Little Tiny Teeth by Aaron Elkins

experienced professor (including Scofield, you would think) could recognize the grim, deeply resented necessity to suck up that was in those glazed, rigid eyes. Scofield’s probably his major prof, Gideon thought. Poor guy. Gideon himself had no doubt worn that sorry look on his own face many a time during his graduate years at Wisconsin under Dr. Campbell.
    The other two people at the table weren’t being quite as obvious. There was a tall, bemused-looking woman of forty with a decades-out-of-date Laura Petrie hairstyle – a flip, was it called? – whose expression was opaque enough, but Gideon could see an impatient, sneaker-clad foot jiggling away under the table at supersonic speed. Next to her was the big guy who had asked about outlets. Thick-chested but showing the usual middle-age signs of losing the battle against weight and gravity, he looked plain bored out of his mind, as if he’d heard Scofield speak two or three hundred times too often, and it took every ounce of his willpower simply to sit still and listen. His eyes had been tightly closed for a while, as if he had a headache.
    This is going to be one interesting trip, Gideon thought.
    “This confluence of land and water is also the most biologically diverse reservoir of life on earth,” Scofield was saying. Lost in his own presentation, he appeared to be oblivious to the cloud of aversion that enveloped him. Either that, or he just didn’t give a damn. “There are at least a hundred thousand plant species here, only a fraction of them known in the scientific literature,” he said, “and only a fraction of those whose potential attributes are understood. There are two million species of insects – five thousand species of butterflies alone and-”
    There was a gentle throat-clearing sound to Gideon’s right. Duayne Osterhout’s left forefinger rose tentatively.
    Scofield pretended not to notice. “ – and almost two thousand species of birds. The river itself is home to two thousand species of fish – compare that to the hundred and fifty that are found in all the rivers of Europe combined.”
    Osterhout’s finger remained in place, gently waggling. Scofield’s lips compressed. He nodded – at the finger, not the man. “Did you want to say something?”
    “Only a minor correction, professor,” Osterhout said. “I believe that four thousand butterfly species would probably be a safer estimate if it’s generally accepted classified species that we’re referring to.” He was being very deferential, very unassuming. Uneasy under Scofield’s cool glare, he cleared his throat a couple of times more. “Of course, there’s little doubt that five thousand species, perhaps even more, do exist here but are not as yet all identified. Perhaps that’s what you meant?”
    “Thank you,” Scofield said sourly. “Four thousand, then. We certainly wouldn’t want to exaggerate the butterfly population. In any case, that’s enough blather from me. Let’s go on to something else.” This was not a man who appreciated being interrupted, Gideon saw. Throw off his timing and the show was over. Glowering, he looked down at his pipe and plucked an offending shred of tobacco from the bowl. When he raised his face a moment later he was back in his twinkly, avuncular mode – an instantaneous, apparently effortless switch.
    “Not everyone here knows everyone else,” he said pleasantly. “In fact, there isn’t anyone here who knows every one else – so I guess we’d better introduce ourselves before we go any further. My name is Arden Scofield, I’m an ethnobotanist, and I’m lucky enough to teach at the University of Iowa and at a wonderful little college called the Universidad Nacional Agraria de la Selva down here in Peru, in a little town called Tingo Maria. Which is enough about me.”
    He sat down and reinserted the pipe between his teeth. “Tim, you take it from there,” he said to the tall young man sitting with him, the one with the