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Twenty-six

Val and Gabe entered the bar, then stepped out of the doorway and stood by the blinking pinball machine while their eyes adjusted to the darkness Val wrinkled her nose at the hangover sarettes; Gabe squinted at the sticky floor, looking for signs of interesting wild life

Morning was the darkest part of a day at the Head of the Slug Saloon It was so dark that the dingy confines of the bar seeht in fro the daytiht vaporize therioyle-green led fro ashes down the front of her sweater like the s up shots of cheap bourbon at the e the squad Every two or threebaggy pants - leaning on a four-point cane or the last hope of a painless death - and climb onto one of the elass and raise it to his lips The shots were nursed, not tossed back, and by the time Mavis had finished her first cup of coffee, the curve of the bar looked like the queue to hell: crooked, wheezing geezers all in a row

Refreshments while you wait? The Reaper will see you now

Occasionally, one of the shots would sit untouched, the stool e the shot down to the next dayti Theo to track down her truant Most often, the ambulance would slide in and out of town as quiet as a vulture riding a theret the nehen Theo cracked the door, shook his head, and ot a free drink out of it, didn’t you? That stool won’t be eulars, there alould be Her new crop started coer men who bathed and shaved every third day and spent their days around her snooker table, drinking cheap drafts and keeping a laser focus on the green felt lest they get a glimpse of their lives Where once ives and jobs, noere dreaies When their dreaht faded, they filled the stools at the end of the bar with the day-ti over the day-ti to a thrill she’d felt since she last whacked a cop with her Louisville Slugger As she pulled the bottle of Old Tennis Shoes frolasses, a bolt of electric loathing would shoot up her spine and she would scamper back to the other end of the bar and stand there breathless until her stereo paceht her heartbeat back down fro a KICK ME sign on the head of a cobra and getting aith it

Gabe and Val watched this ritual withoutfrom their spot by the pinball ht moment to move to the bar and ask if Theo had called Gabe was, as usual, just being socially aard

Mavis retreated to her spot by the coffeepot, presumably out of death’s reach, and called down to the couple "You tant so?"

Gabe led them down the bar "Two coffees please" He looked quickly to Val for her approval, but she was fixated on Catfish, as seated across from Mavis near the end of the bar Just beyond hientleman whose skin was so white it appeared translucent under the haze of Mavis’s cigarette smoke

"Hello, uh, Mr Fish," Val said

Catfish, as staring at the bottoh a face betraying hangdog sorrow "It’s Jefferson," he said "Catfish is my first name"

"Sorry," Val said

Mavis nized Gabe, he’d been in with Theophilus Crowe a number of times, but the woman was a new face to her She put the two coffees in front of Gabe and Val "Mavis Sand," Mavis said, but she didn’t offer her hand For years she’d avoided shaking hands because the grip often hurt her arthritis Noith her new titanium joints and levers, she had to be careful not to crush the delicate phalanges of her customers

"I’m sorry," Gabe said "Mavis, this is Dr Valerie Riordan She has a psychiatric practice here in town"

Mavis stepped back and Val could see the apparatus in the woht froht, the eye appeared to glow red

"Pleased," Mavis said "You knoard Phillips?" Mavis nodded to the gauntto Howard "Of HP’s Cafe"

Howard Phillips ht have died young for all the animation in his face He wore a black suit out of the nineteenth century, right down to the button shoes, and he was nursing a glass of Guinness Stout, although he didn’t look as if he’d had any caloric intake for months

Val said, "We just ca expression, Howard said, "As a psychiatrist, does it bother you that Jung was a Nazi sympathizer?" He had a flat, upper-class British accent, and Val felt vaguely as if she’d just been spat upon

"Ray of sunshine, Howard is," Mavis said "Looks like death, don’t he?"

