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Nine

When Mikey "the Collector" Plotznik wheeled into town and saw that the Texaco station had blown up, leaving a charred circle two hundred yards wide around it, he knew that it was going to be a great day It was a sha up too, and he’d et to see the toasting of a major landmark like the Texaco The fire was all out now, but several firee The Collector waved to them as he wheeled by They waved back, somewhat reticently, for the Collector’s reputation preceded him and ht The Texaco was an o dream Today he’d catch Molly Michon naked, and when he did (and brought back the proof), his reputation would grow to mythic proportions He patted the disposable camera he carried in the front pouch of his hooded sweatshirt Oh yes, he’d have evidence to back up his story They would believe him - and bow to him

At this point in his life, the Collector was more interested in explosions than in naked women He was only ten, and it would be a couple of years before his interests e of devel-opment known as "pyrotechnic fascination," but that was only because there wasn’t an abundant supply of disposable lighters in nineteenth-cen-tury Vienna Ten-year-old boys blow shit up It’s what they do But today a strange new feeling had co he couldn’t put a word to, but if he could, the ould have been "horny" As he Rollerbladed through town, tossing the Los Angeles Ti Cypress Street, he felt a tightness in his shorts that until now he had associated with having to take a raging pee in the nified a need to see the Crazy Lady in a state of undress

Paperboys are the carriers of preadolescent myth On every paper route, there is a haunted house, a kid-eating dog, an old woman who tips with twenties, and a woman who answers the door in the nude Mikey had never actually seen any of these things, but that never stopped hi wild stories for his buddies at school Today he would get proof, he could feel it in his loins

He skated down the driveway into the Fly Rod Trailer Court, chucked a paper into the rose bushes in front of Mr Nunez’s trailer, then made a beeline for the Crazy Lady’s house He could see a blue glow coh her s, a TV She was home and awake Yes!

He pulled up a couple of doors down and noticed that a new trailer had ive it a try? The Crazy Lady didn’t receive the paper, so his pretense for knocking on her door was to get her to subscribe He could practice on these new people As he skated up to the front door of the new trailer, lights cae curtains - they looked like cat’s eyes

Through a part in the curtains, Molly watched the kid come down the road into the trailer park She liked kids, but she didn’t like this kid At least once a week he knocked on her door and tried to get her to subscribe to the paper, and once a week she told hi one of his little buddies along She could hear the to peek in the s "Swear to God, she’s got a dead guy in there that she does it with I’ve seen hi for theon her TV - Mechanized Death: Warrior Babe VII - and THE SCENE was co up Molly looked away from theand watched THE SCENE for the thousandth ti a rack of net guns as the jeep pursues the Evil Warlord across the desert The driver turns, as he is supposed to, throwing up a fishtail of dust, but the front wheel of the jeep hits a rock and the jeep rolls Kendra is thrown fifty feet in the air and lands in a heap The steel bra she is wearing cuts deep into her chest and blood sprays out across the dust

The bastards! Every time she watches THE SCENE she can’t believe the bastards left it in The accident was real, the blood was Molly’s, and when she returned to the set ten days later, a security guard escorted her to the producer’s trailer

"I can pay you extra’s wages as a mutant," the producer said, "but let’s face it, babe, you didn’t get your billing because of your acting ability You think I’ for ten days when the whole schedule is only three weeks long? We got a new Kendra Wrote the accident and the facial reconstruction into the script She’s a cyborg no you can get in line with the et the fuck off the set My audience wants perfect bodies, and you were getting up there anyway With that scar you don’t sell anymore"

Molly had just turned twenty-seven years old

She pulled herself froain The kid was there, right there in front of the

She pounded on theand the kid looked up, not startled, but with a dreaestured for hi out of didn’t open (Trailers built in those days were designed so people would burn up in case of a fire The ht it would keep the lawsuits down)

The kid just stood there, his fist poised before the door as if he were frozen in the an to open Not on the hinges, but vertically, like a garage door Molly pounded furiously on the ith the hilt of her sword The kid sue snaked out of the door, wrapped around the kid, and slurped him in, Rollerblades, paper satchel, and all Molly screamed The door sla what to do A few seconds later the mouth opened and expectorated a soccer-ball-sized wad of newspaper

Theo

The hours of Theo’s day hadon razor wire By four in the afternoon, he felt as if he’d been awake for a week and the cups of French roast he’d been drinking had turned to foa acid in his stole call for a bar fight or do-mestic dispute, so he had spent the entire day at the scene of the fuel truck explosion, talking to fireator sent up frooing all day without a hit from his Sneaky Pete pot pipe had not sent him into fits of anxiety as it usually did He was a little paranoid, but he wasn’t sure that that wasn’t just an informed response to the world anyway

At a quarter past four, the arson investigator crossed the charred parking lot to where Theo was leaning on the hood of his Volvo The investigator was in his late twenties, clean-cut, and carried hie toxic waste suit He carried a plastic space helmet under his arm like a tumorous football

"Constable Crowe, I think that’s about all I can do today It’ll be dark soon, and as long as we keep the area closed off, I’"

"What’s your call so far?

"Well, we generally look for evidence of accelerants, gas, kerosene, paint thinner - and I’d say there were definitely some flammable liquids involved here" He smiled a weary smile

"So you don’t knohat happened?"

"Offhand, I’d say a fuel truck blew up, but without further investigation I’d hate to ain the smile

Theo smiled back "So no cause?"

