“No, Mort. It’s not all right, goddamn it. If she wants to scream at someone, she can wait until Keith decides to drag his butt up here.”

The door swung wide, impeccable slapstick timing, slammed hard against the wall, and Keith, as tall as Mort was thin, tall and hard for his habits, stepped across the threshold. He carried his guitar case in both hands like a tough in an old gangster film, violin hiding a tommy gun. Had carried it around that way for months, since he’d used the case to take a swing at a skinhead and the handle had broken off. Keith kicked the door shut behind him, and something tacked to the wall, one of a hundred flyers or handbills, came loose and fluttered to the floor like a big paper moth.

Daria managed to draw a deep breath, wasted attempt at scrounging some sort of calm, and leaned her bass gently against the nearest speaker. Very slowly, she turned to face the guitarist. And saw at once the stupid glaze, pupils like saucers and his face slack as hot butter behind its goatee and stubble shadow. It would be worse than useless arguing with him now, she knew that, but the angry thing had wound itself so tight inside her, and she imagined its electric hiss and crackle, power lines down on wet tarmac, blacksnakes coiled on scorched earth.

For a moment, no one said anything, and there was only the anger and her heart and the faint sounds of the last work traffic stragglers down on the street, a car horn filtered through the foam rubber and egg cartons stapled to the walls.

“So, what’s your plan, Keith,” and her voice sounded detached, ugly distance, and she thought again of something deadly and black underfoot. “We gonna start rehearsing in the fucking street now?”

“What?” and his blank eyes, lids at half-mast and cold gray stones barely visible beneath the overhang of his thick eyebrows, couldn’t have looked more innocent, more surprised. “Oh, hey, Mort…Jesus, man, didn’t you explain this thing to her?”