THE LEGACY – CHAPTER 6

As it got closer to Halloween, Ruthie found herself busier than she had ever been, between school, the play, and her job. Well both her jobs actually, because in addition to working at McGinty's she was spying on Gary, trying to figure out how he knew what he knew, and if he still does it. One of the things she was sure of was that he only knew things about the next day, like he was psychic, but only for twenty four hours ahead. She had figured this out when she had asked about the weather one day. Gary had told her exactly how the weather was going to be that day including where and when it would be raining; but when she asked about the weather a couple of days away, he gave the same vague answer as the weather channel.

She had started reading the Sun-Times because Gary always seemed to have a copy with him. She was trying to see what articles he was focused on, but sometimes he would be looking at a page that she found to be all ads, it didn't make sense. Well, one bit of good news was that with Teressa's help, she'd be done with the scenery and such soon; then she would just have to go down to rehearsals and show how it was to be moved. But that would free up more time for Gary watch. She had also started talking to both the staff and the regulars about Gary, and had heard quite a few funny stories. The one person she didn't ask was Marissa, because Ruthie was convinced that anything Gary was involved in, Marissa knew about it. She was just finishing up her shift, and was listening to Mr. Paige yarn on, when Marissa spoke up; "Ruth, could I talk to you for a moment?"

"Sure Marissa, give me a minute to hang my stuff up."

When she came back she noticed that Marissa seemed a bit nervous. "Ruth, I need to talk to you about the holidays. Since you're new, you are going to have to work either Christmas or Thanksgiving; not the days themselves of course, but all the days around them. So I need you to choose, and I need to know your choice tomorrow. I hope that's not too inconvenient."

"I understand Marissa; I'll call my folks tonight and let you know."

"OK Ruth and I'm sorry about this."

"Don't be, I understand." Well she understood; she just hoped that her family would.

That Evening:

Reluctantly Ruthie dialed the phone; this was not going to be the kind of conversation she was looking forward to. After a couple of rings, she heard her mom pick the phone up. "Camden residence."

"Mom, its Ruthie"

"Hi sweetie, is something wrong?"

"Kinda mom, I've got to ask you a question."

"OK" Annie said, a bit of worry evident in her voice.

"Do you want me home for Thanksgiving or Christmas?"

"You won't be able to make it home for both, do you need money dear."

"No, it's not money mom, it's my job; since I'm the new waitress I've got to work one or the other."

"Do you have a preference?"

"Not really mom."

"Well everyone is coming in for Thanksgiving; I suppose that would be best. Are you sure you can't be home for both.

"Yeah I'm sure. I wish I wasn't, but I'm sure."

"Alright sweetie, I understand, I don't like it, but I understand. I love you."

"I love you too, Mom. Bye" and she hung up the phone. Well that had been a lot less painful than she had imagined. Now she just needed to call Simon and try to get on the same flight out so her folks wouldn't have to make multiple runs to the airport. As she picked up the phone, she checked the clock. It was only nine, but she was seriously considering just going to bed. She chuckled to herself, her roommate would think something was wrong; she was never in bed before midnight; but the thought of just racking out really felt good. She resolved to take a shower and hit the sack right after she talked to her brother.

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Gary shouldn't have been running, but he was. The little kitchen fire hadn't wanted to go out, and the tenant hadn't been much help because he kept trying to put an electrical fire out with water. Eventually Gary had handed the guy the extinguisher and cut the power at the fuse box. But it had taken time, time that he didn't really have. He glanced again at the paper 'Photog in coma after being hit by debris'. Apparently Diaz was taking some pictures of a building going up and was gonna be hit by some materials that were either going to be thrown or blown off of the building. He ran into the construction area, ignoring the yells of the foreman.

He stopped and looked around, there was Diaz snapping away at the steel and concrete as it went up. Gary looked up and saw several small items come off the side of the building, they were so high up that he couldn't tell if they had been thrown or not, but it was clear that Diaz was not aware of them.

