"Christopher Moore - The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore Christopher)

Theo

Theophilus Crowe wrote bad free-verse poetry and played a jembe drum
while sitting on a rock by the ocean. He could play sixteen chords on the
guitar and knew five Bob Dylan songs all the way through, allowing for a
dampening buzz any time he had to play a bar chord. He had tried his hand at
painting, sculpture, and pottery and had even played a minor part in the Pine
Cove Little Theater's revival of Arsenic and Old Lace. In all these endeavors
he had experienced a meteoric rise to mediocrity and quit before total
embarrassment and self-loathing set in. Theo was cursed with an artist's soul
but no talent. He possessed the angst and the inspiration, but not the means
to create.
If there was any single thing at which Theo excelled, it was empathy. He
always seemed to be able to understand someone's point of view, no matter how
singular or far-fetched, and in turn could convey it to others with a
succinctness and clarity that he seldom found in expressing his own thoughts.
He was a born mediator, a peacemaker, and it was this talent, after breaking
up numerous fights at the Head of the Slug Saloon, that got Theo elected
constable. That and heavy-handed endorsement of Sheriff John Burton.
Burton was a hard-line right-wing politico who could spout law and order
(accent on order) over brunch with the Rotarians, lunch with the NRA, and
dinner with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and wolf down dry banquet chicken
like it was manna from the gods every time. He wore expensive suits, a gold
Rolex, and drove a pearl-black Eldorado that shone like a starry night on
wheels (rapt attention and copious coats of carnuba from the grunts in the
county motor pool). He had been sheriff of San Junipero County for sixteen
years, and in that time the crime rate had dropped steadily until it was the
lowest per capita, of any county in California. His endorsement of Theophilus
Crowe, someone with no law enforcement experience, had come as more than
somewhat of a surprise to the people of Pine Cove, especially since Theo's
opponent was a retired Los Angeles policeman who'd put in a highly decorated
five and twenty. What the people of Fine Cove did not know was that Sheriff
Burton not only endorsed Theo, he had forced him to run in the first place.
Theophilus Crowe was a quiet man, and Sheriff John Burton had his reasons
for not wanting to hear a peep out of the little North County burg of Pine
Cove, so when Theo walked into his little two-room cabin, he wasn't surprised
to see a red seven blinking on his answering machine. He punched the button
and listened to Burton's assistant insisting that he call right away -- seven
times. Burton never called the cell phone.
Theo had come home to shower and ponder his meeting with Val Riordan. The
fact that she had treated at least three of his ex-girlfriends bothered him.
He wanted to try and figure out what the women had told her. Obviously, they'd
mention that he got high occasionally. Well, more than occasionally. But like
any man, it worried him that they might have said something about his sexual
performance. For some reason, it didn't bother him nearly as much that Val
Riordan think him a loser and a drug fiend as it did that she might think he
was bad in the rack. He wanted to ponder the possibilities, think away the
paranoia, but instead he dialed the sheriff's private number and was put right
through.