Howard cleared his throat and said, "Mavis has come to mock death, since most of her mortal parts have been replaced witha secret, even as she raised her voice to make sure Howard could hear "He’s been cranky for some ten years now - and drunk most of that time"

"I had hoped to develop a laudanum habit in the tradition of Byron and Shelley," Howard said, "but procurement of the substance is, to say the least, difficult"

"Yeah, that month you drank Nyquil on the rocks didn’t help either He’d drop off at the bar stool sittin’ straight up, sit there asleep sometimes for four hours, then wake up and finish his drink I have to say, though, Howard, you never coughed once" Again Mavis leaned into the bar "He pretends to have consuood doctor is not interested in the particulars of my substance abuse, Mavis"

"Actually," Gabe said, "we’re just waiting for a call from Theo"

"And I think I’d prefer a Bloody Mary to coffee," Val said

"Ya’ll ain’t goin to talk me into chasin no ot the Blues on ot some drinkin to do"

"Don’t be a wuss, Catfish," Mavis said as shedeal Howard and ot one, huh, Howard?"

"Walk in the proverbial park," Howard said

Catfish, Val, and Gabe just stared at Howard, waiting

Mavis said, "Course your drinking started right after the last one, didn’t it?"

"Nonstop," Howard said

Theo

It occurred to Theo, as he tried to keep a safe distance fro into the ranch, that he had never been trained in the proper procedure for tailing someone He’d never really followed anyone Well, there was a sixth-month period in the seventies when he had followed the Grateful Dead around the country but with them, you just followed the trail of tie-dye and didn’t have to worry about the you if they found out you were behind them He also realized that he had no idea why, exactly, he was following Burton, except that it see of worry

The black Caddy turned through a cattle gate onto the section of the ranch adjacent the ocean Theo slowed to a stop under a line of eucalyptus trees beside the ranch road, keeping the sheriff in sight between the tree trunks The grassy o onto without Burton noticing He would have to let the Caddy pass over the next hill, nearly half a mile off the road, before he dared follow Theo watched the Caddy bu up retted not having driven the red four-wheel-drive truck The rear-wheel-drive Mercedes ht not be able to follow much farther

When the Caddy topped the hill, Theo pulled out and gunned the Mer-cedes through the cattle gate and into the field Tall grass thrashed at the underside of the big German car as rocks and holes jarred Theo and threw Skinner around like a toy Momentum carried them up the side of the first hill As they approached the crest, Theo let off the gas The Mercedes settled to a stop When he applied the gas again, the back wheels of the Mercedes dug into the mud, stuck

Theo left Skinner and the keys in the car and ran to the top of the hill He could see more than a s by the tree line, west to the ocean, and across the marine terrace to the north, which curved around the coastline and out of sight South, well, he’d co there but his cabin and beyond that the crank lab What he could not see was the black Cadillac

He checked the battery in his cell phone and both pistols to see that they were loaded, then he set out on foot toward the rocks It was the only place the Caddy could have gotten out of sight Burton had to be there

Twenty s, sweating and trying to catch his breath At leastcapacity back, now that he wasn’t s pot anymore He bent over with his hands on his knees and scanned the rocks for any entle sedi seas These craggy bastards looked like gray teeth that had been thrust up through the earth’s crust by the violent burp of a volcano and the rasping shift of a fault line Lichen and seagull crap covered their surfaces and here and there a creosote bush or cypress tried to gain a foothold in the cracks

There was supposed to be a cave around here somewhere, but Theo had never seen it, and he doubted that it was big enough to park a Cadillac in He stayed low,to see the flash of a black fender at every turn He drew his service revolver and led around each turn with the barrel of the gun, then changed his strategy That was like broadcasting a warning He bent over double before peeking around the next corner, figuring that if Burton heard hih The vastness of what Theo didn’t know about surveillance and co with every step He just wasn’t a sneaky guy

He skirted a narrow path between two fanglike towers of rock As he prepared to take a quick peek around the next turn, his foot slipped, sending a pile of rocks skittering down the hill like broken glass He stopped and held his breath, listening for the sound of a reaction so surf in the distance and a lohistle of coastal wind He ventured a quick glance around the rock and before he could pull back, thebehind his head sounded like icicles being driven into his spine

Molly

Molly was sorting through the piles of clothing the pilgrims had left by the cave entrance She had coht dollars in cash, a stack of Gold Cards, and more than a dozen vials of antidepressants

A voice in her head said, "You haven’t seen this many meds since you were on the lock-doard They have a lot of gall calling you crazy" The narrator was back, and Molly wasn’t at all happy about it For the last few days, her thinking had been incredibly clear

