“It’s great to see you again, Liz,” he said, grasping her hand and moving over to make room for her in their booth. “What’s new in the world of garbage?”
“Things have been pretty trashy, actually,” she said, plopping down. “So how’s the bone business?”
“Oh, kind of dry, to tell the truth.”
Julie rolled her eyes at this show of what passed for academic humor. “Liz, they found Edgar’s remains, did you hear? He was eaten by a bear!”
Liz’s clear blue eyes sparkled even more. “Yes, Joey just told me. Is that creepy, or what?”
“Joey Dillard? Is he on this ferry too?”
“Well, he was a minute ago. Back there near the Coke machine.”
Julie looked over Liz’s shoulder and waved. “Joey! Come join us!”
Joey Dillard, if Gideon remembered correctly, had been an investigative reporter for a paper somewhere in the Midwest-Gary, or Des Moines. He had been assigned to do a series on a new meat-packing operation and had come away so revolted that he became a vegetarian on the spot. He then joined PETA-People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals-and several lesser-known groups, had since become an officer in some of them, and was now a fairly well-known writer for various animal-rights, vegetarian, and ecology magazines and Web publications.
Knowing his background, Gideon had anticipated an investigative reporter-type: assertive, belligerent, and pushy. Instead, a toothy, bespectacled, generally alarmed-looking young man with fine, pale, almost colorless hair trimmed in a crew-cut acknowledged Liz’s wave and made his way toward them. A faint tic jumped below his right eye. He earnestly clasped a couple of dog-eared magazines to his narrow chest and wore two large, worded buttons on his shirt.