Sweet Man Is Gone
Like a lot of white-guy guitar players, Jimmy doesn’t have much of a voice to speak of. But he looks so vulnerable leaning into the mike, with those big dark eyes, like he means every word. I know I’m staring, but I can’t help myself. I’d go for him in a minute, except—I grit my teeth—I’ve been down that road before.
“I love that tune,” I say. “Sounds like you’ve been listening to Muddy Waters.”
“You got it,” he says with a grin.
“‘Who’s Gonna Be Your Sweet Man When I’m Gone?’”
He looks up and, for a second, his usual vibe, pleasant but businesslike, turns into something else.
“Would you miss me if I was gone?” he says, looking at me so intently that I feel a little shiver.
“Yeah,” I say, when the shiver passes. “I would. I really would.”
Blues-singer Maxx Maxwell is smart, talented, and gorgeous–at least since she had her nose fixed, went blonde, and bought a push-up bra. So what if she’s living in a scruffy apartment in Hackensack, New Jersey, and the waitress job she’s taken to make ends meet is driving her crazy? Her band, Maxximum Blues, is really taking off, thanks to the talents of guitarist Jimmy Nashville, a heartbreakingly handsome guy whose life is complicated by an assortment of girlfriends.
But then Jimmy plunges to his death from the window of his ninth-floor apartment. His death intensifies tensions already simmering in the band, and Maxx fears her dream of making it as a singer might just as well be dead too. Besides, she has to admit that, though she was trying to resist his charm, she was as smitten with Jimmy as were the other women in his life.
When Jimmy’s death is ruled suicide, Maxx resolves to go sleuthing on her own.
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