THE LEGACY – CHAPTER 5
Gary was in the dog house, again. So he hadn't told Toni, it was just a mugging, the kind of thing he had stopped hundreds of times before. He couldn't understand how it had gone so wrong, he was just glad that his wife had bailed him out. But now she was furious because he had been in danger and hadn't told her. Right now he couldn't remember the reason he hadn't said anything, he was sure that it made sense at the time, but now it just looked like a really stupid move.
"Just apologize Gary."
"I would if she'd give me a chance, but anytime I open my mouth, she threatens to shoot me."
"She's scared, that's all."
"Why should she be scared, she's the one with the artillery."
"She's scared because she loves you Gary, she's so self contained that the possibility of losing the person she cares about most in the world is frightening."
Gary just sagged "so what should I do" he asked.
"Send her something that says 'you're sorry'."
"You mean have someone else take it to her."
"If she's not letting you near, then yeah, use a courier."
"And what should I send?"
"That one's up to you Gary, she's your wife after all."
"I know, thanks for your help Marissa."
"You're welcome; now let's take your mind off your problems by telling me what's in the paper today?"
"Just one thing, but it's bad. A high speed chase is gonna go wrong and both the suspect and a police car are gonna hit a busload of kids. And it's gonna start with the suspect shooting and killing a traffic cop."
"Oh my God Gary, how are you going to stop this, it sounds like you need Toni for this one."
"Of course I do, but it's kinda tough to include her when she wont listen to me, isn't it?"
"Then I suppose you better make peace with your wife, and soon."
"But now we're back to how, aren't we?"
Just then they both heard Brent the bartender call out "hey RC, how ya doing? You look like you barely slept."
"Yeah, but when inspiration strikes, you just gotta go with it."
Just then Gary had an idea, a way to both apologize to Brigatti, and warn her. Going to the door he said "hey RC, can you come back here for a second."
"Sure Mr. Hobson, just let me put my stuff away."
Five minutes later Ruthie walked into the office, she seemed nervous "what can I do for you Mr. Hobson?"
"I need you to do a sketch for me real quick, and then deliver it."
"Alright" the girl answered, perplexed "what am I sketching and where is it going?"
"Could you sketch me in a doghouse, and deliver it and a note to Brigatti?"
"Sure" the girl answered "give me about ten minutes and I'll be on my way".
Both Gary and Marissa thought that she meant that she would start in ten minutes, but she had meant that she would be done in ten minutes. Ten minutes later she walked back into the office with a cute little drawing of Gary, propped up on his elbows, halfway out of the door of a doghouse. He was stunned.
"You just did this?"
"Yeah; why, don't you like it?"
"No no, it's amazing; what I wouldn't give to have talent like this every now and again." He shook his head and got back to business. "Run the drawing and this note down to police headquarters and find Lt. Brigatti, make sure she gets it. This is important Ruth; it's not just me making up with my wife; so you have to make sure she gets it, OK?"
"Sure Mr. Hobson, I can be stubborn from time to time."
"I bet you can kiddo" he said as she left.
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On her way to the police station, Ruthie stopped and bought a small bouquet of carnations. She didn't know if Brigatti liked carnations or not, but every guy should know, you don't apologize to a woman without flowers.
The police station was not anything like the one in Glen Oak. Well that was understandable; Chicago was a bit bigger after all than Glen Oak. She stopped and asked the Desk Sergeant where the detectives were. "Third Floor" he answered without even looking at her. As she headed up to the third floor, Ruthie was reminded again and again of how different this place was from where she had grown up. She saw more guys in handcuffs than she had ever seen outside of TV. She figured since Brigatti was a Lieutenant, she would probably have a pretty good office, one away from most of the noise. Ruthie actually found it without much trouble, and knocked.
"Yeah" the woman said, without looking up.
"Detective Brigatti?"
Brigatti looked up and saw a nervous young woman, after a second she recognized the girl. "Camden right, you're the new waitress and scenery girl."
"Yeah, that's me. Ummmm. . . . Gary sent these over for you, along with this." She handed Brigatti the note and drawing, and laid the flowers on the detective's desk.
The detective's eyes crinkled up in a smile when she got a look at the drawing. "Did you do this?"
Ruthie just nodded; there was something about Brigatti that just made her nervous.
"You got talent kid, gotta give ya that one" she said as she opened the envelope.
