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I looked up at Johnny Deegan as he poured cream into my coffee “What?”

“The sunglasses,” he said “I mean, it’s, what,You go blind, or you just trying to look hipper’n shit?”

“Just trying to look hipper’n shit, Johnny”

He slid my coffee across the counter, took my money

“It ain’t working,” he said

Out on the avenue, I stared through lasses at Lurch as he brushed some lint off his knee then bent to tie his shoelaces just like the Weeble had the day before

I took off an Bond was cool, sure, but he never had to walk into Patty’s Pantry Hell, just try and order a vodka hborhood Shaken or stirred, your ass was going out a

I crossed the avenue as Lurch concentrated on his shoelace

“Hi,” I said

He straightened, looked around as if someone had called his name from down the block

“Hi,” I said again and offered my hand

He looked at it, looked down the avenue again

“Wow,” I said, “you can’t tail someone for shit but at least your social skills are honed to the quick”

His head turned as slowly as the earth on its axis until his dark pebble eyes met mine He had to look down to do it, too, the shadow of his skeletal head puddling downacross uy

“Are we acquainted, sir?” His voice sounded as if it were due back at the coffin any moment

“Sure, we’re acquainted,” I said “You’re Lurch” I looked up and down the avenue “Where’s Cousin It, Lurch?”

“You’re not nearly as a as you think you are, sir”

I held up my coffee cup “Wait till I’ve had some caffeine, Lurch I’m a certified bust-out fifteen minutes from now”

He smiled down at me and the furrows in his cheeks turned to canyons “You should be less predictable, Mr Kenzie”

“How so, Lurch?”

A crane swung a ce with sharp tiny teeth bit into the skin over the right side of my neck and Lurch lurched past my field of vision as the sidewalk lifted off itself and rolled toward my ear

“Love the sunglasses, Mr Kenzie,” the Weeble said as his rubbery face floated past me “They’re a real nice touch”

“Very high-tech,” Lurch said

And soine, and I felt very stupid

Q would have been appalled

“My head hurts,” Angie said

She sat beside me on a black leather couch, and her hands were bound behind her back, too

“How about you, Mr Kenzie?” a voice asked “How’s your head?”