I’d never seen Lurch before, and it’s possible I never would have if the Weeble hadn’t given me reason to look for him.

Before we left the house, I’d dug through a box of summer stuff and found a pair of sunglasses I use when the weather’s nice enough to ride my bicycle. The glasses had a small mirror attached to the left side of the frame that could be swung up and out so that you could see behind you. Not quite as cool as the equipment Q gave Bond, but it would do, and I didn’t have to flirt with Ms. Moneypenny to get it.

An eye in the back of my head, and I bet I was the first kid on my block to have one, too.

I saw Lurch when I stopped abruptly at the entrance of Patty’s Pantry for my morning cup of coffee. I stared at the door as if it held a menu and swung the mirror out and rotated my head until I noticed the guy who looked like a mortician on the other side of the avenue by Pat Jay’s Pharmacy. He stood with his arms crossed over his sparrow’s chest, watching the back of my head openly. Furrows were cut like rivers in his sunken cheeks, and a widow’s peak began halfway up his forehead.

In Patty’s, I swung the mirror back against the frame and ordered my coffee.

“You go blind all a sudden, Patrick?”

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

“The sunglasses,” he said. “I mean, it’s, what, middle of March and no one’s seen the sun since Thanksgiving. 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 my sunglasses 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 my sunglasses, thinking of Johnny Deegan. Bond was cool, sure, but he never had to walk into Patty’s Pantry. Hell, just try and order a vodka martini in this neighborhood. Shaken or stirred, your ass was going out a window.

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.”