And something else. The vestigia that clung to Cyrus had manifested itself like a saxophone, but what I was getting now was definitely a trombone. My dad was always sniffy about the ’bone. He said that it was all right in a brass section but you could count the number of decent trombone soloists on the fingers of one foot. It’s a difficult instrument to take seriously but even my dad admitted that a man who could solo on a slide trombone had to be something special. Then he’d talk about Kai Winding or J. J. Johnson. But the guys on stage were trumpet, electric bass, and drums—no trombone.

I had a horrible feeling I’d turned up two coupons short of the pop-up toaster.

I let the vestigium lead me through the crowd. There was a door to the left of the stage half hidden behind the speaker stacks with STAFF ONLY crookedly stenciled on it, yellow paint on black. It wasn’t until I reached the door that I realized that the band had followed me over like lost sheep. I told them to stay outside—so of course they followed me in.

The door opened straight into the green room/changing room/storage area, a long narrow space that looked to me like a converted coal bunker. The walls were plastered with ancient yellowing posters for bands and gigs. An old-fashioned theatrical dressing table with a horseshoe of bare bulbs was sandwiched between an American-sized fridge and a trestle table covered by a disposable tablecloth in Christmas green and red. A forest of beer bottles covered a coffee table and a white woman in her early twenties was asleep on one of the two green leather sofas that filled the rest of the room.

“So this is how the other half lives,” said Daniel.

“Makes all those years of rehearsing seem almost worthwhile,” said Max.

The woman on the sofa sat up and stared at us. She was wearing dungarees that were loose to the waist and a yellow T-shirt with I SAID NO SO FUCK OFF printed across the chest.

“Can I help you?” she said. She was wearing dark purple lipstick that had gotten smeared across one cheek.

“I’m looking for the band,” I said.

“Aren’t we all,” she said and held out her hand. “My name’s Peggy.”

“The band?” I asked, ignoring her hand.

Peggy sighed and rolled the kinks out of her shoulders, which pushed out her chest and got everyone’s attention—except for Daniel’s of course. “Aren’t they onstage?” she asked.

“The band before them,” I said.

“They’ve gone?” said Peggy. “Oh that bitch, she said she’d wake me up after the set. This really is too much.”

“What’s the name of the band?” I asked.

Peggy rolled off the sofa and started looking for her shoes. “Honestly,” she said. “I don’t remember. They were Cherry’s band.”

“Did they have a trombone player?” I asked. “A good one.”