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Two

The Sea Beast

The cooling pipes at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant were all fashioned from the finest stainless steel Before they were installed, they were x-rayed, ultrasounded, and pressure-tested to be sure that they could never break, and after being welded into place, the welds were also x-rayed and tested The radioactive steam from the core left its heat in the pipes, which leached it off into a seawater cooling pond, where it was safely vented to the Pacific But Diablo had been built on a breakneck schedule during the energy scare of the seventies The welders worked double and triple shifts, driven by greed and cocaine, and the inspectors who ran the X-ray machines were on the same schedule And they missed one Not a major mistake Just a tiny leak Barely noticeable A minuscule stream of harmless, low-level radiation wafted out with the tide and drifted over the continental shelf, dissipating as it went, until even the most sensitive instruo totally undetected

In the deep trench off California, near a subrees Fahrenheit and black smokers spewed clouds ofslumber Eyes the size of dinner platters winked out the sediment and sleep of years It was instinct, sense, andthe remains of a sunken Russian nuclear submarine: beefy little sailors tenderized by the pressure of the depths and spiced with piquant radioactive marinade Memory woke the beast, and like a child lured fro by the sreat tail, broke free froan a slow ascent into the current of tasty treats A current that ran along the shore of Pine Cove

Mavis

Mavis tossed back a shot of Bush able to whack anyone with her baseball bat She wasn’t really angry that Molly had bitten a customer After all, he was a tourist and rated above the mice in the walls only because he carried cash Maybe the fact that so in a little business People would come in to hear the story, and Mavis could stretch, speculate, and dramatize most stories into at least three drinks a tell

Business had been slowing over the last couple of years People didn’t see their probleiven afternoon, you’d have three or four guys at the bar, pouring down beers as they poured out their hearts, so filled with self-loathing that they’d snap a vertebra to avoid catching their own reflection in the big , the stools would be full of people hined and growled and bitched all night long, pausing only long enough to stagger to the bathroom or to sacrifice a quarter to the jukebox’s extensive self-pity selection Sadness sold a lot of alcohol, and it had been in short supply these last few years Mavis blaetables in the diet for the sadness shortage, and she fought the insidious invaders by running two-for-one happy hours with fatty e happiness, wasn’t it?), but all her efforts only served to cut her profits in half If Pine Cove could no longer produce sadness, she would ier

The old Black lasses, a leather fedora, a tattered black wool suit that was too heavy for the weather, red suspenders over a Hawaiian shirt that sported topless hula girls, and creaky black-on-white wing tips He set his guitar case on the bar and climbed onto a stool

Mavis eyed hiht as a girl not to trust Black people

"Na a gleaots some wine?"

"Cheap-shit red or cheap-shit white?" Mavis cocked a hip, gears and machinery clicked

"Them cheap-shit boys done expanded Used to be jus’ one flavor"

"Red or white?"

"Whatever sweetest, sweetness"

Mavis slammed a tumbler onto the bar and filled it with yellow liquid fro in the well "That’ll be three bucks"

The Blackthe bar surface, long fingers waving like tentacles, searching, the hand like a sea creature caught in a tidal wash - and lass into his hand "You blind?"

"No, it be dark in here"

"Take off your sunglasses, idjit"

"I can’t do that, o with the trade"

"What trade? Don’t you try to sell pencils in here I don’t tolerate beggars"

"I’m a Bluesman, ma’auitar case on the bar, at the Black ht hand, the short nails and knobby gray calluses on the fingertips of his left, and she said, "I should have guessed Do you have any experience?"

He laughed, a laugh that started deep down and shook his shoulders on the way up and chugged out of his throat like a steaot me more experience than a busload o’ hos Ain’t no dust settled a day on Catfish Jefferson since God done first dropped hi ol’ ball o’ dust That’s me, call ht, just let her have the tips of his fingers She used to do that before she had her arthritic finger joints replaced She didn’t want any arthritic old Blues singer "I’h Christ or would your dust settle?"

"I ’spose I could slon a bit Too cold to go back East" He looked around the bar, trying to take in the dinge and slasses, then turned back to her "Yeah, I rinned and Mavis could see a gold tooth there with a ht," he said

"You’ll get roo ’em in, you’ll make money"

He considered, scratched his cheek where white stubble sounded like a toothbrush against sandpaper, and said, "No, sweetness, you bring ’em in Once they hear

Catfish play, they coe did you have in ht to its full three inches "I’ll need to hear you play"

Catfish nodded "I can play" He flipped the latches on his guitar case and pulled out a gleauitar From his pocket he pulled a cutoff bottleneck and with a twist it fell onto the little finger of his left hand He played a chord to test tune, pulled the bottleneck fro

Mavis could se in humidity She sniffed and looked around She hadn’t been able to srinned "The Delta," he said

He launched into a twelve-bar Blues, playing the bass line with his thu back and forth on the bar stool, the light of the neon Coors sign behind the bar playing colors in the reflection of sunglasses and his bald head

The dayti for a second, and Slick McCall ht-ball shot on the quarter table, which he al, going low and gritty

