Part 7

Light the sky and hold on tight
The world is burning down
      ~ Shawn Colvin
 

Gary hadn't returned when McGinty's closed at one.  Crumb offered to drive Marissa home, but she
declined.  She was far too wired to go to bed just yet; the bookkeeping had been neglected while she
juggled Gary's and Chuck's managing jobs as well as her own; and, most important, she needed to know
what had happened to Chuck.  Gary had called once, hours ago, to say that he was still out looking, but
that was the last she'd heard.

The fact that Crumb hadn't asked what was going on probably meant that he knew there was some
problem, but had decided not to pry.  No doubt he thought it was tied to Gary's "hocus-pocus".  Marissa
considered telling him the whole story, but until Gary could find out more, she didn't feel right spilling
the beans.  Hopefully she wouldn't have to.

"I'll stay here until Gary gets home," she told Crumb.  "I have so much work to do in the office, and this
is as good a time as any."

His brief but stony silence told her that he didn't agree with that assessment.  "I don't know if this is such
a smart idea," he muttered, but she could be stubborn, too.

"I'll lock the doors.  Gary should be back any time now.  No one will even know I'm here; it's not like I'll
need the lights on.  It'll be fine," she assured him when he grumbled.  "I've done it before."

"Hobson's on his way?"

"He said he'd be here by two at the latest.  I'm balancing the books, what could happen?""

One thing about Crumb: he might be abrasive, but he respected other people's decisions.  Still, he
couldn't resist one last caution.  "Just be careful.  Don't go home alone, you hear me?  Wait for Hobson,
or call me.  I don't want you out on your own at this hour."  She refrained from pointing out that Crumb
was not her father--after all, he meant well--and assured him once more that she'd wait for Gary, that
everything would be fine.

An hour later, Marissa was beginning to wonder about that.  She sat in the office, puzzling over
discrepancies in the account statements from their bank.  There were withdrawals and deposits she
didn't remember making and which hadn't been recorded in the main bookkeeping file.  Thoughts of
sleep and the late hour fled as she attempted to reconcile the inconsistencies.  Provided no one had
hacked into their system, Gary and Chuck were the only ones aside from herself who had access to
McGinty's bank account.  She chewed on her lip for a moment, considering recent events and her
conversation with Gary that morning.  As much as she hated to think that either of them would do
anything that would put McGinty's in jeopardy, for the past few days--or maybe it was more like the past
few weeks--Chuck had been behaving oddly.

Well, moreso than usual, she amended, with a smile that faded as quickly as it appeared.

When she got to the bottom line of the Braille printouts from the bank, she gasped.  The difference
between what was actually in the account and what their own computer records said it should have
contained was substantial.  No, it was more than substantial; it was staggering.  Marissa sat back heavily
in the chair, wondering if someone at the bank had misplaced a decimal.  Not very likely.

Gary wouldn't want to believe it.  Neither did she.  But whatever was going on, denial wasn't the answer.

Marissa didn't want to jump to premature conclusions, nor did she want to make accusations until she
was sure.  She checked her watch--it was nearly two-thirty.  Where was Gary?  Still tracking down Chuck's
friends, no doubt, but he could at least call to say so.  She stood and stretched, wishing that her
foreboding about Chuck would disappear along with the kinks in her shoulders.

It was too quiet in the office.  Even Spike wasn't there; he was upstairs in Gary's loft, out of the way of
the evening's hustle and bustle.  Right before closing time she'd checked and the guide dog had been
sleeping soundly, curled up with the cat on Gary's sofa.  She'd left him there, but now she was starting to
wish for the company he'd provide.

Don't be silly, she chastised herself as she sat back down.  She'd run through the statements one more
time, and then maybe she would curl up on Gary's couch herself--technically, she was due back here in a
few hours anyway.

She was engrossed in the process of re-checking the numbers when she heard the noise.  At first she
thought it was Gary, coming in through the back door.  Removing the headphones that delivered the
auditory version of their bookkeeping program, she felt both relief and trepidation--relief that Gary was
finally back, and worry about how she would break the news.  She straightened the two piles of printouts
she'd prepared, one in Braille, the other in regular print.  In just a second, the lock would slide open,
he'd--

But the lock didn't slide open.  It continued to rattle and jimmy.  Was someone breaking in?  Or maybe
it was Chuck; maybe he'd lost his keys and wasn't knocking because he didn't think there was anyone
down here.  She had risen from the chair and was out of the office, halfway through the kitchen to the
back door, when she heard a tremendous thud, and the sound of wood splintering.

Chuck couldn't do that.  Gary wouldn't.

Before she could catch her breath and collect her wits, there were two voices muttering low, and then
the hum of the fluorescent lights.  Marissa turned back for the office; she'd lock herself inside and call
the police--but that was stupid, they'd kicked their way in already and the office door was half glass.  The
other way, toward the cooler, she thought desperately, but then she must have been seen, because a
voice said calmly, confident of the outcome:  "Get her."

The footsteps were closer, but she was almost to the office.  Maybe she could put the door between
herself and the voices and make it up to Gary's place--but before she could force her feet to move
quickly enough there were hands clamped on her upper arms from behind and they were not kind or
gentle, they wanted something.

Kicking backward, Marissa tried to wrench herself out of the man's grasp, but then one of his arms, thick
and muscular inside a rough wool coat sleeve, was around her neck.  Something cold and hard pressed
into her temple.

"Don't move," a gruff voice that smelled like beer and cigarettes commanded, right in her ear, so close it
made her want to squirm despite the warning, despite the gun--a gun, oh God, he had a gun... "Just
hold still."  The words wormed through her ear, into her brain, and she shrugged her shoulders
involuntarily, trying to banish that voice.

"What are you, deaf?" he demanded.  The gun came away from her head and he let go of her for a split
second, only to yank her around to face him with a death grip on her shoulder.

"No," she gasped, intolerably annoyed at the fear in her own voice.

"Oh, I get it," he sneered, "You're not deaf.  I can see that now."  He released her with a push that left
her spinning.  Losing her balance, Marissa crashed into the metal prep table, heard pots clanging as
they hit the floor.  She felt for the edge of the table with both hands and managed to keep from going
down, while the man laughed at her, cold, mocking laughter that washed over her like a wave and left
her angry and terrified.

Using the edge of the table as a guide, she backed away from the voice and toward the office, toward a
door she could put between herself and--whoever he was.  Toward a phone.

"Where are you going?  You think you can get away from me?  That's fine, lady, we can play Blind Man's
Bluff."

His sneering voice cut through the air; her heart was thudding out of her chest.  He was in front of her,
stalking her, matching her step for step.  She could sense him.  She could hear his breathing, she
could--

She could have been paying more attention to what was going on behind her.  Another set of hands
grabbed her, there was a sadistic laugh--oh, no, there were two of them--and she was spun, pulled
around again, so fast and in such a wide arc that she completely lost her bearings and struggled just to
stand upright.

"Think she can tell us?"  The voice of the first man was behind her now, but not as close; the other one
twisted her arm behind her back and propelled her forward with a hand on her neck, his thick suede
gloves prickling like sandpaper against her skin.  She couldn't tell where she was anymore, didn't know
where he was pushing her.

"I don't know."  This time the voice in her ear was deeper, rougher; it grated.  He smelled like fish.
Tomatoes and fish.  He pulled on her arm, hard, forcing her into a chair, her office chair, and swiveled
it around, reaching from behind to pin her shoulders against the back of the chair. "Let's ask her."

To her right, the door slammed in its frame, but she couldn't jump, couldn't even startle at the jarring
noise, because of the hands that held her down.  Footsteps sounded, and she was sandwiched between
the pair of intruders.

"Where is he?"  The man in front of her leaned forward as he spoke, spraying beer fumes in her face.
Marissa didn't answer, wasn't even sure she was capable of speech.  She was listening desperately for
clues, for help, for anything to tell her how to get out of this.  Clenching her trembling hands into fists
in her lap, she held her breath as the man leaned closer, too close.  "Damn it, where is he?"

"Who?"  She hated the way her voice sounded, shaky and scared and small.

"Who?" he mimicked, falsetto.

"Fishman," the man behind her growled, low and menacing.

Chuck?  What did these guys want with Chuck?

"I--I don't know where he is."

The gruffer voice growled in her ear again.  "Don't lie to us."

Were these the men who had ransacked Chuck's apartment?  Gary had said--

Gary.  Her breath caught in her throat.  Where was Gary?

"Where's Fishman?"

"I don't know," she repeated, emphasizing the statement with a quick, outward movement of her
hands.  Her wrists were slammed down onto the armrests of her chair by the man who stood before her
and he held them there, his grip unyielding.  His leather gloves might as well have been iron, for all the
good it did her to pull and twist against them.  "I swear, I don't know."

Calm down, warned a distant, rational voice from somewhere deep inside.  They're feeding off your
terror, don't give it to them.  She scrabbled mentally for firm footing, something she could trust to help
her fight off the fear.

Gary wasn't there.  That meant something.  It meant nothing was going to happen to her.  If it was, it
would have been in the paper, wouldn't it?

Wouldn't it?

"You mean you haven't seen him lately?" mocked the first voice.  They both chuckled, and there was
no escape from their hands, their breath, their threat.  They were enjoying this.  Who were these
men, anyway?

Calm down...

Nothing, she told herself firmly, was going to happen.  It would be all right.  If they were going to do
anything to her, Gary would have seen it in the paper.  He wouldn't let it happen.  She had to believe
that.  It was the only way through this.

If only he'd let go of her wrists, if only they wouldn't touch her...

"You're another one of Fishman's friends, aren't you?"

Another?  Oh, God, had these people found Gary already?  Maybe he hadn't come because he--no, no,
no.  No.  He hadn't come because she wasn't in the paper because they weren't going to hurt her.  If she
believed it, it would be true.

"Yes, I..." she finally answered, swallowing hard, "He's my friend."

Tiniest of mercies, he released her wrists, backed away just a bit.  She yanked her hands into her lap,
drawing them in close, wishing she could curl into a ball like a pillbug and shut this nightmare out.

"Well then, girlie-girl--" her back went ramrod straight at his oozing condescension, but she didn't
respond.  Better humiliated than dead.  There was cold metal, the gun again, at her temple.  It trailed
slowly down her cheek, a steel caress.  "If he's a friend of yours, you should be able to help us.  To help
him.  The sooner we find him, the better it will be for everyone involved."

Yeah, right.  She wasn't stupid.  The gun barrel stopped just under her jaw, and she bit her lip.  It took
every ounce of nerve she had to keep from moving.

"We're Fishman's friends, too."

"I find that hard to believe.  He never mentioned any friends who were homicidal maniacs."  Her voice
was barely a whisper, but it was steadier than it had been before.

"Shut up!" the man in front of her shouted when the one behind her started to chuckle.  "This isn't a
joke.  You know I'm going to kill you if you don't tell me where he is, don't you girlie-girl?"  Marissa
gasped as the gun pressed more firmly into her skin.

