The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (20 page)

Theo

H.P.'s Cafe was crowded with early morning old guys drinking coffee. Theo downed three cups of coffee quickly, which only served to make him anxious. Val and Gabe had ordered a cinnamon roll to share, and now Val was feeding a piece of it to Gabe as if the man had somehow managed to reach middle age and earn two Ph.D.s without ever having learned to feed himself. Theo just wanted to blow the bitter chunks of indignation.

Val said, “I certainly hope that the presence of this creature isn't responsible for how I feel right now.” She licked icing from her fingers.

Right, Theo thought, the fact that you've fucked up all the previously fucked-up people in town and committed a string of felonies in the process shouldn't be the rain on your little love parade. However, Theo did subscribe to the “honest mistake” school of law enforcement, and he honestly believed that she was trying to right a wrong by taking her patients off their medication. So although Val was currently irritating him like a porcupine suppository, he was honest enough to realize that he was merely jealous of what she had found with Gabe. That realized, Gabe started to irritate him as well.

“What do we do, Gabe? Tranquilize this thing? Shoot it? What?”

“Assuming it exists.”

“Assume it,” Theo spat. “I'm afraid if you wait for enough evidence to be sure, we'll have to find you an ass donor, because this creature will have bitten yours off.”

“No need to be snotty, Theo. I'm just being sensibly skeptical, as any researcher would.”

“Theo,” Val said, “I can write you a scrip for some Valium. Might take the edge off your withdrawal symptoms.”

Theo scoffed. He didn't scoff often, so he wasn't good at it, and it appeared to Gabe and Val that he might be gacking up a hair ball.

“You all right?” Gabe asked.

“I'm fine. I was scoffing.”

“At what?”

“At Dr. Feelgood here wanting to give me a prescription for Valium so Winston Krauss can fill it with M&Ms.”

“I'd forgotten about that,” Val said. “Sorry.”

“It would appear that we have multifarious problems with which to deal, and I don't have a clue where to start,” Theo said.

“Multifarious?” Gabe said.

“A shitload,” said Theo.

“I know what it means, Theo. I just can't believe it came out of your mouth.”

Val laughed gaily at Gabe's kinda-sorta humor. Theo glared at her.

Jenny, who was almost as cranky as Theo for having had to close H.P.'s the night before and then open the restaurant in the morning when the morning girl called in sick, came by to refill their coffees.

“That's your boss pulling up, isn't it, Theo?” she asked, nodding toward the front. Out the window Theo could see Sheriff John Burton crawling out of his black Eldorado.

“Back door?” Theo said, urgent pleading in his eyes.

“Sure, through the kitchen and Howard's office.”

Theo was up in a second and halfway to the kitchen when he noticed that Val and Gabe had missed the entire exchange and were staring into each other's eyes. He ran back and slapped the table with his open palm. They looked at him as if they'd been dragged out of a dream.

“Attention,” Theo said, trying not to raise his voice. “Sheriff coming in? My boss? Deadly drug dealer? We're criminals. We'll be making a break for the back door? Now? Hello?”

“I'm not a criminal,” Gabe said. “I'm a biologist.”

Theo grabbed him by the front of the shirt and made for the kitchen, dragging the biologist behind him. The criminal shrink brought up the rear.

The Sheriff

“I'm looking for Betsy Butler,” Burton said, flipping open a badge wallet as if everyone in the county didn't immediately recognize his white Stetson-over-Armani look.

“What's she done?” Jenny asked, putting herself between the sheriff and the door to the kitchen.

“That's not your affair. I just need to talk to her.”

“Well, I'm on the floor alone, so you have to follow me if you want to talk or I'll get behind.”

“I don't want to talk to you.”

“Fine.” Jenny turned her back on the sheriff and went to the waitress station behind the counter to start a fresh pot of coffee.

Burton followed her, suppressing the urge to put her in a choke hold. “Do you know where she lives?”

“Yes,” Jenny said. “But she's not home.” Jenny glanced back through the kitchen window to make sure that Theo and his bunch had made it through to Howard's office.

Burton's face was going red now. “Please. Could you tell me where she is?”

