I walked into the bar and a guy was headless right in front of me. With a big head on the screen beside him. Kind of freaked me out until I realized he was just slumped over on the counter, probably drunk out of his gourd, ha ha. Like I wanted to be. Where’s Cary, where’s Cary?
Ahh, there the ol’ son of a bitch is, waving me over. Don’t call him Cary don’t call him Cary, I recited as a mantra. He’s incognito tonight with the toned down clothes and fake beard and all. Wanted me to help him find Eden, he said. I’m buying, in that I’m in. He’s buying the drinks of course, being the semi-mega superstar rock singer he is now. As of the last album, he’s sold enough records to surpass Elvis Presley as the 67th best seller of all time. Of course he’ll never catch the likes of the Way Outs or Sunamai, which just happens to be his old band. But he’s doing pretty well for himself still. Dropped down from the hills tonight, as in North Oak where he has a kind of mansion or something. Never been up there personally. Never had a reason to mingle with the pseudo-super rich up there. No crime up there either, given all the military-style robots roaming all over the place. Nobody dares.
“V(al)!” he introduces himself over the music, a Way Out single from the 60s I believe, as in 2060s. He’s probably jealous they’re playing. He’s that kind. “Have a drink have a drink,” he said as I move in on him. “Already ordered one for you. A mulberry they call it. Don’t know why. Purple, I know, but really good. Something in the purple. Just drink up drink up.” Cary’d already knocked down a few it appeared, already getting sort of unusually fluid in his motion.
“Nice to see you again,” I said back, grasping the proffered beverage, indeed quite purple. Almost beyond belief, actually. “What was it? The UK Cracks?”
“Yeah, wanted to kill those chromatic bitches at the time. Now they’re okay they’re good. Made a single together I guess you’ve heard.”
“I heard, uh, one of them got killed, maybe two of them.”
“Nah, they’re okay they’re good. Just saw them day before yesterday’s yesterday over at Lester Bay. You know, down by the river. Near the ocean. You know — everybody knows. Lester’s Bay, right.” He drinks, takes a drag off his cigar. “Right,” he repeats, blowing out smoke away from me but on to a nearby guy at the counter, who moves away a bit from us. “Cigar?” he then says, holding his own up to me. I wave him off. Wanted to focus on drinking tonight. And work. “Suit yourself,” he says.
“Must’ve heard wrong, then,” I back down, trying to remember where I’d learned the news about the killing. Or killings. But now I can’t recall. Must have just made it up, pheh. Getting older, brain matter getting worn out I suppose. About time to retire from the merc business. I tell Cary some of this, who laughs.
“Listen, you do this last job for me you can buy that house next to mine that’s up for sale and we can be *neighbors*, ha ha.”
“So… what this time?” I was eager to get at it. The suspense was killing me. “Soo, obviously not the UK Cracks,” I said to fill in the gap while he kept drinking and smoking away, staring at me but not providing any answers.
“No, no UK Cracks,” he finally offers. “But a musician still.” He drinks, he smokes.
“Welll?”
“How much (drink)… do you know (smoke)… about Tin Lizzy?”
Turns out she was in the middle, which unfortunately, as the old saying indicates, is mostly just in the way. Cary proffered a way out.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 