Sewer, Gas & Electric by Matt Ruff

Author:Matt Ruff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Press Book
Published: 1997-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

13

Soon the FBI will have a Thousand Most Wanted List. Our heroes will be hunted like beasts in the jungle.

—Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book

39° 17’ N, 72° 00’ W

“It’s a gravesite,” Philo said.

“Potentially,” Lexa agreed. “I checked a marine atlas: these coordinates are for a patch of ocean over the Hudson Canyon. The water’s over a mile deep. It’s also a red zone for mutant sea-life sightings, which means the area is closed to commercial traffic. So if you have to abandon ship, there won’t be anyone coming by to pick you up.”

“No, but what I mean is, it’s literally a gravesite.”

They were alone in the Robbins Reef Lighthouse. Lexa had finished her call to Joan some ten minutes before, and now she and Philo sat cross-legged on the futon, facing each other, cloaked in blankets and nothing else, with nothing between them but a photograph that had been hand-delivered the night before. Lexa had driven into New Bedford-Stuyvesant to pick up some things, and when she’d returned to the car she’d found the photo tucked under Betsy’s windshield wiper.

“Not the feds this time,” Betsy Ross had said. “Guy in a Mets blazer. Took me a while to I.D., but he’s an e-mail clerk at Gant Public Opinion, gopher for Vanna Domingo.”

The photograph was a group portrait of six skinny, long-tailed primates. Lemurs were a popular subject in extinct-animal picture catalogs, but these lemurs had been posed around a propped-up copy of the current Long Distance Call, the headline and date crisply in focus. A brief message had been laserscripted across the back of the photo:

RING-TAILED LEMURS (LEMUR CATTA)

CAN’T SWIM & REQUIRE ASSISTANCE

THURSDAY PM AT 39° 17’ N 72° 00’ W

TELL YOUR FRIENDS

“As challenges go,” said Philo, “it’s not very subtle. Thirty-nine seventeen north by seventy-two west—that’s where Paul Watson went down with the Sea Shepherd.”

“Watson?” Lexa took a moment to place the name. “Oh . . .”

“My predecessor in eco-piracy. You remember: the Greenpeace dropout who played chicken with the Soviet Navy.”

“The one who was beaten up and nearly drowned by Canadian seal hunters,” said Lexa. “The one whose boat was almost shelled by a Portuguese destroyer.”

“Right,” said Philo. “That guy. His last mission was an attempt to stop a toxics dumping scam run by the Mafia. The Gambino family had a container ship called Black Maria that would haul contraband waste out to the edge of the continental shelf. 39° 17’ N, 72° 00’ W is where Watson and Sea Shepherd tried to capture the Maria. Neither ship was ever seen again; the crew of the U.S. Navy’s John Hancock heard explosions and saw smoke on the horizon, but by the time their search helicopters got to the scene there was nothing left but debris. Best guess as to what happened is that the Maria was a lot better armed than Watson expected, and he kamikazied when he realized he couldn’t escape.”

“Lovely,” said Lexa. “Wonderful.”

“We can conclude from this,” said Philo, “that Vanna Domingo is not inviting me to a party.

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