She was so angry, her last resources of calm and reason nearly gone.  She was angry at Chuck, angry at
these bullies, angry at herself for getting into this, for not being stronger, for not being--she was angry
almost beyond her ability to control it.

Almost.

"I.  Don't.  Know.  Where.  He.  Is."  Her words fell into the silence like hailstones, one at a time.  "I
haven't seen him in two days."  She clenched her jaw shut and waited to see whether they would know or
care that she was telling the truth.

The pressure from the gun eased just a fraction.  "We already warned you.  Don't lie."

"I'm not lying.  Why would I lie?"  Of course she would lie to protect Chuck, but these bastards
wouldn't know, couldn't understand, that kind of loyalty.  Let them think they had intimidated her and
maybe they would believe the truth.

Then she would find Chuck--and kill him herself.

The gun was removed from her throat, and she nearly sagged in relief--until she heard the next sounds.

The man behind her stepped aside.

The man in front of her moved back.

The gun cocked.

The trigger pulled back.

Marissa froze.  She had no idea which way to move.  Then again, there wasn't time for ideas.  Pure
instinct took over and she ducked, covering her ears as a blast rang out and, behind her, glass shattered
and tinkled to the floor.

Her ears were ringing painfully, but she heard the sound of her heart starting to beat again--too fast,
too hard, but it was beating.  Upstairs, Spike was barking, harsher and more menacing than she'd ever
heard him.

"What the hell d'ya do that for?" demanded the man behind her.  The one with the gun ignored him,
leaning in close again.  She sat up, making no attempt this time to still her shaking hands as she
wrapped her arms around herself.

Hands, hell.  Her whole body was vibrating.

Please, just don't let me cry, she prayed.  Not in front of them.

"You give Fishman a message, next time he shows up."  His voice was insistent, low--unfiltered, she
thought illogically.  He smoked unfiltered cigarettes.

"You tell him we're looking for him.  Vince is looking for him.  And if he doesn't have what we need,
what he owes us, next time it's gonna be more than the glass around this joint that gets broken."  His
cheek was nearly touching her own, so close she could feel the rough stubble of five o'clock shadow.
"You understand me, sweetheart?  I'd hate to ruin such a pretty face, but one way or another, we've got
to teach old Chuckie-boy a lesson.  If he's not here to take it himself, we can always demonstrate on
you."

Marissa hoped she wasn't flinching.  All her being was focused on not lashing out at him, on staying
alive.

"We're going looking for him--fishing, you might say--and if we don't find him, we'll be back.  Soon.
Think you can remember all that?"

They were going to leave.  They'd be gone any second.  She was still in one piece.

So what Marissa said next didn't make a whole lot of sense--but she didn't want them to think they could
scare her so easily.

"You won't get away with this.  I know a police off--"

The rest was cut short.  He yanked her out of the chair by the neck of her sweater, all trace of smugness
gone as he hissed in her face.

"Don't even think about it, girlie."  Now she was flinching, turning her face away from his foul breath
and spittle.  "You call the cops, we're back here as soon as they leave, and your friend Fishman is
dead--and so, little lady, are you."

One more shove, and she fell gracelessly into the chair.  He pushed it, hard, and it slid into the filing
cabinet; the impact nearly threw her to the floor.

"Let's go."

The office door was slammed open and their feet crunched shattered glass through the kitchen.
Marissa didn't move, hands clenching the armrests, every muscle tensed in anger and fear.  A few dishes
clattered to the floor; Spike, hoarse now, continued to bark; the back door vibrated in whatever was left
of its frame.

But it didn't latch.  Of course it wouldn't latch.  The lock had been destroyed.

She waited.

Waited.

Waited.

And finally let out a long, tremulous breath, sagging back into her chair.  She tried to make her brain
work again through the cloud of physical sensations.  Their scents still lingered in the air; her skin
crawled with the memory of their gloved hands.  She could feel their breath in her ear, on her face, the
gun trailing its cold path down her--

No.  No.  This wasn't any good.  Stop shaking.  Breathe.  She ran a trembling hand over her mouth,
rubbed her arms, and tried to think logically; stood and made her way to her desk.  Threats or no
threats, she had to call the police, or maybe Crumb.  She wished she could call Gary, who, warning from
the paper or no, should have been home by now.

The receiver was halfway to her ear before it hit her.

Call the police, there would be a report.

If there was a report, there would be something in the paper.

If it was in the paper, Gary would have read it already.  He would have known.  If he'd had any inkling,
he would have come.  She knew it, trusted it the way she trusted her own conscience.

That was the problem.  If Gary had come barging in, that idiot with the gun--for all she knew they both
had them--wouldn't have wasted time asking for introductions.

Gary was a man.  Gary could see them, identify them.  Could fight them.  Gary would have been a
threat.  Unlike herself.  She could easily predict how those two would react to threats.

It was only when she came to the conclusion that calling the police before she knew what had happened
to Gary wasn't the best course of action that she realized there was no dial tone coming from the
handset.  She dropped it and jumped back as if burned.

Oh, good, Marissa, now's the perfect time to panic.

Her breathing and heart rate sped up again.  They'd cut the line.  They could be just outside, waiting
for Chuck.  What if Gary showed up now, and they saw him?

She turned in a careful circle, wanting, needing to be anywhere but in this office with the awful
memories--with their scents and the echoes of their whispered threats, with rough hands reaching for
her from the dark.

Going home was not an option, not after this, not at this hour, and not alone.

At least if she went up to the loft she could lock the door.  She could calm Spike.  She could wait, could
think, until Gary came.  Not long now, it couldn't be too much longer at all.  He'd see the mess and call
her name and she would know he was okay and that it was safe to come down.

At least, away from this room, she could breathe the smell of cigarettes and cheap beer out of her nose.
She made her way to the stairs and fumbled, still none too steady, for the railing; counted the steps out
of force of habit as she climbed them.

At least, she thought as she finally, mercifully, locked herself in Gary's apartment, dropped to her knees,
and wrapped her arms around the bulk of muscle and fur that was as much seeking as offering
comfort--at least, if they came back, she wouldn't be alone.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 

Part 8

I should have looked down
I should have looked back
I should have checked my rearview mirror
It's not that I don't, maybe I just rely that
You won't hit me on my blind side
      ~ Carrie Newcomer
 

Gary checked the digital clock in the dash of the catering van as he parked in the alley.  3:15 AM.
Great.

He'd been everywhere he knew to look for Chuck, and a few places he hadn't known, but which had
looked promising.  He'd talked to Chuck's friends, including old girlfriends--the ones he knew about,
anyway.  He'd stopped in every bar he'd come across, even checked the bus and train stations, but no
one had seen Chuck.  It didn't make sense; it wasn't as if the guy had a face that was hard to remember.
Gary had even tried the hospitals, consulting the paper the whole time, paging through the
unresponsive tabloid until the print was worn.

Nothing.

It was as if Chuck had dropped off the face of the earth.

This was not like him, not at all, Gary fumed as he exited and locked the van.  When Chuck had
trouble, he whined, he griped, he flew into histrionics worthy of Robin Williams.  He didn't clam up,
and he didn't disappear.  The guy was obviously in some kind of dire straits, so why hadn't he asked his
friends for help?

Gary was so deep in thought that his key was poised at the lock before the sight in front of him
registered.  The door was dented, its wooden frame splintered around the lock; it creaked eerily when
he pushed it open.  He hesitated before the threshold, noting that the kitchen lights were on.

At three in the morning?

"Hello?" he called into the cavernous room.  His voice echoed softly, though he fought to keep it low.
There was no response.  "Crumb?  Marissa?"  Then, even more quietly, "Chuck?"

No sound, no movement.  Gary didn't speak again.  If someone was in there, maybe it would be better if
they didn't know he was coming.  He took two stealthy steps inside, blinking as his eyes adjusted from
the single light of the alley to the bright overheads of the kitchen.

Mouth agape, he paused just inside the door.  Pots and pans were strewn on the floor as if a giant had
swept its arm across one of the prep tables.  A few more steps, and his boots crunched...glass?  Random
pieces scattered here and there led to a layer of shards in front of the office.

What the hell had happened?  He'd read the paper dozens of times that night and there'd been no
mention of this, nothing about McGinty's at all.

Gary stopped and swallowed hard when he realized that the glass underfoot was from the now-shattered
window of the office door.  It was all he could do to force himself in there, hoping to God he wouldn't
find anyone, that his search for Chuck wouldn't end here.

That whoever had done this was gone.

Moving in slow motion, he reached over and flipped on the office light, releasing a long breath when he
saw he was alone in the room.  His relief didn't last long.  Things weren't right in there, either.

The phone was off the hook, its receiver dangling over the edge of the first desk.  Pages of paper,
printed with numbers and stamped in Braille, were scattered over the desk and on the floor.  The
computer's screen saver was running, a maze of colored pipes building and unbuilding itself.  He tapped
the mouse and the bookkeeping program appeared.  Marissa's headphones were plugged in and set on
top of the monitor.

She wouldn't have left the office like this.  Not unless--not unless something had happened.

Pushing that thought firmly to the back of his mind--after all, Marissa would have gone home hours
ago--he picked up the phone and pressed the reset button, but couldn't get a dial tone.  In and of itself,
that would have been odd, but with everything else--this situation was getting downright spooky.

Heart pounding, Gary ran a hand over his mouth while he tried to piece together what had happened.
As in Chuck's apartment, nothing of value was missing, which meant it hadn't been a robbery.

And why would anyone break the glass in the office door?  It was never locked.

He had decided to get back in the van and find a phone--call Marissa, Crumb, and the police, in that
order--when he heard it: the floorboard from his living room, the one that always creaked when anyone
walked behind the sofa.

Was the person who'd done this upstairs?

Or maybe it was Chuck; maybe he'd come looking for Gary and was waiting upstairs.

It could be Marissa, but why would she leave the office like this, without some word or sign so he would
know it was her up there, know she was all right?

Damn it, wasn't the paper supposed to help with stuff like this?  Unless--if something had happened too
late, it wouldn't make the next day's edition, would it?

Telling himself just what an idiot he was, but driven by concern and a need to make sense of the
situation, Gary crept up the stairs, avoiding the loose tread on the fifth step and the creaker on the
ninth.  If it was someone who shouldn't have been there, at least he could hope to surprise them if he
went quietly...

Quietly....

Not quietly enough.  The keys were rock-solid steady in his hands, the lock slid to with hardly a click,
but as he threw open the door to his loft, a furious barking exploded out of the darkness and something
whizzed past his face.

He ducked, took a step back; it whizzed by again and he saw it was his own hockey stick; a third time
and he saw who was wielding it; and there was no fourth time because he grabbed it in mid-swing.

"Marissa!  Marissa!  It's me, it's okay!  Hey, Marissa, calm down, c'mon, it's Gary!"  She was trying
frantically, and with more strength than he would have thought she could muster, to wrest the stick back
from him, but she must have heard him, finally.  She froze, wide-eyed but no longer struggling.  They
stood that way for a few seconds, their hands gripping opposite ends of the hockey stick, each trying to
slow a racing heart.  Spike stopped barking but still stood at attention, pressed protectively against his
mistress.

