Friday's Harbor Read Online Free PDF Page B

Portland Art Museum, and several local arts and historical organizations—all just so much bland philanthropic toast, though worthy. Ivy had dutifully supported all of them in generous, though reasonable, ways. This gesture, right now, was the one and only rash financial move she had ever made.
    “And you understand that you will have a vote—not the controlling vote, but a vote—in decisions affecting the animal’s ultimate disposition,” Matthew was saying.
    Ivy snapped to. “What does ‘ultimate disposition’ mean?”
    “It means any decision affecting where the animal lives. In the event of his relocation to another facility, for example.”
    “Why on earth would he be moved to another facility?”
    “I don’t have the faintest idea,” said Matthew. “I’m just trying to cover all possible eventualities.”
    “Oh.” Ivy subsided, nibbling at a cuticle. “You know, if I were you I’d have opened a vein years ago.”
    He gave her an exasperated look. “Ivy, Truman has told me these things can become very political. We want to be sure you have a say, if and when it becomes necessary to move him.”
    “Can I have the controlling say?”
    “I’ve looked into that. It would be illegal, given that the zoo is a municipal organization. Besides, giving you the controlling interest in a specific animal’s welfare would set a terrible precedent.”
    “Well, I don’t see why,” Ivy said sullenly, aware that she was just being difficult. “It’s not like I want to have anything to do with the sloth or the dik-diks.”
    “Nevertheless.”
    “Oh, all right.”
    In fifteen minutes more, Matthew directed Ivy to sign there, there, there, there, and there, and the ship of Ivy’s impulsivity set sail.

Chapter 2
    Á NDALE!  SHOUTED A beautiful young Colombian trainer as Viernes labored around his small pool one last time. Twenty thousand people had come to the park and the surrounding streets to say good-bye to their national treasure. The trainer made the sweeping gesture she had used to cue him in a thousand shows. “ Ándale, Viernes! ” Sleek and showy in a short-sleeved black and purple wet suit, her long hair flying behind her, she clapped extravagantly as a TV crew edged closer.
    After the show Gabriel and Truman stood side by side watching Viernes hang inert in the water. Truman asked the Colombian trainer if, for Viernes, this torpor was normal. The trainer laughed musically and dismissed the question with a coquettish roll of her eyes. “Of course,” she said. “That is because he is lazy.”
    Truman could feel Gabriel stiffen, but he said nothing as the trainer left the pool. Once she was gone Truman asked him, “Is she right? Is he lazy?”
    “He’s in an advanced state of starvation.”
    “Don’t they realize?”
    “No. In all fairness, they’ve never worked with a healthy killer whale, so they don’t have anything to compare him with.”
    Truman nodded. He’d quickly come to rely on not only Gabriel’s wealth of knowledge, but also the pragmatic remove he was able to maintain. Especially when compared with what Truman was coming to understand as his and Ivy’s rampant anthropomorphizing, Gabriel’s was a cool, dispassionate eye.
    The next morning came early. Truman reported to Viernes’s pool at three o’clock to find Gabriel and the beautiful young trainer already busy smearing the whale’s back and dorsal fin with zinc oxide to protect them from drying out during the trip to Bladenham. Then they guided him into a custom-made canvas sling with cutouts that allowed his pectoral flippers to poke through. A construction crane lifted the whole apparatus out of the pool and lowered it into a huge fiberglass box until he was three-quarters submerged in icy freshwater. Once the box was secured on the flatbed, the truck heaved into motion, airport-bound.
    Standing beside the box on the flatbed, Truman was stunned to find the streets packed with throngs of noisy well-wishers who’d