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Chapter 35
McMullen wished that Harper could be with him; after all, he was only about half a mile from Harper's house, but it was halfway across L.A. from his own home to the restaurant where Jenny Easton had agreed to meet him.
He had been surprised at the speed with which he'd gotten a response; the letter was mailed on a Thursday, and Friday afternoon, he'd gotten a call from someone named Blake Walworth, setting up the meeting. That was damn fast work for the postal service, any
way you cut it, and she must not have waited to get on the phone -- which made him think that she had to be interested in the project, which he hadn't made too clear in his letter, purposefully.
Still, it was a long drive for a Saturday morning, although the legendary Los Angeles traffic was lighter than it would have been on a weekday rush hour. Still, Walworth had told McMullen that it would be the last chance that he'd have to talk with Jenny for a while, so
there wasn't a lot of choice but to work on a Saturday.
He parked his car in the parking lot -- not the Mercedes, but the six-year-old Honda Civic that he drove when working prospects, to show how frugal and environmentally conscious he was. The old car made the right impression on some people, and this time, he'd
deemed it the safer choice.
He walked into the restaurant, and looked around. There, in a booth in the back, sat Jenny Easton, with the guy that had been with her at the shoot a week before. The guy saw McMullen, and waved him over to the table.
"You timed that pretty good," Jenny said, introducing Walworth as her bodyguard. "The waitress hasn't even gotten to us, yet."
"I didn't want to keep you waiting," McMullen said. "We've got a rough edit on the shoot from last week, and it really looks good. I just don't know how to thank you enough for the great job you did." There was nothing lost by buttering her up a little, he thought.
"It worked out all right," Jenny admitted. "When that first came down about Big Sur, right in the middle of my vacation, I wasn't real pleased, but there's nothing wrong with a few free hours spent on Catalina."
"Glad you feel that way. I'm just free you could make your valuable time available, both then, and today."
"Glad I could help," she replied. "Now, what's this about an environmental problem in Spearfish Lake?"
"To some people, it might not be a big thing," McMullen said, leaning into his presentation, "But to us in the Defenders, it is, but we need a little help in deciding what to do about it, and then going ahead and doing it. It seems that a couple of months ago, someone in
Spearfish Lake discovered what appears to be an extinct species of water snake."
"The Gibson's water snake?" she asked.
"Yes," McMullen replied, surprised at being thrown off stride. "How did you know about that?"
"I get the Spearfish Lake Record-Herald sent to me," she said, reaching into a folder beside her. "When I got your letter, I kind of suspected that this was what you were talking about."
She handed him a copy of the newspaper; there on the front page was the short piece about the snake, and the Fish and Wildlife Service's proposal to declare parts of the county a critical interest area. He read the story over; it didn't take long. "That's the snake," he
said, "But there's things that aren't in that story."
"Yes?"
"To make a long story short, the snake was found in the sewer system of the town. The Fish and Wildlife Service has funded a researcher to study the area to see how large the population of Gibson's water snakes is, but unfortunately, the researcher was only given
partial funding. What's really needed is television surveillance of the sewers all through the town, to find out if there really is a population of the snakes living there. That's not the sort of thing we normally do, but if the researcher can't come up with some other source of funds,
then I suppose we'll have to find the money somewhere. Maybe we can take it from the ozone hole research project, but that's neither here nor there, since that's not the real problem."
McMullen was interrupted by the waitress, which took orders of coffee from the three of them.
"What's the problem, then?" Jenny asked.
"Fairly simple," McMullen said. "The town is getting ready to rebuild the sewer system. If they do, it'll wipe out the snake habitat, the only place where this highly endangered species is living. Now, I'll be the first to admit that not a lot of people are going to get very
interested in a snake that lives in a sewer, but one thing I've learned in all my years in this business is that everything counts. The snail darter, the furbish lousewort, the Gibson's water snake -- they count, too."
"I remember seeing a story in the paper about that," Jenny said. "The city is trying to get a grant to do the storm sewer separation."
"I've seen the same story," McMullen admitted, not mentioning that he'd gone over it that morning, just to be sure he had everything he knew straight. "And, to refresh your memory, the city isn't the ones that are pushing for the storm sewer separation. It's coming out
of the state department of natural resources, and the so-called Environmental Protection Agency, either one of which apparently doesn't care much about a snake that lives in a sewer."
"So where does Miss Easton fit into this?" Blake asked, the first time he'd spoken since McMullen had been there.
"There's several things," McMullen admitted. "Obviously, we've got to assess how bad the danger to this snake really is. We don't have a lot of information, and Spearfish Lake is a long way away."
"Yes, it is," Jenny interrupted.
"So, we need information. Probably, we're going to have to send one of our field workers there, to get information on the snake, the sewer project, and that sort of thing. One of the things that this field worker will have to assess is how strong the local support or
opposition would be if we have to take action, so I guess, first, I'd need the names of anyone that you could come up with that could help our worker make that assessment, or perhaps names of people in the area that are environmentally aware. We've checked our membership files;
we have no members living in Spearfish Lake or nearby."