"G-Gary?"

"It's me, Marissa," he repeated, more gently this time.  "It's okay."

"You--you're all right?"

"Well, yeah, but what about--"

Releasing the hockey stick so abruptly that Gary stumbled backward, she took several steps away from
him, her face clouding over with anger, or maybe...what was it?

"Do not sneak up on me like that again, do you understand?"

With a start, Gary identified the second emotion: fear.  Marissa was more frightened than he'd ever seen
her before.  Her voice was trembling and higher-pitched than usual as she stood in the darkened loft,
one hand sliding over to rest on Spike's head.  She wasn't really furious--not at him, anyway.

She was afraid.

"Sneak up on you?  Marissa, I didn't know it was you.  I thought whoever broke in downstairs was up
here."  He propped the hockey stick against the wall, flicked on the overhead light, and took a step
toward her.  "What is it, Marissa, what's happened?"

She didn't answer.  She faced him, drawing deep, shaky breaths, her free hand clenched into a fist,
trying desperately, he could tell, to keep control of some overwhelming emotion.

"Marissa."  Maybe if he repeated her name often enough she'd start acting like herself.  "Marissa, tell
me."  He stepped closer, and grasped her upper arms in an attempt to center her.

Big mistake.  She jumped back, throwing off his hands as if he'd burned her, then wheeled and paced
away from Gary.  "Where's Chuck?  Did you find him?"

"No, but what--"

"Damn."  Gary watched her in astonishment and concern, not sure what any of it meant.  With a little
whine, Spike turned his huge brown eyes to Gary, as if asking him to make his owner act like her normal
self.  Marissa made it to the other end of the living area, stopped at the bookcase, and spun abruptly
back the other way, bumping into an end table and sending a lamp tottering.  Gary dove across the
couch and caught it, staring at his friend while he righted the lamp and she kept right on going, to the
door and then back his way.  A sick thought crept into his mind as he tried to make sense of what she'd
said so far.

"Marissa, did Chuck make that mess downstairs?  Did he--" gulping, Gary finished, "did he hurt you?"
He moved to stand before the bookcase, blocking the end of her path.

"No.  Okay?"  Step, step, step--she turned just out of his reach, paced away from him.  "No, but he might
as well have."

This was unbelievable.  Covering the distance between them in two long strides, he stopped just behind
her.

"Marissa."   This time he put only his fingers on her shoulder, staying at arm's length.  She paused, and
didn't shrug them off.  "Marissa, just slow down, okay?"

Gary moved around to face her, still keeping a steady hand on her shoulder.  She bit her lip, and he
couldn't tell if she was about to fly into a rage or burst into tears.  "Slow down and let me catch up.
Please.  I mean, jeez, I come home at three in the morning, the door's been kicked in, there's glass all
over the kitchen floor, the office is still up and running, the phone is dead--then I come up here and
you're swinging at anything that moves with my hockey stick!  Will you tell me what that's all about?"

"They--Gary, I couldn't--"  She pressed her fist against her mouth and closed her eyes.

"Please, just--c'mere."  He took her hand and, when she didn't resist, steered her around the end table
pulling her down to sit next to him on the couch.  "Tell me what happened."

"They were looking for Chuck."  Marissa pulled both her hands, including the one Gary was still
holding, into her lap.

"Who?"

Spike had padded over to stand next to Marissa, and he nuzzled her knee.  After a couple deep breaths,
she said, "Two men.  They--they broke into--they came in and I thought it was him, or you, but they
were looking for Chuck."

"When was this?"

"About--about an hour ago, or maybe a little less."

"What were you doing here at that hour?  Were you alone?"  Gary felt like an idiot, firing off a barrage
of questions in the face of her fear, but he'd never seen Marissa like this, not even remotely, and he
wasn't sure of the protocol.  He only hoped he wasn't making it worse.

"Yes.  I was--I was waiting for you."  She squeezed his hand, almost as if she'd read his mind.  "I was
worried about you, and about Chuck, and I started working on the books, updating the computer files.
Spike was up here.  I thought the cat was, too--well, it was, but I don't know where it is now, I can't find
it, Gary.  I searched all over the apartment, but it was probably frightened by the noise and I don't know
where it would go."  She swallowed hard, and Gary's stomach flipped over.  The Marissa he knew didn't
get scared--or scattered.

"Forget the damn cat, Marissa, are you all right?  Why wasn't this in the paper?"

"Because I am all right, Gary."  Her voice was calmer now, without the edge of hysteria, but she held
his hand in a death grip, a drowning woman clinging to a lifeline.  "They said not to call the police.  I
was going to anyway, or call Crumb, but I--I was all right, they didn't hurt me, and if I called anyone it
would have been in the paper, and then it would have been you against the two of them, it wouldn't
have been fair, because I know you--you would rush over here and not get any help.  You would have
been a threat--"

"Damn straight I would have."

At that, she released his hand and jumped to her feet, walked right into the coffee table, and turned
without a stumble.  Fists at her sides, she faced him, fierce intensity punctuating every word.   "That is
the point, Gary.  Don't you understand?"  She jabbed a finger in the direction of the door.  "The
window shattered because a bullet went though it."

"A--a bullet?  Shit, Marissa--"  This was too much to take.  Gary stood and placed one hand on her
shoulder.

She shivered and turned toward him, blinking back tears.  "They were trying to scare me, but I kept
imagining you rushing in and being on the other side of that window, and I wouldn't be able to warn
you, and I couldn't do that, Gary, I could not let that happen."

"You should have.  If it meant I could have been here to help you, you should have."

"Well, I didn't."  Her voice rose again, and she wrapped her arms around herself.  "Besides, the phones
were dead--I-I think they cut the lines.  Up here, too.  I didn't know if they were still outside, or where
Chuck was, or if they had found you."

"But--"

"I was all right," she insisted, "and I decided to wait up here.  I thought if you came back you'd see what
had happened and say something, loud enough so I'd know it was you."

Great.  It was bad enough that this had happened, and now he'd made it worse.  "I thought--well, like I
said, I didn't know it was you up here.  Is that why you were trying to take my head off?  You thought I
was one of them?"

She nodded.  "I--"  One hand flew up to her mouth; the cuff of her sweater slipped away from her wrist
and he could see a bruise there, dark purple against her skin.  "Oh, God, Gary, I could have hurt you
and not known--When you didn't say anything, when you were sneaking up the stairs like that, I
thought--thought they'd come back to finish..."  She gulped.

"Finish what?" Gary asked when she didn't complete the thought.  "Marissa, what did they do?  What
did they say?"  Despite her protestations, he didn't believe that she was all right, not yet.

"I told you, they were looking for Chuck.  When they didn't see him they--I guess they thought I would
tell them, if I knew."

"But you didn't know."

"No, and I wouldn't have told them if I did."  She took a deep breath, and her next words came out in a
rush.  "These men--they were rough, and when they didn't believe me at first--they thought I was weak.
They thought because I'm blind they could scare me and intimidate me and--and he had the gun on my
face and they smelled like beer and cigarettes and fish, and they liked what they were doing, they
thought it was funny, and all I could think was that if Chuck ever comes back I swear I'll kill him
myself for putting me through that."  Her voice cracked on the last words, and she bit her lip, still
clutching at control.

Gary's brain was trying to make sense of all this, but his heart kept getting in the way.  The thought of
anyone threatening Marissa, when he could have been there, could have prevented it--it was tying him
up in knots.  He stepped closer, and when she didn't back away or shrug his hand off, he slipped his
arm around her shoulders, pulled her in close, and in a moment she was hugging him back and they
stood that way for a long time, just holding on, while Spike's tail thumped against the hardwood in
approval.

"I hate being scared like this," she finally whispered into his jacket.  "I hate being used."

Gary squeezed a little tighter.  "I know.  It's okay, it's over."

Marissa let out a long sigh, then, pushing gently away, she dropped her arms to her sides and shook her
head.  "No, Gary.  It's not."

"What are you talking about?"

"They wanted Chuck."  Her voice was flat, drained.  "I think they meant what they said; if they don't find
him, they'll come back."

"I don't understand."  That was the understatement of the year.  "Why did they want Chuck?"

"I'm not sure.  They said they were bringing a message, from some guy named Vince, said Chuck owed
him something, they--they said they'd be back if they couldn't find him."

Gary stared around the loft, from the pile of laundry near the hastily-made bed, to the curio shelves, the
television set, and then to the kitchen, as though the answers to this mess were hidden somewhere, in
the corners, maybe, or back in the shadowy spaces where the light didn't reach.  The mysterious
message on Chuck's answering machine, the absolute chaos in Chuck's  apartment, his disappearance,
and now this--things were finally starting to fall into a pattern, but it wasn't one he liked.  If these goons
had enjoyed tormenting Marissa, what would they do if they found Chuck?  "What is it that he owes
them?" he finally asked.

"They didn't say, but I'll give you one guess."  Silent for a moment, she let Gary figure it out for himself.

"Money?"  She  nodded.  "Geez, Marissa..."  Running a hand through his hair, Gary shook his head.
"How did Chuck get mixed up with people like this, anyway?  Are you sure it wasn't a mistake?  Could it
have been someone else they were looking for?"

"No.  It wasn't a mistake.  They knew his name.  They knew to come here, and Gary--" she took a deep
breath, her chin set, and he realized that she wasn't through delivering bad news.  Whatever she was
going to say next, he was sure he didn't want to hear it.

"There's something wrong with the financial records.  Here, at McGinty's."

"Wha-what do you mean, wrong?"

"You haven't made any withdrawals from the account without telling me, have you?"

"Well, no, of course not, I--"  She was waiting for Gary to catch up, but this time he didn't want to.  He
really didn't want to.  "Aw, no.  He wouldn't."

"No one else has access, Gary, you know that," she said softly.

He walked across the room and leaned his forehead against the window, which wasn't cool enough to
quench the anger building inside him.  In the alley below, he could see the circle of light defined by the
lone fixture over the kitchen entrance, catching half the trash dumpster and the back end of the van in
its illumination.  "How much did he take?" Gary asked without turning around.  "How long has this been
going on?"

"About three weeks."  Marissa's voice was soft, the harsh edges of the news she delivered tempered with
more than a hint of sorrow.  "There are withdrawals, then deposits for the same amount the next day,
but lately, the past week or so, the deposits never came."

Gary ran a finger along the window sill.  "How much?"

There was no answer, and he turned away from the window.  Marissa had moved to the couch, and sat
just on the edge.  Head bent, biting her lip, she stroked Spike's back methodically.

"How much, Marissa?"  Gary took a step closer.

Her hand dropped away from the dog, and she lifted her chin.  "Several--several thousand."

No--no, there had to be some mistake.  "How much is several?"  Silence, again.  "Marissa?"  Alone on the
couch, she looked as forlorn as Gary felt.  He perched on the coffee table and leaned forward.  "C'mon.
Tell me."

