Chapter 2

Gary rubbed his eyes and tried to stifle a yawn. He put his pencil down on the bar, closing the accounts payable book in front of him.

"Hey, Hobson, you look beat. Why don't you go on; I'll finish up here." Crumb said, wiping off the top of the bar.

Gary glanced at his watch, then remembered that it wasn't working, and looked to the clock above the bar instead. One-fifteen A.M. Crumb was right, he was beat. Literally. He had finished every thing he had to do in the paper and had come back to McGinty's around six P.M.; just in time to say good-bye to Marissa as she left for the day. Often she stayed later to help out, but tonight, she had seemed in a hurry to leave. Gary couldn't blame her. God knows, he was lousy company.

"Yo! Hobson! You still awake down there?" Crumb called from the other end of the bar.

Gary started. "Yeah, I'm awake," he mumbled, as he pushed away from the bar, gathering the books to return them to the office. He had taken to doing the books out at the bar late in the evening. With Chuck gone, the office was just too quiet. Suddenly he was overtaken by a yawn he just couldn't stifle.

"Go to bed, kid."

Gary grinned tiredly, "I'm going. You'll lock up?"

Crumb nodded and waved him away, "Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

Gary thanked him and wearily trudged towards the stairs leading to his apartment. Already, he was dreading the next morning's wake up call.

Crumb finished cleaning the bar, his mind wandering to his peculiar employer. He had noticed Hobson sporting a swollen nose, but hadn't commented on it. Neither had Hobson. Crumb had also heard on the news earlier in the evening, about a child who had fallen out a window being saved by a guy with brown hair. A guy who had fled before being identified. A guy who, according to witnesses, had suffered a bloody nose in the incident.

Crumb shook his head with a wry smile. He'd bet his retirement check that Hobson was the mystery hero.

Sometimes he wondered how the kid knew what he knew. More than once he had come upon the three musketeers, as he privately called the trio of Gary, Chuck and Marissa, huddled together at a table discussing something in hushed whispers, and all three would get quiet when he approached.

He once was tempted to ask Hobson to solve the mystery for him. It was after Hobson and the district attorney had been kidnapped, but when he saw the haunted expression on the kid's face that night, and for several days afterwards, he decided that he didn't want to know. He wanted to keep his life uncomplicated, thank you very much. He was content to just help out in whatever way he could.


"Morning, Marissa," Gary said, as he pushed through the doors to the kitchen.

Marissa turned a concerned expression towards him, "Do you have a cold, Gary? Your voice sounds funny."

Gary pulled a bowl and a box of cereal out of a cabinet, and set them on the counter before retrieving the milk from the fridge. "No, I don't have a cold. I got whacked in the nose when I caught a little kid who was falling out of a window."

"Oh, I figured that was you. I heard about it on the radio last night. Did you have a doctor check it out?"

"Nah, it's fine. Just a little sore," Gary said, as he dug into his bowl of Cheerios. The paper was spread open before him; once again full of accidents and mishaps that needed his attention.

"Gary?"

"Hmm?" Gary looked up from the paper; something about her tone of voice alerting him that she had something important to say.

Marissa looked uncharacteristically nervous, "I need to ask a favor, Gary."

"Sure. What do you need?"

"I hate to do this to you, but I need to take a few weeks and go see my mother. She's having surgery in two days, and she'll need someone there to help her."

"I hope it isn't anything serious. Will she be okay?"

Marissa swallowed and said quietly, "She's having a mastectomy. They found a cancerous tumor."

"I'm sorry, Marissa." Gary reached across the table and gave Marissa's hand a squeeze. He felt terrible. How ironic, he thought, that he could go out and save perfect strangers, but when someone close to him was hurting, he was powerless do anything about it.

Marissa nodded, "I know, Gary, but don't worry; my mom's a fighter. She's going to beat this. I just hate to go and leave you short of help, but I think my mom really needs me there."

"Well, yeah, of course you have to go. Don't worry about McGinty's. Crumb and I will do just fine."

"Well, it's not only McGinty's I worry about, Gary."

"What do you mean?" Gary quickly took another bite of cereal, not liking where this conversation was heading.

"You, Gary. You run around like the world will collapse if you don't get to everything in the paper. On top of that, you've taken on most of Chuck's old responsibilities."

"For some people, their world will collapse if I don't do what...what I do," Gary said defensively.

Marissa sighed, "I know, Gary, but you can't keep going on like this alone."

"I'll be fine. Don't worry. Just go take care of your mother and tell her I wish her a fast recovery," Gary said, hoping to end the conversation. He quickly finished his cereal and left to do what it was he did.


"Ow! Dammit!" Gary swore as he cradled his hand protectively. He aimed a kick at the retreating taxi, "You're welcome!" he called sarcastically, garnering strange glances from passersby. Gary examined the hand that the little old lady had slammed in the door; gingerly flexing his fingers. Turning, he walked back onto the sidewalk, cursing the paper, taxis, little old ladies and life in general.

He pulled out the first object of his wrath and with mixed feelings, noted that the article about the eighty-year old woman who had fallen while getting into a taxi, and then being accidentally dragged along the pavement for thirty feet, had disappeared. In its place was an article about the city flushing the fire hydrants.

Gary folded the paper and put it in his back pocket. He had about an hour until he had to be at the next event that needed to be prevented. He ducked into a little hotdog spot on the corner of Hubbard and State Street, and ordered the Chicago dog and a large soft drink.

Finding an empty booth, he sat and began arranging the mass of pickles, tomatoes, onions and relish into a manageable mouthful. It was near the lunch hour, and the streets were filled with office workers on their breaks. As he crunched the hotdog, he absently noted the passers-by. Most people were in pairs or small groups, chatting and laughing as they strolled by the window. Gary took a sip of his drink, trying to recall the last time he had had an actual conversation with someone. Marissa had been at her mother's over a week now. She had phoned a few times and said everything was going well and that it looked like the doctors had gotten all of the cancer. Gary was relieved. At least something was going right. With Marissa gone, the days had passed in a blur. The paper taking up his day and working at McGinty's filling the rest of his waking hours. Of course, Crumb talked to Gary, but both of them had been so busy lately, that their conversations usually went along the lines of:

"You order the ten cases of Guinness?"

"Yeah. How's the new waitress working out?"

"Fine."

"Good."

Gary still brought the books out to the bar every evening, but with Crumb so busy bartending, they didn't get much opportunity to talk. Gary had to admit that he was usually too beat to make conversation anyway what with the paper and the added responsibilities of running McGinty's.

He thought about hiring another manager, but couldn't bring himself to replace Chuck. If he did decide to hire someone in that capacity, he would have offered the position to Crumb--except Crumb wasn't interested.

Crumb had told Gary flat out, when Gary had hinted at the possibility, that he was happy coming in, tending bar and shooting the breeze with the patrons. Anything more than that would be too much like a real job. Something he wanted to avoid, he told Gary, especially after serving over thirty years on the CPD, he just wanted to do something fun. Gary couldn't blame him.

He sighed as he crumpled the hotdog wrapper into a ball, and tossed into the wastebasket. Standing, he stretched then headed out the door. He had places to go; people to save.