Hungry Ghosts (Time, Blood and Karma Book 2) by John Dolan

Author:John Dolan [Dolan, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tention Publishing Limited
Published: 2013-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

Two hours later and I’m playing Patient Penelope perched on a bar stool waiting for the elusive Mr. Lauchlan Andrews.

Lise continues to scurry around behind the bar keeping glasses filled and throwing me the occasional wink and flirty lick of the lips. Periodically she also scans the swelling number of clientele for my quarry, the Scotsman. If Lise is scamming me about knowing him she’s damn good at it; and furthermore if she can act this well when she’s vertical I can only imagine how impressive her repertoire is when she’s horizontal. I’m thinking screamer.

Moreover with a few beers down me Lise is starting to appear presentable. She actually scrubs up quite well and with the low lighting and a layer of makeup over the sun-damaged face, she looks rather pretty in a dirty, slutty, can’t-take-you-home-to-my-mother type of way. If it weren’t for my preoccupation with weightier matters and the fact that I have a lifelong aversion to yeast infections, I might be tempted to follow through and test my screamer hypothesis.

Anyway.

The Bump and Grind to my surprise has no stage, merely two psychedelically-decorated levels each of which has a dance floor and a long bar. The downstairs area – which is presently fairly deserted – seems to be for more elderly patrons, the ones with dodgy hips who will later need to be lowered by a pulley system onto their companion for the night.

The place has an oddly 1970s feel to it, emphasized by a party of Russians wearing retro suits: two of them even have gaudy medallions slung around their bull-like necks.

Inevitably the music is loud and unmemorable unless you happen to be one of those humanoids for whom the sound of pneumatic drills digging up a road sets the feet tapping.

In the last half hour the upper level has filled up so the sweat is starting to flow and every now and again I get the whiff of testosterone-laced body odour as some party animal squeezes past me to get served.

From time to time I catch sight of Claire’s red hair on the dance floor, but I know for sure it can’t be my wife. She wouldn’t be seen alive in a place like this, let alone dead.

All personal, guilt-fuelled hauntings aside, I am experiencing a sense of being stared at; which I find vaguely unnerving. A couple of Thai guys at one end of the bar keep looking across at me, and I can see in the bar mirror another brace of Siam manhood sipping what look like Cokes at one of the high tables and casting the odd interested glance in my direction.

The possible explanations are that I’m mutating into a gay icon, somebody has pinned an obscene message to the back of my jacket, I’m imagining things or I’m under scrutiny for some reason other than my obvious drop-dead gorgeousness.

I think we can safely discount the first two reasons, so to amuse myself while I await the arrival of Andrews, I decide to check out whether I am being dogged by paranoia or by something more sinister.

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