The Dark Place (8 page)

Linger elegantly crossed one trouser leg of powder blue over the other, being careful first to hitch up the material. He cupped the belly of the glass between his first and second fingers and continued to swirl the contents.

"Gentlemen, I want to thank you for coming. As…yes, Earl?"

Chace had politely raised his forefinger and waited for Linger’s attention. "Roy," he said, "I think we ought to start taping now."

"Oh, yes. Would you mind," he said to Gideon and Abe, "if we tape-recorded our conversation this evening?"

"I’m not sure if I do or not," Gideon said, faintly uneasy. "Why do you want to tape it?"

It was Chace who answered, when Linger deferred to him with a nod. "It’s for our own protection. There are people out there who twist our words for their own ends, who have their own sinister purposes. There are those who are just out for the money, who don’t—"

"What Professor Chace means," Linger said, "is that the Sasquatch Society, having been involved in more than one unfortunate controversy, now makes it a point to record all pertinent discussions. With your permission, of course?"

"Sure," said Abe. "It’s okay by me."

"I think I’d rather you didn’t," Gideon said.

Chace spoke after a moment of silence. "Would you mind explaining why?" he said, his eyes fixed on his glass.

Gideon minded. He was offended by the implication behind the taping and annoyed by Chace’s manner. "Yes, I’d mind," he said curtly.

Chace’s cheeks flushed an angry purple, but Linger cut smoothly in. "Fine. No need to tape if you’d rather not." He uncrossed his legs, then recrossed them the other way around. "Now, as I’m sure you know, I’ve spent most of my life in the attempt to further man’s knowledge, and I like to think that, in my small way, I’ve succeeded." He paused, looking down into the swirling brandy.

"You sure have, Roy," Chace said, "and we all appreciate it."

Linger continued, "I believe that this evening presents an unparalleled opportunity to share and increase our understanding of one of the most fascinating and mysterious creatures known to science."

Gideon shifted in his chair. Linger was as oily as Chace once he got going. This would not be the first time Abe’s enthusiastic eclecticism had gotten them into an uncomfortable situation.

With the placid assurance of the rich and powerful that he would not be interrupted, Linger slowly sipped his brandy, then let his eyes rest on the ancient maps on the wall across from him, as if gathering inspiration. "In this room tonight," he said, "we have three of the finest scientific minds of our times: the dean of American anthropology, the world’s leading authority on giant anthropoid behavior and morphology, and one of the foremost younger anthropologists of his day."

"Thank you, Roy," Chace said.

Gideon said nothing.

"You got maybe a little seltzer in the icebox to go with this?" said the dean of American anthropology, holding out his glass. "Gives me heartburn."

With the merest tic of irritation at his chiseled lips, Linger took Abe’s glass to the bar, added soda water from a cut-glass siphon, and returned with it.

"Now, gentlemen," he said, sitting down and crossing his legs as meticulously as before, "the quest for accurate and unimpeachable data on the last of the great anthropoids, the being we call Bigfoot or Sasquatch—"

Gideon could sit still no longer. "Mr. Linger, pardon me, but I’m not quite sure just what this meeting is about."

It was Chace who leaned forward, his big-boned elbows on his thighs, the snifter cupped in both hands, in a posture of warm sincerity that showed he forgave Gideon his gauche performance over the tape recorder. "That’s my doing, Professor. I read about your interview in Quinault, and I knew you were on a dig up this way, so I asked Roy—Mr. Linger—if he’d have the kindness to bring us together. It’s an unanticipated honor"—he bowed toward Abe—"to meet the eminent Professor Goldstein as well."

He leaned back and crossed his legs, not delicately like Linger, but in an expansive, masculine way, right ankle on left knee. "Now, the Sasquatch Society is always delighted to find a reputable scientist with whom we can begin a meaningful dialogue. As I’m sure we all know all too well, the halls of academe are sometimes just a little bigoted about certain things."

"I’ve found them pretty open-minded," Gideon said.

"Ah-ha-ha," said Chace. "Now, as you may know, the Sasquatch Society sponsors a massive educational program of seminars and institutes, and we are always looking for highly regarded academics to serve on panels and so forth."

"Thanks," Gideon said. "I don’t think I’d be interested."

"We’d pay your expenses, of course, and there’d be compensation, substantial by academic standards, for your participation."