"The best person you could talk to about who's doing what would be my friend, the newspaper editor, Mike McMahon," Jenny said. "He's not any kind of an environmental activist, but he's likely to know who's doing what," Jenny said. "As far as people who are
active, I can't think of anyone right off the top of my head. There's a guy out east of town that's been active in a hiking trail that goes through the area, but whether he's the person you want to talk to, I can't say." She sighed. "To be honest, I guess it's not the sort of town where
people get interested in environmental activism. Most people are pretty aware of nature, and aren't too happy about seeing it messed up, but you have to realize that the town runs to hunters and pulp loggers, and they don't have the same sort of values as you might find elsewhere."
"Sort of back woods, then," McMullen said.
"Yes, but no," Jenny replied. "I mean, suppose you had an oil spill up there. Not likely, since there are no oil wells, but suppose you had something like happened up the coast here. You'd see a lot of people out cleaning up ducks. But then, come duck season, you'd see a
lot of those same people out in duck blinds, blasting away at the same ducks. You see what I mean?"
"Conservationists, not environmentalist," McMullen said. "I've seen the pattern before. Sometimes it's our greatest problem. Sometimes we have to educate people about going beyond simple conservation to a broader environmentalism. We can't always do that from
within the community."
"I think I see," Jenny said.
"That leads to our next problem," McMullen said, enjoying the lecture. Once, he'd planned to be a teacher, but that was before the 1960's got to him. "Now, I'll admit that what I'm about to say is down the road, and it makes several suppositions about things that
haven't happened yet. But, they could happen. Suppose we do determine that there are Gibson's water snakes living in the sewer -- or, not even find them, but continue to suspect they're there. Suppose that the city gets forced by the state and federal governments into rebuilding
the sewer system. We, the Defenders of Gaea, would have to fight. We wouldn't have any choice. Do you see that?"
"Of course."
"Fighting can be expensive. Not only in money, but in political credit we've built up. If that day comes, we've got to fight with everything we can get our hands on. When that day comes, it would be of great benefit if someone from Spearfish Lake with a great national
stature could go to bat for this snake -- in the press, leading demonstrations, things like that. Could we count on you?"
"No," Jenny said, icily. She had the same sort of fire in her eye that McMullen had seen when she tore a strip off of that television producer, threatening to feed him to the fish. "Mr. McMullen, I'd better explain. Ever since I've been in show business, I've made it a
policy to not let any publicity connect me with Spearfish Lake. There's some very good reasons for that that I don't want to go into, and I'm not likely to change my policy."
It was not the response that McMullen was expecting, but he rolled with the punch. "Well, I appreciate that, Miss Easton," he said. "I just wish that everyone we talk to would be as forthright and honest when they turn us down. I really appreciate that."
"Look," she said. "Don't get me wrong. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but that's something I don't want to give in on. My greatest desire is to move back to Spearfish Lake some day, and I'd hate to see the city get forced into doing something that's wrong. I'm
willing to help where I can, but I can't have my name associated with it in any way. Is that thoroughly understood?"
McMullen could almost hear the cash register jingle; it was music to his ears. Maybe this trip wasn't a waste, after all. "Of course," he said. "What you do might not have to go beyond the three of us."
"What's it going to cost for the TV surveillance, and your initial assessment?" she asked.
"It's hard to say," he said. "Just as an off the cuff guess, I'd guess about twenty-five or thirty thousand," he said. "Part of that is for the TV surveillance, and part would be for several months for a field representative to study the problem. It's more than just local
people; we need to study state law, find out where the pressure points are in the state. It's been many years since we've run a major project in the state, and none involved endangered species, so we're starting from scratch. We may have to put pressure on in Washington, too, but
that's what our people are in Washington for. And, there'll be some inevitable administrative costs, too." About half the total, he estimated, but she didn't need to know that. "That'll just get us started, maybe last three or four months, but by then, we'll have some idea of whether
we have to make a major effort, or not."
"All right," she said. "What's your tax-exempt number?"
McMullen not only had the number memorized, but engraved on his heart. Still, he made a show of digging in his wallet, and pulling out a beat-up business card that had the number scribbled across the back. Jenny took the card, made a couple of notes in a notebook
she pulled from the bag next to her, then pulled out a checkbook. "I'm going to attach some strings to this," she said, before she pulled out a pen.
"What might they be?" McMullen purred.
"First, this donation is to be anonymous. I want no connection of my name with it."
"Our treasurer will have to know," McMullen said. "But, no one else."
"That's all right," she said. "I just don't want it made public. Second, I want a written report from your and your field representative at least once a month on the progress you're making, whether you've found the snakes, that sort of thing. Can you do that?"
"Of course," McMullen said. "The only thing is that the person I'd like to send on this project is currently busy with a project in Hawaii, so it may be three or four weeks before they're in Spearfish Lake."
"Then report that," Jenny said, in a businesslike manner, starting to write. "If the reports are satisfactory, then I may be able to continue with further funding, but my tax accountant may have something to say about how much more I can contribute."
Now Blake spoke up. "Jenny, that's an awful lot of money," he said with a tone of reproach.
"It is a lot of money," Jenny told him. "It would be close to a year's income for my mother and father. But for me, it's either give it to the Defenders of Gaea, or give it to the IRS, and you know what the IRS would do with it."
