Thirty-two
Catfish and Estelle
"That was a good guitar," Catfish said. He had his arms around Estelle, who had pressed her face to his chest when the monster attacked Winston Krauss.
"I didn't realize," Estelle said. "I didn't think it would do that."
Catfish stroked her hair. "That was a good car too. That car never broke."
Estelle pushed Catfish away and looked in his eyes. "You knew, didn't you?"
"What I knew is that boy wanted to get up close to a sea monster and that's what he got. Case you didn't notice, he was happy when it happened."
"What now?"
"I think we ought to get you home, girl. You got some paintings gonna come out of this."
"Home? Are you coming with me?"
"I ain't got no car to go anywhere. I guess I am."
"You're going to stay? You're not afraid of losing the Blues and getting content?"
Catfish grinned, and there was that gold tooth with the eighth note cut in it, glistening in the morning sunshine. "Dragon done ate my car, my guitar, my amp - girl, I got me enough Blues to last a good long time. I'm thinkin I'll write me some new songs while you makin your paintings."
"I'd like that," Estelle said. "I'd like to paint the Blues."
"Long as you don't go cuttin your ear off like old Vincent. A man finds a one-eared woman stone unattractive."
Estelle pulled him tight. "I'll do my best."
"Course, there was a woman I knowed down Memphis way, name of Sally, had only one leg. Called her One Leg Sally..."
"I don't want to hear it."
"What you wanna hear?"
"I want to hear the door closing behind us, the fire crackling in the stove, and the teakettle just coming to a whistle while my lovin man picks out 'Walkin' Man's Blues' on a National steel guitar."
"You easy," Catfish said.
"I thought you liked that," she said, and she took his spidery hand in hers and led him up over the bluff to find a ride home.
Theo and Molly
Theo had never felt quite so overwhelmed in his entire life. He sensed that the excitement and the danger of it all was over, but he still felt as if a beast every bit as intimidating as the one that had just sunk into the sea was looming over him. He didn't know if he had a job, or for that matter a home, since his cabin had been part of his pay. He didn't even have his bong collection and victory garden to crawl into. He was confused and horrified by what had just happened, but not relieved that it was over. He stood there, not ten feet from where Molly Michon was standing in the surf, and he had no idea what the rest of his life had to offer him.
"Hey," he called. "You okay?"
He watched her nod without turning around. The waves were breaking in front of her and foam and sea-weed was splashing up over her thighs, yet she stood there solid, staring out to sea.
"You going to be okay?"
Without turning, she said, "I haven't been okay for years. Ask anybody."
"Matter of opinion. I think you're okay."
Now she looked over her shoulder at him, her hair in a tangle from the wind, tear tracks down her face. "Really?"
"I'm a huge fan."
"You had never heard of my movies until you came to my trailer, had you?"
"Nope. I'm a huge fan, though."
She turned and walked out of the surf toward him, and a smile was breaking there on her face. A smile with too much history to it, but a smile nonetheless.
"The narrator says you did good," she said.
"The narrator?" Theo found himself smiling too, as close to crying as he had come since his father had died, but smiling nonetheless.
"Yeah, it's this voice I hear when I don't take my meds for a while. He's kind of a prick, but he's got a better sense of judgment than I do."
She was right there in front of him now - looking up at him, a hand on her hip, a challenge in that movie-star smile - looking more like Kendra the Warrior Babe than she ever had in the posters, the five-inch-long scar standing glorious over her left breast, seawater and grime streaking her body, a look in her eyes that comes from watching your future get nuked - repeatedly. She took his breath away.
"Do you think the three of us could go out to dinner sometime?"
"I'm on the rebound, you know?"
His heart sank. "I understand."
She walked around him and started up the bluff. He followed her, understanding for the first time how the pilgrims had felt following the Sea Beast to the cave.
"I didn't say no," Molly said. "I just thought you ought to know. The narrator is warning me not to talk about my ex over dinner."
His heart soared. "I think a lot of people are going to be talking about your ex."
"You're not intimidated?"
"Of course. But not by him."
"The narrator says it's a bad idea. Says the two of us put together might make one good loser."
"Wow, he is a prick."
"I'll get some meds from Dr. Val and he'll go away."
"You're sure that's good idea?"
