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 You can help them and when it s over you can stay here. you can play
your music, I can paint. People in Pine Cove love your music.
 People here sayin hello to me on the street, puttin too much money in
the tip jar, buying me drinks I ain t got the Blues on me no more.
 So you have to go wreck your car, or pick cotton, or shoot a man in
Memphis, or whatever it is that you have to do to put the Blues on you?
For what?
 It s what I do. I don t know nothin else.
 You ve never tried anything else. I m here, I m real.
226 / Christopher Moore
Is it so bad to know that you have a warm bed to sleep in with someone
who loves you? There s nothing out there, Catfish.
 That dragon out there. He always be out there.
 So face it. You got away from it before.
 Why you care?
 Because it took a lot for me to open my heart to you after what I ve been
through, and I don t have much tolerance for cowards anymore.
 Call it like you sees it, Mama.
Estelle turned and went back to the kitchen.  Then maybe you better
go.
 I ll get my hat, Catfish said. He snapped the National back into its case,
grabbed his hat from the table, and in a moment he was gone.
Estelle turned and stared at the door. When she heard his station wagon
start, she fell to the floor and felt a once warm future bleed a black stain
around her.
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
The cave lay under a hillside, less than a mile from the ranch road at Theo s
cabin. The narrow mouth looked down over a wide, grassy marine terrace
to the Pacific, and the interior, which opened into a huge cathedral chamber,
echoed with the sound of crashing waves. Fossilized starfish and trilobites
peppered the walls and the rocky floor was covered with a patina of bat
guano and crystallized sea salt. The last time Steve had visited the cave it
had been underwater, and he had spent a pleasant autumn there feeding
on the gray whales that migrated down the coast to Baja to bear their young.
He didn t remember the cave consciously, of course, but when he sensed
that Molly was searching for a hiding place, the
The Lust Lizard Of Melancholy Cove / 227
map in his mind that had long ago gone to instinct led them there.
Since they d arrived at the cave, a dark mood had fallen on Steve and,
in turn, over Molly. She d used the weed-whacker on the Sea Beast several
times to try to cheer him up, but now the sex machine was out of gas and
Molly was developing a heat rash on the inside of her thighs from repeated
tongue lashings. It had been two days since she had eaten, and even Steve
refused to touch his cows (Black Angus steers, now that Molly knew he
couldn t tolerate dairy).
Since the coming of the Sea Beast, Molly had been in a state of controlled
euphoria. Worries about her sanity had melted away and she had joined
him in the Zen moment that is the life of an animal, but since the dream
and the horrible self-consciousness that had descended on Steve, the notion
of their incompatibility had begun to rise in Molly s mind like a trout to a
fly.
 Steve, she said, leaning on her broadsword and staring him squarely
in one of his basketball eyes,  your breath could knock a buzzard off a shit
wagon.
The Sea Beast, rather than go on the defensive (which was fortunate for
Molly, because the only defense he could think of was to bite her legs off),
let out a pathetic whimper and tried to tuck his huge head under a forelimb.
Molly immediately regretted her comment and tried to patch the damage.
 Oh, I know, it s not your fault. Maybe someone sells Tic Tacs the size
of easy chairs. We ll get through it. But she didn t mean it, and Steve could
sense her insincerity.  Maybe we need to get out more, she added.
Dawn had broken outside and a beam of sunlight was streaming into
the cathedral like a cop s flashlight in a smoky bar.  Maybe a swim, Molly
said.  Your gills seem to be healing. How she knew the treelike growths
on his
228 / Christopher Moore
neck were gills, she wasn t sure perhaps more of the unspoken commu-
nication that passes between lovers.
Steve lifted his head and Molly thought that she might have gotten his
attention, but then she noticed that a shadow had come over the entrance
to the cave. She looked up to see half a dozen people in choir robes standing
at the opening of the cathedral.
 We ve come to offer sacrifice, one woman managed to say.
 And not a breath mint among you, I ll bet, Molly said.
twenty-five
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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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