ass, sex-enslaved males who would fall for the same trick. Spinning a little conversation: Interesting name, Black Widow. How'd you come about that? Tell me all about yourself. Me? Nah, I'm a simple guy. I'm doomed by my male nature to follow my little spider libido into oblivion. Let's talk about you. Love the red hourglass on your butt.

"Really," Amy said. There were tears welling in her eyes, and she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it gently.

"Amy, I don't want to stay here. I'm not — I want — I'm too old for you, even if you weren't a lying, destructive, evil —»

"Okay." She held his hand to her cheek.

"What do you mean, 'okay'?"

"You don't have to stay. But can I stay with you tonight?"

He pulled his hand back from her, but she held his gaze. "I need to be way more drunk for this," he said.

"Me, too." She went over to the scary fridge thing. "Do you have more vodka?"

"There's another bottle over there in that thing — that other thing that I'm afraid of." He caught himself watching her bottom while she found the bottle. "You said 'okay. You mean you know a way out?"

"Shut up and drink. You gonna drink or you gonna talk?"

"This isn't healthy," Nate observed.

"Thank you, Dr. Insight," Amy said. "Pour me one."

"Nice red hourglass."

"What?"

Back at his bungalow at Papa Lani, Clay sat on the bed with his head in his hands while Clair rubbed the knots out of his shoulders. He'd told her the Old Broad's story, and she'd listened quietly, asking a few questions as he went along.

"So do you believe her?" Clair asked.

"I don't even know what I'm admitting to believing. But I believe she thinks she's telling the truth. She offered us a boat, Clair. A ship. She offered to buy us a research vessel, hire a crew, pay them."

"What for?"

"To find Nate and her husband, James."

"I thought she was broke."

"She's not broke. She's loaded. I mean, the ship will be a used one, but it's a ship. It will still run in the millions. She wants me to find one — and a crew."

"And could you find Nate if you had a ship?"

"Where do I look? She thinks he's on an island somewhere, some secret place where these things live. Hell, if she's telling the truth, they could be from outer space. If she's not… well, I can't just run a ship around the world stopping at islands and asking them if they happen to have seen people crawling out of a whale's butt."

"Technically, baby, whales don't have butts. You have to walk upright to have booty. This is why we are the dominant species on the planet, because we have booty."

"You know what I mean."

"It's an important point." She slid into his lap, her arms around his neck.

Clay smiled despite his anxiety. "Technically, man is not the dominant species. There's at least a thousand pounds of termites for every person on earth."

"Well, you can have my termites, thanks."

"So man isn't really dominant, whether it's brains or booty."

"Baby, I wasn't saying that man was the dominant species, I was saying that we are the dominant species. Wo-man."