Copyright © 2021 by Sandi Tan

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by Soho Press, Inc.

227 W 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tan, Sandi, author.

Title: Lurkers / Sandi Tan.

ISBN 978-1-64129-255-9

eISBN 978-1-64129-256-6

I. Title

PS3620.A6836 L87 2021 813’.6—dc23 2020028033

Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

So violent and motley was life, that it bore the mixed smell of blood and roses. The men of that time always oscillate between the fear of hell and the most naïve joy, between cruelty and tenderness, between harsh asceticism and insane attachment to the delights of the world, between hatred and goodness, always running to the extremes.

Johan Huizinga

The Waning of the Middle Ages

I.

I.

GIRL IN THE WINDOW

—

May 2006

to

July 2006

– 1 –

– 1 –

HOT DAMN

The only time Rosemary remembered seeing her father happy was when he was playing Vice City. Instead of jacking cars, shooting hookers and tussling with cops, he strolled along Ocean Beach, its simulated Miami beachfront, minding his own business. From the boardwalk, he would gaze out at the undulating orange waves. For hours.

If he got in the way of a stray bullet or became the unlucky victim of a mugging, he picked himself up and started over. When he was released from the hospital, he’d walk, and walk, and walk, until he got back to the water. At no time would he steal a car or hijack a bike to speed up his journey—that, he knew, was the surest way to attract attention.

Sometimes, for a change of pace, he headed to the bridge leading to Starfish Island. This was the most isolated spot that he knew of in Vice City. And he would stand on its pedestrian ramp, staring out at the bay where the water was blue, not orange, and the lapping of waves could be heard.

If anyone walked in on his game, he’d turn around and say, “Boring, right?” He’d say this grimly, like a scientist pushing technology to its limit in order to collect important data. Not that this was any different from the way he pursued everything else; the man was terminally embarrassed to show pleasure.

“Maybe all he wanted was to be someplace else,” Rosemary said to her younger sister, a week after his funeral. “Maybe he should have just taken a vacation.”