"We were having some Courvoisier," Linger said. "Eighteen sixty-five. Remarkable stuff. Would you care to join us?"
He went to a fieldstone bar built into a corner of the room and poured four generous measures from an old bottle. While the others were turned in his direction, Gideon saw Chace quickly pick up one of the two snifters on the coffee table and toss off most of it, choking slightly before it all got down. Linger brought them their cognacs and then noticed with a small frown the two glasses on the coffee table. He took them to the bar and poured their contents down the drain.
It might well have been meant to impress-the cognac had to be wildly expensive-but his action seemed to come naturally to him. So, for that matter, had Chace’s.
In near-unison, they all raised their glasses, swirled the dark, golden liquid, sniffed it appreciatively, drank, and said, "Aah."
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-"