THE REST OF the cleanup went fine, I suppose. I wasn’t really thinking about it, just went on autopilot. When everything was done in the bar, and we swept the floor, I headed backstage and started collecting the wastebaskets into a garbage bag. One basket had an empty mickey of whisky and a torn-up bundle of paper. I grabbed the bottle for the recycling bin and gathered the pieces of paper. Looked like musical notation. Thinking it might be important, I put the bag and bottle aside and dropped the pieces on the dressing table. There were over a dozen pieces, but I was able to put everything together again.
It was a sheet of printed staff paper with musical notation drawn in pencil. It looked complicated, but I really didn’t know about reading music. It looked a little like what King had played earlier in the evening. At the top of the paper was written “Carcosa in Blue.”
Carcosa. Sounded familiar.
I pocketed the scraps, rather than throw them out. I wasn’t sure why.
By the time I got back to the bar and dropped the bottle into the recycling bin, Sam and another person came in through the front door. She was tall, with pulled-back hair, angular facial features, and old. But not aged. More like one of Tolkien’s elves: timeless, but delicate, with wise and weary eyes. She was kindly and sad. Not angry. Just disappointed.
“Mr. Virtue?”
“Yes. Zack. Ma’am. Please call me Zack.”
“Zack. Sam tells me you hit a man tonight. Curtis King. One of our valued musicians.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry about that.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going to make an excuse about it? Try to justify it?”
“No ma’am. Sam probably told you what happened. I should have been more professional.”
“Agreed. Thank you for being mature about it.”
“I’m fired, though.”
“Oh yes. Of course. I can’t have my musicians being assaulted,” she said.
“Understood.”
“Thanks for helping clean up.”
“No problem. I’ll just see myself out.”
I walked past, my eyes lowered a little. When I got to the door, I turned around.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Morgana. I wish it had been under better circumstances.”
She smiled, but said nothing. She turned away and continued into the bar.