The tent buzzed with excited chatter, competing with the excited buzz of flies as they attempted to go for a swim inside the perspiring cups of fizzy drinks the worshippers had purchased from the refreshment stand. Suddenly there was an ear-splitting c***k. Thinking someone had fired a g*n, Thelonious was about to take cover beneath his chair until he heard a second less-threatening c***k, which gave way to a droning male voice whose owner sounded as if his mouth had been stuffed full of stones. A quick tempo started up at the organ. Pastor Jehoshaphat Jones’s revival meeting was about to begin.
A solitary spotlight came on, illuminating the organ and a frumpy brunette whose head was too big for her body. Thelonious recognised the pastor’s wife—she’d been on the cover of one of the Americ