"The driver probably didn’t seal the hose correctly and a cloud of fuht, so the fu could have set it off: the driver could have been ser place, a spark in the truck exhaust Right now I’d say it was totally accidental It was a co a profit, so there really isn’t a financialyour town a new burger stand and probably paying off so trauma, duress, and irritation"

"I have the information on the driver," Theo said "I’ll check to see if he was a s quiet" came a voice froator looked up to see Vance McNally coray powder "I’ve got hiate hi to have to do the autopsy with a flour sifter," Vance said

The investigator took the Ziploc froarette lighter? Anything like that?"

"Not my job," Vance said "The fire was so hot it turned the seat springs to liquid Even incinerated the bones, except for those little bits of calciuht be giving his wife a bag full of burnt-up truck parts to put in an urn on theback to Vance Then to Theo he said, "I’ home I’ll coive the okay, the oil coround tanks"

"Thanks," Theo said The investigator left in a county car

Vance McNally turned the Ziploc bag of truck driver in the air "Theo, this ever happens toparty, and snort me, okay?"

"You have friends, Vance?"

"Okay, it was just an idea," Vance said He turned and carried his bag to the waiting ain the charred brush beyond the Texaco It looked as if soether too close to the yellow tape he had run around the periuarding the scene? He pried himself off the Volvo and headed for the offender

"Hey there!" Theo called

Gabe Fenton, the biologist, e up some kind of antenna, followed by his Labrador retriever, Skinner The dog ran to reeted him with two muddy paw prints on the chest

Theo rubbed Skinner’s ears to hold hi Labrador controldown here?"

The biologist was covered with burrs and foxtails, his face striped with soot from the charred brush He looked exhausted, yet there was a note of excite on ecstasy in his voice "You won’t believe this, Theo My rats "

Theo tried, but couldn’t match Gabe’s enthusiasht"

Gabe Fenton looked around at the surrounding area as if seeing the destruction for the first ti"

"Hmmm, maybe they sensed it"

"They?"

"The rats Around 2 AM they all started ure out what caused it Here, look at the screen" Gabe had a laptop computer strapped into a harness around his waist He turned it so Theo could see the screen "Each of these dots represents an ani chip Here’s their location at 1 AM" He clicked a key and the screen drew a topographical map of the area Green dots were scattered prettythe creek bed and the business district of Pine Cove

Gabe hit another key "Now here they are at two" All but a few of the dots had moved into the ranchland east of Pine Cove

"Uh-huh," Theo said Gabe was a nice guy Spent too uy Gabe needs to talk to huht

"Well, don’t you see? They all moved at once, except for these ten over here that moved to the shore"

"Uh-huh," Theo said "Gabe, the Texaco blew up A guy was killed I was talking to firemen in space suits all day Every paper in the county has called me The battery is almost out on my cell phone I haven’t eaten since yesterday and I only slept an hour last night Help ration, okay?"

Gabe looked crestfallen "Well, I don’t know the significance yet I’ the anoroup Strange thing is, four of the ten disappeared off my screen a little after two Even if they were killed, the chips should still transmit I need to find them"

"And I wish you the best of luck, but this area erous You can’t be here, buddy"

"Maybe there were fumes," Gabe said "But that doesn’t explain why they all h this area from the shore"

Theo couldn’t bear to express to Gabe how little he cared "You had any dinner, Gabe?"

"No, I’ve been doing this since last night"

"Pizza, Gabe We need pizza and beer I’ll buy"

"But I need to"

"You’re a single guy, Gabe You need pizza every eighteen hours or you can’t function properly And I have a question to ask you about footprints, but I want you to watch me drink a few beers before I ask so I can claim diminished capacity Come, Gabe, let estured to his Volvo "You can stick the antenna out the sunroof"

"I guess I could take a break"

Theo opened the passenger door and Skinner leapt into the car, leaving sooty paw prints on the seat "Your dog needs pizza It’s the hu to do"

"Okay," Gabe said

"I want to show you so over by the creek bed"

"What"

"A footprint Or what’s left of one"

Ten s of beer at Pizza in the Pines, Pine Cove’s only pizza parlor They’d taken atable so Gabe could keep an eye on Skinner, as bouncing up and down outside, giving the view of the street, then the street with dog face (ears akiain Other than to order a beer, Gabe Fenton hadn’t said a word since they’d gone to the creek bed

"Will he just keep doing that?" Theo asked

"Until we take hied "He’s a dog"

"Always the biologist"

"One needs to keep the mind limber"

"Well, what do you think?"

"I think that you obliterated ht was a footprint"

"Gabe, it was a footprint A talon or so"

"There are a thousand explanations for a depression in the mud like that, Theo, but one of them is not an animal track"

"Why not?"

"Well, for one, there hasn’t been anything that large on this continent for about sixty million years, and for another, animals tend to leave more than one track, unless it’s a creature especially adapted for hopping" Gabe grinned

The flying dog head pogoed by the sill

"There were a lot of people and vehicles around there, the other tracks ination run aith you You’ve had a long day and"

"And I’ to say that"

"I know, I’ it Tell me about your rats What will you do when you find the for the stiroup that rated and compare their brain chemistry to those that headed toward the shore"

"Does that hurt them?"

"You have to blend up their brains and run the liquid in a centrifuge"

"I guess so then"

The waitress brought their pizza and Gabe was severing cables of cheese fro The constable listened for a second, then stood and dug into his pocket for o, Gabe"

"What’s up?"

"The Plotznik kid isNo one’s seen hi"

"Probably hiding That kid is evil He rigged up so with his remote control car that affected the chips in ure out why they were running figure eights in the parking lot outside the grocery story before I found hi in the weeds with the controller"

"I know," Theo said "Mikey told ether, he could pick up the Discovery Channel I still have to find hiood tracker Want to take him?"

"Thanks, but I doubt that the kid had a pizza in his pocket"

Theo folded his phone, snagged a slice of pizza for the road, and headed out the door