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Ginger Wart
This was the coffee bar where all the spies hung out.
He wasn't a spy, himself, but he had an idea. The vast majority of the patrons of the bar looked decidedly spy-like. Especially when he walked in. The room fell into a deep, dark hush. It took a few moments for a deep, dark noise to start up again. It was very dark in there. A small circle of light circled the room just over the bar, making it look like the coffee bar had swallowed a halo.
If the thing in the middle of the room were a swallowed halo he wasn't quite sure he wanted to know what the indistinct forms in the shadows were. Perhaps they were digestive juices, or something. He had visions of seventh grade biology class and transparencies of bodies with their inner workings showing in the various layers of the transparent sheets, designed to be laid down on a light projector.
Most of them weren't wearing trench coats, but then he figured they wouldn't, as spies probably changed their fashions like all the rest of us, intent of staying unmark-able. Unremarkable.
Two men at the bar wearing trench coats hunched over their drinks, spoke close, as if embarrassed that they didn't get the memo or the tip that maybe trench coats were no longer de rigueur for the modern spy. Or perhaps they were posers, and realised, too late, that wearing their get-up to the real spy coffee bar would only make them stand out like sore thumbs. Which, unless the spies were attempting a novel approach to intel gathering, was not desirable. What a crushing way to come into your first spy bar, he imagined.
He wasn't a spy himself, as he'd established. Or what he professed, in a genuine manner. Nor was he a spy wannabe, particularly, as he imagined it didn't really come with glamourous women spies from foreign countries falling all over you and doing that falling over in tiny, very tiny outfits. He figured that was the movies, and not much more. Maybe once in a while you got a good one, but he figured most days it was like all jobs: paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork.
That's what his last three jobs were, anyway. A bank manager, law clerk, and a video store owner, he nearly drowned in paperwork in all three of those jobs.
And he was looking to get out.
Which was why he was here.
He surveyed the room, taking it all in this time. The two men definitely looked uncomfortable at the bar, leading him to believe they were fanboys, and nothing more. A selection of surprisingly attractive women were dotted around the room dressed in casual clothes – jeans, white blouses showing a modest amount of cleavage, sneakers or pumps. He was about to say low-heeled pumps, but something stopped him, memories of his wife, who always complained that he never got it right with women's shoes. Fair point, he always conceded, though usually in the quiet of his own thoughts. Maybe he was wrong about the spying industry after all. After all, it looked like at least a handful of men were chatting with these very attractive she-spies. A good number of them seemed to be sharing cups, which was odd, at the very least.
He took up a stool at the bar, a safe distance from the two men dressed in trenchcoats and ordered himself a coffee. Black, three sugars.
A newspaper sat on the bar. He reached over and slid this towards himself: The Spy Times. That had to be a joke.
As his coffee arrived and he began to reach for his wallet, he decided it was.
Whatever it was, it's headline was this: "VALLEY EXPERIENCING MYSTERIOUS LIGHTS".
Which he found neither particularly funny nor interesting. Whatever it was, it had a comics section, which he flicked to, after having paid for his coffee.
Outside, someone was watching him.
To be continued........?
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