On the Fifth Day (40 page)

Kumi and Jim had both still been inside, mulling their op

tions, saying their farewells. Kumi had made more calls and now was planning to return to Tokyo and work. Jim had not decided whether he would stay with Thomas or strike out alone for a few days before returning to Chicago. They re

sponded to the news of the fight in the alley with shock and panic, and they watched Parks--who was bragging about the way he had tailed Thomas--as if he might assault them at any moment.

Thomas did not know what to think about Parks's apparent change in attitude toward him, but his life had seemed over only moments before and Parks had saved him, however vio

lently. What he felt as a result was less trust than relief, and though he was still steeped in doubt where Parks was con

cerned, he owed him at least the chance to talk.

"So," said Parks, taking his seat at a pine table in a bustling restaurant-cum-bar full of shouting, sweating waiters balanc

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ing trays of beer bottles and sake flasks. "You just made a big discovery. Let's think . . ." He placed one finger to his temple, closed his eyes, and hummed, an adolescent psychic gag.

"You have just figured out--finally--that your brother wasn't just interested in ancient
pictures
of fish; he was interested in ancient fish, if you see the distinction. More particularly, something that was kind of a fish, and kind of not, and had been dead for a very long time."

"What is he talking about?" said Kumi. She still looked pale and wary.

Thomas said nothing and took a long swallow of beer. He was already on his second.

"His brother and I crossed paths the moment he strayed from his area of expertise--symbols, God, and associated hokum--into mine," said Parks. "Though not in person. We shared an alliance with a Japanese man called Satoh who wound up getting gutted by that vampire freak who got his just deserts in the alley back there."

"And your area is?" said Kumi. She was trying to focus, to get back on track, if only--Thomas thought--to keep her mind off what had just happened.

"Science. Biology: marine, to be precise and," Parks con

tinued, pleased with himself, "if we are going to be really spe

cific, evolution."

Kumi's eyes flashed questioningly to Thomas, and back to Parks.

"The very reverend Ed," Parks continued, "recognized cer

tain oddities in the representation of a fish from a very limited geographical set grouped around Naples. The images were unlike anything he'd seen anywhere else and were confined to a span of about a thousand years, vanishing around the eighth century after the appearance of his Christ. He came to the conclusion--and this was the clever bit--that said images represented not just an abstract idea but an actual creature. It was fishlike, but with certain amphibian characteristics in

cluding a fully mobile head, lungs and--wait for it--legs, 301

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made up of shoulder, elbow, and wrist. It was what we wacky folks in the trade call a
fishapod
--a late Devonian transitional species between fish and landlubber tetrapods like
Ichthyostega.
Cool, huh?"

It was uncanny, thought Thomas, the way he just kept go

ing, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't killed some

one only an hour ago. It was also ironic. Parks couldn't have chosen a more perfect way to demonstrate that he was on Thomas's side, but the ease with which he seemed to have re

covered from the incident made Thomas still more wary of him, though the nature of that wariness had changed. Before he had assumed Parks was an enemy. Now he was an ally, but somehow this did not make him any less dangerous, any more human than his murderous adversaries.

"Thomas," said Kumi, her eyes still fixed on Parks, "this is crazy, right? What is he talking about?"

"Ah, but Thomas doesn't think it is crazy, do you, old buddy, old pal?" Parks oozed, loving every second of it. Thomas reached into his pocket, drew out the
New York
Times
article, and spread it out on the table, carefully, as if it were immensely fragile.

"
Tiktaalik roseae,
" said Parks. "You really did do your homework, didn't you? I'm proud of you, buddy."

Thomas ignored him, drank, and then said, "This was in Ed's luggage. I don't know, but I think Ed may have believed it."

"That there were prehistoric fish in Pompeii?" said Jim, speaking up for the first time. He looked more than baffled. He was watching Parks and looked hostile.

"Not just in Pompeii," said Thomas. He was mumbling, uncertain, even embarrassed by the strangeness of it all. "Ed thought they lived throughout the region. They weren't com

mon," he said, "if they were there at all, I mean: rare enough to have mystical significance that made them suitable for use in religious iconography."