Fingering the cuff of her sweater, she let out a sigh.  "If we don't get it back, we could have trouble
paying suppliers and making our payroll--maybe not next week, but in a month or two."

Which meant...Gary did some quick mental estimates.  She was using the term 'several' loosely, then.
"Chuck took thousands of dollars?  From--from us?"  Marissa nodded bleakly, and Gary's shoulders
sagged.  Elbows propped on his knees, he steepled his fingers and rested his chin on his thumbs.  Chuck
couldn't--Chuck wouldn't, not the Chuck he knew, not his best friend.

Then again, he wouldn't have believed that his best friend knew the kind of people who would think
nothing of hurting someone--hurting Marissa--to get what they wanted.  But if all they wanted was--Gary
shook his head.  "Wait a minute.  That still doesn't explain what's going on.  You think some two-bit
bookie's gonna kill Chuck over that kind of money?"

"I don't know, Gary, maybe we can only see part of the picture.  Maybe that's all he could stand to take.
I don't think he wanted to--it isn't in his nature.  He wouldn't do this if he wasn't desperate.  And he did
sell his car."

"So you think it's more.  A lot more."  This couldn't be true.  Chuck had made some bets in his time, but
this--Gary let his hands fall as he sat up straight, silently tapping one long index finger against his knee.
"No, it doesn't make any sense.  He couldn't get in this deep without me knowing."

"Gary I know this is hard.  He's your friend.  He's my friend, too.  But we both know something's been
different lately.  He could be--he is--in real trouble.  We can't help him if we don't face the truth."  She
rubbed her forehead for a minute, adding, when Gary didn't respond, "I can show you the numbers."

"Well, no, no, Marissa, I didn't mean that.  I trust you."

"I know, and I appreciate that, but I want you to look at the records.  I want to be sure that it isn't my
mistake, or the bank's.  Last night, before--before--"  There was a hitch in her voice, and she rubbed her
upper arms.  "When I found the discrepancies, I printed out our records in Braille and on the regular
printer.  I think they're still downstairs, and so are the bank statements.  We can go over them together.
We have to."

It was close to four in the morning.  They were both exhausted, and Gary wasn't sure he was ready for
any more bad news.  "Can't this wait until tomorrow?  I can take you home, you can get some rest, and
then--"

"No, Gary, I--"  She stood, her arms crossed tightly in front of her.  "If it's okay with you, I'd rather do it
now.  I really want to know what's going on, and maybe this will help us find Chuck--"  She broke off
abruptly and bent to feel through the magazines, remotes, and old newspapers that littered the coffee
table next to Gary.  "I thought it was right here," she mumbled.

Frowning, he got up to help.  "What was?"

"Spike's harness."

"Well, here--" Gary spotted it on the end table, where she always left it, and wondered why she would
search for it anywhere else.  "Here it is, but what do you want it for?"  He handed it to her as he asked
the question, and realized that her fingers were trembling again; realized at the same moment that the
last thing Marissa wanted or needed right now was to be alone.

"If we're going downstairs, Spike's going, too."

What was Gary, chopped liver?  "Hey, I--" he started, but at the sight of the determined face that was a
mask for so much more, thought the better of it.  "I got a better idea.  I'll go get the stuff, you make
some coffee, and we can check it out up here.   Okay?"

There was only a moment of hesitation before she acquiesced.  "Okay."

"Back in a second."

"Be careful, Gary."

Halfway out the door he paused, turning back to see her standing, tense, one hand resting on Spike's
head.  "I'm just going down to the office."

"I know.  Be careful."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 

Part 9

But this is where it ends, this is where it ends
Call the police and call the press
But please, dear God, don't tell my friends
      ~ Stephen Page & Ed Roberts
 

"Marissa, this can't be right."

"Well, we can call the bank in the morn--in a couple of hours."

At the sound of her muffled voice, Gary looked up from his calculator and Quicken printouts.  He'd
cleared off the end of the large table that served as the loft's kitchen counter and eating area so that
they could spread out the papers they needed.  Now Marissa had cradled her head in her arms, right on
top of her thick, cream-colored Braille bank statements, and all he could see was a jumbled pile of tiny
braids.  He glanced back at the printouts, but the numbers danced and flitted away from his weary eyes.

"Hey."  Gary set down the papers and put one hand on Marissa's shoulder.

She sat up immediately, blinking.  "What?"

"Why don't you go lie down?"

"But we have to do this."  Yawning, she rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand.

"I don't think there's anything more to be done."  Gary tried to keep the bitter edge out of his voice.
"We'll call the bank in the morning, but I think...I think you were right."

This time it was Marissa who reached out and found Gary's hand.  "I didn't want to be," she said
miserably.  He looked at her, really looked at her: hair going every which way, one earring missing,
makeup long since worn away.  Worn.  That four-letter word just about summed up Gary's feelings, too.

"Get some rest, Marissa.  We'll figure out what to do later."  Without protest, practically sleepwalking
over to the bed, she curled up in a ball on top of the comforter, not even bothering to kick off her shoes
or reach for a pillow.  In less than two minutes, the rhythmic rise and fall of her shoulders told him
she'd finally found some measure of peace.

For Gary, it was more elusive.  Anger, confusion, and, despite everything that had happened, fear for
Chuck, had left him tense, physically as well as emotionally.  Stretching his neck and rolling his
shoulders helped relax his muscles, but nothing could stop the troubling thoughts that chased each
other around his brain.  He dumped the rest of his lukewarm coffee in the sink and crossed the loft to
stand by the window.  The sun was still an hour or two away from rising, but the dark of the night had
passed; black was turning to charcoal and the few stars that were visible beyond the lights of the city
were fading.  In the alley below, nothing stirred.

He supposed he should go down and clean up the kitchen, but he didn't have the energy.  For any of
it--mending the window, finding Chuck, dealing with the losses...that was going to be the hard part.  In
order to prevent any more money from leaking out of McGinty's accounts, he'd have to call the bank,
maybe even call a lawyer, make sure that his partner's access to their funds was cut off.

God help him if he had to explain why.

Restless, he roamed the apartment, avoiding the kitchen table.  When the geometric patterns in the
upholstery began dancing off the armchair, Gary realized just how tired he really was.  Next he'd be
hearing voices.  More to get the pattern out of his line of sight than anything else, he settled down in
the chair.  He picked up the television remote, but then glanced over at Marissa, who hadn't stirred, and
set it back down.

Gary hadn't thought he could sleep, but when he woke with a start he realized he'd drifted off.  There it
was again--the cat's meow, which suddenly intensified and then was cut short.  Instantly awake, Gary
jumped from the chair.  Marissa bolted up, kneeling on the bed.

"Gary?"

"Shhh...stay there."

Spike, who had been curled up on the floor next to the bed, sat up and growled low, but Marissa
grabbed his collar.  "Hush," she whispered, and the dog went still.

As Gary crept to the door, he could see a shadow wavering through the mottled glass in the door.
Someone was out there.  He could hear the paper being shuffled about, and he clenched his teeth.

"Rrreee--owww!"  Whoever it was, Cat wasn't happy about it.

Gary threw the door open.  There was a blur of orange fur, a fedora tumbled to the landing atop
scattered pages of newsprint, and Gary grabbed a handful of coat collar and hauled the bent figure
upright, slamming him--the grunt was definitely male--up against the wall just inside the front door.

They stared at each other for a long minute.  Grinning weakly, Chuck finally said, "Yeah, well, good
morning to you, too, buddy."

Gary heard Marissa's gasp, but he didn't loosen his grip.  "Chuck." At first glance, he wasn't sure he
would have been able to pick Chuck out of a line up.  His hair was matted and dingy, and, judging by
the thick stubble on his face, Gary guessed that it had been several days since his last shave.  Probably
that long since he'd had a shower, too, from the smell of him.

Chuck stared down at the hand that clutched the front of his coat, then back at his friend.  "Hey, I know
it's been a couple of days, I know I haven't been here, but there's gotta be some way to show how much
you missed me that won't ruin the leather...Gar?  You gonna let me go or not?"

"That depends," Gary said.  His voice began low, rising in volume as he continued.  "Are you going to
tell me the truth?  What are you doing sneaking around here, what were you doing with the paper,
where the hell have you been and what the f--Chuck, what is going on?"  Clenching the lapel of
Chuck's jacket so tightly that his fingers ached, Gary pushed his friend back into the wall with the final
question.

"Jesus, Gar, take it easy!  What is wrong with you, anyway?"  Chuck was nearly squeaking now

Gary stared at his friend incredulously.  "What's wrong, Chuck?  What's wrong?  What the hell isn't?"

Chuck's eyes grew huge and Gary released him with a final shove.  Hands pressed against the wall
behind him, the smaller man was at a loss for words.

"Gary, wait."  Gary turned to find Marissa standing nearby, pushing stray braids off her face.  "He
doesn't know."

A mad twinkle crept into Chuck's eyes as he brushed at his jacket, looking from one friend to the other.
"Hey guys, I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?"

Gary's mouth dropped open at the snide, teasing tone in his voice.  After everything that had happened
in the past few hours, how could Chuck possibly think--

"I mean, you're looking a little tousled there, Marissa."

A leaden silence fell in the room.

Gary ventured a look back over his shoulder.  If the look on his own face was half as indignant as
Marissa's, Chuck had to know he was in deep shit.

"Chuck," Marissa finally said, her voice cold and deliberate, "we have spent the past few hours trying
not to come to unfair, unpleasant conclusions about you.  It hasn't been easy.  It may not be possible.
So don't start--" she broke off, then held up a hand.  "Don't start."

"For God's sake, Marissa, what the hell is your problem?"  Chuck took a step toward her.

"Leave her alone," Gary broke in, placing himself between them.   "Don't you dare give her a hard time,
Chuck.  You've already done enough."  His hand curled into a fist; his arm drew back of its own volition.
It would feel so damn good to just let Chuck have it, to make him flinch and cower like, like--

"Stop, Gary."  Somehow, Marissa knew; she placed one hand on his arm, her touch light but unwavering.
"You don't have to--"

"Yeah, I do."  But Gary's hand dropped, his fist unclenched.  Continuing to stare Chuck down, he
searched for some sign of realization, of remorse.  Chuck just looked from Gary to Marissa and back,
blue eyes wide, as if he thought he could still feign innocence.  "Tell me it isn't true, Chuck.  Tell me
you didn't do this."

"Do what?  Why the hell are you so ticked at me, Gar, I mean, what do you think I've done?"

How long did he plan to keep up the innocent act?  "What did you do, Chuck?  What did you do?"
Gary leaned forward, his face nearly touching Chuck's.  Marissa's hand dropped away from his arm as he
ticked off offenses on his fingers.  "Let's start with the fact that you've been gone for a couple of days
and everyone around here has been worried about you and we've been trying to cover for you even
though you wouldn't tell us what was going on--or, no, no, let's start with the money you stole from
McGinty's, from me, Chuck--or no, let's start with what happened here tonight, the visit from your
new 'friends'."

