The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Page 14

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 smell of stale beer and cigarettes; 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 seemed to suck light in from the street every time someone opened the door, causing the daytime regu-lars to cringe and hiss as if a touch of sunshine might vaporize them on their stools. Mavis moved behind the bar with a grim, if wobbly, determin-ation, drinking coffee from a gar-goyle-green mug while a Tarryton extra long dangled from her lips, dropping long ashes down the front of her sweater like the smoking turds of tiny ghost poodles. She went about setting up shots of cheap bourbon at the empty curve of the bar, lining them up like soldiers before a firing squad. Every two or three minutes an old man would enter the bar, bent over and wearing baggy pants - leaning on a four-point cane or the last hope of a painless death - and climb onto one of the empty stools to wrap an arthritic claw around a shot glass 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 empty, and Mavis would let an hour pass before sliding the shot down to the next daytime regular and calling Theo to track down her truant. Most often, the ambulance would slide in and out of town as quiet as a vulture riding a thermal, and Mavis would get the news when Theo cracked the door, shook his head, and moved on.

"Hey, cheer up," Mavis would say. "You got a free drink out of it, didn't you? That stool won't be empty for long."

There had always been daytime regulars, there always would be. Her new crop started coming in around 9 A.M., younger 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 were wives and jobs, now were dreams of glorious shots and clever strategies. When their dreams and eyesight faded, they filled the stools at the end of the bar with the day-time regulars.

Ironically, the aura of despair that hung over the day-time regulars gave Mavis the closest thing 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 from the well and poured it down the bar to refill their shot glasses, 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 pacemakers brought her heartbeat back down from redline. It was like tweaking death's nose, sticking a KICK ME sign on the head of a cobra and getting away with it.

Gabe and Val watched this ritual without moving from their spot by the pinball machine. Val was cautious, just waiting for the right moment to move to the bar and ask if Theo had called. Gabe was, as usual, just being socially awkward.

Mavis retreated to her spot by the coffeepot, presumably out of death's reach, and called down to the couple. "You two want something to drink, or you just window-shopping?"

Gabe led them down the bar. "Two coffees please." He looked quickly to Val for her approval, but she was fixated on Catfish, who was seated across from Mavis near the end of the bar. Just beyond him was another man, an incredibly gaunt gentleman whose skin was so white it appeared translucent under the haze of Mavis's cigarette smoke.

"Hello, uh, Mr. Fish," Val said.

Catfish, who was staring at the bottom of a shot glass, looked up and forced a smile through a face betraying hangdog sorrow. "It's Jefferson," he said. "Catfish is my first name."

"Sorry," Val said.

Mavis made a mental note of the new couple. She recognized 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. Now, with 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 woman's eye focusing - when the light from over the snooker table caught it right, the eye appeared to glow red.

"Pleased," Mavis said. "You know Howard Phillips?" Mavis nodded to the gaunt man at the end of the bar.

"H.P.," Gabe added, nodding to Howard. "Of H.P.'s Cafe."

Howard Phillips might have been forty, or sixty, or seventy, or he might 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 came from your restaurant. Lovely place."

Without changing 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 with machinery."

Mavis leaned into Gabe and Val as if guarding a 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 consumption sometimes."

"I'm sure the good 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 monster, so don't even try," Catfish said. "I got the Blues on me and I got some drinkin to do."

"Don't be a wuss, Catfish," Mavis said as she mixed Val's cocktail. "Monsters are no big deal. Howard and me got 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 from the sheriff's Caddy turning 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 them killing 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 seemed more aggressive than curling into a ball and dying 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 marine terrace that dropped to the shoreline was too open to go 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 bump over the deep ruts in the road, the front wheels throwing up mud as it climbed the hill, and suddenly he regretted not having driven the red four-wheel-drive truck. The rear-wheel-drive Mercedes might 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 mile in every direction, east to some rock outcrop-pings 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 come from the south. Nothing 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 minutes later he stood at the base of the rock outcroppings, sweating and trying to catch his breath. At least maybe he'd get some lung capacity back, now that he wasn't smoking pot anymore. He bent over with his hands on his knees and scanned the rocks for any movement. These were no gentle sedimentary rocks formed over centuries of settling 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, moving around the edge of the rocks, expecting 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 him or was waiting, he would be aiming high. The vastness of what Theo didn't know about surveillance and combat techniques seemed to be expanding 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 somewhere in the rocks. There was only the crashing surf in the distance and a low whistle of coastal wind. He ventured a quick glance around the rock and before he could pull back, the metallic click of a gun cocking behind 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 come up with two hundred and fifty-eight 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-down ward. 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 my mental health self-image," she said to the narrator. "I liked it better when it was just me and Steve."

