Katie jumped in. “Molly, we’re very concerned that our children’s education is totally without any spiritual instruction. The Coalition is collecting signatures for reinstatement of prayer in school.”
“Okay,” Molly said. “You’re new in town, aren’t you?”
“Why, yes, we’ve both moved here from Los Angeles with our husbands. A small town is just a better place to raise children, as I’m sure you know.”
“Right,” Molly said. They had no idea who she was. “That’s why I brought my little Stevie here.” Stevie was Molly’s goldfish who had died during one of her stays in County. Now he lived in a Ziploc in her freezer and regarded her with a frosty gaze every time she retrieved some ice.
“And how old is Stevie?”
“Uh, seven or eight. I forget sometimes, it was a long labor.”
“He’s a year behind my Tiffany,” Marge said.
“Well, he’s a little slow.”
“And your husband is…?”
“Dead.”
“I’m so sorry,” Katie said.
“No need, you probably didn’t kill him.”
“Anyway,” Katie said, “we’d really like to have your signature to send to the state senate. Single mothers are an important part of our campaign. And we’re also collecting donations for the campaign to have the Constitution amended.” She put on an embarrassed smile. “God’s work needs funding too.”
“I live in a trailer,” Molly said.
“We understand,” Marge said. “Finances are difficult for a single mother. But your signature is just as important to God’s work.”
“But I live in a trailer. God hates trailers.”
“Beg pardon?”
“He burns them up, freezes, them out, tears them up with tornadoes. God hates trailers. Are you sure I wouldn’t be hurting your cause?”
Katie giggled. “Oh, Mrs. Michon, don’t be silly. Just last week I read where a woman’s trailer was picked up by a tornado and dropped almost a mile away and she survived. She said that she was praying the whole time and that God had saved her. You see?”
“Then who sent the tornado in the first place?”
The two pastel women squirmed on the couch. The blue one spoke first. “We’d love to have you at our Bible study group, where we could discuss that, but we have to be getting along. Would you mind signing the petition?” She pulled a clipboard out of her oversized purse and handed it over to Molly with a pen.
“So if this works, kids will be able to pray in school?”
“Why, yes.” Marge brightened.
“So the Muslim kids can turn to Mecca seven times a day or whatever and it won’t count against their grades?”
The blue and pink pastel ladies looked at each other. “Well, America is a Christian nation, Mrs. Michon.”
Molly didn’t want them to think she was a pushover. She was a smart woman. “But kids of other faiths can pray too, right?”
“I suppose so,” Katie said. “To themselves.”
“Oh good,” Molly said as she signed the petition, “because I know that Stevie could move up to the Red Jets reading group if he could sacrifice a chicken to Vigoth the Worm God, but the teacher won’t let him.” Why did I say that? Why did I say that? What if they ask where Stevie is?
“Mrs. Michon!”
“What? He’d do it at recess,” Molly said. “It’s not like it would cut into study time.”
“We are working on behalf of the One True God, Mrs. Michon. The Coalition is not an interfaith organization. I’m sure that if you had felt the power of His spirit, you wouldn’t talk that way.”
“Oh, I’ve felt it.”
“You have?”
“Of course. You can feel it too. Right now.”
“What do you mean?”
Molly handed the clipboard back to Katie and stood up. “Come next door with me. It’ll only take a second. I know you’ll feel it.”
Theo
Theo’s hopes of finding Mikey Plotznik rose as he drove through the residential areas of Pine Cove. Nearly every neighborhood had two or three people out searching with flashlights and cell phones. Theo stopped and took reports from each search party, then made suggestions as if he had the slightest idea what he was doing. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t even find his car keys half the time.
