“Vandalism,” Bobby said.
“The art of Michelangelo.”
“Graffiti.”
“Renoir,” I said.
“Graffiti.”
Bach, the Beatles.”
T “Aural graffiti,” he said fiercely.
As he followed our conversation, Orson was getting whiplash.
“Matisse, Beethoven, Wallace Stevens, Shakespeare.”
“Vandals, hooligans.”
“Dick Dale,” I said, dropping the sacred name of the King of the Surf
Guitar, the father of all surf music.
Bobby blinked but said, “Graffiti.”
“You are a sick man.”
“I’m the healthiest person You know. Drop this insanely useless
crusade, Chris.”
“I must really be swimming in a school of slackers when a little
curiosity is seen as a crusade.”
“Live life. Soak it up. Enjoy. That’s what You’re here to do.”
“I’m having fun in my own way,” I assured him. “Don’t worry-I’m just
as big a bum and jerk-off as You are.”
“You wish.”
When I tried to walk the bike around him, he sidestepped into my path
again.
“Okay,” he said resignedly. “All right. But walk the bike with one
hand and keep the Glock in the other until You’re back on hard ground
and can ride again. Then ride fast.”
I patted my jacket pocket, which sagged with the weight of the
pistol.
One round fired accidentally at Angela’s. Nine left in the magazine.
“But they’re just monkeys,” I said, echoing Bobby himself “And they’re
not.”
Searching his dark eyes, I said, “You have something else that I should
know?”
He chewed on his lower lip. Finally: “Maybe I am Kahuna.”
“That’s not what You were about to tell me.
“No, but it’s not as fully nutball as what I was going to say.”
His gaze traveled over the dunes. “The leader of the troop . . .
I’ve only glimpsed him at a distance, in the darkness, hardly more than
a shadow. He’s bigger than the rest.”
“How big?”
His eyes met mine. “I think he’s a dude about my size.”
Earlier, as I had stood on the porch waiting for Bobby to return from
his search of the beach scarp, I had glimpsed movement from the corner
of my eye: the fuzzy impression of a man loping through the dunes with
long fluid strides. When I’d swung around with the Glock, no one had
been there.
“A man?” I said. “Running with the millennium monkeys, leading the
troop? Our own Moonlight Bay Tarzan?”
“Well, I hope it’s a man.”
And what’s that supposed to mean?”
Breaking eye contact, Bobby shrugged. “I’m just saying there aren’t
only the monkeys I’ve seen. There’s someone or something big out there
with them.”
I looked toward the lights of Moonlight Bay. “Feels like there’s a
clock ticking somewhere, a bomb clock, and the whole town’s sitting on
explosives.”
“That’s my point, bro. Stay out of the blast zone.”
Holding the bike with one hand, I drew the Glock from my jacket
pocket.
“As You go about your perilous and foolish adventures, XPMan,” Bobby
said, “here’s something to keep in mind.”
“More boardhead wisdom.”
“Whatever was going on out there at Wyvern-and might still be going
on-a big troop of scientists must have been involved.
Hugely educated dudes with foreheads higher than your whole face.
Government and military types, too, and lots of them. The elite of the
system. Movers and shakers. You know why they were part of this
before it all went wrong?”
“Bills to pay, families to support?”
“Every last one of them wanted to leave his mark.” I said, “This isn’t
about ambition. I just want to know why my mom and dad had to die.”
“Your head’s as hard as an oyster shell.”
“Yeah, but there’s a pearl inside.”
“It’s not a pearl,” he assured me. “It’s a fossilized seagull
dropping.”
“You’ve got a way with words. You should write a book.”
He squeezed out a sneer as thin as a shaving of lemon peel. “I’d
rather screw a cactus.”
“That’s pretty much what it’s like. But rewarding.”
“This wave is going to put You through the rinse cycle and then down
the drain.”
“Maybe. But it’ll be a totally cool ride. And aren’t You the one who
said we’re here to enjoy the ride?”
Finally defeated, he stepped out of my way, raised his right hand, and