by G. M. Ford
"Later."
I was ten minutes early. An elderly couple had a little card table set up to next to the front door. Those with exhibitors' tags were admitted free. Concern cost the general public six bucks. They were attracting quite a crowd. As usual, I was amazed.
My prejudices had expected mostly the granola-and-Birkenstock crowd. I guess that's why they call them prejudices. This crowd was a mixed lot. From well-heeled yuppie couples, kids in tow, to groups of senior citizens, arriving en masse, they filed into the Exhibition Hall.
"You Waterman?" A voice from behind me.
He was tall. Maybe six-six, and remarkably skinny. No more than one-eighty, with the stooped, apologetic posture so often seen in people that tall. Balding, with big expressive brown eyes, he looked more like a retired basketball player than an environmentalist.
I stuck out my hand. He wrapped it with his tendrillike fingers.
"Tom Romans." His badge was a press pass. He handed me one, my name neatly typed under the plastic. I pinned it on.
"What paper do I work for? Just in case anybody should ask."
"Magazine. Northwest Outdoors," he said, checking the crowd.
"This happens twice a year?" I asked, trying to get his attention.
"Like clockwork," he said, still scanning the crowd above my head. "Gives them a chance to see if they can separate the general public from a little folding money, raise consciousness a little, check out new products, work out their aggressions, that sort of thing. It's good business."
"Will Save the Earth be here?"
"No way. They think they're commandos, terrorists. They wouldn't be caught dead at one of these. Listen - ah - . . . "
"Leo."
"Listen, Leo. I can see you're not familiar with the movement, so let me give you a brief primer. The environmental movement is very wide and scattered. That's a big part of the problem. You understand?"
"No," I said truthfully.
"Okay," he said, looking around. "Ah. You see those three guys over there talking to the woman in the red dress?"
It took a second, but I found the group, backed up to one of the planters on the far side of the mall area, across from the entranceway. Three nondescript guys were engaged in animated conversation with an elderly woman in an ankle-length red wool dress. I pointed. "There?"
"The three guys are with the Foundation for the Homeless. Good group. Provide meals. Do what they can about shelter and medical care. They're here today because there's a rat problem down in Pioneer Square. What with all the people living in the streets, there's been an enormous increase in the food supply and hence in the number of rats. Over thirty people have suffered bites in the last couple of months. Right? So, what's the solution?"
"Kill the rats," I suggested.
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" he grinned.
"Makes sense to me."
"Not to Mrs. Causey there. She's with SETA. The Society for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They got an injunction preventing the Parks Department from spreading their little cyanide baits."
"She sides with the rats?"
"Can't bear the idea of the little critters rolling around in their death throes. Says it's inhumane."
"Of course it's inhumane; they're rats."
"Not to Mrs. Causey and her constituency they're not."
I mulled this over. He pulled me back from my reverie on rats' rights.
"Listen, Leo, I'm going to trot over and see if I can't rustle up a little copy. Why don't you wander around inside for a while. I'll catch up to you."
The elderly couple at the door ushered me in with a smile and a flourish.
As usual, it wasn't what I expected. It was a trade show. Booths and banners. The public milling around, filling the aisles. I joined in.
It didn't take long for the full scope of my ignorance to become apparent. The first little booth at the bottom of the stairs seemed innocuous enough. Bumper stickers. An American tradition. "Developers Go Build in Hell," seemed to the point, if maybe a bit strident. I was okay with "Rescue the Rainforests." "Muir Power to You" was cute. Things started to get fuzzy at "Pregnancy: Another Sexually Transmitted Disease" and "I'll Take My Beef Poached, Thanks." If "Subvert the Dominant Paradigm" left me scratching my head, it was "Dream Back the Bison, Sing Back the Swan" that turned out the lights. I moved on.
