The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore

were fumes,” Gabe said. “But that doesn’t explain why they all moved in the same direction. Some even came through this area from the shore.”
    Theo couldn’t bear to express to Gabe how little he cared. “You had any dinner, Gabe?”
    â€œNo, I’ve been doing this since last night.”
    â€œPizza, Gabe. We need pizza and beer. I’ll buy.”
    â€œBut I need to…”
    â€œYou’re a single guy, Gabe. You need pizza every eighteen hours or you can’t function properly. And I have a question to ask you about footprints, but I want you towatch me drink a few beers before I ask so I can claim diminished capacity. Come, Gabe, let me take you to the land of pizza and beer.” Theo gestured to his Volvo. “You can stick the antenna out the sunroof.”
    â€œI guess I could take a break.”
    Theo opened the passenger door and Skinner leapt into the car, leaving sooty paw prints on the seat. “Your dog needs pizza. It’s the humane thing to do.”
    â€œOkay,” Gabe said.
    â€œI want to show you something over by the creek bed.”
    â€œWhat.”
    â€œA footprint. Or what’s left of one.”
    Â 
    Ten minutes later they sat over frosty mugs of beer at Pizza in the Pines, Pine Cove’s only pizza parlor. They’d taken a window table so Gabe could keep an eye on Skinner, who was bouncing up and down outside, giving them an ever-changing view of the street, then the street with dog face (ears akimbo), then the street, then the street with dog face again. Other than to order a beer, Gabe Fenton hadn’t said a word since they’d gone to the creek bed.
    â€œWill he just keep doing that?” Theo asked.
    â€œUntil we take him a slice of pizza, yes.”
    â€œAmazing.”
    Gabe shrugged. “He’s a dog.”
    â€œAlways the biologist.”
    â€œOne needs to keep the mind limber.”
    â€œWell, what do you think?”
    â€œI think that you obliterated most of what you thought was a footprint.”
    â€œGabe, it was a footprint. A talon or something.”
    â€œThere are a thousand explanations for a depression in the mud like that, Theo, but one of them is not an animal track.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWell, for one, there hasn’t been anything that large on this continent for about sixty million years, and for another, animals tend to leave more than one track, unless it’s a creature especially adapted for hopping.” Gabe grinned.
    The flying dog head pogoed by the windowsill.
    â€œThere were a lot of people and vehicles around there, the other tracks might have been wiped out.”
    â€œTheo, don’t let your imagination run away with you. You’ve had a long day and…”
    â€œAnd I’m a pothead.”
    â€œI wasn’t going to say that.”
    â€œI know, I’m saying it. Tell me about your rats. What will you do when you find them?”
    â€œWell, first I’m going to keep searching for the stimulus of their behavior, then I’ll catch a few of the group that migrated and compare their brain chemistry to those that headed toward the shore.”
    â€œDoes that hurt them?”
    â€œYou have to blend up their brains and run the liquid in a centrifuge.”
    â€œI guess so then.”
    The waitress brought their pizza and Gabe was severing cables of cheese from his first slice when Theo’s cell phone rang. The constable listened for a second, then stood and dug into his pocket for money. “I’ve got to go, Gabe.”
    â€œWhat’s up?”
    â€œThe Plotznik kid is missing. No one’s seen him since he left on his paper route this morning.”
    â€œProbably hiding. That kid is evil. He rigged up something with his remote control car that affected the chips in my rats once. I spent three weeks trying to figure out why they were running figure eights in the parking lotoutside the grocery