Suddenly her manner changed completely, like it had the other night at the theater; she went from light hearted and laughing to deadly serious in seconds. Ruthie was worried that Mr. Hobson had somehow said the wrong thing in his note. Well, there was only so much she could control, so she tried not to worry too much. "Is something the matter?"
Brigatti jerked her head up out of the note "no, just tell Hobson I'll take care of it. Actually, tell him to work at the back end; he'll know what that means. And tell him thank you, OK."
Ruthie just nodded again. She had no idea what the message meant, but maybe it was some kind of code word that only meant something to Gary and Toni; whatever it was, it was none of her business. She left the police station and headed back to McGinty's, trying to understand the weird situation she seemed to be in the middle of. It was obvious that there was something other than a fight between a husband and wife going on, but she couldn't figure out what it could be, and how the mugging the other night factored in. She got back to the bar and passed on Detective Brigatti's message. Gary looked confused for a second, as though the message was as nonsensical to him as it was to Ruthie, but then his face cleared. He thanked her for what she had done and then turned and had a very hushed conversation with Marissa.
Ruthie went back to work taking orders and chatting with the customers. She was starting to recognize the regulars and anticipating what they wanted, and this made her tips go up, which was a good thing.
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At least one part of the save had gone well; the article about the traffic cop being killed was gone. Now the guy was shot, but his Kevlar vest saved him, so score one for the good guys. But now Gary was just trying to delay the bus another two minutes. The problem was that he had been delaying it for five, and the driver was becoming a bit irate.
"Buddy, I'm telling ya that there's something wrong with the wheel there."
"Listen, I've already told ya that the bus was just checked over a week ago, the wheel is fine."
"Would you at least get out here to check?"
"I'm already late because of you, I don't need any more hassle, now buzz off or I'll just run ya down."
The driver leaned back into his seat and closed the window, effectively ending the conversation. Gary checked the paper, the collision was still going to occur, and a lot of kids were gonna die. In the distance, Gary could hear sirens getting closer. He just stood there, in front of the bus. The driver revved the engine, but Gary didn't move. Slowly he eased the bus forward until the bumper touched Gary, then eased out on the clutch slowly. He was pushing Gary along, and still the article hadn't changed.
'Well' Gary decided 'desperate times, etc.' so he stepped to the side, pulled out a pocket knife, unfolded the blade and stuck it into the bus tire. The driver immediately stopped the bus, and with an incredulous look on his face picked up a tire iron. He was getting ready to come down and discuss the length of Gary's hospital stay when an old Trans-Am came around the corner too fast. It lost control and plowed into a dump truck that was parked there. If the bus had been moving, it would have been a head on collision.
Gary just looked at the driver and yelled "call for an ambulance" and raced over to the wreck to see if there were any survivors. He looked in the car to see, and then just staggered away. He made it about ten feet before he just collapsed in the street retching. There had just been blood and parts, you couldn't tell that there had been two people in that car just seconds before.
He got himself under control after a moment or two, and just sat there on the pavement. He knew that he had just saved sixteen people and prevented a lot more from going to the hospital, so why did losing two feel so bad? With all the police and gawkers and school kids there, he just stood up and walked away, no one even noticed.
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Marissa had seen him like this before, when a save hadn't gone perfectly, when lives had been lost. She knew that Gary always blamed himself, even if was something he was powerless to stop. Carefully she followed him up to his loft. The door was open; she could hear his ragged breathing and knew he would be sitting in his chair, wiping the tears from his eyes.
"Do I have to remind you that you saved fifteen kids and a man with a wife and two little girls?"
"But I missed the two teenagers, didn't I?"
"What could you have done Gary, they weren't stopping for the police, they surely wouldn't stop for you. All you would have ended up doing is getting run over or shot."
"There had to have been a way Marissa, I believe that there must have been a way to save all of them."
"You can't control what other people choose Gary, and those choices have consequences, sometimes really bad ones. You of all people should know that."
"I know" he sighed "I know, I just keep thinking that there was something I should have done, some other way I should have handled it."
"You did everything right Hobson" said a voice from the door "sometimes people just let you down."
Both Gary and Marissa turned at the sound of Toni Brigatti's voice. Marissa could hear the sadness in her voice and Gary could see the tears on her face. "I told my guys to follow em quietly and box them in, but some moron of a Cook County deputy sees a speeding car and fires up his sirens, and then the chase is on. He shouldn't have been where he was, he certainly shouldn't have inserted himself into our operation, but he did, and those two kids died; but not because of you." She walked over and with a fierceness in her eyes she fell to her knees, took his hands and looked up at him "not because of you, you hear me, not because of you."