"Diaz" he yelled, dashing towards the photographer. Diaz kept snapping his pictures, oblivious to everything around him. Gary kept yelling, and finally Diaz looked up at him "Hobson" he said, as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Look out" Gary yelled.

Diaz looked up, finally aware of the danger he was in, but for whatever reason he seemed rooted to the spot, unable to move. Gary could hear the air whistling around the falling objects, they were that close, as he covered the last couple of feet and caught Diaz in a flying tackle. Gary and Diaz went one way and his equipment went in another. Gary was aware of a large crunch as he was laying there covering up, and hoping that he was out of the way.

After a few seconds, he believed that he had survived the accident, then he looked up and saw Diaz looking murderous. "Man, you broke both my cameras."

"You're welcome Miguel" Gary said, not believing what he had just heard.

"Without them I may as well be dead, they're my babies." Gary watched the Latino start moving the junk that had fallen until the shattered remains of the two cameras was visible. They had been totaled, and not only that, all of the film had been exposed.

"Man I hope you hire me again, cause after today there's no way I'll be at the Sun-Times."

"Right Miguel, you've been fired what twelve times, and they keep takin ya back."

"But even with talent like mine you just can't count on that Hobson; they were wanting these for some story that's going out tonight."

"You remember what they were interested in" Gary asked.

"Of course, I'm not an idiot."

"Could'a fooled me" Gary muttered. Then an idea hit him and he quickly checked the paper "come with me back to McGinty's, Diaz; I think I know someone that can save your bacon."

"Whatever happens man, you owe me for two cameras; got it."

"Sure Diaz, just see me in the morning, I'll replace em."

"OK then lets go see this savior of yours."

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Ruthie was nearing the end of her shift, when she saw Mr. Hobson walk in with a younger man. "Hey RC" he called "you got stuff to sketch with?"

"Yeah, Mr. Hobson; always."

"Could ya get it, there's a bit of an emergency here."

"Sure" the girl said, and went to get her stuff. When she walked back out, she saw Mr. Hobson and the younger man sitting at the bar. "Ruth Camden" he said as she walked up, "this is Miguel Diaz, from the Sun-Times. Miguel's a photographer."

"That's 'photo-journalist' Hobson, how many times I got to tell you that." The young man seemed angry.

"Anyway, Camden here is a pretty good artist, maybe you could describe what you were trying to get and she could sketch it for you."

Diaz looked scandalized "they want pictures Hobson, not drawings".

"Well what have ya got to loose, you don't have pictures now do you."

"No" the man grumped "thanks to you".

"Well, give it a try, who knows, they might like it."

Gary walked off, leaving Ruthie with the angry man. "Listen, if you don't want to try, I'll understand" she said.

"Nah" the man said finally "Hobson's right, I've got nothing to loose. So, what do you need me to do?"

"Just close your eyes and imagine the best picture you took, the one that you were sure they'd love. You got it in your mind?"

"Yeah, I got it."

"So where's the sun" she asked as they got started. Diaz kept his eyes closed and described the scene he was seeing in his mind. Once Ruthie felt that she had the gist of it, she told him he could stop now and she would just fill in the details. As she sat there sketching, she asked Miguel how he knew Gary. The answer she got surprised her.

"Man, there's a story there, I just can't seem to get it all together. I've been on him for five years; you wouldn't believe the stuff he's been involved in."

"Yeah, like what?"

Miguel proceeded to tell the girl about the Frank Scanlon case, and the disasters where he had seen Gary, and the people who had been miraculously saved by a man that fit Gary's description.

"You think he's psychic" Ruthie asked.

"I don't know kid, anyone else I'd say no way, but Hobson, he's just too spooky for words. All the stuff that he just happens to be in the middle of, it's weird. A couple of years ago, there was this detective that was convinced that Hobson was some sort of master criminal, and that was how he kept showing up at all these disasters."