Stepping back, Chuck blanched and shook his head, but before he could respond, Gary went on.  "Been
by your apartment lately, buddy?  Did you look at the kitchen on the way up here?"

"I--I came through the front door, I didn't--wait, what about my apartment?"

"It looks like Hurricane Andrew went through it, that's what!"

Chuck winced.  "Gary, I swear--"

"Don't swear, Chuck.  I really don't want to hear any more bullshit.  Are you trying to tell us you don't
know about the money that's missing from our bank account?  You don't know anything about that?"

The arrow finally drove home.  Chuck drew in a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, then spread
his hands, still putting on an earnest face.  "It was no big deal.  I was going to replace that money."

No big deal?  There was a roaring in Gary's ears; nothing about this felt real.  He advanced on Chuck,
backing him up against the wall once more by jabbing a couple of fingers at the smaller man.  "This isn't
about money.  This is about us trusting you and you letting us down.  This is about--about ethics, Chuck.
It's about loyalty to your friends.  You might be able to put that money back, or fix the window that
those thugs shot out, but how are you going to replace our trust?"  Gary pointed at his hockey stick.
"How are you going to make up for the fact that Marissa here nearly took my head off when I came into
my own apartment because she thought I was one of the guys who'd threatened to come back and finish
her off?"

"What are you talking about?"  Again, Chuck's gaze swiveled from Gary to Marissa, back and forth.

"Those guys who did a number on your apartment?  They were right here in McGinty's, Chuck," Gary
informed him, taking perverse pleasure in the fact that Chuck looked a little more wounded, and a lot
more guilt-stricken, with every new revelation.  "They were looking for you."

"Who--who was here?  What thugs?  What did they do?  Are you guys okay?"

Gary set his jaw.  "Ask Marissa.  I wasn't here."

Chuck's eyes grew even wider, nearly bulging when he processed that bit of information.  He
approached Marissa, unimpeded this time.  Gary watched with his arms crossed in front of his chest,
ready to spring in if need be.

"Marissa, what's he saying?  Who was here?  What did they do?"

She let the silence stretch for a few unnerving moments.  When she spoke, her voice was steady, but
Gary could hear the anger laced through every word.  "Two men came into the bar after everyone else
had gone.  They were looking for you.  They said to tell you that if you didn't give someone named
Vince what you owe him, they'd come back here and--"  For the first time, she faltered.  "They'd finish
what they started."

Chuck stared at Marissa for a moment, then looked past her to Gary, asking without words for
confirmation.  Gary figured his own level, unrelenting stare must have been answer enough.  Chuck
looked as if the floor of the world had dropped out from under him.  His shoulders sagged, his face fell.

"Oh my God."  He ran a hand through his hair, briefly squeezing his eyes shut.  "They--did
they--Marissa, what did they do?"

Her chin tipped up.  "They made their point, Chuck.  They made it with threats and with a gun and by
shoving me around."  Her voice was loud now, loud for Marissa anyway, each word clipped short and
spat at Chuck.  "They used me; they didn't care who I was; they thought it was funny that I couldn't see
them.  They got a big kick out of scaring me to death."

"I'm sorry," he said faintly.  "Oh, God, Marissa, I'm so--"  He reached out a hand, would have moved
closer, but Gary grabbed his arm and stopped him, not sure which of his friends he was trying to
protect.  Marissa's eyes were blazing, her hands were clenched into fists at her sides.

"What good is sorry going to do any of us right now?" she snapped.

"Are--are you all right?"  Chuck glanced at Gary for a moment, too, but he wasn't about to answer the
questions for Marissa.

Her voice dropped back to its normal volume, but it was no less taut than before.  "What do you think,
Chuck?  How would you feel if it had been you?"

"How would I feel?  I'd probably be dead!  Hell, I'm the one they want to find.  I just didn't think
they'd show up here so soon."

"Wait a minute."  Gary couldn't believe what Chuck was implying. "You knew?  You knew something like
this could happen and you didn't warn us?"

Chuck looked wildly at Gary, shaking his head.  "I thought--if anything was going to happen you'd
know--the paper--"

"This is not about the paper, Chuck!  Don't you understand what they did?"  Even now, all Chuck could
seem to think about was himself.  Gary wanted him to know, to feel, what he had felt watching Marissa
earlier, when she was struggling not to fly apart from anger and fear.

"Of course I get it Gary!"  The two men were only inches apart, neither one backing down.  "I've been
living with this for days now.  This Vince, he's like some modern Shylock, and it's my pound of flesh
they're looking to carve.  They didn't hurt Marissa."

"But they--"

"Don't talk about me as if I'm not here!"

Gary didn't even glance at her.  He was too busy trying to pin Chuck down, to make him feel something
for someone other than himself.  "They pushed her around and made fun of her and shot a bullet in
her direction, Chuck, I think that's bad enough, and it was all because of you, you--"

"Stop it!"  Both men turned to stare at Marissa, who was standing with her arms wrapped tightly around
herself, as if it was protection against the barrage of words and anger that had flooded the loft.
"This--this won't solve anything.  Gary, please, I'm upset, too, but can't we--"  She sucked in a deep
breath, turned to Chuck, suddenly more like the controlled Marissa Gary knew than she had been all
night.  "Can we sit down and talk about this like adults?  Please?"

Chuck and Gary watched her turn and find the sofa, feeling her way to the far end.  Her dog hadn't left
her side, and now he sat in front of her and watched the others, as if he really was her eyes.  Not, Gary
realized, that Marissa needed to see in order to know what was happening.  Chuck sighed, Gary glaring
at him as he made his way to the overstuffed chair at the other end of the coffee table, sinking down
into its cushion with an expression that said he wished the thing would swallow him whole.

Gary started for the couch, but Cat meowed and pawed at the paper.  "Whaddya want?" Gary grumbled,
as if he didn't already know.  "Later," he said as he collected the scattered sections.  He tossed it on the
kitchen table.  Satisfied, Cat curled up on the broad arm of the sofa next to Marissa.

Gary couldn't decide which of his friends looked to be in worse shape at the moment.  Marissa was
sitting stiffly, back straight, head held high, hands folded in her lap, a contrast to the dejected mass of
humanity in the chair across from her.  Unable to stand the silence, or Chuck's worried stare, any
longer, he sat down on the couch.  "Okay, Chuck, let's have it.  What's going on?  Where have you been
all this time?  What did you want with the paper?"

"There were some--I made some bets."  Chuck sat forward on the chair, his clasped hands hanging off
his knees as he shifted uncomfortably.  "I mean, that's what I do, right?  But things got a little out of
hand a couple months ago, and then again--well, more recently.  I owe some money to this guy, Vince.
He's a--he's from the neighborhood."  It took Gary a moment to understand that Chuck was referring to
the southside neighborhood in which he'd spent part of his childhood, before his family had moved to
Indiana.  "With the paper, I--I was trying to find a way to get out of this.  I need to raise some money,
Gar.  A lot of money.  I--I didn't know what else to do."  He didn't look defensive any more.  Just
defeated.

"So this is all about gambling debts?"

Chuck bit his lip.  "Yeah."

"Well, what about your savings account?  For Pete's sake, you were a stock broker, you oughta have--"

"But I don't.  It's all gone."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"This is--it's idiotic, Chuck! You gambled away everything you own?"

Rubbing one hand over his mouth, Chuck nodded at Gary, meeting his friend's incredulous gaze only
briefly before dropping his head.  "Not everything," Marissa said quietly, but Gary wasn't about to let
Chuck off the hook.

"And, to top it all off, you were going to steal from the paper as well as from McGinty's?"

Chuck's head snapped up.  "It wasn't stealing, Gar."  It was back, whatever it was that had been in his
eyes that day they'd run into each other down in Hyde Park.  A wall, a defense, a way to keep everyone
else out and his dirty little secrets in.  "Hell, it's my bar too, you've always said we were partners, right?"

"Until tonight I thought we were."

"Look, you don't understand, if I don't get this money, they'll--"

"What, hurt you instead of one of your friends?"

Marissa put her hand on Gary's forearm while Chuck gawked at him.  "I can't believe you just said that.
You think I wanted this to happen?"

"I can't believe any of this!"  Despite his exhaustion, or maybe because of it, Gary felt just as ready as
before to deck the man sitting in front of him, the one person in the world that he'd thought he'd
known better than any other.  "You've done some stupid things in your life, Chuck, but this one--"  He
shook his head.  "This one takes the cake.  You stole money.  You embezzled it--from me, from the
bar, from everyone who works here.  You took advantage of the fact that Marissa was sick, and then
swamped at school.  And then you were gonna take the paper, too?  What the hell were you thinking?"

Chuck sat up straighter, his voice taking on a harder edge.  "Call me crazy, Gary, but I was thinking it
would be nice to live past next week.  I didn't want to do what I did, I wanted to make up for it, that's
why I was trying--I thought if I could look at the paper I would be able to make the right bet with the
money I have left, and then it would be over.  That way, no one gets hurt, it's just a simple, single wager,
and everything's all over."  He blinked at Gary.  "So whaddya say, buddy, can we do this now and let
bygones be bygones?"

Gary was too busy working his jaw to answer.  He didn't want to explode at Chuck again, if nothing else
because it seemed to be upsetting Marissa, but he was finding it damned difficult to keep his temper
under control.  Cat jumped from the arm of the couch into Marissa's lap and sat staring intently at
Gary, but he didn't need the warning.

"Look, just help me out this once, Gary, and it will never happen again.  I swear."

"Like it didn't happen all those other times?" Marissa interjected.  "We've checked the books, Chuck.
That's why I was here last night--this morning--in the first place.  It's been happening for at least a
month, hasn't it?"

Chuck slumped back in the chair.  "See?  This is why I couldn't tell you guys, I knew you would react
like this.  I mean, what was the big deal?  Until a couple of days ago I was replacing the money the same
day.  This is just a temporary setback--"

"Chuck--" Gary growled.

"This is where it ends, though, I promise," Chuck added quickly.  His hand sliced through the air for
emphasis.  "I don't want to live through another two days like this."

Angry though he might be, Gary wanted to believe Chuck.  It would be so simple.  Show him the paper,
let him use it to get out of this trouble, then they could all get on with their lives.

But Marissa was right.  Chuck had already pulled some pretty underhanded shit and covered it up, only
to, apparently, get into worse trouble every time.

"Gar?  You're going to help me out, aren't you?"  Chuck sounded more hopeful than Gary thought he
had a right to be.

Gary stole a glance at Marissa, who'd fallen silent, leaving him to make the decision on his own.  He
couldn't read her face, but her hands were curled into fists, her mouth set in a firm line.

"Gar?"

Running a hand through his hair, Gary shook his head.  It felt heavy, as though it were full of sand.
"You can't have the paper."  Cat stretched partially out of Marissa's lap, its front paws on Gary's knee,
still watching him with that preternatural intelligence.