None of the pilgrims seemed to notice that Molly was talking 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 more like an afterimage 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 time. He's sulking, and you're robbing 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 gym class. Except for that guy who came in Birkenstocks, and he has that Gandhi-tan vegetarian starvation stare that looks like he'd slaughter a whole kindergarten for a Pink's foot-long with sauer-kraut. You feel okay about making them strip and prostrate themselves before the big guy?"

"I thought it would make them go away."

"The lizard is using you."

"We care about each other. Now just shut up. I'm trying to think."

"Oh, like you've been thinking 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 compact out of one of the pilgrims' purses and looked at herself in the mirror. She certainly couldn't have looked much crazier. She braced for the narrator's comment, but it didn't come.

She tried to get in touch with the warm feeling that had been running through her since Steve had appeared, but it just wasn't there. Maybe the pilgrims were using up his energy. Maybe the magic had just passed.

She remembered sitting on a deck in Malibu, waiting for a producer who had just made love to her, only to have his Hispanic maid show up with a glass of wine and an apology that "The mister had to go to the studio, he very sorry, you call him next week please." Molly had really liked the guy. She'd broken her foot kicking his spare Ferrari as she left and had to eat painkillers through the filming of her next movie, which eventually put her in detox. She never heard from the producer again.

That was being used. This was different.

"Right," said the narrator sarcastically.

"Shhhhh," Molly said. She heard someone scuffling on the rocks outside the cave. She snatched up the assault rifle and waited just inside the cave mouth.

Twenty-seven

Val

Val was wishing she had a video recorder to preserve the gargantuan lie that Mavis Sand and Howard Phillips had been telling over the last hour. According to them, ten years ago the village of Pine Cove had been visited by a demon from hell, and only through the combined effort of a handful of drunks were they able to banish the demon whence it came. It was a magnificent delusion, and Val thought that she could at least get an aca-demic paper on shared psychosis out of it. Being around Gabe had ignited her enthusiasm for research.

When Mavis and Howard wrapped up their story, Catfish started in with his tale of being pursued through the bayou by a sea monster. Soon Gabe and Val were spouting the 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. "Comes in here every day acting like his shit don't stink, then overcharges the whole town for something they ain't even gettin. 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'm gonna run tell Sheriff Burton on you. He's weasel with a capital Weas. Besides, girl, you increased my business by eighty 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 some heartless souls," Catfish said. "I lost me a good woman because of all this."

"She's smarter than she looks," Mavis said.

"Theo has my Mercedes," Val added, feeling out of place even as she said it. Suddenly she felt more ashamed of looking down on these people than she did about all of her professional indiscretions.

"I'm getting 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.

"I ain't got no college," Catfish said.

"Well, cheers to you for being just naturally stupid," Mavis said, picking up the phone.

The daytime regulars at the end of the bar had snapped out of their malaise to have a laugh at Catfish. There's nothing quite so satisfying to the desperate as having someone to look down on.

Theo

The gun barrel was pushed so hard into the spot behind Theo's ear that he thought he could hear bone cracking. Burton reached around and took the .357 and tossed it aside, then he took the automatic from Theo's waistband and did the same.

"On the ground, facedown." Burton kicked Theo's feet out from under him, then put his knee in the constable's back and handcuffed him. Theo could taste blood where his lip had split hitting the rock. He turned his head to the side, raking his cheek on some lichen. He was terrified. Every muscle in his body ached with the need to run.

Burton smacked him across the back of the head with his pistol, not hard enough to knock him out, but when the white-hot light of the blow faded, Theo could feel blood oozing into his right ear.

"You fucking stoner. How dare you fuck with my business?"

"What business?" Theo said, hoping ignorance might buy his life.

"I saw your car at the lab, Crowe. The last time I talked to Leander he was on his way to see you. Now where is he?"

"I don't know."

The pistol smacked Theo on the other side of the head.

"I don't fucking know!" Theo shrieked. "He was at the lab, then he was gone. I didn't see him leave."

"I don't care if he's alive or dead, Crowe. And it doesn't make any difference to you either. But I need to know. Did you kill him? Did he run? What?"

"I think he's dead."

