Lucky paid the cab driver and walked quickly into the building. The guard was watching soap operas on his small television, and she slipped past the desk and up the stairs.

She found Marshall's office, and his bumbling blonde secretary.
"I need to see Marshall."
"Do you have an appointment?" the woman scanned her book
"I don't need one." said Lucky "He'll see me."
After a hushed intercom conversation, the secretary looked grinly up at Lucky and buzzed her through the large office doors.

Marshall Miller sat behind his desk, with his feet up and a shiny Stratocaster across his lap. He was cleaner than she'd seen him last, the Zepplin traded for an Armani, and the hair in a neat ponytail. "Lucky," he admonished "What are you doing here? This is against the rules, you know that." He smiled, but his eyes were cold.
"This is bullshit, Marshall. I read the papers, I see what you are doing, and it's wrong."
"You look good Lucky, that island life suits you. You know, I was meaning to come down and check the place out, see how you were getting along...You should have stayed down there."

"How did you expect me to? I'm supposed to sit and watch the waves while you are on some kind of witch-hunt? And by the way, I went by the cemetery, is that headstone really necessary? It's gruesome."
"It's completing the scene, dear woman. Sad lamb at the slaughter, teary community, and vengence. We need that kind of fervor. People go blind with it, and will hang the first thing they find. In this case, it's that singer. No matter, it gives the intended results."

"Yeah, well, your little plan has some problems, see I've got this reporter on my ass, and she may not know how I got here, but she knows who I am." Lucky said, and Marshall's eyes narrowed. "I met her at the Mermaid today, and she's close. You know, all I have to do is talk..."
"You won't." said Marshall "One word and you are dead for real this time. The folk-singer still goes down."
"It's not right Marshall, you have to know that?"
"Right-schmight, it gets the job done..." he noodled a few licks and grinned at her.

"What about Theet? Did you send him away to never-never land too?"
"Oh, no. He's currently negotiating for seven figures, or so I hear. Theet got his deal, and you got yours."
Lucky had that strange sensation crawl up her back as she looked at Marshall, "So that's what the devil looks like?" she thought

She bit her lip, hardly wanting to ask, "And Blake? There wasn't any mention of him in the papers after a day or two, what happened?"
"He crawled into a bottle, surfaced long enough to make an ass out of himself quoting Baudelaire at your funeral, then quietly sank to the bottom, right where we found him to begin with."

Lucky stood for a long while, staring out the window.
"You are on the next plane out of town, correct?"
"Maybe," she said distractedly.
Marshall set the guitar down and walked behind her at the window. He stood beside her finally, and without turning towards her spoke, "We can quote Baudelaire too, you know. 'Truly, I long to teach you what real misfortune is'. That's pretty, ain't it? I'm telling you as a friend, don't do it."

Lucky left the office and returned to the street, her head swimming. How was she supposed to tell him without ending up under a bus, for real this time?