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 massive shockwaves through the scientific community. Every museum 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 coelacanth 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 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 irrelevant. “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 remark. “If you recall your attempt to poach me, you will remember 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 national 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 photograph 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 crocodilian 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 conventional 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 votive on the table between them.
“But the Philippines,” he said, “is more than seven thousand 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 matter of days he had found it. What did he know? What had he figured out that led him right to a creature no one else has ever knowingly found?”
“It looks like a fish market,” said Kumi, still staring at the picture.
“Bingo,” said Parks. “Which, incidentally, was how the Indonesian coelacanth was first discovered. Some random biologist on his honeymoon, wandering through a village market, spotted it on a stall. A local fisherman had pulled it in and didn’t know what else to do with it. I’m guessing someone did the same with this.”
“Where?” said Thomas again. “How did you get this?”
“Your brother sent it to Satoh two days before he died,” said Parks. “E-mailed. We tried to track the location of the originating computer, but got nothing.”
“Was there a message with it?” said Thomas, urgent now.
“Two words,” said Parks. “Found it.”
“It’s amazing,” said Kumi, studying the picture, unable to keep the awe out of her voice.
“You know what it looks like to me?” said Parks, his eyes aflame.
“What?” said Jim.
“The death of God,” he said. “For real this time.”