Most of Pine Cove’s neighborhoods were without sidewalks or streetlights. The canopy of pine trees absorbed the moonlight and darkness drank up Theo’s headlights like an ocean of ink. He plugged his handheld spotlight in the lighter socket and swept it across the houses and into the vacant lots, spotting nothing but a pair of mule deer eating someone’s rosebuds. As he drove by the beach park—a grass playground the size of a football field, surrounded by cypress trees and blocked from the Pacific wind by an eight-foot redwood fence—he spotted a flash of white moving on one of the picnic tables. He pulled into the parking strip beside the park and pointed the Volvo’s headlights, as well as the spotlight, at the table.
A couple was going at it right there on the table. The flash of white had been the man’s bare ass. Two faces turned into the light, eyes as wide as the two deer Theo had surprised earlier. Normally, Theo would have driven on. He was used to finding people “in the act” in cars behind the Head of the Slug, or parked along the more rugged strips of coastline. He wasn’t the sex police, after all. But tonight he was irritated by the scene. It had been almost a whole day since he’d had a hit from his Sneaky Pete. Maybe it’s a symptom of withdrawal, he thought.
He turned off the Volvo and got out, taking his flashlight with him. The couple scrambled into their clothes as he approached, but didn’t try to escape. There was nowhere for them to go except over the fence, where a narrow beach was bordered on both sides by cliffs and washed by treacherous, freezing rip tides.
When he was halfway across the park, Theo recognized the fornicators and stopped. The woman, a girl really, was Betsy Butler, a waitress down at H.P.‘s Cafe. She was struggling to pull down her skirt. The man, balding and slack-chested, was the newly widowed Joseph Leander. Theo flashed on the image of Bess Leander hanging from a peg in the spotless dining room.
“A little discretion’s in order here, you think Joe?” Theo shouted as he walked toward them.
“Uh, it’s Joseph, Constable.”
Theo felt his scalp go hot with anger. He wasn’t an angry man by nature, but nature hadn’t been working the last few days. “No, It’s Joseph when you’re doing business or when you’re grieving over your dead wife. When you’re boning a girl half your age on a picnic table in a public park, it’s Joe.”
“I—we—things have been so difficult. I don’t know what came over us—I mean, me. I mean…”
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen a kid around here tonight? A boy, about ten?”
The girl shook her head. She was covering her face with one hand and staring into the grass at her feet. Joseph Leander’s gaze darted around the park as if a magic escape hatch would open up in the dark if he could only spot it. “No, I haven’t seen a boy.”
Technically, Theo knew he could arrest them both on the spot for indecent exposure, but he didn’t want to take the time to process them into County Justice. “Go home, Joe. Alone. Your daughters shouldn’t be by themselves right now. Betsy, do you have a ride?”
Without uncovering her face, she said, “I only live two blocks away.”
“Go home. Now.” Theo turned and walked back to the Volvo. No one had ever accused Theo of being clever (except for the time at a college party when he fashioned an emergency bong out of a two-liter Coke bottle and a Bic pen), but he was feeling somewhat less than clever for not having investigated Bess Leander’s death more carefully. It was one thing to be hired because you’re thought to be a fool, it’s quite another to live up to the reputation. Tomorrow, he thought. First find the kid.
Molly
Molly stood in the mud with the two pastel Christian ladies looking at the dragon trailer.
&
nbsp; “Can you feel it?”
“Why, whatever do you mean?” Marge said. “That’s just a dirty old trailer—excuse me—mobile home.” Until a second ago, she had only been concerned with her powder-blue high heels sinking into the wet turf. Now she and her partner were staring at the dragon trailer, wide-eyed.
They could feel it, Molly could tell. She could feel it too: a low-grade sense of contentment, something vaguely sexual, not quite joy, but close. “You’re feeling it?”
The two women looked to each other, trying to deny that they were feeling anything. Their eyes were glazed over as if they’d been drugged, and they fidgeted as if suppressing giggles. Katie, the pink one, said, “Maybe we should visit these people.” She took a tentative step toward the dragon trailer.
Molly stepped in front of her. “There’s no one there. It’s just a feeling. You two should probably go fill out your petition.”
