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Twenty-two

Theo

The walls of Molly’s trailer were plastered withthe scattered videotapes, azines, and junk mail and slowly turned It was her, Molly She hadn’t been lying all this ties, but every one featured a younger Molly in various states of undress, holding weapons or fighting off bad guys, her hair flying in the wind, a nuked-out city or a desert littered with huround

The adolescent male part of Theo, the part that every rave, reared up She was a movie star A hot movie star! And he knew her, had in fact put handcuffs on her If there was only a locker room, a street corner, or a second-period study hall where he could brag about it to his friends But he didn’t really have any friends, except for Gabe rown-up The prurient uilty about the way he had treated Molly: patronizing her and condescending to her; the waybesides a pothead and puppet

He kneeled down to a bookshelf filled with videotapes, found one labeled KENDRA: WARRIOR BABE OF THE OUT

LAND (ENGLISH), and slipped it into the VCR and turned on the television Then he turned off the lights, laid his guns on the coffee table, and lay down on Molly’s couch to wait He watched as the Crazy Lady of Pine Cove battled mutants and Sand Pirates for half an hour before he drifted off to sleep His mind needed a deeper escape from his problems than the movie could provide

"Hi, Theo"

He ca light over the roo She stood in the doorway, half in shadow, looking very much like the woman on the television screen She held an assault rifle at her side

"Molly, I’ve been waiting for you"

"How’d you like it?" She nodded toward the television

"Loved it I never realized I was just so tired"

Molly nodded "I won’t be long, I just caet some clean clothes You’re welcome to stay here"

Theo didn’t knohat to do It didn’t seerab one of the pistols off the table He felt more embarrassed than threatened

"Thanks," he said

"He’s the last one, Theo After him there aren’t any more of his kind His time has passed I think that’s e have in common You don’t knohat it is to be a has-been, do you?"

"I think I’m what they call a never-was"

"That’s easier At least you’re always looking up the ladder, not down Co down is scarier"

"How? Why? What is he?"

"I’ainst the doorway and sighed "But I can kinda tell what he’s thinking I guess it’s because I’ht that would come in handy, huh?"

"Don’t say that about yourself You’re saner than I ahed, and Theo could see her ht of the television "You’re a neurotic, Theo A neurotic is so with him, but everyone else thinks he is nor with her Take a poll of the locals, I think I’d coory, don’t you?"

"Molly, this is really dangerous stuff you’rewith"

"He won’t hurt o to jail just for having thatkilled, aren’t they?"

"In a "

"That’s what happened to Joseph Leander, and the guys working the drug lab, right? Your pal ate thery See to me"

"Molly, that’sto do to ed his shoulders and sat back on the couch "I don’t knohat to do"

"You’re not in a position to do anything right now Get some rest"

Theo cradled his head in his hands His cell phone, still in the pocket of his flannel shirt, began ringing "I could sure use a hit right now"

"There’s some Smurfs of Sanity in the cupboard over the sink - neuroleptics Dr Val gave me, antipsychotics - they’ve done wonders for "

Theo pulled out the phone, flipped it open, hit the answer button and watched as the inco number ap peared on the display It was Sheriff Burton’s cell phone number Theo hit disconnect

"I’num from the table, held it on Theo, then picked up Joseph Leander’s auto to get sos out of my bedroo He spoke into his lap

"You’re buone from the rooet a handle on what had happened Molly returned with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder She earing the Kendra costuht froed scar over her breast She caught hi

"Ended my career," 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 s 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 askedback to Steve"

"Steve? You call hio 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 ho boots, then the white carpet, then his boots again Val had gone into the kitchen to get so 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 uely, he’d had a si nohich was: I aer of filth Thank God Theo had e before his date

Val ca a tray with a bottle of wine and two glasses She looked up at Gabe, as 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 piecesanother step You could play handball in this roo 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 stelasses 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 aard silence passed between theain, 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 so else - and he didn’t really kno "Well, there are the tracks, which look very authentic, so if they are fake, whoever did them studied fossil tracks and replicated theration, 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 fauess there would be sonition, wouldn’t there?"

"Look, Gabe, you deal in hard facts, but every day I deal with the delusions and constructions of people’s round, 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 iht for a second, then said, "As a biologist, I have a theory about iination I think it’s pretty obvious that fear - fear of loud noises, fear of heights, the capacity to learn fear - is so that we’ve adapted over the years as a survival ination Everyone thinks that it was the big strong caveirl, and for the th doesn’t explain how our species cre-ated civilization I think there was always soht, who had the ability to iination and see possibilities, and therefore sur-vived to pass his genes on to the next generation When the big apekilled while trying to beat a mas-todon into sub, ’Hey, that ht work, but you need to run the mastodon off the cliff’ And, then he’d ot killed"

"So nerds rule," Val said with a shly evolved, then so the world" Val was getting into the theory of it no strange to talk to a endas Val liked it A lot

Gabe said, "Well, we didn’t miss that by far with Hitler, did we? Evolution takes so teeth worked pretty well for a while, then they got too big Mastodons’ tusks got so large they would snap the animal’s neck And you’ve probably noticed that there are no saber-toothed cats around anyination is an evolutionary leap But what about depression?" Talking aboutabout what she’d done to her patients Her criet out "Psychiatry is looking more and more at mental conditions from a physical point of view, so that fits That’s e’re treating depres-sion with drugs like Prozac But what evolutionary purpose is there for depression?"

"I’ve been thinking about that since you lass andcloser, she would share in his excitement He was in his eleher mammals like dolphins and whales can die froure out what purpose it serves But in huhtedness: civilization has protected a biological weakness that would have been weeded out by natural dangers or predators"

"Predators? How?"

"I don’t know Depression er Who knows?"

"So a predator ht and it’son depressed people, what have I been doing? She suddenly felt ashamed of her hoht e, and she had sold her integrity for solass of wine and sat back now, thinking as he spoke "Interesting idea I suppose there could be soer preying on the depressed Low serotonin levels tend to raise libido, right? At least temporarily?"

"Yes," Val said That’s why the entire town has turned into horndogs, she thought

"Therefore," Gabe continued, "you’d have ene Nature tends to evolve mechanisms to remain in balance A predator or a disease would naturally evolve to keep the depressed population down Interesting, I’ve been feeling especially horny lately, I wonder if I’m depressed" Gabe’s eyes snapped open wide and he looked at Val with the full-blown terror of what he had just said He gulped his wine, then said, "I’m sorry, I"

Val couldn’t stand it anyate, and she stepped through it "Gabe, we have to talk"

"I’rabbed his ar"

Gabe braced himself for the worst He’d fallen out of the lofty world of theory into the aard, gritty world of first dates, and she was going to drop the "Don’t get the wrong idea" bo into his bicep hard enough to o, I took almost a third of the people in Pine Cove off antidepressants"

"Huh?" That wasn’t at all what he’d expected "My God, why?"

"Because of Bess Leander’s suicide Or what I thought was her suicide I was just going through thefees" She explained about her arrangement with Winston Krauss and how the phars When she finished, to wait for his judg up in her eyes

He put his ar to do "Why tell ainst his chest "Because I trust you and because I have to tell soure out what to do I don’t want to go to jail, Gabe Maybe all my patients didn’t need to be on antidepressants, but a lot of thean to stroke her hair, then pushed up her chin and kissed her tears