The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

peeling off his heart like old paint. Her hair was down.
    Brushed out, it hung to her waist. She was wearing a pair of pink overalls that had been splattered with paint over a man's white T-shirt – his T-shirt, he realized. She looked to him like what he always thought home was supposed to look like, but as a Bluesman, he was bound by tradition to be cool.
    "Hey, girl what you doin' here?"
    "I called her," Mavis said. "This is your driver."
    "What I need a driver for?"
    "I'll tell you." Estelle took his hand and led him to a booth in the corner.
    Winston Krauss came through the door a second later and Mavis waved him over to the bar. "Son, I'm about to make you the happiest man in the whole world."
    "You are? Why?"
    "Because I like to see people get what they want. And I have what you want."
    "You do?"
    Mavis stepped up to the bar and in low, conspiratorial tones, began telling Winston Krauss the most titillating, outrageously erotic tale that she had ever told, trying the whole time to remember that the man she was talking to wanted to have sex with marine animals.
    Over in the corner booth, Catfish's modicum of cool had melted. Estelle was smiling, even as tears welled up in her eyes. "I wouldn't ask you to do it if I thought it would put you in danger.Really."
    "I know that," Catfish said, a gentleness in his voice that he usually reserved for kittens and traffic cops. "It just that I been runnin from this my whole life."
    "I don't think so," Estelle said. "I think you've been running to this."
    Catfish grinned. "You gonna take them old Blues off me for good, ain't you?"
    "You know it."
    "Then let's go." Catfish stood up and turned to where Mavis and Winston stood.
    "We ready? Y'all ready?" He noticed that the front of Winston's trousers had become overly tight.
    "Yeah, you ready. You sick, but you ready."
    Mavis nodded, a slight mechanical ratcheting noise coming from her neck, "Take the second turn out, not the first," Mavis said to Estelle. "From there it hugs the coast sothere's no hills."
    "I have to go get my mask and fins," wailed Winston. thirty-one Molly "Has it been five minutes yet?" Molly was sitting cross-legged, her sword held across her knees. Theo jumped as if he'd been poked with an ice pick,then checked his watch. He crouched by the cave mouth, listening for the sound of either salvation or death.
    "About a minute left. Where the hell are they? Molly, maybe you should find some cover."
    "What cover?" She looked around the cave. It was an open chamber; the only cover would be the darkness in the back of the chamber.
    "Get behind Steve."
    "No," Molly said. "I won't do that." She heard a voice come from the back of her mind."Get to cover, you daffy broad. What, do you have a death wish?"
    "I have abandonment issues. I'm not going to turn around and abandon someone else," Molly said.
    "What?" Theo said.
    "I wasn't talking to you."
    "Fine, die. What do I care?" said the narrator.
    "Bastard," Molly said.
    "What?" saidTheo.
    "Not you!"
    "Molly, how did you get those guys to come out and drag me into the cave before?"
    "I just told them to."
    "Well, take their clothes back to them and tell them to get dressed."
    "Why?"
    "Just do it. And tell them to hang on to Steve's sides and not let go, no matter what he does."
    "Nowwho's nuts?"
    "Molly, please, I'm trying to save him."
    The Sheriff Burtonchecked his watch. "That's it. Get into position. We're going in."
    Sergeant Sheridan wasn't so sure. "They have thirty hostages and we don't have any recon of their positions and we don't have a full team. You want to take this guy out with thirty witnesses?"
    "Goddamn it,Sheridan, get your men in position. We go on my signal."
    "Sheriff Burton."Theo's voice from the cave.
    "What?"
    "I'll take your offer," Theo said. "Give me five more minutes and I'll come out. We can all leave together. The others will come out after you're gone."
    "You just want him anyway, right?"Sheridan said. "He's the only one that can hurt the operation."
    Burtonturned it over in his mind. He'd been determined to take out the constable and the woman, but now he had to rethink things. If he could get Crowe away from the others, he could dispose of him with no witnesses.
    Burton's cell phone rang. He flipped it open. "Burton," he said.
    "You shouldn't have made disparaging comments about my weight, Sheriff," the Spider said.
    "Nailsworth, you piece of sh-" The line went dead. Suddenly the sound of a wailing Blues guitar came screaming over