The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

the area?"
    "That's easy." The Spider's fingers danced over the keyboard. "You think the kid was snatched?"
    "I don't know shit," Theo said.
    The Spider said, "No known pedophiles in Pine Cove. You want the whole county?"
    "Why not?"
    The laser printer whirred and the Spider pointed through the dark at the noise. "Everything you want is back there. That's all I can do for you."
    "Thanks, Nailgun, I appreciate it." Theo felt a chronic case of the creeps going up his spine. He took a step into the dark and found the papers sitting in the tray of the laser printer. Then he stepped to the door. "You wanna buzz me out?"
    The Spider swiveled in his chair and looked at Theo for the first time. Theo could see his piggy eyes shining out of deep craters.
    "You still live in that cabin by the Beer Bar Ranch?"
    "Yep," Theo said. "Eight years now."
    "Never beenon the ranch, though, have you?"
    "No." Theo cringed. Could the Spider know about Sheriff Burton's hold over him?
    "Good," the Spider said. "Stay out of there.And Theo?"
    "Yeah?"
    "Sheriff Burton has been checking with me on everything that comes out of Pine Cove. After the Leander death and the truck blowing up, he got very jumpy. If you decide to pursue the Leander thing, stay low-key."
    Theo was amazed. The Spider had actually volunteered information. "Why?" was all he couldsay.
    "I like the herb you bring me." The Spider patted his shirt pocket.
    Theo smiled. "You won't tellBurton you gave me the autopsy report?"
    "Why would I?" said the Spider.
    "Take care," Theo said. The Spider turned back to his screens and buzzed the door.
    Molly Molly wasn't so sure that life as Pine Cove's Crazy Lady wasn't harder than being a Warrior Babe of the Outland. Things were pretty clear for a Warrior Babe: you ran around half-naked looking for food and fuel and occasionally kicked the snot out of some mutants. There was no subterfuge or rumor. You didn't have to guess whether or not the Sand Pirates approved of your behavior. If they approved, they staked you out and tortured you. If they didn't, they called you a bitch,then they staked you out and tortured you. They might release starving radioactive cockroaches on you or burn you with hot pokers, they might even gang-rape you (in foreign-release directors' cuts only), but you always knew where you stood with Sand Pirates. And they never tittered. Molly had had all the tittering she could handle for the day. At the pharmacy, they had tittered.
    Four elderly women worked the counter at Pine Cove Drug and Gift, while above them, behind his glass window, Winston Krauss, the dolphin-molesting pharmacist lorded over them like a rooster over a barnyard full of hens. It didn't seem to matter to Winston that his four hens couldn't make change or answer the simplest question, nor that they would retreat to the back room when anyone younger than thirty entered the pharmacy, lest they have to sell something embarrassing like condoms. What mattered to Winston was that his hens worked for minimum wage and treated him like a god. He was behind glass; tittering didn't bother him.
    The hens started tittering when Molly hit the door and broke titter only when she came to the counter with an entire case of economy-sized Neosporin ointment.
    "Are you sure, dear?" they kept asking, refusing to take Molly's money. "Perhaps we should ask
    Winston. This seems like an awful lot."
    Winston had disappeared among the shelves of faux-antidepressants when Molly entered the store.
    He wondered if he should have ordered some faux-antipsychotics as well. Val Riordan hadn't said.
    "Look," Molly finally said, "I'm nuts. You know it, I know it,Winston knows it. But inAmerica it is your right to be nuts. I get a check from the state every month because I'm nuts. The state gives me money so I can buy whatever I need to continue being nuts, and right now I need this case of ointment.
    So ring it up so I can go be nuts somewhere else. Okay?"
    The hens huddled and tittered.
    "Or do I need to buy a case of those huge fluorescent orange prelubricated condoms with the deely-bobbers on the tip and blow them up in your card section." You never have to get this tough with Sand Pirates, Molly thought.
    The hens broke their huddle and looked up in terror.
    "I hear they're like thousands of tiny fingers, urging you to let go," Molly added.
    Between the four of them it only took ten minutes more to ring up Molly's order and figure her change within the nearest dollar.
    As Molly was