Jenny thought she could jerk this guy around for another ten minutes or so, but it didn't look as if it was necessary. Besides, she was pissed at Betsy for calling in anyway. “She called in this morning with a spiritual emergency. Her words, by the way. The flu I can understand, but I'm working a double after closing last night over her spiritual emergency—”

“Where is Betsy Butler?” the sheriff barked.

Jenny jumped back a step. The man looked as if he might go for his gun any second. No wonder Theo had bolted out the back. “She said she was going with a group up to the Beer Bar Ranch. That they were being called by the spirit to make a sacrifice. Pretty weird, huh?”

“Was Joseph Leander going with her?”

“No one's supposed to know about Betsy and Joseph.”

“I know about them. Was he going with her?”

“She didn't say. She sounded a little spaced out.”

“Does Theo Crowe come in here?”

“Sometimes.” Jenny wasn't volunteering anything to this creep. He was rude, he was mean, and he was wearing enough Aramis to choke a skunk.

“Has he been in here today?”

“No, haven't seen him.”

Without a word, Burton turned and stormed out the door to his Cadillac. Jenny went back to the kitchen, where Gabe, Val, and Theo were standing by the fryers, trying to stay out of the way of the two cooks, who were flipping eggs and thrashing hash browns.

Gabe pointed to the back door. “It's locked.”

“He's gone,” Jenny said. “He was looking for Betsy and Joseph, but he asked about you, Theo. I think he's going up to the Beer Bar to find Betsy.”

“What's Betsy doing at the ranch?” Theo asked.

“Something about making a sacrifice. That girl needs help.”

Theo turned to Val. “Give me the keys to your car. I'm going after him.”

“I don't think so,” the psychiatrist said, holding her purse away from him.

“Please, Val. I've got to see what he's up to. This is my life here.”

“And that's my Mercedes, and you're not taking it.”

“I have guns, Val.”

“Yeah, but you don't have a Mercedes. It's mine.”

Gabe looked at her as if she'd squirted a grapefruit in his eyes. “You really won't let Theo use your car?” His voice was flat with disappointment. “It's just a car.”

They all stared at her, even the two cooks, burly Hispanic men who had until now refused to acknowledge their existence. Val reached into her purse, brought out the keys, and handed them to Theo as if she were giving up a child for sacrifice.

“How will we get home?” Gabe asked.

“Go to the Head of the Slug and wait. I'll either pick you up or call you from my cell phone and let you know what's going on. It shouldn't take long.” With that, Theo ran out of the kitchen.

A few seconds later Valerie Riordan cringed at the sound of squealing tires as Theo pulled out of the restaurant parking lot.

Skinner

Skinner liked chasing cars as much as the next dog, and they didn't get away as easily when you chased them in another car, but despite the excitement of the chase, Skinner was anxious. When he had seen the Tall Guy come
out to the car, he thought that the Food Guy was coming too. But now they were driving away from the Food Guy and toward the danger. Skinner could feel it. He whined and ran back and forth across the backseat of the Mercedes, leaving nose prints on the window, then jumped into the front seat and stuck his head out the passenger window. There was no joy to the turbo-charged smells or the wind in his ears, only danger. He barked and scratched at the door handle to warn the Tall Guy, but all he got for his efforts was a perfunctory ear scratching, so he crawled into the Tall Guy's lap, where it felt at least a little safer.

The Sheriff

Burton first noticed the Mercedes behind him when he turned onto the access road to the Coast Highway. A week ago he might not have thought twice about it, but now he was seeing an enemy in every tree. DEA wouldn't use a Mercedes, and neither would FBI, but the Mexican Mafia could. Except for his operation, they ran the meth trade out of the West; perhaps they'd decided that they wanted the whole trade. That would explain the disappearance of Leander, Crowe, and the guys at the lab, except that it had been a little too clean. They would have left bodies as a warning, and they would have burned down all of Crowe's cabin, not just the pot patch.

He pulled his Beretta 9 mm. out of its holster and placed it on the seat next to him. He had a shotgun in the trunk, but it might as well be in Canada for all the good it would do him. if there were two or less in the car, he might take them. If more, they probably had Uzis or Mac 10 machine guns and he would run. The Mexicans liked to have a crowd in on their hits. Burton made a quick right off the highway and stopped a block up a side street.

