This time, her response was an expression of unbreakable Andean ice. “We have never met.”
“Donna Anna Maria Isabella Conchita Theresa Garcia, but you can call me Lola?”
Lola took a deep breath and then lowered her voice. “I’m not supposed to speak to you.”
Jim was mystified. “What is this?”
“Doc doesn’t remember the last time we met and I’m not supposed to, either, but I like you, Jim Morrison, so I’ll take a chance on breaking the rules. I seriously advise you to get out of here as quickly as you can. Take your Virgil and go.”
“Out of the casino?”
“Out of Hell itself.”
***
Jesus’ free hand moved to the remote, apparently of its own accord. The Irving Klaw porn had ended without too much denouement and was suddenly replaced by Zorro’s Secret Legion, a Republic serial that, in its whip work and leather costumes, ran with a distinct S&M undertow that was probably lost on the ten-year-olds for whom it was intended. Or was it? This Jesus didn’t look like a tenyear-old, but he did tend to behave that way, and he was continuing to jerk himself off while staring unblinkingly at the screen. Semple looked from screen to couch and finally at Mr. Thomas, the goat. “What do you mean, goats invented coffee?”
Mr. Thomas finished munching on a piece of cardboard. “The way I heard it, sometime around the thirteenth century an Ethiopian goatherd called Kaldi noticed that his animals were getting high as kites on the red berries of a particular wild shrub. Being of an inquiring mind and curious disposition, this Kaldi tried the berries himself. When he, too, not only got high as a kite but also remained awake for fifty-seven hours straight, Kaldi knew he was on to something. Of course, being Islamic, Kaldi’s first thought was that the said berries would be a way to stay awake and remain at one’s religious devotions longer than would have been previously possible. After chewing the berries, he decided this was a bit too much of a jolt. Soon he hit on the idea of stewing the berries in boiling water and drinking the resulting liquid. As you’ve probably guessed by now, the red berries were wild coffee beans and-”
Semple rather rudely interrupted the anecdote. “Is everyone around here totally crazy?”
The goat looked at her both surprised and a little offended. “Not really. Not when you consider that we’re living in the brain of an entirely fictional, massively oversized Mesozoic dinosaur.”
“One’s jerking off to an old Zorro serial and the other’s telling me how coffee was invented?”
“Strictly speaking, we’re not even in the brain itself. We actually occupy a tumor on that brain.”
Semple was horrified. “A tumor?”
“What do you think this dome really is?”
“Is it malignant?”
“Not for us.”
“I meant for Gojiro.”
The goat tore off another piece of packing case and started munching. In that he seemed to need to talk with his mouth full, a conversation with Mr. Thomas was not unlike ones she’d had with Anubis. “That’s something of an academic point. The Big Green has one motherfucker of a post-nuclear metabolism and I’d imagine it’s going to take a good uninterrupted ten thousand years for a tumor to hurt him.”
Semple was still uneasy. “I’m not sure I want to be in a tumor.” “After a while, you don’t even think about it. What are you doing here, by the way?”
Semple blinked at the goat. “You’re asking me that?”
“You walked in here of your own accord.”
“I hardly knew what I was doing. I just followed the directions of the three tiny women.”
“You always do what tiny women tell you?”
“Only when I don’t have a better idea.”
“You came in like the mote in Godz’s eye, right?”
“As far as I can tell. But you know what happened. You were there when Moses’ tribe got stomped.”
The goat avoided her eyes. “I have a bit of a problem with that.”
Semple frowned. “Either you were there or you weren’t.”
“It’s one of those cat’s-cradle time problems. Some of the time I seem to have been the lead goat for Moses and his stinking followers, sometimes I’m the companion of someone who may or may not be Jesus Christ and who thinks I may or may not be the reincarnation of Dylan Thomas.”
Semple glanced at the still-masturbating Jesus. “Can’t he hear you? He might not like his Jesushood being questioned.”
Mr. Thomas shook his head. “He’s totally in the zone. TV has that effect on him.”
An unpleasant thought struck Semple. “I’m not here to entertain you, am I?
“Not specifically, but if you were to offer, I’d be most pleased to-”
Semple cut him off. “Let’s leave that for a while. My sex life has been far too complicated of late. I really don’t feel inclined to go interspecies right now. I couldn’t take on a goat no matter how glowing his possible literary antecedents.”
Mr. Thomas chewed cardboard, apparently considering the rejection. “That’s a pity. ‘After the first death, there is no more.’ ”
“It really isn’t anything personal. I’m very fond of Under Milk Wood.”
“That wasn’t from Under Milk Wood.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s from something else.”
“Oh.” Semple covered her gaffe by looking around the dome. “How about, ‘it was spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black . . . ’ ”
The goat was mollified. “That’s better.”
The episode of Zorro’s Secret Legion had concluded in a seeming sudden-death cliff-hanger. Jesus’ hand twitched and a new movie was on the screen, Audie Murphy in Bullet for a Badman, picking up the story midway through the action. “I’m starting to feel that maybe the best thing I could do would be to get out of here. The possibilities seem a little limited.”
The goat swallowed. “Unfortunately that may be difficult.”
Semple’s eyes narrowed. “What are you telling me?”
Mr. Thomas scratched himself with his left hind leg. “You came in animation mode, am I right?”
Semple answered cautiously, unsure of what was coming next. “Yes. That’s where I got this gun and the ridiculous costume.”
“But then, on the way in, you passed under the lights?”
“Right.”
“And you changed back to normal?”
“That’s right. I did. Apart from the beauty spot.”
“Then that’s it. You can’t go back out again. Not in human form. No humans in Toon Town.”
“What would happen to me if I did?”
“It’s hard to explain, but very nasty.”
“So how do I change back to a toon?”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
Mr. Thomas nodded in the direction of the prone and masturbating Jesus. “He’s forgotten how to do it.”
“Are you telling me I’m a prisoner of that bastard faux Jesus?”
“Does he really look like a captor?”
Semple touched the ray gun that was still strapped to her leg. “Maybe this might get his attention?”
“I really wouldn’t try firing that thing.”
“Why not?”
“There are two likely outcomes, look you. Either it wouldn’t work at all, or it would explode and blow your arm off.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
The goat looked a little sheepish. “You don’t, but I really wouldn’t recommend testing the point.”
Semple and Mr. Thomas seemed to have reached an impasse. Jesus eighty-sixed Audie Murphy and replaced him with Charlton Heston playing Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy. “He was very creative once. Before the TV got him.”
“Creative?”
“He built most of the stuff outside.”
“No kidding.” Suddenly Semple was thinking. An idea had arrived on the half shell.
The goat hadn’t noticed, however. “In fact, it was him who saw the potential of the Big Green’s brain in the first place. He even figured out how he could get inside here and make Godz do what he wanted him to do.”