Les escaped the smile to hardware land. “I can’t even tell what you’re trying to do here, but whatever it is, it looks like you mucked it up pretty bad already.”

“No, come here and look at this.”

Les moved cautiously to Molly’s side and looked up at the trailer. “What the hell is this thing made of anyway? Up close it looks like plastic or something.”

“Maybe you should look at it from the inside,” Molly said. “The damage is more obvious in there.”

The hardware clerk leered. Molly felt him trying to stare through her sweatshirt. “Well, if that’s what you think. Let’s go inside and have a look.” He started toward the door of the trailer.

Molly grabbed his shoulder. “Wait a second. Where are the keys to your truck?”

“I leave ‘em in it. Why? This town is safe.”

“No reason, just wondering.” Molly dazzled him with another smile. “Why don’t you go on in? I’ll be in as soon as I get some of this tar off of my hands.”

“Sure thing, missy,” Les said. He toddled toward the front door like a man badly in need of a rest room.

Molly backed away toward Les’s truck. When the hardware clerk laid a hand on the door handle, Molly called, “Steve! Lunch!”

“My name isn’t Steve,” Les said.

“No,” Molly said, “you’re the other one.”

“Les, you mean?”

“No, lunch.” Molly gave him one last smile.

Steve recognized the sound of his name and felt the thought around the word “lunch”

Les felt something wet wrap around his legs and opened his mouth to scream just as the tip of the serpent’s tongue wrapped his face, cutting off his air. The last thing he saw was the bare breasts of the fallen scream queen, Molly Michon, as she lifted her sweatshirt to give him a farewell flash before he was slurped into the waiting maw of the Sea Beast.

Molly heard the bones crunch and cringed. Boy, sometimes it just pays to be a nutcase, she thought. That sort of thing might bother a sane person.

One of the windows in the front of the dragon trailer closed slowly and opened, a function of the Sea Beast pushing his meal down his throat, but Molly took it for a wink.

Dr. Val’s office had always represented a little island of sanity to Estelle, a sophisticated status quo, always clean, calm, orderly, and well appointed. Like many artists, Estelle lived in an atmosphere of chaotic funk, taken by observers to be artistic charm, but in fact no more than a civilized way of dealing with the relative poverty and uncertainly of cannibalizing one’s imagination for money. If you had to spill your guts to someone, it was nice to do it in a place that wasn’t spattered with paint and covered with canvases that beckoned to be finished. Dr. Val’s office was an escape, a pause, a comfort. But not today.

After being sent in to the inner office, before she even sat down in one of the leather guest chairs, Estelle said, “Your assistant is wearing oven mitts, did you know that?”

Valerie Riordan, for once with a few hairs out of place, rubbed her temples, looked at her desk blotter, and said, “I know. She has a skin condition.”

“But they’re taped on with duct tape.”

“It’s a very bad skin condition. How are you today?”

Estelle looked back toward the door. “Poor thing. She seemed out of breath when I came in. Has she seen a doctor?”

“Chloe will be fine, Estelle. Her typing skills may even improve.”

Estelle sensed that Dr. Val was not having a good day and decided to let the assistant in oven mitts pass. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice. I know it’s been a while since we’ve had a session, but I really felt I need to talk to someone. My life has gotten a little weird lately.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Dr. Val said, doodling on a legal pad as she spoke. “What’s up?”

“I’ve met a man.”

Dr. Val looked up for the first time. “You have?”

“He’s a musician. A Bluesman. He’s been playing at the Slug. I met him there. We’ve been, well, he’s been staying at my place for the last couple of days.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“I like it. I like him. I haven’t been with a man since my husband died. I thought I would feel like, well, like I was betraying him. But I don’t. I feel great. He’s funny, and he has this sense of, I don’t know, wisdom. Like he’s seen it all, but he hasn’t become cynical. He seems sort of bemused by the hardships in life. Not at all like most people.”

“But what about you?”

“I think I love him.”

“Does he love you?”

“I think so. But he says he’s going to leave. That’s what’s bothering me. I finally got used to being alone, and now that I found someone, he’s going to leave me because he’s afraid of a sea monster.”

Valerie Riordan dropped her pen and slumped in her chair—a very unprofessional move, Estelle thought.

“Excuse me?” Val said.

“A sea monster. We were at the beach the other night, and something came up out of the water. Something big. We ran for the car, and later Catfish told me that he was once chased by a sea monster down in the Delta and that it had come back to get him. He says he doesn’t want other people to get hurt, but I think he’s just afraid. He thinks the monster will come back as long as he’s on the coast. He’s trying to get a gig in Iowa, as far from the coast as he can get. Do you think he’s just afraid to commit? I read a lot about that in the women’s magazines.”

“A sea monster? Is that a metaphor for something? Some Blues term that I’m not getting?”

“No, I think it’s a reptile, at least the way he describes it. I didn’t get a good look at it. It ate his best friend when he was a young man. I think he’s running away from the guilt. What do you think?”

“Estelle, there’s no such thing as sea monsters.”

“Catfish said that no one would believe me.”

“Catfish?”

“That’s his name. My Bluesman. He’s very sweet. He has a sense of gallantry that you don’t see much anymore. I don’t think it’s an act. He’s too old for that. I didn’t think I would ever feel this way again. These are girl feelings, not woman feelings. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I want to have his grandchildren.”

“Grandchildren?”

“Sure, he’s had his days with the booze and the hos, but I think he’s ready to settle down.”

“The booze and the hos?”

Dr. Val seemed to have gone into some sort of fugue state, working on a stunned psychiatrist autopilot where all she could do was parrot what Estelle said back in the form of a question. Estelle needed more input than this.

“Do you think I should tell the authorities?”

“About the booze and the hos?”

“The sea monster. That Plotznik boy is missing, you know?”

Dr. Val made a show of straightening her blouse and assuming a controlled, staid, professional posture. “Estelle, I think we may need to adjust your medication.”

“I haven’t been taking it. But I feel fine. Catfish says that if Prozac had been invented a hundred years ago there wouldn’t have been any Blues at all. Just a lot of happy people with no soul. I tend to agree with him. The antidepressants served their purpose for me after Joe died, but I’m not sure I need them now. I even feel like I could get some painting done—if I can find some time away from sex.”

Dr. Val winced. “I was thinking of something besides antidepressants, Estelle. You obviously are dealing with some serious changes right now. I’m not sure how to proceed. Do you think that Mr., uh, Catfish would mind coming to a session with you?”

“That might be tough. He doesn’t like your mojo.”

“My mojo?”

“Not your mojo in particular. Just psychiatrist’s mojo in general. He spent a little time in a mental hospital in Mississippi after the monster ate his friend. He didn’t care for the staff’s mojo.” Estelle realized that her vocabulary, even her way of thinking, had changed over the last few days, the result of immersion in Catfish’s Blues world.