"You think?"

Theo could feel Burton rearing back to hit him again.

"No! He's dead. He's dead. I know it."

"What happened?"

Theo tried to think of a plausible explanation, something that would buy him a minute, a few more seconds even, but he couldn't clear his head. "I'm not sure," he said. "I�CI heard gunfire. I was in the shed. When I came out, he was gone."

"Then how do you know he's dead?"

Theo couldn't see any advantage to telling Burton that Molly had told him. Burton would track her down and put her in the same shallow grave that he was going to end up in.

"Fuck you," Theo said. "Figure it out."

The pistol whipped across the back of Theo's head and he nearly passed out this time. He heard a ringing in his ears, but a second later he realized that it wasn't in his ears at all. His cell phone was ringing in his shirt pocket. Burton rolled him over and put the barrel of the gun on Theo's right eyelid.

"We're going to answer this, Crowe. And if you fuck up, the calling party is going to hear a very loud disconnect." The sheriff bent down until his face was almost touching Theo's and reached for the phone.

Suddenly a series of deafening explosions went off a few feet away and bullets whined off the rocks like angry wasps. Burton rolled off Theo and into a shallow crevice just below them. Theo felt someone grab his collar and pull him to his feet. Before he could see who it was, a dozen hands closed on him and dragged him out of the sun. He fell hard on his back and the gunfire stopped. His phone was still ringing. A cloud of bats was swirling above him.

He looked up to see Molly Michon standing over him with a smoking assault rifle, and in that second, she looked like what he had always ima-gined an avenging angel might look like, except for the six naked white guys standing behind her.

"Hi, Theo," she said.

"Hi, Molly."

Molly pointed to the phone in his shirt pocket with the barrel of her rifle. "You want me to get that?"

"Yeah, it might be important," Theo said.

There was a gunshot and a bullet whined off the edge of the cave entrance and ricocheted into the darkness. Theo could feel the roar that rose up out of the back of the cave vibrating in his ribs.

The Sheriff

Burton reached over the edge of the crevice and fired a shot in the general direction of the cave, then braced himself for return fire from the AK-47, but instead he heard a roaring that sounded like someone had dropped the entire cast of The Lion King in a deep fryer. Burton was not a coward, not by any means, but a man would have to be insane not to be frightened by that noise. Too much weirdness, too fast. A woman in a leather bikini and thigh-high boots firing an AK-47 while six naked guys dragged Crowe into a cave. He needed time to regroup, call in backup, drink a fifth of Glenlivet.

It seemed safe here for the time being. As long as he didn't move, no one could get a firing angle on him without making a target of himself. He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket, then paused, trying to figure out who to call. A general officer-in-trouble call could bring anyone, and the last thing he needed was television helicopters hovering around. Besides, his goal wasn't to arrest the suspects, he needed them silenced for good. He could call in the guys from the crank lab, if he could get hold of them, but the vision of a bunch of untrained illegal immigrants running around on this hill with automatic weapons didn't seem like the best strategy either. He had to call SWAT, but only his guys. Eight of the twenty men on the SWAT team were in his pocket. Again, he couldn't go through dispatch. They'd have to be called in on private lines. He dialed the number that rang into the information center deep in the basement of the county justice building. The Spider picked up on the first ring.

"Nailsworth."

"It's Burton. Listen, don't talk. Call Lopez, Sheridan, Miller, Morales, O'Hara, Crumb, Connelly, and LeMay. Tell them to come in full SWAT to the Beer Bar Ranch north of Pine Cove, the northern access road. There's a cave here. Pull up whatever maps you need and give them directions. Do not use open channels. They are not to log in or report to anyone where they are going. There are at least two suspects in the cave with automatic weapons. I'm pinned down about ten yards from the west-facing entrance. Have them meet south of the rocks, they'll see them, then have Sheridan call me. No aircraft. Find out if there's another entrance to this cave. I need everyone in place ASAP. Can you do it?"

"Of course," the Spider said. "It's going to take them a minimum of forty minutes, maybe more if I can't find them all."

Burton could hear the Spider's fat fingers blazing on his keyboard already. "Send whoever you can find. Tell them to come in separate cars. Tell them to avoid sirens if possible on the way up, definitely once they hit the ranch."

"Do you have descriptions of the suspects?"

"It's Theophilus Crowe and a woman, five-eight, one twenty, twenty-five to forty years old, gray hair, wearing a leather bikini."

