The sign on the outside of the door read,

The sign on the inside of the door, after you paid the bouncer the $7 cover charge said,

It was a Sunday afternoon and the music didn't start for hours yet, but Old Ratman pushed on through the door. He knew Mustang would already be working at the club, polishing tables, stocking the cooler, or cleaning up the stage. He worried about the young girl sometimes. She spent too much time at the bar. But with her mama run off and her left all alone, maybe it was better for her in here than out on the streets.

She heard him shuffle in and greeted him with a smile. She had to be the only white girl on the north side with a gold capped tooth, but somehow, it looked right on her. He and Old George had given it to her for her 18th birthday. She'd had her choice between the gold cap and a new guitar. She said her old guitar was just fine, thank you and had made an appointment for the dentist the very next day. Her mama hadn't approved, of course. But then, Miss Sarah wasn't here anymore. Ratman figured he and Old George were Mustang's family now. Leastways, that's what she said.

"Hey Ratman, howya doin today," she stood on her tip toes and leaned across the bar to kiss his leathery cheek.

"Doin' a mite better now," he wheezed.

She laughed, and pulled out a bottle of Wild Turkey, filling his snifter up nearly to the rim.

Nope, The Lonesome Blues Pub wasn't a traditional bar. And Mustang wasn't a traditional bartender. She was too young legally, to enter the premises, but the woman was older than her age. She'd had a ghost for a nursemaid, had her diapers changed by some of the Blues greats, and even played guitar against a demon band from Hell -- and won -- but if Mustang had seen it, it'd walked in the doors of the Lonesome Blues Pub. He didn't reckon she'd been more than 10 blocks away from the club in her whole life. Except maybe to go to Buddy Guy's 50th birthday bash at his club in the South Loop.

"I've been waiting for you. We got a package from Dusty Joe at the Blues Historical Society. I didn't want to open it till you got here, but I did read the note."

"Well girl, what's it say?"

"Dear Miss Mustang, Here's a gift, one I think you'll appreciate considering the club's history. A riddle which requires your special talents to solve. Fondly, Dusty Joe."

She ripped the packing tape off the box, and opened it, gently lifting a stack of lacquered disks out and setting them on the bar.

She picked the top disk up, carefully cradling the edges.

"It's an old Bluebird label. But the rest is handwritten. Hard to read... Oct. '35... Independent. Must be one of those demo records you could pay to have them make for you. RO JO.... Hellh-- I can't make out the rest of the word..." Her voice trailed off.

Mustang connected the initials, date and half-scrawled title in her mind.

Could it really be an unknown Robert Johnson record? Recorded thirteen months before his first San Antonio session?

It had to be a joke or a hoax, or some other artist.

There was one way to find out.

"I'll get the record player out of the office."

She set the old portable player on the counter then moved behind the bar to plug it in. The lights dimmed as the plug went into the socket. Wind began to howl through the room as Mustang picked up the top record and gently slid it out of the sleeve. A cold chill blast across the bar as she carefully set the disk on the record player peg. The wind cried "NOOOOOO" as she turned the power on.

Mustang struggled against the buffeting wind, and shouted at no place in particular, "Jayhawk, DO something!"

The bar's guardian ghost did something. It was as if he'd flicked the power switch in a virtual fuse box or slammed a spectral window sill down. The lights came up, the wind died down, and the howl was reduced to a quiet moan, like a puppy whimpering in the dark.

"Thank you," Mustang said to the air.

"Now, play that thing," Ratman said.

And the eery, plaintive wail of a young Blues King cried out. "I've got to keep movin..." The loneliness and rejection, the evil thoughts and wanderlust that young Robert described, as much with his guitar as with his words, crept into her soul. Suddenly she understood how a body could want to run, even if it had no place to go and didn't know what it was running from.

It was as if the spirit of Robert Johnson had reached through the speaker and wrapped his cold dead hands around her heart. When the last despairing notes faded away, Mustang found herself crying. Her heart broke in two.

She turned away to grieve in private, and saw a man, or a spectre of a man, sitting at the end of the bar. He wore a pinstripe suit with padding that didn't quite hide his rounded shoulders, a felt hat, and a guitar hanging low down his back.

He nodded hello then spoke soft. "I wish you hadn' gone an' done that. Ya let him loose again."

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