“It’s late,” said powder blue. “Maybe one more visit, then we have to go.”
“No!” Molly blocked their path. This wasn’t as fun as she thought it would be. She had wanted to freak them out a little, not harm them. She had the distinct feeling that if they got any closer to the dragon trailer, school prayer would be losing two well-groomed votes. “You two need to get home.” She took each by a shoulder and led them back to the street, then pushed them toward the entrance of the trailer park. They looked longingly over their shoulders at the dragon trailer.
“I feel the spirit moving in me, Katie,” Marge said.
Molly gave them another push. “Right, that’s a good thing. Off you go.” And she was supposed to be the crazy one.
“Go, go, go,” Molly said. “I have to get Stevie’s dinner ready.”
“We’re sorry we missed meeting your little boy,” Katie said. “Where is he?”
“Homework. See ya. Bye.”
Molly watched the women walk out of the park and climb into a new Chrysler minivan, then she turned back to the dragon trailer. For some reason, she was no longer afraid.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you, Stevie?”
The dragon trailer shifted shape, angles melting to curves, windows going back to eyes, but the glow wasn’t as intense as it had been in the early dawn. Molly saw the burned gill trees, the soot and blistered flesh between the scales. Soft blue lines of color flashed across the dragon’s flanks and faded. Molly felt her heart sink in sympathy. This thing, whatever it was, was hurting.
Molly took a few steps closer. “I have a feeling you’re too old to be a Stevie. And the original Stevie might be offended. How about Steve? You look like a Steve.” Molly liked the name Steve. Her agent at CAA had been named Steve. Steve was a good name for a reptile. (As opposed to Stevie, which was more of a frozen goldfish name.)
She felt a wave of warmth run through her amid the sadness. The monster liked his name.
“You shouldn’t have eaten that kid.”
Steve said nothing. Molly took another step forward, still on guard. “You have to go away. I can’t help you. I’m crazy, you know? I have the papers from the state to prove it.“
The Sea Beast rolled over on his back like a submissive puppy and gave Molly a pathetically helpless look, no easy task for an animal capable of swallowing a Volkswagen.
“No,” Molly said.
The Sea Beast whimpered, no louder than a newborn kitten.
“Oh, this is just swell,” Molly said. “Imagine the meds Dr. Val is going to put me on when I tell her about this. The vegetable and the lizard, that’s what they’ll call us. I hope you’re happy.”
Peer Pressure
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m
mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
— LEWIS CARROL,
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Thirteen
Breakfast
Somehow, through the night, the residents of Pine Cove, especially those who had been withdrawing from antidepressants, found a satisfied calm had fallen over them. It wasn’t that their anxiety was gone, but rather that it ran off their backs like warm rain off a naked toddler who has just discovered the splash and magic of mud. There was joy and sex and danger in the air—and a euphoric need to share.
Morning found many of them herding at the local restaurants for breakfast. Gathering together like wildebeests in the presence of a pride of lions, knowing instinctively that only one of them is going to fall to the fang: the one that is caught alone.
Jenny Masterson had been waiting tables at H.P.‘s Cafe for twelve years, and she couldn’t remember a day out of the tourist season when it had been so busy. She moved between her tables like a dancer, pouring coffee and decaf, taking orders and delivering food, catching the odd request for more butter or salsa, and snatching up a dirty plate or glass on her way back to the window. No movement wasted, no customer ignored. She was good—really good—and sometimes that bugged the hell out of her.
Jenny was just forty, slender and fair-skinned with killer legs and long auburn hair that she wore pinned up when she worked. With her husband Robert, she owned Brine’s Bait, Tackle, and Fine Wines, but after three months of trying to work with the man she loved and after the birth of her daughter Amanda, who was five, she returned to waitressing to save her marriage and her sanity. Somewhere between college and today, she had become a bull moose waitress, and she never ceased to wonder how in the hell that had happened. How had she become the repository for local information bordering on gossip, and how had she become so damn good at picking up her customers’ conversations, and following them as she moved around the restaurant?