Chuck stared at Gary, too, hope fleeing his eyes.  "So you're not going to help me."

"Well, no, Chuck, that's not what I said--"

Standing and glaring down at the pair on the sofa, Chuck waved one arm in the air.  "Please elaborate,
Gary, because it sure as hell sounded to me like you said you weren't going to let me see the
paper--which means you're not going to help."

"You're right, Chuck," Marissa said, her matter-of-fact tone undercutting Chuck's histrionics.  "He's not
going to help you make another mistake and get into even bigger trouble than before."

"Damn it, Marissa!" Chuck exploded, taking a step toward her--but he stopped short when he caught the
warning look Gary flashed him as he also stood, Cat landing on the floor between them.

"Chuck, there has to be some other way through this.  I don't get the paper so I can cheat.  I get it so I
can--so I can--"

"Help people.  But evidently that doesn't include your friends."

Gary didn't know how to explain it to Chuck.  He wasn't even sure how to explain it to himself. But this
was wrong, it felt all wrong, and he couldn't use the paper to make it worse.  "I want to help you Chuck,
you know that.  You know I'll do anything I can, but I don't think this will help.  I don't--I don't think it
will stop anything.  What happens the next time?"

"Oh, I get it."  Chuck's voice turned cold, a hard glint in his eyes.  "You don't trust me."

"Well, Chuck, it's not as if you've given me a reason to trust you lately."

Mouth pursed, Chuck nodded as if he'd expected nothing more from Gary than this confirmation of his
failing.  "And all the years of friendship, that's just out the window?"

Gary's stomach clenched.  This was not how things were supposed to work out.  "Well, no, Chuck, I
didn't say that, I just--I just--" he didn't know what to say, felt as if he was the one doing the betraying
now.

"Thanks a lot, Gar," Chuck said bitterly.  He searched his friend's face one more time, then turned to
leave, but Marissa got to her feet, reaching out to grab the sleeve of his jacket.

"Chuck, this isn't fair.  What's happened isn't Gary's fault, and you know it."

"Oh, that's just great."  Chuck shrugged off her hand.  "I should have known you would be on his side."

"There are no sides here!  That's ridiculous.  You have a problem and we want to help, but there's
nothing we can do unless you face it yourself.  This is an addiction, Chuck, and unless you admit that
and do something about it, it's never going to end."

"Thank you, Dr. Laura," Chuck sneered.  The grudging respect that underlay their almost-daily
bantering was gone; this antagonism was real.  "This is just great.  I'm talking death here, and you're
quoting self-help books."  He refocused his gaze on Gary, blue eyes pleading.  "Look, all I'm asking is
one peek at the paper, Gar, c'mon..."

"It won't solve anything, Chuck."

"How do you know that?  How do you know this isn't what the paper wants you to do?"

"I--I just know."

"Fine."  Chuck threw up his hands.  "Fine, that's perfect, I'm in real trouble here, and you 'just know' that
you're not supposed to help."

"I didn't say I wouldn't help you; I just don't think this is the way to do it.  Making another bet is not the
way to solve this problem."

"What do you know about this?  About any of it?  You know, you--you might think you're special because
you run around saving the world, but you don't get to control my life."  Chuck pushed past Marissa and
stalked to the door.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"  Determined that this would not be the end of it, Gary
followed him toward the door, but froze when Chuck whirled on him.

"You know, Gar," he said, his jaw working in small, tight motions, "you of all people have no right to
lecture me about the evils of gambling with paper."

"Well, I, I--" Gary stammered, caught off guard by the accusation.  Yeah, he'd lived off bets at the
racetrack for a few months, but this was a different matter altogether.  "That--that wasn't the same.  I
had to do that, there was no other way to get by, there wasn't any choice, Chuck..."  Now on the
defensive, Gary found himself unable to explain just how Chuck's situation differed from his own recent
past, he just knew it did.

"Yeah, right.  What about her?"  Marissa jumped as if she could see the accusing finger Chuck stabbed in
her direction.  "The first thing you did with that paper, Gar, the first thing, was to take it to a track and
get her a dog.  And you took it, didn't you, Marissa?  Not to mention you and your two dollar bets.  You
can't tell me you were never tempted to do a little more.  So neither one of you can lay any
self-righteous guilt trips on me."

Gary took a step closer.  "I'm telling you right now, Chuck, you say one more thing to her and--"

"Stop it, Gary, you don't have to defend me--"

"That's it, isn't it?"  Chuck glared at Gary without a trace of warmth in his eyes.  "Screw Chuck, he's
fucked up too badly, just leave him to twist in the wind while you get on with your perfect life.  Like you
never make a mistake?  What about Meredith?  What about--what about JoJo?"

Marissa gasped, but Gary was frozen in place, and Chuck went barreling on, even louder now, the words
spilling out as if he'd been saving them for the right moment.

"You think you're so smart, so dammed right all the time, but you just use the paper the way you
want to, because it's easy to save strangers.  Because you can slink off into the sunset when it's done, like
the god-damned Lone Ranger.  You hide behind that paper, because you're afraid of anything that lasts
for longer than it takes to read the articles!  Marcia burned you and Pritchard twisted the knife, and so
did Emma, but you finally figured out how to keep from getting hurt, didn't you?  You let the paper
keep you nice and busy, so busy you don't have to have a real life, so busy you don't have to feel
anything at all."

"Chuck, stop."  Her voice desperate, Marissa stepped closer to Gary, but Chuck only paused long
enough to take a quick breath.

"Well, guess what?  Some of us want that real life, Gar.  Some of us aren't afraid.  Yeah, okay, so I
screwed up, but at least I'm out there trying to make my life better."

Gary couldn't answer, couldn't find any air in the room. The loft had gone cold.

Marissa shook her head and said quietly, "What you're doing, Chuck, it isn't real."

"It's a chance for a real life.  At least I'm trying instead of hiding behind someone--or something--else's
agenda."

"You know that's not true, Chuck, how can you possibly think that Gary--"

"I don't know what I think about either of you anymore, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what
you think about me."  He stepped into the doorway and bent down to retrieve his hat.  "Guess I gotta do
this on my own."

"We want to help, Chuck."  Marissa held out one hand.  "Just not like this.  Please stay, we'll figure
something out."  But she couldn't see the look Chuck flashed at Gary.  He wanted confirmation, but
Gary couldn't give it to him, not right now.

"Forget it, okay?"  He stared at Gary for another endless second, but any response Gary might have
conjured up was lodged deep in his throat.  "Forget it, just forget all of it."  He turned on his heel and
yanked the door shut behind him.

Gary shut his eyes, but felt Marissa jump when the door slammed.  Shoulder to shoulder, they listened
to Chuck's footsteps stomp down the stairs, fading out through the office and into the bar.

"You're not going after him?"

Gary swallowed hard.  "He doesn't want me to, Marissa, he made that perfectly clear."

"He's afraid, Gary.  He needs our help."

"Got a funny way of asking for it."  Finally turning away from the door, Gary stared down at her.  There
weren't just shadows under her eyes, there were shadows in her eyes as well.  "How can you stand
there and defend him, anyway?  After what nearly happened, after what he said--you're angry at him
too, I know you are."

"Of course I am."  How could she stay so infuriatingly calm?  "But he's in trouble, real trouble.  I
wouldn't wish those men on my worst enemy.  If they find him--Gary, how will he get the money?"

"Well, that's Chuck's problem, isn't it?"  He stalked past her to the kitchen, pulling out supplies for
coffee.  There wasn't going to be any more sleeping today, and he needed something to help him focus
on the tasks at hand, including the paper.

"Gary."  She was behind him now, her voice soft.  "He didn't mean--I know he didn't mean those
things.  And they're not true."

But Chuck had meant them.  Gary was sure of it, it was the kind of stuff people kept bottled up inside
until something like this popped the cork.  He tapped the filter basket against the counter.

"Well, he can't unsay them, any more than he can undo what he's done."

"Gary--"

"I'm gonna go clean up that mess downstairs," he mumbled, dropping the filter back onto the counter.
Forget the coffee--nothing was going to fill up the hollow in his gut.  He glanced briefly at Marissa, who
opened her mouth once, then apparently reconsidered, pressing her lips together and nodding.  Good.
There'd been enough talk for twenty lifetimes already today.  "Here."  Gary scooped up Cat and placed
it in Marissa's arms.  "Keep this thing up here until the glass is taken care of.  Last thing I wanna do
today is make a run to the vet."  He left her standing in the middle of the loft, her face half-buried in
Cat's fur.

Chuck had been wrong about one thing, at least.  No one was going to be doing any forgetting, not for a
long, long time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 

Part 10

I know there's always something
We have to go through
That has some deeper meaning but
Right now I just can't say
I know there's gotta be a lesson somewhere
I'm gonna think a lot about it later
But right now I'm miles away
Miles away
      ~ Marc Cohn
 

There was glass everywhere.  How could one stupid window produce such a mess?

One stupid window and a bullet, Gary reminded himself, and had all the answer he wanted.  He swept
up the as many of the remnants as he could, trying to focus only on the job at hand, focusing so hard
that his knuckles turned white around the broom handle.

He knocked out the broken edges of the window that were left in the door; he'd call and have it repaired
today, that and the lock.  As soon as possible.  Before anyone else got hurt.

Pots, pans, and utensils clanged in harsh dissonance as he stacked them on tables and shelves.  What the
hell had Chuck been thinking?  Bad enough he'd gotten in over his head in the first place; bad enough
he'd turned to some ruthless loan shark and sold out his friends, but to come and try to steal the paper
and then accuse Gary of--

BAM!  A set of metal bowls spun as he dropped them on the prep table.  Their rattle echoed off the
kitchen walls and almost drowned Marissa's call.

"...okay down there?  Gary?  Gary, answer me!"

He hurried into the office and back to the stairway.  "I'm right here."

She stood on the landing, clutching a squirming Cat in her arms.  Closing her eyes for a brief moment,
she told him, "You need to come and look at the paper.  Your cat's going crazy trying to get to you."

Shoot.  He hadn't even bothered to look at it this morning.  Gary took the steps two at a time.  Opening
her arms so Cat could leap free, Marissa followed him into the loft.

"I thought--"  She hesitated. "I was afraid it might be Chuck."

Oh, right.  Like he'd go galloping off to save Chuck at this point.

Well, okay, maybe he would--but he'd have to think about it first.

The paper was still on the kitchen table.  Gary reached for it while Cat twined around his ankles,
mewing insistently.  There was nothing unusual on the first page, but just inside there was proof that life
and death in Chicago didn't stop in deference to exhausted hearts.

"It's not Chuck," he told Marissa, who stood just inside the door, arms crossed and her head cocked to
one side.  Curious as always, but without her usual spark, she looked like Gary felt: a limp,
two-dimensional image of her real self.  "It's a little kid, down south of here, he's gonna slip off a curb
and fall under a school bus--a moving school bus."  Gary was pulling on his coat, at the same time
retrieving the keys from the floor, where he'd dropped them when he first came home, when she asked
the last thing he would have ever expected from Marissa Clark.

