The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove - By Christopher Moore Page 0,71

she said. "I suppose now they could fix it, but it's a little late."

"I'm sorry," Theo said. "I think you look beautiful."

She smiled and shifted both of the pistols to one hand. She'd left the assault rifle by the door and Theo hadn't even noticed. "You ever feel special, Theo?"

"Special?"

"Not like you're better than everyone else, just that you're different in a good way, like it makes a difference that you're on the planet? You ever feel that way?"

"I don't know. No, not really."

"I had that for a while. Even though they were cheesy B movies and even though I had to do some humiliating things to get into them, I felt special, Theo. Then it went away. Well, now I feel that way again. That's why."

"Why what?"

"You asked me why before. That's why I'm going back to Steve."

"Steve? You call him Steve?"

"He looked like a Steve," Molly said. "I have to go. I'll leave your guns in the bed of that red truck you stole. Don't try to follow, okay?"

Theo nodded. "Molly, don't let it kill anybody else. Promise me that."

"Promise to leave us alone?"

"I can't do that."

"Okay. Take care of yourself." She grabbed the assault rifle, kicked open the door, and stepped out.

Theo heard her go down the steps, pause, then come back up. She popped her head in the door. "I'm sorry you never felt special, Theo," she said.

Theo forced a smile. "Thanks, Molly."

Gabe

Gabe stood in the foyer of Valerie Riordan's home, looking at his hiking boots, then the white carpet, then his boots again. Val had gone into the kitchen to get some wine. Skinner was wandering around outside.

Gabe sat down on the marble floor, unlaced his boots, then slipped them off. He'd once been into a level-nine clean room at a biotech facility in San Jose, a place where the air was scrubbed and filtered down to the micron and you had to wear a plastic bunny suit with its own air umbilical to avoid contaminating the specimens. Strangely, he'd had a similar feeling to the one he was feeling now, which was: I am the harbinger of filth. Thank God Theo had made him shower and change before his date.

Val came into the sunken living room carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She looked up at Gabe, who was standing at the edge of the stairs as if ready to wade into molten lava.

"Well, come on in and have a seat," Val said.

Gabe took a tentative step. "Nice place," he said.

"Thanks, I still have a lot to do on it. I suppose I should just hire a decorator and have done with it, but I like finding pieces myself."

"Right," Gabe said, taking another step. You could play handball in this room if you didn't mind destroying a lot of antiques.

"It's a cabernet from Wild Horse Vineyard over the hill. I hope you like it." Val poured the wine into stemmed bubble glasses. She took hers and sat down on the velvet couch, then raised her eyebrows as if to say, "Well?"

Gabe joined her at the other end of the couch, then took a tentative sip of the wine. "It's nice."

"For a local cheapie," Val said.

An awkward silence passed between them. Val made a show of tasting the wine again, then said, "You don't really believe this stuff about a sea monster, do you, Gabe?"

Gabe was relieved. She wanted to talk about work. He'd been afraid that she would want to talk about something else - anything else - and he didn't really know how. "Well, there are the tracks, which look very authentic, so if they are fake, whoever did them studied fossil tracks and replicated them perfectly. Then there's the timing of the rat migration, plus Theo and your patient. Estelle, was it?"

Val set down her wine. "Gabe, I know you're a scientist, and a discovery like this could make you rich and famous, but I just don't believe there's a dinosaur in town."

"Rich and famous? I hadn't thought about it. I guess there would be some recognition, wouldn't there?"

"Look, Gabe, you deal in hard facts, but every day I deal with the delusions and constructions of people's minds. They are just tracks on the ground, probably like that Bigfoot hoax in Washington a few years ago. Theo is a chronic drug user, and Estelle and her boyfriend Catfish are artist types. They all have overactive imaginations."

Gabe was put off by her judgment of Theo and the others.

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