“I’m surprised you’re still here, Big Ass Franz. Bartending, I mean. I thought you had bigger dreams for the world.”
“And I’m surprised *you’re* still here, Jer Left Horn. Playboy lifestyle like yours tends to cut a life short. What’s it been? 5 years?
“At least.”
“Why are you here?” Franz cut to the chase. “Cat-people again?”
“You guessed it. I started… to miss them. I really really started to miss them. Out of the blue.”
“Well… understandable — they can do that,” he admitted. “But they’re gone. Or at least I haven’t seen any around in many a blue moon,” he doubled down on the blue. He was lying but he kept a pretty good poker face going. Jer L.H. was not good but great at reading faces, though. He picked up on the untruth, but played along. Like any top notch poker player great with faces can do if needed.
“Yeah, noticed all the pictures of them had been taken down around here.”
“Yuuup. No need to keep them up.”
“Right right. Soo… Rebl?”
“Oh,” said Franz in his husky voice, slightly taken aback. “So you remember that part too. Don’t recall *revealing* that bit o’ information to you the last time.”
“You didn’t,” Jer replied. “Dug it up myself. Asked around. Military training, you see. Half spy, half gestapo. The Queen’s army. And that’s all you need to know about that.” He had the power to hypnotize if he blurted out the wrong thing, especially when drinking. He decided this wasn’t one of those moments. As long as he didn’t specify which queen.
“Okay, Queen’s army, huh?”
“*A* Queen’s army.”
“Alright. Soo… Mr. Left Horn — sir — you’ve asked your questions and reached your deadends. Now what? How about ordering a beer or three to keep this ol’ bartender going with your well salaried royal military money. In fact…” He leans over and quietens his voice. “If you give me a royal tip as well maybe my memory will be jostled about just what happened to them… the cat-people, the cat-*aliens*, mind you.”
“Will it?” ask Jer Left Horn plainly.
“Might. For the right, ahem, tip.” Still leaning, voice still low.
How much was it worth for Jer to “tip” this man? He decides to slam his left hand down on the bar to indicate he’s done here, head horn castling a curving shadow upon it. “Maybe I’ll see you later, Franz. Got some more leads to follow…”
“Horse’s mouth, here,” he pointed out before the horned man got too far. “Remember that.” Jer waved him off… but perhaps Franz was right, he quickly backtracked. Would be hard to find a person who actually *dated* one of those feline aliens. And he was in love with her, he recalled, and perhaps she him. Even better. He turns around, pulls out a 500 from his jacket, lays it on the counter. He was willing to go up to 5000 but figured this might do the trick with somewhat slow Franz. It did up to a point.
“Red planet,” he said.
“Mars?”
“Red planet is all I can say for 500.” Jer pulls out 4500 more, totally intrigued and all in on the mystery.
Turns out it was cube shaped of all things. A f-cking big ass red cube of a planet way way out in space somewhere, perhaps as far as Betelgeuse, Franz said, which would, in fact, explain the color, Jer Left Horn thought: solar reflection from that massive red giant of a star. Only the truly privileged knew about it, Franz insisted, and then took the money and told Left Horn to go away. Far far away. He had no problem with this now. “Easiest way to get there is the 1 after 909,” Franz said about a needed spaceship, his last bit of information revealed. 5000 dollars well well spent! thought Jer, free to leave the bar and End of Time itself for good…
… only to have another Horn, the Right one, almost immediately take his place there. Make that at exactly the same time to be more dramatic. 9:01 Jer leaves, 9:01 Benny arrives. But down at the docks and not the bar. Benny didn’t know about the bar, at least not yet.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 