Circling clockwise around the edge of the building, keeping clear of the crowded center aisles, I was awed by the number and diversity of environmentally conscious products being flogged. Organic toothpaste from India. An ayurvedic secret formula of over thirty herbs and extracts. Earthtimes, the environmental game. Fun for the whole family. Made, of course, from entirely recycled materials. Magnometers, low-cost magnetic survey instruments that allow the user to detect the slightest fluctuations of deadly low-frequency electromagnetic radiation, which, according to the instruments' inventor, was slowly but inexorably devolving the entire civilized world to primordial jelly. Supplements, vitamins, oils, unguents, books, magazines, records, tapes. Hell, there were environmental rock groups. It was all there. I kept moving.
The four center aisles were devoted to environmental groups themselves. Forver Green, Save the Japanese Trout, the Eco-Defense Fund, the Wilderness Alliance, Voices of the Rainforest, Save the Salmon, the Natural Fiber Alliance, the Snake river Preservation Society. On and on. Stop wearing furs. Stop animal testing. Criminalize hunting and fishing. Stop reproducing. Adherence to the first aisle alone would have reduced me to an incontinent, celibate, barefoot vegetarian nudist. I trudged on, leaving no booth unvisited.
If Tom Roman's notion as to the disunity of the movement wasn't apparent to me by now, midway down the second aisle I got the message.
Sandwiched between the glitzy offerings of the National Audubon Society and the Sierra Club was a small booth that flagged itself as BARF. Businessmen Against Recycling Forever. The tiny red, white, and blue booth was personed by a thick-necked bald guy, whose aggressively folded arms and scowling visage seemed to be keeping folks away in droves. This man, I decided, deserved equal opportunity.
"Hi," I said. He checked me out from head to toe. I must have passed whatever test he was running. He leaned forward, resting his heavy, hirsute forearms on the counter.
"You had enough of the bullshit? You ready for some facts?"
"Okay," I said. God save me, I thought.
"There's always been a hold in the goddamn ozone layer. All this crap about aerosol cans is batshit. Garbage employs over three million God-fearing people in America. Recycling is economic suicide. There's been a gradual global warming pattern going on for the last ten million years. The darn planet used to be covered with ice, for Chrissake. The greenhouse effect is bullshit. There's more wildlife in American forests now than there was when the pilgrims arrived. Conservation is bullshit. The only goddamn way you can effectively harvest a forest is by clear-cutting it. If loggers had to go around - " I lost patience.
"So what do we need to do, instead of all this?" I waved around me. "What do you propose we do?"
"We need to use everything up as quick as possible."
I boggled. "Why?" was all I could manage.
"Simple." He refolded his arms and rocked on the back legs of his chair. "It's good business. Business is what America is about. It's what made us the greatest nation on earth. Business is technology-driven. Technology is a response to need. The more need, the more technology. About the time we start running out of things, the rate of technological advancement will increase beyond belief. Necessity is the mother of invention, you know. About the time we run out of oil, well, hell, some fag scientists will figure out how to get energy out of dirt. When we run out of - "
I backpedaled quickly, hoping to lose myself in the crowd. I retreated until my butt hit the table across the way. Mercifully, the stream of traffic picked up and shielded me. I turned around.
Friends of Singing Waters. Two elderly women. The one standing by the counter was diminutive and ro
und. Motherly, creased at the wrists and elbows, hair piled on top of her head in an elaborate bun. Old-fashioned hairpins holding it all in place. Looked like Aunt Bee on the old Andy Griffith show.
"Can I offer you one of our brochures?" she asked sweetly.
Even sitting in the rocker, the other woman looked remarkably tall and gaunt. A few years younger than Aunt Bee, maybe. She looked up only briefly as the first one spoke, then immediately went back to her knitting. She must have been knitting a tarp. Draped about her feet was a half acre of something. Yarns of every conceivable color were woven in random fashion. Her red-knuckled hands manipulated the needles and hooks at blinding speed.
I took the proffered brochure, stuffing it into the pile I was already carrying without reading it.
"We protect wetlands," she said in response to my unasked question.
"A noble calling."