Theo

Why hadn't he let Skinner out at the cafe? He hadn't been able to figure out the electric seat adjustment on the Mercedes, so he was driving with his knees up around the wheel anyway, but now he had an eighty-pound dog in his lap and he had to whip his head from side to side to keep Burton's Caddy in sight.

The Caddy made an abrupt turn off the highway and it was all Theo could do to get the Mercedes around the corner without screeching the tires. By the time he could see around Skinner's head again, the Caddy was stopped only fifty yards ahead. Theo ducked quickly onto the passenger seat and tried to call on THE FORCE to steer as they passed the Caddy.

The Sheriff

Sheriff John Burton was prepared for a confrontation with DEA agents, he was prepared for a high-speed escape, he was even prepared for a shoot-out with Mexican drug dealers, if it came to that. He prided himself on being tough and adaptable and thought himself superior to other men because of his cool response to pressure. He was, however, not prepared to see a Mercedes cruise by with a Labrador retriever at the wheel. His
Ubermensch
arrogance shriveled as he stared gape-jawed at the passing Mercedes. It made an erratic turn at the next corner, bouncing off a curb before disappearing behind a hedge.

He wasn't the sort of man who doubted his own perceptions—if he saw it, he saw it—so his mind dropped into politician mode to file the experience. “That right there,” he said aloud, “is why I will never support a bill to license dogs to drive.”

Still, political certainties weren't going to count for much if he didn't get to Betsy Butler and find out what had happened to his prized drug mule. He pulled a U-turn and headed back to the Coast Highway, where he found himself looking a little more closely than usual at the drivers in oncoming cars.

Molly

There were thirty of them all together. Six stood side by side at the cave entrance; the rest crowded behind them, trying to get a look inside. Molly recognized the one doing the talking, she was the ditzy waitress from H.P.'s cafe. She was in her mid-twenties, with short blonde hair and a figure that promised to go pear-shaped by the time she hit forty. She wore a white choir robe over jeans and aerobics shoes.

“You're Betsy from H.P.'s, right?” Molly asked, leaning on her broadsword.

Betsy seemed to recognize Molly for the first time, “You're the craz—”

Molly held up her sword to hush the girl. “Be nice.”

“Sorry,” said Betsy. “We've been called. I didn't expect you to be here.”

Two women stepped up beside Betsy, the pastel church ladies that Molly had chased away from the dragon trailer. “Remember us?”

Molly shook her head. “What exactly do you all think you are doing here?”

They looked to each other, as if the question hadn't occurred to them before this. They craned their necks and squinted into the cathedral chamber to see what was behind Molly. Steve lay curled up in the dark at the back of the chamber, sulking.

Molly turned and spoke to the back of the chamber. “Steve, did you bring these people here? What were you thinking?”

A loud and low-pitched whimper came out of the dark. The crowd at the entrance murmured among themselves. Suddenly a man stepped forward and pushed Betsy aside. He was in his forties and wore an African dashiki over khakis and Birkenstocks, his long hair held out of his face with a beaded headband. “Look, man, you can't stop us. There's something very special and very spiritual happening here, and we're not going to let some crazy woman keep us from being part of it. So just back off.”

Molly smiled. “You want to be a part of this, do you?”

“Yeah, that's right,” the man said. The others nodded behind him.

“Fine, I want you all to empty your pockets before you come in here. Leave your keys, wallets, money, everything outside.”

“We don't have to do that,” Betsy said.

Molly stepped up and thrust her sword into the ground between the girl's feet. “Okay then, naked.” Molly said.

“What?”

“No one comes in here unless they are naked. Now get to it.”

Protests arose until a short Asian man with a shaved head shrugged off his saffron robes, stepped forward, and bowed to Molly, thus mooning the rest of the group.

Molly shook her head dolefully at the monk. “I thought you guys had more sense.” Then she turned to the back of the cave and shouted, “Hey, Steve, cheer up, I brought home Chinese for lunch.”