Strum Again? Book Three of the Songkiller Saga by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Lazarus behind. The first thing he noticed
about the tavern was that, except for the noise of the pool table,
the voices of the customers, and the wrestling match on television,
it was quiet. No music—country, rock, or otherwise. Nobody even
singing drunk and off-key.
    The customers consisted of three men bent
over a card table, a woman flirting with two men simultaneously at
the bar, and three more fellows, two old and a young one, farther
down the bar. They all looked bored out of their minds and way too
serious for a Saturday night.
    The bar had a few pretensions, including a
mirror behind it, and in the mirror Willie saw the bartender, an
older woman with black penciled eyebrows etched onto her forehead
and hard eyes underneath, skin that even in that dim light looked
as if it might repel armor-piercing rockets, and a long improbably
blond ponytail curling out from one of those slug-shaped hair combs
women wore lengthwise on the backs of their heads. Her bangs were
the same blond, dingy at the roots, and had that too-short curly
look like Mamie Eisenhower's used to.
    Her lipstick made him think of the
line from The Shooting of Dan
McGrew . "My God, how ghastly she looked in her paint,
the lady that's known as Lou." But she turned and set a drink down
in front of him.
    He shook his head. "I didn't order
anything."
    She jerked her thumb to the end of the bar,
where one of the older men held up a shot glass. "It's on me,
Willie. Haven't seen you around in a coon's age." Willie was too
tired to do anything but give the man a blank stare, and pretty
soon the fellow said, "You are Willie MacKai, ain't you?"
    "I'm not sure if it's safe to admit it or
not, but yes, I am."
    The man laughed. "What a kidder. Fellas, you
never heard nothin' till you've heard this guy perform. You playin'
around here, Willie? I used to go hear you all the time, but you
probably don't remember me. Bob Beezle? You were mostly surrounded
by females back then."
    The man's question reminded Willie that
while he knew and his small group of friends knew and their network
of supporters knew that there had been a conspiracy to keep them
from performing, the general public didn't know. If Torchy had been
telling Gussie the truth, first folk music in particular and then
most kinds of music in general were just gradually withdrawn
without anybody particularly missing it. That was a depressing
thought. But at least the man who bought him a drink remembered
him, and that seemed like a good sign.
    "I been on a European tour," Willie told
him. "Learned lots of new material."
    "Well, how about playin' us something?" the
man asked, and to the bartender he said, "That's okay, right,
Simone?"
    "I don't have a guitar with me, friend, but
thanks for askin'," Willie told him.
    "I can fix that," he said. "But first, a
toast to the greatest performer that ever lived. Simone, it's on
me. To you, Willie!" and Willie couldn't very well not drink his
whiskey, after which Simone poured him another one.
    While the man next to him was telling Willie
the story of his life, a guitar appeared from somewhere in the
vicinity of Bob Beezle, and someone slid it down the bar toward
Willie, much to the disgust of Simone, since there had been drinks
on the bar before the guitar knocked them off.
    He picked up the guitar confidently. It was
an old Ovation, curved plastic back. Good sound. The strings didn't
seem too old as he ran down them with his thumb. "What do you want
to hear?" he asked.
    "I don't know. You're the singer. Play
something," the man said. "Simone, another drink for my friend
Willie."
    Willie tuned and began to play one of his
old standards, a Mexican song he had learned as a youngster. As he
sang the words and strummed the familiar rhythms, he couldn't help
seeing the bodies of the family lying in that ravine, a whole
family, maybe more than one, wiped out as if they were coyotes or
cockroaches. The tune he was singing was a happy one, but the pain
of the memory lent it the