"Do you have to go now?"

One arm of his jacket dangling off his shoulder, Gary froze.  He answered automatically.  "Well, yeah,
I've only got twenty minutes, and this kid needs--"   She winced and turned away.  Gary stared at her,
then at the clock on the VCR, and knew what she'd been thinking.  It wasn't even 7:30, no one else
would be in for a couple of hours, and the last time she'd been here alone...no, this wouldn't do at all.

"C'mon."  Pocketing his keys and the paper, he shrugged the rest of the way into his coat, then stepped
over to Marissa and took her elbow.  "You come with me."

Clearly embarrassed, she shook her head.  "I didn't mean--"

"I know you didn't, but I do.  You're not staying here alone.  Where's your coat?"

She let out a sigh, not even bothering to hide her relief.  "It's down in the office...but Gary, I don't want
to get in the way."

God, absolutely everything was upside-down, if Marissa of all people was talking like this.  "You don't get
in the way.  Besides, I need someone to keep me awake.  You too, Spike," he added, careful to lock the
door to his apartment behind him.  He figured Cat could take care of itself.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 

Look over your shoulder and tell me what's coming
Tell me what is the bogey that you're so afraid of
The eyes in the back of our heads can persuade
That just for the moment mercy has swayed
Look over your shoulder and tell me what's coming

It takes more than your passion and more than your pain
For the rock of forgiveness to melt in the rain
      ~ Mark Heard
 

Chuck walked a mile and a half without any awareness of his surroundings.  When he came to, he found
himself outside Orchestra Hall, bright banners that hung from streetlights flapping in the morning
breeze.  Other pedestrians pushed by as he stopped, turning in a slow circle like a tourist to gawk at the
buildings around him, the skyscrapers that created a canyon and pushed in on the streets like...like...

...like the walls of that garbage chute in Star Wars, only much, much taller.

When he'd been a little kid, a really little kid, before he'd ever gone to school, he'd come down here
with his mom, shopping or sightseeing or something.  He couldn't remember what they'd bought, nor
anything they'd seen, but he clearly remembered staring up at the buildings that blocked out the sun
and being sure that they were about to topple over, crushing him, crushing his mother, crushing
everyone.  For weeks afterward, he'd had the same nightmare, sort of a reverse version of "Vertigo," in
which Chicago's skyscrapers crashed down on top of him, burying him in the rubble.

Right now, he almost wished they would.  Then he wouldn't have to face this; wouldn't have to deal with
this mess.  His mess.  Alone.  After what had just happened, he realized with a chill, he was completely
on his own.  There was no one left.

He'd tried calling his parents last week, but he'd gone to them one too many times in the past few years,
and they suspected, if they didn't know, that the losses he complained of had little to do with the
NASDAQ or the Chicago Board of Trade.  Besides, it wasn't as if they'd ever had money to burn.  It was
his turn to take care of them, his father had said the last time he'd forked over any cash.

So, in forty years, who would return the favor and take care of Chuck?

Well, he told himself with a shake to clear his head, certainly not his so-called friends.  Rejoining the
pedestrian flow--and really, it was just plain sick how many people were hurrying to work at this hour of
the morning--Chuck turned left onto Jackson, determined to escape the confining restraints of the
skyscrapers and their shadows.  A block east, and he turned down Michigan Avenue, feeling less like
Chicken Little now that he could see the lake.

The first rays of the sun were shooting up from the far horizon, the water changing from dark grey to
pale blue.  A bank of clouds in the west loomed threateningly from the breaks between skyscrapers, but
it was still far enough away that the morning would be sunny, if not warm, for the first few hours.

Fat lot of good that did Chuck.

Nothing was going to do him much good anymore, he thought, turning up his coat collar against the
early morning breeze.  Even being out from the confines of the Loop wasn't much of a relief.  There
were too many people out here, too much light; someone might see him.  He pulled the brim of his
fedora low over his eyes, glancing from buildings to the street, from his fellow pedestrians to Grant
Park, keeping a lookout for anyone who might be tracking him.  He knew better than to expect Gary to
come after him, not after what had happened in the loft.  Talk about fair-weather friends.  Evidently
Boy Scout tendencies didn't extend to those who got themselves into rough spots with Gary's precious
money.  Chuck still didn't understand what harm it could have done to let him take a look at the paper.

The wind picked up.  Keeping a determined pace, Chuck glanced around again.  Now that there wasn't
anyone to watch his back, he felt completely defenseless.  After what had happened at McGinty's...Okay,
okay, so it was more than money Gary had been worried about.  But still, surely he didn't want Chuck to
fall victim to those vultures.  Did he?

And Marissa...she could be annoying as hell sometimes, bossy and infuriatingly right, but she was smart
enough to know that Chuck hadn't wished that little visit on her.  She knew what they were capable of;
she had to know what he was up against.  And yet she'd tried to lecture him about addiction, as if this
was jut another case study out of one of her textbooks.  Well, for once she was wrong.  He couldn't
twelve-step his way out of this one.  He'd like to see either one of them try it.

Hands stuffed deep in his pockets against the cold, Chuck fingered the loose change there, and a CTA
card that still had some value left on it.  He figured he had enough for bus fare, and stopped outside
the next shelter, already full of people.  He didn't even look at where the busses were going, just
climbed on the next one that came along.  With one last surreptitious check of the passengers, Chuck
made his way to the back of the bus, sliding low into the only available seat as he scratched at the rough
stubble on his chin.  Two days on the run and he already looked like a bum.  It was a relief to be out of
the wind, but that was the only measure of relief he could find.  He hunkered down in the vinyl seat,
keeping an eye on the bus's occupants as it pushed its way through commuter traffic, heading south out
of downtown.

From there, he'd just follow his nose and see where fate led him.  It had to be better than where he'd
been lately.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 

The sky collapsed around us
You didn't seem to care
I hailed you through the raindrops
You weren't even there

It's all cut and thrust at the circus
And maybe makes three
You're twisting my words into serpents
I'm down on my knees
      ~ Noel Brazil
 

They hadn't gone far before Marissa realized that Gary really did need help staying awake.

The morning was windy; strong gusts buffeted the van whenever it stopped.  Gary had his window open,
but it wasn't enough to clear her head or, she suspected, his.  The air held a hint of false warmth,
heralding a storm later in the day.  It should have been the kind of morning that woke her up,
anticipation hanging in the air along with the ozone, but Marissa was numb to it.  The emotional storms
of the night before had left her drained.

She could sense it in Gary, as well.  Even with a kid to save he was lethargic, his responses to her queries
about where they were going, the child's name and age, and how he planned to avert tragedy this time
mumbled so drowsily that she had trouble understanding them through the mild, vaguely southern
accent that thickened around certain words and stumbled over others.

"Jonas.  Jonas Cvetkovich."  He mangled the pronunciation of the little boy's surname; it came out
sounding like "Cement sandwich", and Marissa felt herself smiling.  It was a shock to her system.

They were stopped at a light, and she heard the paper rustle.  "Z'vet-ka-vik?" she tried.

"Yeah, maybe..."  Gary's voice trailed off.  "It's gotta be a couple blocks that way," he murmured.  Horns
were beeping behind them.

"Gary?"

"...but where's the cross street?"

The horns were blaring now, a steady, dissonant blast.  "Gary!"

"Huh?"

"I can't be sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say the light is green."

"Oh, shit--"  The paper landed on the floor of the van as he stomped on the gas pedal, and Marissa
thanked her lucky stars they both had seat belts on.  Spike didn't, of course, and his paws scrabbled on
the floor behind her as he tried to retain his balance.  New horns blared and Gary cursed again as the
van swerved.  "Sorry, Marissa," he said when they were traveling in a straight line once more.

"Four-letter words are hardly the worst things I've had to deal with lately," she told him, then added,
"and don't think I haven't been thinking a few of them myself.  But you're going to have to keep your
mind on the road if we're going to stay out of the paper ourselves."

He grunted in assent and said, after a moment of silence, "Cvetkovich, huh?  How would you know how
to pronounce a name that's...uh..."

"Probably Czech or Latvian or something like that," she told him.  "My high school was at the crossroads
of a bunch of different neighborhoods.  Lots of first-generation immigrant kids, lots of African
Americans, lots of Hispanics.  Lots of tongue twister names.  You get used to how they sound."

The car slowed, turned a corner.  "Huh.  In Hickory it was mostly simple names.  Smith, Miller, Green--"

"Hobson," they said in unison, the mood in the van lightening a little.

"A couple of Clarks, but no Crumbs."  Gary was driving more slowly; they must be in the right
neighborhood.  "Even Fishman was different enough that his name got Chuck teased when his family
moved in..."  He trailed off, and Marissa could feel the gloom returning.

"Speaking of Chuck--" she began, but Gary interrupted her.

"This kid is only six years old.  What kind of parent lets a six-year-old kid stand out on a street corner
alone, huh?"

"Maybe it's just a temporary lapse, or maybe it's a safe neighborhood.  I used to walk to school and back
by myself every day."  Marissa leaned an elbow on the arm of the car seat and rested her forehead in her
hand.  Okay, so he didn't want to talk about Chuck right now.  She could take a hint, but sooner or later
they would need to settle some things, make some decisions.

"There!"  With a lurch, the van came to a halt.  Gary was out the door before she had a chance to say
anything.

She could have waited in the car, but instinct told her not to.  Spike was only too ready to obey her
command and join her, his tags jingling eagerly as they stepped onto the sidewalk.  Marissa's
outstretched fingers brushed the trunk of what had to have been a huge tree.  From the sounds of
things, it was a quiet neighborhood, not much traffic, at least not yet.  The first hint of spring smells,
the heady aromas of grass and moist dirt, were just beginning to make themselves known, stirred from
the earth by the morning breeze.

"Jonas!"  Gary's voice shattered the serenity, moving rapidly away from the point where Marissa stood.
"Jonas, get away from the street!"

There was an inarticulate cry, the rumble of a school bus that went by without stopping, and a thump of
bodies on cement.  For the span of a heartbeat, all was still, even the birds stopped singing, and Marissa
held her breath.  Gary was so tired.  If he'd miscalculated...

"Stranger!  Stranger!"  The little boy's frantic cry erupted from the same direction as the bus, and the
thumps, and Gary.  "Leggo of me!  I don't want to go with you!  HELP!"

"Wait, kid, I'm not--"

Marissa's relief at hearing Gary's voice was cut short when the little boy came shrieking toward her.

"Help me, lady!  Help!"

"It's all right, Jonas."  Dropping Spike's harness, Marissa reached out for the boy.  Small hands clutched
her own, but then the cries for help became terrified wails.

"Ah!  Dog!  It's a dog!"  The hands tugged her around in a circle as Jonas tried to put Marissa between
himself and Spike.  She could hear her guide dog whining uncertainly.