"Yeah, you’re helping a lot with e," she said to the narrator "I liked it better when it was just ri to herself They were all in some trancelike state, stark naked, seated in a semicircle around Steve, who lay in the back of the cave, where it was dark, with his head tucked under his forelegs, flashing sullen colors across his flanks: olive drab, rust, and blue so dark that it appeared e on the back of the eyelid than an actual color

"Oh yeah, you and Steve," the narrator said snidely "There’s a healthy couple - the two greatest has-beens of all ti people who are even nuttier than you are Now you’re going to feed them to old lizard lick over there"

"Am not"

"Looks like none of these people has had any sun or exercise since high school gyuy who caetarian starvation stare that looks like he’d slaughter a whole kindergarten for a Pink’s foot-long with sauer-kraut You feel okay about uy?"

"I thought it wouldyou"

"We care about each other Now just shut up I’ so far"

Molly shook her head violently to try and dislodge the narrator from her mind Her hair whipped about her face and shoulders and stood out in a wild mess The narrator was quiet Molly pulled a corims’ purses and looked at herself in the mirror She certainly couldn’t have looked much crazier She braced for the narrator’s coet in touch with the warh her since Steve had appeared, but it just wasn’t there Maybe the pilgriic had just passed

She re for a producer who had just made love to her, only to have his Hispanic y that "The o to the studio, he very sorry, you call hiuy She’d broken her foot kicking his spare Ferrari as she left and had to eat painkillers through the fil of her next movie, which eventually put her in detox She never heard fro used This was different

"Right," said the narrator sarcastically

"Shhhhh," Molly said She heard so on the rocks outside the cave She snatched up the assault rifle and waited just inside the caveshe had a video recorder to preserve the gargantuan lie that Mavis Sand and Howard Phillips had been telling over the last hour According to thee of Pine Cove had been visited by a deh the combined effort of a handful of drunks were they able to banish the denificent delusion, and Val thought that she could at least get an aca-de around Gabe had ignited her enthusiasm for research

When Mavis and Horapped up their story, Catfish started in with his tale of being pursued through the bayou by a seathe details of Gabe’s theory that the monster had evolved the ability to affect the brain chemistry of its prey Tipsy after a few Bloody Marys and taken by the momentum of the tale, Val confessed her replacement of Pine Cove’s supply of antidepressants with placebos Even as she unburdened herself, Val realized that her and Gabe’s stories were no more credible than the fairy tale Mavis and Howard had just told

"That Winston Krauss is a weasel," Mavis said "Co like his shit don’t stink, then overcharges the whole town for soettin Should’a known he was a fish-fucker"

"That’s in strictest confidence," Val said "I shouldn’t have mentioned it"

Mavis cackled "Well, it ain’t like I’onna run tell Sheriff Burton on you He’s weasel with a capital Weas Besides, girl, you increased hty percent when you took the wackos off their drugs And I thought it was old Mopey down there" Mavis shot a bionic thumb toward Catfish

The Bluesman put down his drink "Hey!"

Gabe said, "So you believe that there really is a sea monster on that ranch?"

"What reason would you have to lie?" said Howard "It would seem that Mr Fish is an eyewitness as well"

"Jefferson," Catfish said "Catfish Jefferson"

"Shut up, you chickenshit," Mavis spat "You could have helped Theo when he asked you What’s that boy think he’s doing following that sheriff out to the ranch anyway? It’s not like he can do anything"

Gabe said, "We don’t know He just left and told us to come here and wait for his call"

"Ya’ll soood woman because of all this"

"She’s smarter than she looks," Mavis said

"Theo hasout of place even as she said it Suddenly she feltdown on these people than she did about all of her professional indiscretions

"I’ worried," said Gabe "It’s been over an hour"

"I don’t suppose you thought about calling him?" Mavis asked

"You have his cell phone number?" Gabe asked

"He’s the constable It’s not like he’s unlisted"

"I suppose I should have thought of that," said Howard

Mavis shook her head and one of her false eyelashes sprung up like a snare trap "What, you three got thirty years of college between you and not enough smarts to dial a phone without a blueprint?"

"Astute observation," Howard said