"They’s a mean ol’ wo you, they’s a mean ol’ woets you under the covers, That ol’ woman turn your buttered bread to toast"

And then he stopped

"You’re hired," Mavis said She pulled the jug of white cheap-shit out of the well and sloshed solass "On the house"

Just then the door opened and a blast of sunlight cut through the dinge and smoke and residual Blues and Vance McNally, the EMT, walked in and set his radio on the bar

"Guess what?" he said to everyone and no one in particular "That pilgriulars Catfish put his guitar in its case and picked up his wine "Sho’ ’nuff a sad day startin early in this little town Sho’ ’nuff"

"Sho’ ’nuff," said Mavis with a cackle like a stainless-steel hyena

Valerie Riordan

Depression has a mortality rate of fifteen percent Fifteen percent of all patients with major depression will take their own lives Statistics Hard numbers in a very squishy science Fifteen percent Dead

Val Riordan had been repeating the figures to herself since Theophilus Crowe had called, but it wasn’t helping her feel any better about what Bess Leander had done Val had never lost a patient before And Bess Leander hadn’t really been depressed, had she? Bess didn’t fit into the fifteen percent

Val went to the office in the back of her house and pulled Bess Leander’s file, then went back to the living roouy, not the county sheriffs And she could always fall back on patient confidentiality Truth was, she had no idea why Bess Leanderherself She had only seen Bess once, and then for only half an hour Val had nosis, written the scrip, and collected a check for the full hour session Bess had called in twice, talked for a few minutes, and Val had sent her a bill for the time rounded to the next quarter hour

Tis

The doorbell rang, West rooh the door’s beveled glass panels: Theophilus Crowe Val had never irlfriends were her patients She opened the door

He was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a gray shirt with black epaulets that ht have been part of a unifor sandy hair tied neatly into a ponytail A good-looking guy in an Ichabod Crane sort of way Val guessed he was stoned His girlfriends had talked about his habits

"DrRiordan," he said "Theo Crowe" He offered his hand

She shook hands "Everyone calls me Val," she said "Nice toroom

"Nice to ht "Sorry about the circue of the marble foyer, as if afraid to step on the white carpet

She walked past hi to one of a set of Hepplewhite chairs "Sit"

He sat "I’m not exactly sure why I’m here, except that Joseph Leander doesn’t seem to knohy Bess did it"

"No note?" Val asked

"No Nothing Joseph went downstairs for breakfast thisroom"

Val felt her stomach lurch She had never really formed a mental picture of Bess Leander’s death It had been words on the phone until now She looked away fro that would erase the picture

"I’m sorry," Theo said "Thisif there was anything that Bess ive a clue"

Fifteen percent, Val thought She said, "Most suicides don’t leave a note By the tione that far into depression, they aren’t interested in what happens after their death They just want the pain to end"

Theo nodded "Then Bess was depressed? Joseph said that she appeared to be getting better"

Val cast around her training for an answer She hadn’t really diagnosed Bess Leander, she had just prescribed what she thought would nosis in psychiatry isn’t always that exact, Theo Bess Leander was a co doctor-patient confidentiality, I can tell you that Bess suffered from a borderline case of OCD, obsessive co her for that"

Theo pulled a prescription bottle out of his shirt pocket and looked at the label "Zoloft Isn’t that an anti-depressant? I only know because I used to date a woht Actually, you used to date at least three women ere on it She said, "Zoloft is an SSRI like Prozac It’s prescribed for a nuher" That’s it, get clinical Baffle him with clinical bullshit

Theo shook the bottle "Could so? I heard sos"

"That’s not necessarily true SSRIs like Zoloft are often prescribed to people with major depression Fifteen percent of all depressed patients commit suicide" There, she said it "Antidepressants are a tool, along with talk therapy, that psychiatrists use to help patients Sometiet better, a third get worse, and a third stay the same Antidepressants aren’t a panacea" But you treat them like they are, don’t you, Val?

"But you said that Bess Leander had OCD, not depression"

"Constable, have you ever had a stomachache and a runny nose at the sa she was depressed?"

"Yes, she was depressed, as well as having OCD"

"And it couldn’t have been the drugs?"

"To be honest with you, I don’t even know if she was taking the drug Have you counted them?"

"Uh, no"

"Patients don’t always take their medicine We don’t order blood level tests for SSRIs"

"Right," Theo said "I guess we’ll knohen they do the autopsy"

Another horrendous picture flashed in Val’s mind: Bess Leander on an autopsy table The viscera of medicine had always been too much for her She stood

"I wish I could help you ave me any indication that she was suicidal" At least that was true

Theo took her cue and stood "Well, thank you I’, you know, anything that I can tell Joseph that ht make it easier on him"

"I’m sorry That’s all I know" Fifteen percent Fifteen percent Fifteen percent

She led hi Molly Michon is one of your patients, isn’t she?"

"Yes Actually, she’s a county patient, but I agreed to treat her at a reduced rate because all the county facilities are so far away"