Today the restaurant was full of talk about Mikey Plotznik, who had disappeared along his paper route the day before. There was talk of the search and speculation on the kid’s fate. At a few of her two-tops were seated couples who seemed intent on reliving their sexual adventures from the night before and—if the pawing and fawning were any indication—were going to resume again after breakfast. Jenny tried to tune them out. There was a table of her old-guy coffee drinkers, who were trading misinformation on politics and lawn care; at the counter a couple of construction workers intent on putting in a rare Saturday’s work read the paper over bacon and eggs; and over in the corner, Val Riordan, the local shrink, was scribbling notes on a legal pad at a table all by herself. That was unusual. Dr. Val didn’t normally make appearances in Pine Cove during the day. Stranger than that, Estelle Boyet, the seascape painter, was having her tea with a Black gentleman who looked as if he would jump out of his skin at the slightest touch.
Jenny heard some commotion coming from the register and turned to see her busgirl arguing with Molly Michon, the Crazy Lady. Jenny made a beeline for the counter.
“Molly, you’re not supposed to be in here,” Jenny said calmly but firmly. Molly had been eighty-sixed for life after she had attacked H.P.‘s espresso machine.
“I just need to cash this check. I need to get some money to buy medicine for a sick friend.”
The busgirl, a freshman at Pine Cove High, bolted into the kitchen, tossing “I told her” over her shoulder as she went.
Jenny looked at the check. It was from the Social Security Administration and it was above the amount she was allowed to accept. “I’m sorry, Molly, I can’t do it.”
“I have photo ID.” Molly pulled a videotape out of her enormous handbag and plopped it on the counter. There was a picture of a half-naked woman tied between two stakes on the cover. The titles were in Italian.
“That’s not it, Molly. I’m not allowed to cash a check for that much. Look, I don’t want any trouble, but if Howard sees you in here, he’ll call the police.”
“The police are here,” came a man’s voice.
Jenny looked up to see Theophilus Cr
owe towering behind Molly. “Hi, Theo.” Jenny liked Theo. He reminded her of Robert before he had quit drinking—semitragic but good-natured.
“Can I help here?”
“I really need to get some money,” Molly said. “For medicine.”
Jenny shot a look to the corner, where Val Riordan looked up from her notes with an expression of dread on her face. The psychiatrist obviously didn’t want to be brought into this.
Theo took the check gently from Molly and looked at it, then said to Jenny, “It’s a government check, Jenny. I’m sure it’s good. Just this once? Medicine.” He winked at Jenny from behind Molly’s back.
“Howard will kill me when he sees it. Every time he looks at the espresso machine, he mutters something about spawn of evil.”
“I’ll back you up. Tell him it was in the interest of public safety.”
“Oh, okay. You’re lucky we’re busy today and I have the cash to spare.” Jenny handed Molly a pen. “Just endorse it.”
Molly signed the check with a flourish and handed it over. Jenny counted out the bills on the counter. “Thanks,” Molly said. Then to Theo, “Thanks. Hey, you want a collector’s edition of Warrior Babes?” She held the videotape out to him.
“Uh, no thanks, Molly. I can’t accept gratuities.”
Jenny craned her neck to look at the cover of the tape.
“It’s in Italian, but you can figure it out,” Molly said.
Theo shook his head and smiled.
“Okay,” Molly said. “Gotta go.” She turned and walked out of the restaurant, leaving Theo staring at her back.
“I guess she really was in movies,” Jenny said. “Did you see the picture on the cover?”
“Nope,” Theo said.
“Amazing. Did she look like that?”
Theo shrugged. “Thanks for taking her check, Jenny. I’ll find a seat. Just some coffee and an English muffin.”
“Any luck finding the Plotznik kid?”
Theo shook his head as he walked away.
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