"We must all do what we can to prevent the despoilment of the land. It's a sacred duty to." She stopped. "Good morning, Mr. Romans."
"Hello, Blanche. How goes the campaign?"
Tom Romans stepped up to the counter beside me. "If you don't mind, I need to borrow my associate Mr. Waterman here for a moment."
Without waiting for an answer, he led me to the foot of the stairs, out of the rush of the crowd.
"Sorry to be so long."
"No problem," I said. "I'm getting quite an education ."
"You see what I mean now? Everybody in this movement has their own little area of interest and isn't too damn concerned about anybody else's area. Since the environment comprises just about everything, the movement comprises just about everything."
"How do they get anything done?"
"They don't. Big business beats them at every turn. Even some of the products there" - he pointed at my bundle of brochures - "if it's a good idea, if it's marketable, Procter and Gamble will be doing it next week. There is no way to beat these guys, unless you're like the Hammer sisters."
"Who?"
"The Friends of the Singing Waters. That's Blanche and Eunice Hammer."
"Where do I know that name from?" I asked.
"They've been around forever. What you probably remember, though, is their father, Willis Hammer."
"Chemicals."
"Right. The man who almost singlehandedly killed Commencement Bay. Had three pulp mills dumping directly into the Sound. Back in the sixties, he was the first guy ever totally shut down by the EPA."
"Right." I snapped my fingers. "This was the guy who tried to shoot it out with the marshals when they came with the papers."
"That's the one. Got himself killed right out at the front gate of his own factory."
"Kind of ironic that Willis Hammer's daughters would be running something called the Friends of the Singing Waters, don't you think?"
"Old man Hammer must be spinning in his grave," he laughed. "Don't be fooled by the lyrical name or the Grandma Moses routine. I only rescued you because Blanche tends to talk forever. Those two are heavy hitters. They're one of the most successful environmental groups around. They started and paid for the entire campaign to recycle used motor oil in the Puget Sound region. Turned it into one hell of a business. After the old man got killed and Eunice - that's the one in the back with the knitting - when she finally got out - "
"Out of where?"
"She had a breakdown after old Willis's death. It was all over the papers. She had to be institutionalized. Tragic story. Anyway, they took the old man's empire and turned it around backward. Turned out Daddy had unwittingly left them everything they needed. The chemical plants, the trucks, the bucks - everything. They've proved to be more successful at cleaning things up than old man Hammer ever was at polluting them. Some sort of family penance, I suppose. They're major players on the scene. Got more money than God. Nowadays, they mostly sue people."
"Who do they sue?"
"Anybody who wants to develop anything, bar none."
"Why?"
"They're rich and dotty. Never married, either of them. Hell, Eunice doesn't even talk. At least I don't know anybody who's ever heard her say anything. What they do now, in addition to recycling a couple million gallons of motor oil a year, is to litigate their sagging behinds off. I can't imagine what their legal bills must be. They may be only private organization to ever beat a SLAPP suit on their own."
"A slap suit?"
"Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. It's a big business fighting back. You get in their way, they slap you with a huge lawsuit. They don't want to win; they just want to break you with legal fees. Most of the time it works. If I remember correctly, they hit Friends of the Signing Waters with a suit for eighty-six million dollars."
I gaped.
"What could those two old ladies have possibly done that was worth eighty-six million dollars?"
"Nothing. All they did was try to block development on a little piece of property up on the Sammamish Plateau. Maybe a hundred proposed new homes, something like that. Nothing out of the ordinary. Friends of the Singing Waters sues and tries to stop every new project. It was just business as usual That's the point, Leo. There's no correlation between the imagined interference and the response. They just beat people with pure muscle. No rules. They don't care how ugly it gets. They don't care who gets hurt. They sicced teams of investigators on the Hammer sisters. They tried to get them both declared mentally incompetent. You wouldn't believe how ugly it got. The judge had to close the courtroom and then seal the records. I know one of the attorneys. They tried to claim that the old man had been sleeping with both of them for years. When that didn't float, they tried to make out that Eunice was responsible for several unexplained deaths in the institution where she'd been treated. It was unbelievable."