"So what do you think?"

"I don't know what I think, but I do know that the cop ain't in Chicago no more."

She sat there sketching and listening to Diaz go on about Gary Hobson, she was learning boatloads about the man, but none of it seemed to add up. Finally she felt like she had what the guy needed and showed him her drawing "this in the ball park"?

Diaz was amazed; he made his living with images, and so was able to recognize the immense amount of talent that had just been at his disposal. The sketch was perfect, not photograph perfect, but it caught the truth of the scene. "You are one talented kid" he said.

Ruthie blushed; it felt good to be appreciated, especially by someone who was an artist in his own way. "Thanks" was all she said.

"Listen, if they run it, I'll split the fee with you; cool?"

"Whatever you think" she answered, she honestly didn't care about the money. "Let me know when you need something like this again, OK; it was fun."

Diaz just shook his head as he left McGinty's and hurried back to the paper, he was sure that they were gonna love this.

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The story ran the next day, along with the drawing; Ruthie got paid enough to keep her in paint a month or two, and some more notoriety. She also got a call from the paper, the features editor wanted to know if she could do something like that every week. "Sure" she had answered, it was fun, and meeting the journalists seemed cool. She had thought a bit about taking money for her art, but she looked at it as a contract, after all, it was stuff she normally wouldn't have done. So in that way it wasn't like selling one of her paintings, something she still adamantly refused to do.

But all this, even Gary watch, was overshadowed by the approach of Halloween. Marissa wanted a theme for the day, something that everyone could take part in. Gary didn't seem to care one way or the other; he simply assured everyone that he would not wear a gorilla suit. Crumb reminded everyone that McGinty's used to be a speakeasy in the twenties, so they should all get up in vintage clothing and such. Everyone seemed to like Crumb's idea, so they went with it.

The night before, the bar was redecorated to look more like it had back during the roaring twenties; it was fun with the whole staff helping out. Gary had even hired a couple of three piece jazz bands to play, one during the day and one at night to add to the atmosphere. Halloween day dawned, and Ruthie showed up to class in costume. She was dressed as a flapper, complete with a beaded dress and rolled stockings; her hair was held up in a band.

When she got to work, the first thing she saw was Brent, all done up like a gangster, complete with spats and a fedora. Marissa was dressed in a slinky evening gown, and said she was a torch singer. Most of the waitresses had gone for Ruthie's look, so there were a whole horde of flappers waiting tables.

The whole day was really fun; Ruthie even offered to work a double shift, just so she could see Crumb in his gangster get-up. But he surprised her by showing up in a vintage police uniform, complete with the little dome hat. What was funnier was when Brigatti showed up wearing pretty much the same thing. Gary was in a white formal dinner jacket and looked dashing.

When Simon had shown up for lunch, he was blown away by the place. Ruthie didn't know if Simon was checking up on her or really liked McGinty's, but he had been showing up an awful lot lately. She saw him glance in the direction of Lily; one of the other day waitresses and thought that there may be a third reason for him to be at McGinty's more often.

In the evening, Gary danced with Brigatti as Marissa sang some jazz standards, she really sounded great. Ruthie tried dancing herself and even though she wasn't much of a dancer, but it was fun. Mr. Paige tried to teach her some of the 'Charleston' with rather amusing results. She actually spent a lot of the evening helping Crumb out behind the bar, and chatting with the former cop.

As she headed back to her dorm, she tried to remember the last Halloween that had been this much fun. She had avoided parties at the school since her sophomore year, so it really wasn't hard to top recent memory; she figured it had to have been back when she was in middle school that a Halloween had been this enjoyable. Ruthie realized again how glad she was that she had ended up working at McGinty's, and come in contact with the people there. This line of thought ended with the mysterious Mr. Hobson, of course. Ruthie had learned a lot about Mr. Hobson in the last week, but she was no closer to how he knew what he knew than she had been when she started. Well, maybe November would provide some answers.