"Twenty-five to forty? Pretty specific," the Spider said sarcastically.

"Fuck you, Nailsworth. How many women do you think are running around these hills wearing a leather bikini and shooting an AK? Call me when they are on the way." Burton disconnected and checked the battery on the phone. It would last.

Since the roaring sound had come from the cave, it had been quiet, but he didn't dare peek over the edge of the crevice. "Crowe!" he shouted. "It's not too late to work this out!"

Theo

The naked guys were standing over Theo, wearing dazed smiles, as if they'd all just shared a big pipe of opium. "Jesus, was that it?" Theo asked, Steve's roar still ringing in his ears.

"Him," Molly corrected, holding up a finger to shush Theo as she pressed the answer button on his phone. "Hello," she said into the phone. "None of your business. Who is this?" She covered the mouthpiece and said, "It's Gabe."

"Tell him I'm okay. Ask him where he is."

"Theo says he's okay. Where are you?" She listened for a second, then covered the mouthpiece again. "He's at the Slug."

"Tell him I'll call him right back."

"He'll call you back." She disconnected and tossed the phone in the pile of clothing by the door.

Theo looked up at the naked guys. He thought he recognized a couple of them, but didn't want to acknowledge that he did. "Would you guys back off a little?" Theo said. They didn't move. Theo looked at Molly. "Can you tell them to go somewhere? They're making me nervous."

"Why?"

"Molly, I don't know if you've notice, but all these guys are in a - a state of arousal."

"Maybe they're just glad to see you."

"Would you tell them to back off, please?"

Molly motioned for the naked guys to move away. "Go. Go. Back to the back of the cave, guys. Go. Go. Go." She poked at a couple of them with the assault rifle. Slowly they turned and ambled farther back into the cave.

"What in the hell is wrong with them?"

"What do you mean, wrong? They're acting like all guys do, they're just being more honest about it."

"Molly, seriously, what did you do to them?"

"I didn't do anything. That's how they've been acting since they saw Steve back there."

Theo looked to the back of the cave, but could only see the partially lit backs of a group of people sitting on the cave floor. "It's like they're in a trance or something."

"Yeah, isn't it cool? They came to help me get you when I asked, though. So they're not total zombies. I'm, like, in charge."

Blood was dripping out of Theo's scalp, matting his hair and leaving spots on his shirt. "That's great, Molly. Could you get these handcuffs off me?"

"I was going to ask you about those. Every time I see you, you're in handcuffs. Do you have a fetish or something?"

"Please, Molly, there's a key in my front pocket."

"He gave you the key?"

"It's my key."

"I see," Molly said with a knowing smile.

"Handcuffs all use the same key, Molly. Please help me get out of these."

She knelt and reached into his pocket, keeping her eyes locked on his through the process. His head throbbed when he rolled over so she could get to the cuffs.

As she pulled them off, they heard Burton call from outside. "Crowe! It's not too late to work this out!"

Once his hands were free, Theo threw his arms around Molly and pulled her close. She dropped her rifle and returned his embrace. Another roar emanated from the back of the cave. A couple of the pilgrims shrieked and Molly let go of Theo and stood up, gazing back into the darkness.

"It's okay, Steve," she said.

"What in the hell was that?" Burton shouted from outside.

"That was Steve," Molly shouted back. "You were asking what happened to Joseph Leander. Well, that was it. Steve ate him."

"How many of you are in there?" Burton asked.

Molly looked around. "A bunch."

"Who in the hell are you?"

"I am Kendra, Warrior Babe of the Outland." She shot a silly grin at Theo, who was trying to follow what was going on up here, while listening to some disturbing stirring noises going on in the back of the cave.

"What do you want?" Burton asked.

Without a beat, Molly said, "Ten percent of the gross on all my films, retroactive fifteen years, an industrial-strength weed-whacker with gas, and world peace."

"Seriously. We can work this out."

"Okay. I want sixty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a couple of gallons of Diet Coke, and..." She turned to Theo, "You want anything?"

Theo shrugged. Hell, as long as they were stalling. "A new Volvo station wagon."

"And a new Volvo station wagon," Molly shouted. "And we want it with two cup holders, you bastard, or the deal's off." She turned and beamed at Theo.

"Nice touch."

"You deserve it," Molly said. Suddenly her eyes went wide as she looked past Theo. "No, Steve!" she screamed.

Theo rolled over to see a huge pair of jaws descending over him.