"So what happened?"
"They finally ran into a couple of fanatic old ladies who hand damn near as much money as they did. The sisters won five million in damages, which, as I understand it, almost covered their legal fees."
"So there's no way for the public to win?"
"Ah." He held up a long finger. "That's what I was hoping you'd get to. What you wanted to know about was Save the Earth." He shook the finger. "I don't want this to sound like I approve, because I don't. the system may not work, but it's all we've got. Just so you understand me."
I assured him I did. He went on.
"It's easy to look at these militant groups like Save the Earth who go around spiking trees, destroying machinery, sinking boats, and all that stuff and just write them off as the terminally misguided. And to an extent that's true. Particularly with this local group. But to another extent, it's also true that they do more for bringing the problems to the forefront than all the more moderate groups combined. When you think about it, even groups that have grown into institutions like Greenpeace started out by doing some pretty wild things. Now they use their visibility to work more traditionally."
"The ends justify the means?"
"Maybe. Or maybe like in the case of the Hammer sisters or Greenpeace, it's just important that the powers-that-be understand that you're prepared to follow things to the end. That you're going to do whatever it takes. Nobody, but nobody, sues the sisters anymore."
"So what's wrong with save the Earth then?"
"What's wrong is that all the actual leaders and founders are in jail. You remember that trawler they rammed a couple of months ago?" I nodded. "It was Japanese. Trying to sink Japanese boats, even if they were illegally fishing, just won't do. Hell, those people could have murdered people and picked up less time than they did. Most of ‘em got six years."
He checked his watch. "Anyway, when they went to jail the organization ended up in the hands of this kid Brian Bass, which is ironic, because, as I understand it, they only let him hang around in the first place because he'd inherited a building they could use. He's collected a couple of dozen louts and losers around him, most of them with more money than brains, and has been trying to make a name for them ever since. No focus. They hop
on whatever bandwagon made the news last week. They've stood outside the Opera House and thrown blood all over women wearing fur coats. They've torn up fishing nets. They've chained themselves to trees. They've monkey-wrenched machinery. There's even a rumor that - " He stopped. "I better not."
"The lab at the university?"
"You've heard it too?"
I said I had.
"See, now that's the answer to your question. If they were responsible for that, that was stupid. That's a setback. That makes everybody look bad. They're just stupid and badly directed. You get the feeling that if they weren't interested in the environment, they'd be out holding up convenience stores." He checked his watch again. "What's your interest in all this?"
"I've got a client with a loved one who's involved."
"Loved one" didn't exactly roll off the tongue when Tim Flood was concerned, but it was as close as I could get.
"Not good," he said. "I've got a feeling that they're cruisin' for a bruisin', Leo. They're going to do something stupid. I've watched these groups come and go for years. I'd like to think I've developed sort of a feeling for it. This one smells bad to me. They're about due for a disaster, and if they actually got away with torching that lab, all that's going to do is encourage them." He started for the stairs.
"Thanks," I said.
"Gotta run. The rat groups are having a meeting with the mayor to hash this all out. I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Chapter 13
Harold saw me first. When I looked up, he was wheeling his Safeway cart madly up the sidewalk beneath the viaduct. I'd never seen him move so quickly. The sole of his right shoe flapped like a feeding fish. The cart's bad wheel spun in a crazy dance as the cart bounced along the ancient sidewalk toward me. He hustled over to the side of the truck.
"Did you see her?" he asked, wild-eyed.
"No. Where's George and Ralph?"
"Back at the building," he wheezed. "She's already made one pass. There's no place for her to park, Leo. What are we going to do?"
I'd been sitting in the truck filling out a report, periodically checking the parking slots for the blue Toyota. I'd probably missed her while I was working on the doors. Harold was right. The Saturday tourist trade on the waterfront was in full swing. As far as I could see in either direction, there was not a single empty slot.