"Professor Chace, I don’t believe that Bigfoot exists."

"But you were quoted as saying—"

"I was quoted out of context."

"Surely," Linger said suavely, "you don’t mean that you would refuse to accept legitimate evidence because it’s contrary to your views?"

"Legitimate evidence, no. But I’ve never seen any."

"Professor," said Linger, "were you quoted accurately on the matter of superhuman strength having been required to drive that spear point in?"

"Well, yes, that was accurate."

"Then what do you think killed that unfortunate man?"

If the question kept coming up this often, he was going to have to find an answer. "I don’t know," he muttered lamely. He was anxious to leave. It was unlikely that the evening was going to improve, and the sooner it was over, the better. He looked over at Abe, but the old man was clearly enjoying himself, sitting up as straight and interested as an eager puppy.

Chace took a large swallow of the brandy and said, "Professor, I don’t see how you can say there’s no legitimate evidence. Have you ever seen the Rosten-Chapman film? That’s indisputable." He raised his glass and grinned. "In my poor opinion."

Not in Gideon’s. He had seen it—with Abe, as a matter of fact—ten years before, at the Milwaukee national conference of the American Society for Physical Anthropology. He could still recall his disappointment with the much-talked-about film. The focus had been poor, the action jerky. All that could be seen was a blurry, dark figure, more or less apelike, walking away from the camera—with what seemed to the assembled anthropologists to be an extremely exaggerated stride, less compatible with general anthropoid locomotion than with a poor actor’s interpretation of a giant ape’s manner of walking.

"We’ve seen it," Abe said with a cheery smile. "Indisputable it ain’t."

Linger laughed heartily, and Abe beamed at him.

Chace was very serious. "All right, even if you don’t accept the film—and you have that right—you can’t just wish away the thousands of years of verified, responsible sightings of similar species like the yeti."

"I’m afraid," Gideon said, "that the Abominable Snowman doesn’t seem to me any better verified—"

"It’s not just the Abominable Snowman—which, incidentally, isn’t abominable at all; the term is a misinterpretation of a Sherpa word meaning manlike wild thing." Obviously, Chace was getting into a familiar speech. "No, it’s much bigger than that. There’s the
wudenwasa
seen and reported by the Anglo-Saxons; the Fomorians that inhabited Ireland when the Celts invaded it; and the hairy men of Broceliande in Brittany. What about Grendel? Knowledge of these beings goes back to
Beowulf
."

"So does knowledge of griffins, and devils, and goats that fly."

Chace laughed. "I guess we differ on the reliability of myth."

I guess we do, Gideon thought.

"But what about scientists? Modern scientists with unimpeachable credentials? What about Ivan Sanderson? Bayanov? Bourtsev? Kravitz, right here at Washington State? How do you respond to them?"

Gideon could respond, all right, but he wasn’t interested in an argument. He shrugged. "All I can do is look at the data and draw my own conclusions."

"Professor Chace," Abe said, "I’m a little curious. What does Sherry Washburn think about your theories? Or Howell?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You don’t know Washburn?…You’re not with the University of California?"

"Yes, I am."

Abe’s eyes narrowed. "Sherwood Washburn is—"

Chace laughed easily. "Oh, I see. Are they on the biology faculty? Well—"

"Anthropology," Gideon said.

"Yes, well, I’m in supervisory development."

"Supervisory development?" said Abe. "This is a university department?"

Chace seemed to find that very funny. "No, goodness me, I’m not technically on the faculty, you see. I teach evening courses in Extension—public speaking for managers, office organization, that kind of thing. Just do it to keep my skills up."

"You’re not a professor, then?" Gideon asked.

Chace slapped his thigh and chuckled with the air of a man who was above overly fastidious distinctions of academic rank. "Never said I was."

No, and never denied it either, Gideon thought.

"You got a Ph.D.?" Abe asked bluntly.

Chace’s face became solemn. "I have a D.B.A., a doctorate of business administration. My formal education is in marketing and public relations."

