69

I feel intrigued. If there's another artifact here, I could get rich and famous.

You hide your emotions from Cleo, following her to a table near the front. You barely have time to order your drinks before the main attraction walks out onto the stage.

You already knew what he was going to look like, of course, but it still astonishes you to see the figure from your vision right there in front of you with his slim and hungry face, his skinny tie and ragged old suit. He clutches a battered hard guitar case in his right hand.

There's no charisma or showmanship to him at all; he shuffles onto the stage, barely even looking at the crowd, head down, hands moving slowly and with practiced competence. He sits on a rickety stool and spends a couple of minutes fiddling with his instrument and tuning up. Then, still failing to address the crowd, he starts to play.

His music is remarkable. He seems to be playing about three different guitar lines at once, and he's drumming, too, beating out a relentless rhythm on the stage with his feet and punctuating his playing with emphatic palm slaps across the guitar's strings and against its body. This lugubrious little man with his acoustic guitar has somehow turned himself into a full band, and he fills the hall with glorious noise.

The crowd are astonished, but they quickly get over their surprise. They begin hooting and hollering, slapping their tables along with the powerful, hypnotic rhythm.

And then he begins singing in a rough, untutored, fervent, passionate voice. The hooting and slapping stops immediately. Everybody is listening to his raw pain.

"I got a letter this morning, how do you reckon it read?

It said your lover is dead.

I got a letter this morning, how do you reckon it read?

It said hurry, hurry, because the girl you love is dead."

The crowd are entranced, and Winton Elliot is just getting warmed up. As you study his eyes, creased tight in anguish, and watch the demonic speed and dexterity in his fingers, and hear that ruined, ravaged, raw voice, you could truly believe that this man's life has been touched by Satan.

And then the NOPD kick in the door and all hell breaks loose.

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