"Amen, brother," said Parks, lighting a cigarette. 302

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"And they lived into the medieval period," Thomas said, with sudden conviction, adding as an afterthought, "or at least Ed thought so."

"He even thought he knew where the last one died, didn't he, Tommy boy?" said Parks.

Thomas thought for a second, and then nodded.

"The Castello Nuovo in Naples," he said, recalling what Giovanni had told him. "The legend was that it lived in the dungeons and occasionally took prisoners. Eventually it was hunted, killed, and hung over the castle entrance."

"You said it was a crocodile from Egypt," said Jim, doggedly.

"They wouldn't have known a crocodile if it bit them in the ass," said Parks, "as this one did. Several times. They also wouldn't have known that the Nile crocodile is a freshwater animal, while the thing that haunted the castle dungeons came in from the sea."

"
Eduardo liked this story,
" Thomas muttered to himself, quoting Giovanni. His emotions were high and confused, de

light at solving the core of the mystery battling with sadness and disappointment that his brother had pursued so ridiculous a grail. He flagged down a waitress and ordered another beer. Kumi was watching, but he avoided her eyes.

"But you can't actually
believe
this?" said Jim. "I mean, even if Ed did. This fish thing in the paper died out hundreds of millions of years ago, you said. It wasn't around two thou

sand years ago because it was extinct! You don't come back from extinct."

"Tell that to the coelacanth," said Parks.

"The what?" said Jim.

"Another Devonian lobe-finned fish that was supposed to have been dead for about as long as our friend here," Parks said, tapping the newspaper article. "Till they started showing up off the Comoros islands near Madagascar in the 1930s. Caused quite the stir, I can tell you."

"Just there?" said Kumi. "The Comoros islands?"

"Until 1997, when another one showed up in Indonesia,"

said Parks. "A coelacanth, but genetically different from the 303

O n t h e F i f t h D a y

African fish: a completely separate population that we just didn't know existed."

"But you don't think there are coelacanth in the Mediter

ranean?" said Kumi.

"No," Parks laughed. "There's nothing in the Med we don't know about."

"But there was when Vesuvius buried Pompeii?" inserted Jim, still skeptical, even defiant.

"No," said Parks. "The fish Ed identified is not a coela

canth. It's something much more interesting."

"More?" said Thomas.

"When coelacanths were first caught, scientists called them the missing link," said Parks, "living proof of the evolu

tionary step when fish crawled out onto the land. This had been speculated based on the fossil record alone because of those large, lobed fins that could have functioned as legs. When scientists got to see them alive underwater they found that those fins moved in diagonal pairs, front left coordinated with rear right, like walking. But they didn't walk and the fins, in the end, really were just fins. The coelacanth is an evolu

tionary cul-de-sac, not a step toward land animals."

"Not my great-grandfather then," said Jim, dryly.

"No," said Parks. "But this," he said, pushing the newspa

per clipping toward the priest, "or something very like it, was. It seems that they survived in very small numbers into the me

dieval period, isolated, living in highly particular environ

ments: dark undersea caves, often made by volcanic activity, incredibly secluded but giving access to land via shallow wa

ter for the animals' rare forays ashore. Coelacanths live in deep water. One to three hundred meters or more. So deep that no one has been able to get them to the surface and keep them alive for more than a few minutes.
Tiktaalik roseae
probably lived in shallow pools, moving over land between them. Our boy is somewhere between the two, I think."

"I don't believe a word of it," said Jim. "It's nuts."

"
De Profundis,
" said Thomas, half to himself. "Remember the postcard he sent you? What if it wasn't a joke about de

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spair in this exotic place so much as a joke about what he had found?"

"What do you mean?" said Jim.

"Out of the depths," said Thomas. "Not the depths of de

spair, but the depths of the sea."

"Smart," said Parks.

"I don't see it," said Jim, stonewalling.

