Mounting the stage, the stranger smoothly withdraws the his weapon from its dark casebox. The crowd grows hushed, puzzled. Something, but what?, is about to happen.

At the bar, the short balding guy and his chick-magnet brother are alerted. They turn their attention from a couple of redheads and take note of the man and his killer black Gibson pulling up a chair just out of the spotlight.

"Who is hell is that?" Clifton wonders, a sense of great compromise in voice.

Straining to see through the smoking haze, the brother pauses, then suggests, "Looks like that John Garfield."