THE LURKER

The tall, scarecrow-looking man had cleared out the entire bar, including all of its loyal customers, and now it was just him and the bar manager, who was also the owner of Last Orders—the end of the line where late-night drinks were concerned for most career drinkers in the town. Over the years, Jimmy the Bar had seen every variation of barfly, but never one as obstinately lucid after excessive drinking as the pencil-thin man now standing before him, with intense Newton’s cradle eyes that never seemed quite able to look at you directly.

It had been disconcerting to observe him throughout the course of the evening, with no seemingly apparent limit to his drinking capacity. Did he have some secret valve diverting the liquor through a leaky hole in his trousers, like one of those circus clowns? He’d barely been to the restroom since he arrived mid-afternoon. It was now well after midnight.

Given that the man had emptied his bar, Jimmy saw no reason not to empty his pockets each time he asked for another shot. Perhaps he was an inheritance kid, though he was far from a kid, looking more like something between a callow youth and a seedy grandfather, a sort of Dorian Gray gone wrong. Maybe the mirror up in this one’s attic had broken, though he looked as much a basement dweller as an attic creep.

“You like Vangelis?” the man said, slurring his words ever so slightly through his thin, colourless lips.

“Van, who?”

“Vangelis?”

Jimmy shrugged.

“Blade Runner. He did the soundtrack.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Wait, have you got Bluetooth?”

“Yeah, but I don’t generally let anyone play music in the bar unless it’s a favor to one of my DJ mates.”

“I want to play you a track. It’s from 1492: Conquest of Paradise.”

“This your Vangelis, guy?”

“Yep. Go on. I’ll even pay you to put it on.”

“That bad, is it?”

“No. It’s pretty epic, actually.”

It was becoming clear to Jimmy that the pale man standing before him with his pasty white, moon-cratered skin had no sense of humour. At least not the type of bar humour he was an expert in. Was he autistic? Or had he just had his funny bone removed voluntarily?

True to his word, the man—who in Jimmy’s head he now labelled “the Lurker”—slapped down a ten-dollar note on the bar top, wet with rings of whiskey where he’d knocked over a glass or two in his excitement, regaling him with tales of his troubled childhood.

“Listen, I don't take requests, even for money, unless they're drinks.”

“Well, in that case, serve me up another one of your specials then.”

Checking the clock above the bar, Jimmy was starting to feel a tension in his gut. It wasn't like he hadn't dealt with weirdos and cranks before, but this one felt different. He had a vibe of unpredictability, which spooked him. He had some mates down the cop shop he could call out if things got “interesting,” but he decided to wait it out a little longer, like a barroom game of chicken.

While he turned his back to fix an even stiffer drink to tranquillise the so far immovable object, the Lurker blasted the Vangelis tune he'd mentioned through his phone, but the speakers were all blown and distorted like a wasp's nest that had been disturbed.

“It's great, isn't it?”

“What's great?”

“Vangelis.”

“Oh, I can't really tell with your speaker all blown out like that. Anyway, here's your ...”