Gideon looked at his watch. "Mr. Linger, I’ve certainly enjoyed this evening, but I’m afraid I have to be up early tomorrow—"

Chace put down his glass with a thump. His expression had changed from solemn to earnest. He leaned tensely forward. "Gideon—may I call you Gideon?—I’m not one of your kooks, or one of these UFO nuts, or someone out to make big bucks. I’m a scientist like yourself, even if I’m self-taught, and I don’t go off half cocked. But I’m sitting here telling you"—his first two fingers began tapping on the coffee table, keeping time with his words—"that I
know
Bigfoot exists." His fingers curled into a fist, and he banged on the table. "I
know
it!"

"Dr. Chace," Gideon said, "neither contemporary nor fossil evidence support you. No one has ever found an ape bone on this continent. The only primates that have ever lived in North America are people."

Abe corrected him at once. "And what about the Eocene prosimians? They weren’t primates?"

Gideon deferred. "All right, but they were gone by the middle Oligocene, thirty million years ago. Bigfoot’s still supposed to be around. Does anyone have even a single tooth? One bone? One conclusive photograph?"

"Don’t get mad at me," Abe said, his hands outspread. "I only asked a question."

Linger smiled and tilted his handsome, silvered head to the side. "But
isn’t
there evidence?" he said, addressing them all. "I’ve seen a thousand-year-old scalp in a Tibetan lamasery—more than a thousand years old, they say—that no scientist in the world has been able to identify."

Gideon leaned forward. "If you give a decently sized piece of skin, in good condition, human or otherwise, to a laboratory, they’ll be able to tell you what it is very quickly. But once it’s tanned, or rotted, or simply desiccated from the passage of time, it becomes unidentifiable. The thing is, you have to remember there’s a big difference between finding an unidentifiable piece of skin and saying it’s from an unidentified species."

"The yeti’s beside the point anyway," Chace said. "It’s a different species altogether." He turned toward Gideon, his face set, seemingly on the edge of anger. "I have in my files," he said slowly, "verified and certified by me, personally"—he waited for a challenge—"hundreds of cases in which Bigfoot sightings or unmistakable Bigfoot tracks have been positively identified."

"Yes," said Gideon, "I saw some of those unmistakable tracks myself near Quinault a few days ago."

Chace brushed the comment aside with a wave of his hand. "Pranks. Kids probably, amateurish, as I’m sure you know. I’ve already seen the casts and rejected them. I’m not one of your fanatics, Professor. I don’t accept everything people tell me. When I certify something, it’s
real.
And I’m telling you I’ve seen eighty clear, fresh sets of prints with my own eyes, in Washington and British Columbia alone." He leaned back and waited for Gideon’s reaction.

"Olas Murie once made a simple observation," Gideon said. "He pointed out that where tracks are abundant, the animals that make them are abundant." Chace looked warily at him, not sure where he was heading. Gideon continued, "You say you’ve seen all those Bigfoot tracks—eighty?"

Chace nodded. "Eighty-two, and another ten probables I didn’t certify."

"Well," Gideon said, "how many bear tracks have you seen? I mean clear, fresh, unmistakable ones. Or mountain lion? How is it that a presumably rare creature can leave so many tracks? Are they more common than bears?"

"Maybe they are. We don’t have an accurate count, but we know there are many populations of them."

"You keep saying you know," Gideon said, "not you think."

"We know. The Bigfoots are there, watching us, hiding from us. No question about it."

"Then why," Gideon said, "hasn’t anyone ever found a bone, a carcass? Don’t they die and leave remains? Why hasn’t a dog ever dragged a piece of a Bigfoot home with him?"

Chace sat quietly a while, then sighed. "It’s like I told you, Roy. They’ll deny the evidence even when it’s right in front of them if it doesn’t fit their theories."

"What do you mean,
they
?" Abe said cheerfully to the room at large. "I’m denying something? I’m just sitting here listening." He spoke good-humoredly to Chace: "Who’s denying?"

Chace looked darkly at Abe for a long time, then noisily expelled air through his nostrils: an unambiguous snort of derision. The skin under Gideon’s eyes grew taut; for the first time he was angry, angry at this shifty con man who derided Abraham Goldstein. Before he could speak, however, Abe went calmly on, still smiling: "All the same," he said, "it’s a funny thing… Where’s the kids?"

Chace looked at Linger and shook his head slowly back and forth. Linger glanced at Gideon with a small, polite smile of commiseration. Gideon hadn’t followed the question either, but he’d long ago given up wondering if Abe’s mind ever wandered. It didn’t.