The three of them sat there and cried, for missed opportunities and the whims of fate and lives lost. The tears dried eventually, but Gary just sat there shaking "I went over to see if either of them had survived" his voice caught "that was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life". He just sat there and shook with the horror of what he had seen. Toni, who understood this, just reached up and held him. She didn't say anything, because there was nothing to be said at the time, she just held the good man that was her husband.
Sensing that she would be intruding, Marissa got up and headed back down to the main floor. She had to admit that there were times when she wondered if Toni Brigatti was the right woman for Gary; but at times like this, she had no doubts what so ever.
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Teressa walked with Ruthie down to the theater that afternoon. Apparently neither Gary nor Toni would be there, and they had to tell Bonnie. Ruthie supposed they were probably busy making up after their fight and didn't ask. Teressa knew that something bad had happened to make them forget the fight, but she wasn't sure what it was, some times you just don't speculate. After Teressa had passed on her message, Ruth asked her to stay, for a bit at least; she wanted Teressa's opinions on the set, scenery and costumes. The two girls were talking quietly while Bonnie put the cast through their paces. Finally she came to a stopping point and asked Ruth to share her ideas. Teressa had provided some great advice, so Ruth asked her to help with the presentation. As the girls started, the cast didn't seem that interested, but by the time the two were done they were hanging on every word.
"The only problem I'm gonna have is finding plastic pallets. I can get wooden ones, but plastic would do better."
"We ship stuff out on plastic pallets" said Phil, an older guy who was playing Pedant "just give me a call tomorrow and you can talk to our shipping guy, he can tell you where to buy them. He handed Ruthie his business card.
"So do you like the ideas for scenery and stuff" she asked.
She got quite a few enthusiastic responses, especially from Bonnie; so she headed back to school feeling pretty good. "Could you give me a hand with this stuff" she asked Teressa.
"Sure, I'd be happy too, and your secret is safe with me."
"What secret?"
"The great and all sufficient Ruth Camden asking for help, no one at school would ever believe it."
"Yeah, yeah; I hear ya" then she laughed "for that matter, my family wouldn't believe it either."
"Why not?"
"Cause I'm more independent around them than around here."
"Why is that?"
"It's just the way we were raised, because of my dad being a preacher, we were so focused on helping out everyone else, that it just felt wrong letting someone else help us."
"Well I'm glad you're breaking that pattern, everyone needs a hand now and again."
"I know, but it's a tough habit to break, so thanks for everything, and I do mean everything."
Teressa flushed a bit, she had never known Camden to be so open. "You're welcome, and take care getting back to the dorm."
"I will, see ya tomorrow." And with that the two friends headed their separate ways.
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Gary Hobson jerked awake at about two in the morning, the scream barely contained behind his lips. He had looked in the car from earlier, and seen Chuck and Marissa; but then the faces had changed to Brigatti, Crumb, Armstrong, a slew of others, and finally his parents. Realizing that there was no way he'd get any more sleep that night, he carefully got out of bed, so he didn't wake Toni and quietly eased over to a chair across the loft, he picked up his copy of 'Lost Chicago' and turned on the reading lamp. It fell open to the picture of Snow and Cat. Gary wondered how the man had coped with the times that he had failed. Did he have friends like Gary did; friends who would do so much for him. He leaned back and wondered about the man who had gotten the paper before him. Four and a half hours later, he was awakened by the sound of a newspaper hitting the floor and Cat wanting in.
Several blocks away, Ruth Camden also woke up from a nightmare, but she didn't have to hold in the scream. It was a nightmare that she had had for the last couple of years, in which no one pushed her out of the way of the statue. But what had caused her to sit up wasn't the nightmare, but a revelation brought on by the nightmare. She had heard running first. She distinctly remembered that. She heard the running feet, then the tearing of the straps holding the statue. That could only mean one thing, Gary had somehow known it was going to happen; somehow he had known that Ruth Camden was going to be killed that day and had stopped it. But how, he certainly didn't act like a psychic, and he didn't act like someone who got messages from God, so how did he know. Well she knew how to snoop quietly, her brothers and sisters certainly knew that she did, so she would snoop around Gary, and try to figure out how he could know something that he couldn't possibly know.