"Yeah," she said, turning back to him again before climbing up to where the pilgrims waited. "I'd like to be alone with you."
Skinner
What the man in the driver's seat didn't seem to understand was that as far as this Mercedes was concerned, Skinner was the alpha male. The man smelled of fear and anger and aggression, as well as gunpowder and sweat, and Skinner didn't like him from the moment he got into the car: Skinner's new mobile territory. So Skinner had to show him, and he did so in the traditional way, by clamping his jaws over the Challenger's throat and waiting for him to take a submissive posture. The man had struggled and even hit Skinner, but hadn't said bad-dog, bad-dog, so Skinner just growled and tightened his jaws until he tasted blood and the man was still.
Skinner was still waiting for the Challenger to submit when the Tall Guy opened the car door.
"Good dog, Skinner. Good dog," Theo said.
"Get this fucking animal off me," the Challenger said.
Skinner wagged his tail and tightened his jaws until the Challenger made a gurgling sound. The Tall Guy scratched his ears and put some metal on the Challenger's paws.
"Let go now, Skinner," the Tall Guy said. "I've got him."
Skinner let go and licked Theo's face before the constable dragged the sheriff out onto the ground and stood on the back of his neck with one foot.
The Tall Guy tasted like lizard spit. That was strange. Skinner considered it a moment, then his doggie attention span ran out and he bounded out of the car to go see what the Food Guy was doing in the back of the truck. The Tall Guy's female was breaking out the back window of the truck with a metal stick. Skinner barked at her, trying to tell her not to hurt the Food Guy.
Good Guys
"Is the creature still there?" Gabe asked Molly as he climbed out of the back of the Suburban. Skinner was frisking and jumping on him, and with the handcuffs he couldn't ward off the damp affection. "Down, boy. Down."
"No, he's gone," Molly said as she helped Val and Howard out of the Suburban. She nodded to Val. "Hi, Doc. I think I've had an episode or something. You'll have to debrief me in session or something."
Valerie Riordan nodded. "I'll check my calendar."
Theo came around the back of the Mercedes. "You guys okay?"
"You have your key?" Gabe asked, turning his back to Theo to show the handcuffs.
"We heard shots," Val said. "Did...?"
"One of the SWAT team is dead. Burton shot him. A few of your patients are scraped and bruised, but they'll be okay. Winston Krauss was eaten."
"Eaten?" The color ran out of Val's face.
"Long story, Val," Theo said. "Mavis set it all up after you guys left. Catfish and Estelle came in and drew the monster out. Winston was sort of the bait."
"Oh my god!" Val said. "She said something about my not being in trouble."
Theo held his finger to his lips to shush her, then nodded to where Sheriff Burton lay on the ground. "It never happened, Val. None of it. I don't know a thing." He spun her around and unlocked her handcuffs. Then did the same for Gabe and Howard.
The gaunt restaurateur seemed more morose than usual. "I had really hoped to lay eyes on the creature."
"Me too," said Gabe, putting his arm around Valerie.
"Sorry," Theo said. To Val he said, "The reporters from those helicopters are going to be here in a few minutes. If I were you, I'd get out of here." He handed her the keys to the Mercedes. "The district attorney is sending a deputy to pick up Burton, so I'm going to stay here. Will you give Molly a ride back into town?"
"Of course," Val said. "What are you going to tell the reporters?"
"I don't know," Theo said. "Deny everything, I guess. It depends on what they ask and what they got on tape. Having lived most my life in denial, I may be perfectly suited for dealing with them."
"I'm sorry I was - I'm sorry I doubted your abilities, Theo."
"So did I, Val. I'll call you guys and let you know what's going on."
Gabe called Skinner and they loaded into the Mercedes, leaving Theo and Molly facing each other. Theo looked at his shoes. "I guess I'll be seeing you."
She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek. Then without a word she crawled into the back of the Mercedes with Howard and Skinner and closed the door.
Theo watched them back away, then turn and head across the pasture and out of the cattle gate.
"You're going down with me, Crowe!" Burton screamed from the ground.
Theo spotted something shiny lying in the grass near the back of the Suburban and went over to it. It was Molly's broadsword. He felt a smile breaking out as he picked it up and went over to where Burton was lying.