"You think that my brother died over this?" said Thomas, slowly, purposefully, so that everyone--even Parks--stopped and looked at him. The four of them sat there quite still, wary, anxious. "Assuming he is dead, of course."

Kumi gave him a quick look at that, but the others were preoccupied with the question.

"Yes," said Parks simply.

"Why?"

"The root of all evil," said Parks. "Money."

CHAPTER 86

"Why?" said Thomas. Parks's remark about Ed dying over money had sharpened his beer-dulled senses. "Who would give a rat's ass about a fish no one has bothered to notice for thousands of years?"

"You know what happened when the first coelacanth were discovered off the Comoros islands?" said Parks. "It sent mas

sive shockwaves through the scientific community. Every mu

seum wanted one. Every aquarium wanted one. Who knows how many were killed trying to get them to the surface alive. Islanders who made pennies a month collected rewards of thousands of dollars. And that was just the legitimate interest. Unscrupulous Chinese importers will pay millions for coela

canth spinal cord. Who knows what the hell they think it's good for, but the life essence of a fossil fish has got to be worth 305

O n t h e F i f t h D a y

more than powdered rhino horn, right? What wouldn't that cure? Erectile dysfunction? Alzheimer's? Cancer? It's magic."

"Say this is all true," said Thomas, brushing it aside as ir

relevant. "Why are you even talking to us? What do you want?"

"What I want," said Parks, "is an alliance."

Thomas snorted.

"You have got to be kidding!"

"Why do you want an alliance with us," said Kumi, "if you know everything we do and more?"

Thomas gave her a quick look at that "us." So she wasn't gone just yet. He felt himself relax, surprised at how tense his body had been.

"I need to know where your brother died," said Parks."I have a boat--a large one--courtesy of the Kobe aquarium, by whom I have been employed. It is currently moored off the coast of Shizuoka. Help me find where Ed died and you can come with me. Or you can have a crate of beer, if you'd prefer it."

"We've been through this," said Thomas, ignoring the re

mark. "If you recall your attempt to poach me, you will re

member me telling you in no uncertain terms that Ed died somewhere in the Philippines. That's all I know."

"Then we need to find out more," said Parks, waving a menu to the waitress and ordering sushi in competent Japanese. The waitress apologized for the poor sushi selection. A na

tional shortage, she said. Parks ordered the
tonkatsu
instead. Thomas just stared.

"I still don't get it," said Thomas. "You think people will pay big money for fossilized fish bones?"

"The fossils are valuable, sure," said Parks, "but that's not what we're looking for."

"He's not a paleontologist," said Kumi. "He's a biologist. He's not looking for fossils."

Jim and Thomas stared at him.

"Give the lady a prize," he said. "I'm a marine biologist and I'm looking for this."

He slid his free hand into his jacket and produced a photo

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graph the size of a paperback, which he served onto the table like a card player laying down four aces.

The picture showed a gleaming fish of chocolate brown, except of course, that it wasn't a fish exactly, having the croc

odilian features of the
Tiktaalik roseae.
But this was no model. It was wet, and heavy, and part of the tail was folded over on itself, and it was surrounded by other smaller, more conven

tional fish on a long wooden slab scattered with ice. Thomas stared.

"What am I looking at?" he said.

"A nonfossilized, nonancient, very recently deceased fishapod," said Parks, grinning.

"You found one?" Thomas said.

"Not me," he said, a little rueful. "Ed."

"Ed found the thing from the pictures, the thing from the castle dungeon?"

"Not sure if it's the exact same animal," said Parks, "but it's pretty damn close."

"Where?" said Thomas. "How?"

"That's where I'm hoping you'll be able to help," said Parks. "From what you've said, I think it was taken in the Philippines. Which is also where this was made."

He reached into another pocket and put the silver fish vo

tive on the table between them.

"But the Philippines," he said, "is more than seven thou

sand islands and I have no idea where to start."

"Nor do we," said Thomas.

"No," said Parks. "But Ed did. He didn't stumble onto this. He was here in Japan, he went to the Philippines, and in a mat