Ragtime and 80-Proof Rootbeer

"Alexander's Ragtime Band" ended with a loud flourish on the drums. Norah unglued herself from me, and we worked our way through the happy perspiring crowd, back to the table where Sis and Owen were greeting people they knew. We ordered drinks from a cute little red-haired waitress, who it turned out was the girlfriend of Kelly, the kid I'd met at Milo's. He was parked at the bar over by the gray-haired lookout, his unsmiling blue eyes watching the crowd, and sipping from a big mug of what I knew certainly wasn't rootbeer."

EGYPT BURNING

Southern Illinois, Little Egypt, in the early Twenties. Bad times mixed with good times. Miners versus mine owners, bootleggers versus KKK, The Herrin Massacre, hot Dixieland jazz and sweet romantic tunes, and the dancing that went with them. Ed Murry home from the China Fleet, with two very different girls on the line, and a .45 in his suitcase.