The boys were in luck. The open back of the truck wasn’t empty. In it were several long strips of foam rubber, a tangle of ropes, and a large, loosely folded piece of canvas.
Pete climbed in over the tailgate and lay down on the metal floor. Jupe piled some of the foam rubber around him and then covered him with the canvas. It would be dark in a little while, but even in broad sunlight no one would have seen Pete there.
“Bob and I had better leave now,” Jupe told him. “We don’t want Constance Carmel to see us hanging around. We’ll wait for you at Headquarters. Okay?”
“Okay,” Pete answered. “I’ll phone you there as soon as I can.”
He heard Jupiter climb back down to the ground and then the sound of his footsteps growing farther and farther away. After that, for a long time he didn’t hear anything except other cars starting up and driving off.
He was close to falling asleep when there was a sudden clunking sound quite close to him. A small shower of water spattered on the canvas above him and seeped through onto his face. Salt water. Pete waited until the truck was gathering speed outside the parking lot and then peeped out beneath the canvas.
A large plastic container was standing a few inches from his face. Pete could hear the water swilling around in it.
When the truck stopped for a red light a few minutes later, he could hear another sound coming from the plastic container — a rapid fluttering against its sides.
Fish, Pete decided. Live fish. He pulled back under the canvas out of sight.
For several minutes the truck traveled fast along a level road. The Coast Highway, Pete guessed. Then it slowed and started up a hill. Santa Monica? he wondered, remembering the steep ramp that led into that city. After that there were so many stops and turns that he lost all sense of direction. But as darkness fell the truck was climbing once more, up a winding road, and Pete figured he must be somewhere in the Santa Monica hills.
The truck stopped at last. Pete heard the tailgate being lowered and then the slither of bare feet coming toward him. He held his breath. There was a slopping sound as the plastic container was lifted. The bare feet moved away. The tailgate was lifted back into place.
He waited three minutes before poking his head out from under the canvas.
The truck was parked outside a long, expensive-looking ranch house. There was a lamp over the front door and a flight of concrete steps that led up to the house. At the bottom of the steps was a mailbox. Pete could just read the name on it.
SLATER
He waited another minute, then climbed carefully out on the side away from the house. He moved softly around to the front of the truck so that he could look over the hood without showing any more than the top of his head.
No one was in sight. He hadn’t really expected there would be in an isolated residential district like this. But what did surprise him was that except for the lamp over the door, the ranch house was completely dark. Not a single light showed from any of its windows. Wherever Constance Carmel had gone, it didn’t look as though she had gone into the house.
Well, no sense crouching here all night, Pete thought. There were obviously only two sensible things he could do now. He could walk to the nearest corner, make a note of the name on the street sign there, and report the Slater address to Jupe and Bob. Or he could investigate a little further himself, try to find out where Constance Carmel had gone and what she was doing there with a bucket of live fish.
He had almost decided to walk to the corner and then find the nearest phone booth when he heard a woman’s voice calling from somewhere out of the night.
“Fluke,” she called. “Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.”
There was no answer.
Pete was sure the sound of the voice had not come from inside the house. It had come from somewhere outdoors, maybe from the back of the house.
For the first time he noticed that a steep concrete drive led up to a garage, attached to the left side of the house. Beside the garage was a little wooden gate, and beyond it he could see the silhouette of a palm tree against the faintly glowing sky.
Pete walked up to the gate. It was fastened with only a latch. He lifted it and walked on, closing the gate behind him.
He was on a cement path that ran beside the dark wall of the garage. Pete crouched down, moving slowly, softly, toward the backyard.
“Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. That’s a good baby, Fluke.”
The woman’s voice was much closer now. It seemed to come from only a few yards away.
Pete stopped dead. Ahead and to his left, across a stretch of grass, was the palm tree he had noticed from the street. He couldn’t see anything to the right. The garden, or whatever there was behind the house, was still hidden by the wall of the garage. He braced himself for a second and then sprinted for the palm tree.
He reached it, slipped behind it, took a deep breath, and looked.
The first thing he saw, because it was the only thing to see, was an enormous swimming pool. Bright and shimmering with underwater lights, it ran the whole length of the ranch house.
“Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Good baby, Fluke.”
Constance Carmel, in her two-piece swimsuit, was standing at the far end of the pool. The plastic container was on the concrete verge beside her. As Pete watched, she reached into the container, took out a live fish, held it up for an instant, and then threw it in a long, looping arc over the water.
Instantly a gray shape broke the surface of the pool. It rose, up, up, until its whole seven-foot length was clear of the water. It seemed to hang there for a second as though it were flying. Its mouth opened. With a quick flip of its supple body it caught the fish in mid-air. Another flip and it somersaulted gracefully backward, rolled over in midflight, and dived back into the pool.
“Good baby, Fluke. Good boy.”
Constance Carmel was wearing scuba flippers, and diving goggles were hanging by the strap from her neck. She pushed them up over her eyes and slipped into the water.
Pete was a pretty good swimmer himself — he was on the school team — but he had never seen anyone swim the way Constance Carmel did. She hardly seemed to move her arms or legs at all. She swooped and glided through the water with the ease of a swallow gliding through the air.
She was halfway across the pool at once. The little whale met her there. It seemed to Pete that they met like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in far too long. The whale nuzzled gently against her side. She rubbed his round head and stroked his lips. They swooped together to the bottom of the pool. She swam beside him with her arm around him. She rode on his back.
Pete was so interested in watching the two of them play that he stretched out on the grass behind the palm tree and rested his chin on his hands. It was better than being at the movies. He was completely absorbed.
Constance Carmel had started a different game now. She and the whale were at the end of the pool closest to Pete. She patted the whale’s head, then with a quick, graceful twist swam away from him. The whale followed her. She patted him again, shaking her head. Once more she glided away from him. This time the whale stayed where he was, quite still, waiting.
She reached the other end of the pool, slipped out of the water, and sat on the concrete edge there.
The little whale still waited.
“Fluke. Fluke. Fluke,” she called.
The whale raised his head from the water. Pete saw the sudden alertness in his eyes. Then, in a single glide, he joined Constance Carmel.
“Good boy. Good Fluke.” She touched his lips with her fingers, then reached into the plastic container and popped a fish into his mouth.