"You have the right to remain silent," Theo said. "I suggest you exercise that right. Immediately." Theo plunged the sword into the ground half an inch from Burton's face and watched the sheriff's eyes go wide.
Thirty-three
Winter
Winter in Pine Cove is a pause, a timeout, an extended coffee break. A slowness comes over the town and people stop their cars in the street to talk with a passing neighbor without worrying about a tourist honking his horn so he can get on with his relaxing vacation (damn it!). Waiters and hotel clerks go to part-time shifts and money slows to a creep. Couples spend their nights at home in front of the fireplace as the smell of rain-washed wood smoke fills the air, and single people resolve to move somewhere where life is a full-time sport.
Winter near the shore is cold. The wind kicks up a salty mist and elephant seals come to shore to trumpet and rut and birth their pups. Retired people put sweaters on their lap dogs and drag them down the street on retractable leashes in a nightly parade of doggie humiliation. Surfers don their wetsuits against the chill of storm waves and white sharks adjust their diets to in-clude shrink-wrapped dude-snacks on fiberglass crackers. But the chill is crisp and forgiving and settles in a way so that the town's collective metab-olism can slow into semihibernation without a shock.
At least that's the way it is most winters.
After the coming of the Sea Beast, winter was a juggernaut, a party, an irritation and a windfall. News footage from the helicopters was beamed out over satellites and Pine Cove displaced Roswell, New Mexico, as the number one crackpot travel destination. There wasn't much on the tapes, just a crowd of people gathered on the shore and the fuzzy image of something large in the water, but with the footprints and the eyewitness accounts, it was enough. Shops filled with cheesy ser-pent souvenirs and H.P.'s Cafe added to the menu a sandwich called the Theosaurus, which was the official scientific name of the Sea Beast (coined by biologist Gabriel Fenton). The hotels filled, the streets congested, and Mavis Sand actually had to hire a second bartender to help serve the im-ported wackos.
Estelle Boyet opened her own gallery on Cypress Street where she sold her new series of paintings enigmatically entitled Steve, as well as the new Catfish Jefferson CD entitled The What Do I Do Now That I'm Happy? Blues.
As the story of the Sea Beast spread and was sensationalized, interest rose in an obscure B-movie actress named Molly Michon. Discs and videocassettes of the Warrior Babe series were remastered and rereleased to an enthusiastic audience, and the Screen Actors Guild came down on the producers like an avenging accountant angel to capture a piece of the profits for Molly.
Valerie Riordan's practice stabilized as she struck a balance between therapy and medication and she was able to schedule a sabbatical to join her fianc¨¦, Gabe Fenton, on an oceanographic expedition aboard a Scripps vessel to look for evidence of the Theosaurus in the deep trenches off California.
After he testified against John Burton, putting him away for life, winter settled on Theophilus Crowe like a warm blessing. In the second month of his recovery, he realized that his addiction to marijuana had been nothing more than a response to boredom. Like the child who whines away a summer day because there's nothing to do, but makes no effort to actually do anything, Theo had simply lacked the ambition to entertain himself. Sharing his life with Molly solved the problem, and Theo found that although he was often exhausted by the demands of his job and his lover, he was never bored. Molly's trailer was moved to the edge of the ranch by his cabin. Every morning they shared a hearty breakfast pizza at her place. In the evening, they ate dinner on his cable spool table. She answered his calls while he was at work, and he ran interference with the geeky fans who were rabid enough to seek her out at the ranch. Not a day passed that he did not tell Molly how special she was to him, and as time passed, the narrator in her head fell silent and never spoke again.
There was no winter in the deep submarine trench off California, two miles down. Everything was as it had been: a dark pressurized sameness where the Sea Beast lay by his black smoker, grieving for love lost. He stopped grazing on deep water worms that grew on the rocks and his great body began to waste away under the weight of the water and the years. He had resolved never to move again - to lie there until his great heart stopped and with it the throb of heartbreak - when sensor cells along his flanks picked up a signal. Something he had not felt for half a century, the signature of a creature he thought he would never feel again. He flipped his tail and shook off the crust of loneliness that had settled over him, and that organ buried deep beneath his reptile brain picked up a message coming from the female. Roughly translated, it said, "Hey, sailor, want to get lucky?"