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albeit agonizingly slowly.
    At five he took a break and called Sylvia. She sounded busy but happy to hear from him. He told her he’d be occupied until eleven that night and wanted to know if she was in the mood for company.
    “Are you sure you’ll be up for it?” she asked.
    “I’m always up for seeing you, Sylvia. Besides. I have some big news. Or may have.”
    “That’s cryptic.”
    “I just haven’t decided on something yet.”
    “I’ll be up if you want to come by. Or are you thinking your place?”
    “Nah, I’ll be up on the strip. I’ll stop by yours.”
    “All right, Mr. Black, man of mystery. I’ll see you then.”
    Black hadn’t figured out how to break the news to Sylvia about the show, but figured it wouldn’t matter if he decided not to do it. Although he had to admit that the thought of standing in front of a crowd, living his dream again, had appeal. Being booted from his band on the eve of their first big tour had festered in his gut like a malignancy for years, and even though he’d thought that was behind him, he realized the burn in his stomach was back, stronger than ever.
    Mugsy studied the forbidden leather couch with destructive intent. Black stared him down and called out his name. Mugsy gave him a large cat yawn and, with a final wistful look at the supple black leather, waddled off to wreak havoc elsewhere. Black sat back and began strumming a Rolling Stones song, wincing at the occasional flub or muddled chord. But as he noodled, his confidence returned, and by the time dusk colored the sky with swirls of orange and red, he was feeling slightly less unsure of himself.
    But the first real test would be to see how he did with a band.
    Which, a glance at his watch informed him, would be in two hours or so.
    Wearily he put the guitar back into its case and turned off the lights on his way out of the office. Mugsy was sprawled in his customary position on the lobby sofa, snoring, the oversized food bowl empty, another tough day of lounging around doing nothing having worn him out.
     

Chapter 5
    Roxie led Black into the darkened interior of the Red Pony Saloon, where a small crowd milled around, the flotsam and jetsam that called the strip home – bikers, pimps, blue-collar workers drowning their sorrows, retail clerks dressed up like rockers, everyone participating in the same illusion that enabled them to be whatever they wished away from the harsh light of day.
    “Sweet Home Alabama” pumped from the stage as a five-piece band bashed its obligatory way through the standard, followed, no doubt, Black was sure, by “Free Bird”. A woman on the wrong side of fifty, looking in her denim vest like she’d been ridden hard and put away wet more times than she could remember, offered a bleary smile to Black as he pushed his way past her.
    The club was a reminder of countless similar dives he’d played when his band was struggling to make ends meet. It was at a place much like this one he’d first seen his future wife, belting out a Heart ballad with a set of pipes that Mariah Carey would have envied. The only thing missing was the fog of cigarette smoke, now a thing of the past.
    Black watched Roxie – who had exchanged her top for a sleeveless Pantera concert shirt, the better to display her tattoos – as she marched through the quarter-full audience and positioned herself, hip cocked, in front of the small stage. The band hit the final chords to a few inebriated screams of Skynyrd from several sweating, overweight men doing boilermakers as they whooped as if Wednesday in a Hollywood dive was New Year’s Eve in Times Square.
    The band surprised Black by launching into a Kings of Leon hit instead of another Southern anthem, and he debated the wisdom of a shot of Jaeger with a draft beer chaser. As his nerves jangled with each pop of the snare drum, he decided that this certainly qualified as an emergency, so strong medicine was in order. When the heavily pierced, goateed