"Stay, boy," she gasped.  Spike knew better than to hurt a child, but she knew his first concern was her
welfare.  There was an eruption of footsteps, of doors slamming, the neighborhood suddenly a melee of
sound.  Despite his fear of Spike, Jonas clung to Marissa's hands, pulling her further up the street and
babbling incoherently, while she tried to calm him.

"Don't worry, sweetie, he won't hurt you, I promise, shhh, it's all right..."

"Jonas!"  A woman's voice screeched in her ear.  "Let go of my boy!"  Jonas's hands were yanked from
Marissa's so abruptly that she tottered backward, regaining her balance--and her dignity--with difficulty.

"No, Mommy, she was trying to save me from the bad man and the big dog!"  Sniffling now, the boy
continued to wail at a siren's pitch.  More footsteps approached, and Marissa couldn't tell which, if any,
were Gary's.

"It's my guide dog."  Breathless, she scrambled for the right words to placate mother and son.  "He won't
hurt anyone."

"That man was gonna kidnap me!"

"No, no, I wasn't..."  Gary was at her elbow, giving her Spike's harness and steadying her with a hand on
her arm, amidst a buzz of voices and questions.

"How dare you touch my son!"

"Don't worry, Sophie, we'll call the police."  The new voice, an older man's, was behind Marissa, and
Gary's grip on her arm tightened.  Not more trouble, not after everything...

"Wait a minute," Marissa interjected.

"He g-g-grabbed me and p-pushed me down!"

Gary was tugging at her elbow, pulling her back toward the van, but the crowd was closing in.  "We've
got a riot on our hands," he whispered in her ear.

"She must be in on it, too!" Jonas' mother shrieked.

"Yeah, right," someone else snorted.

"Hey, don't--" Gary began.

"Hold on!"  Marissa's voice, when she wanted it to, could cut through a crowd.  She hadn't spent  years in
the church choir for nothing.  "Everyone, please!  Just listen for a minute."  The sudden silence gave
her a split second to think about what to say.  "We weren't trying to hurt the little boy.  My friend was
trying to help him.  He was too close to the curb.  He was going to fall into the street and be hit by a
bus.  Gary pulled him out of the way, he saved his life, and Jonas just got scared, that's all."

Doubt hung in the air, thick as fog.  "How would you know?" Jonas's mother asked.

She could feel Gary tense, but didn't want him to say any more and worsen the situation.  "I heard the
bus," Marissa said simply, as if that would explain everything.  "Besides," she rushed on, "if he had any
intention of hurting your son, do you think he'd be here right now?"

The tension in the air eased, just a bit; the mother's voice softened almost imperceptibly.  "Honey, is
that true?  Were you at the corner?"

"Uh-huh."  Jonas's response was muffled.

"And was there a bus?"

"I dunno."

"Yes, of course there was a bus."  A woman's voice, elderly but firm and no-nonsense, came from the
outer edge of the crowd that encircled Gary and Marissa.  A tinkle of metal accompanied her
movement...dog tags, Marissa guessed, from Jonas's startled gasp.  "I saw the whole thing from down the
block.  I was walking Albert and I saw this young man pull the little boy off of the curb just as the bus
rattled by.  He ran to the lady for help, and she was trying her best before you all came and started
acting like a lynch mob."  The woman made a sound suspiciously like a har-rumphf.  "In my day we
thanked people who bothered to help strangers."

Gary's grip on Marissa's arm relaxed a little, and she could hear the shuffling of footsteps as people
backed away.

"Is your little boy all right?" the older woman asked, closer now.

"Well, yes, I think so."  Sophie Cvetkovich sounded less antagonistic than before, but she probably wasn't
going to be placated anytime soon.

"Then I think we can all go home."  It was a pronouncement, and the neighbors obeyed.  Voices and
footsteps drifted away, until Gary and Marissa were standing in the morning quiet again, its peace
broken only by the jingle of dog tags as the woman's companion sniffed around Spike.

"Stop it, Albert, that dog is working."  There was a whine as Albert was apparently tugged back to his
mistress.

"Thank you," Gary said, his voice so weary that Marissa was surprised he could find it at all.  "If you
hadn't come along, I'm not sure we would have been able to get out of this."

"Your friend here was doing just fine.  They should have believed you, young lady."  She stepped closer,
her tone confidential.  "To be perfectly honest, I didn't see the bus, just the part where the boy ran up to
you, but I know enough to know when someone is telling the truth."

"Wait a minute, you didn't--you didn't see the bus?"  asked Gary.

"Oh, heavens, that's not what's important."  She patted Marissa's hand on Spike's harness.  Her skin was
wrinkled, the fingertips slightly callused.  "Any idiot would know that, as your friend here pointed out,
you wouldn't have stuck around the scene of the crime if you had been out to harm that little boy, let
alone driven a van with a business logo as part of a kidnapping attempt.  McGinty's Bar and Grill, eh?"
The tone in her voice shifted, took on a note of derision.  "Sounds like one of those yuppie hangouts:
Bennigan's, Houlihan's...but you two look too young and too scruffy to be yuppies."

Marissa choked back a laugh.  Scruffy was probably a kind description of her current appearance.

"Uh, well, no ma'am, we aren't--that is, we're more of a sports bar," Gary said.

"Hmm."  The woman seemed to be taking the discussion very seriously.  "You don't have old farm tools
and metal signs and knickknacks hanging on the walls of the place, do you?"

"No, ma'am,"  Gary assured her, shifting his stance and releasing Marissa's elbow.

"Good.  I can't understand why every restaurant in tarnation thinks it has to look like a junk store.  But
if your place isn't like that, perhaps I'll pay you a visit sometime."

"Please do," said Marissa.

"You'd be very welcome, Miss..."

There was a peal of delighted laughter, which sounded much younger than the woman's voice.  "Oh,
dear boy, you've made my day.  No one's called me 'Miss' in years.  It's Mrs. Grace Best, but most people
call me Gracie."

Marissa and Gary introduced themselves and they each shook her hand; Gracie's grip was light, but
warm.  Marissa thought she heard Gary trying to stifle a yawn, and her own limbs went a little limp as
the momentary excitement of the save left her.  Gracie must have noticed it, because she said, "I should
be going now, if you'll excuse me.  Albert gets impatient if we don't walk a full six blocks every morning."

Marissa added her thanks to Gary's and the three said good-bye.  Once inside the van, she settled into
the familiar seat, Spike on the floor behind her.  Gary inserted the keys in the ignition--but didn't start
the engine.

"Gary?"

"Yeah."  His voice, muffled, had gone flat as yesterday's beer.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm just..."  There was a long pause, then he asked, "What if Chuck was right?"

Marissa caught her breath.  Surely Gary didn't believe the horrible things Chuck had said in the heat of
an argument.  "Right about what?" she asked carefully.

There were shifting sounds, and his voice became a little clearer.  "Me.  Hiding in the paper.  Not
dealing with things.  I--I've already cut you off when you've tried to talk about Chuck; I ran off and did
this without even thinking about him, about where to look for him or what we're gonna do; I wasn't
careful and if it wasn't for you and that lady I'd be in the middle of an even bigger mess."  His sigh cut
right to her heart.  "I'm doing exactly what he said I do."

"No, Gary.  No, it isn't true, and that's not what you're doing.  Chuck said what he said because he's
lost.  He was lashing out.  He didn't mean it.  He wasn't thinking, and it isn't true."

There was no response.

"Saving a little boy's life is not hiding; it's not ducking reality.  It's you, being who you are and who
you've always been."  Marissa reached over, found a leather-clad arm and squeezed reassuringly, her
fingers brushing Gary's hair as she did so.  His head was down on the steering wheel, probably from
exhaustion as much as anything else.  She was fighting through her own fog of weariness to find the
right words, but she couldn't let him take Chuck's accusations to heart like this.  "Chuck is...he's hurting,
and he wanted us to hurt, too.  He's your best friend, so he knows better than anyone else what kinds of
things would wound you.  But you can't let them.  We shouldn't give up on Chuck, not now when he
needs us, but--Gary, it's more important that you don't give up on yourself just because of a few words
said in anger."

His head came up then, and he let out a long breath.  "I don't want to hide from Chuck."

"I know."  Marissa released his arm, folding both her hands in her lap.  The breeze from the open
window teased its way across her face.

"I just don't know how to help him.  I couldn't let him have the paper.  He was right about that, too, you
know."

"Gary..."

"No, I did, I lived off it, making those bets--"

"But you never took more than you needed; you lived on a shoestring.  I remember how Chuck used to
give you a hard time about not making as much money as you could."  Marissa frowned.  "You stopped
long before McGinty gave you the bar, though, didn't you?"

His "yeah" was barely audible.  What was she missing?

"Gary?"  There was a rumble outside.  At first she thought it was thunder, but then it built, the pitch
increased--an airplane--and it was hard to hear what he said next.

"...didn't need to.  I had enough to get by on after--after..."

And then she knew, remembered, and held up a hand to let him know he didn't have to explain, but he
did anyway.

"After Marley."

Marissa let out a sigh, silent and slow.  "It wasn't because of Marley that you won that money.
That's--that's impossible.  No one could set up something like that."

"Yeah, well, someone did.  Or something.  How else do you explain a horse named Mr. Snow's Cat?"

"I can't, but it wasn't Marley's doing."

"No, but he sure used it to his advantage, didn't he?  Just like he used me.  After that I just...it seemed
like maybe that was a warning, that I shouldn't be using the paper for stuff like that, shouldn't be using
what I know the way Marley used me.  I--I gave the money away, and sold some stocks to live on.
Without looking at the paper," he added.

"All of which proves that you're no one's puppet.  Gary, you were never, nor will you ever be, anything
like that man," Marissa said firmly.  She suddenly wanted very much to steer the conversation back to
today's troubles, disturbing as they were.  She wanted Gary's voice to lose the haunted quality he got
whenever Marley's name came up, which wasn't often at all.  "But I understand why you stopped making
bets at the track.  It makes sense that you didn't feel comfortable using the paper that way, and now you
don't want Chuck to use it to get out of the trouble he got into on his own."

"I don't get it.  Why would he do this?"  The words themselves seemed exhausted, as if Gary had worn
them out by turning them over and over in his mind before he even asked the question.  "You're the one
with all the psychology books and classes, Marissa, you tell me."

She tilted her neck back, resting her head on the back of the seat.  "Gary, I'm no expert.  I blew it with
Chuck this morning, books or no books."

"Nah, neither one of us blew it.  He blew it.  And I don't care if you're an expert or not, I just want to
know why."  There was a thump, as if Gary's hand had landed on the steering wheel or the armrest.  "I
know Chuck's kinda greedy when it comes to money, but he's not stupid."

"Well, I'd say..."  What would she say?  She remembered what she'd read about addictive personalities
well enough, but Chuck was an individual, not a generalization.  "You have to remember that it's not
intentional.  He's not in control of it.  Somehow he passed a point where he could have turned back,
could have stopped on his own, and now he doesn't know how to stop.  Knowing Chuck, it was probably
quite a while ago, but he was smart enough to keep it covered up, to make it seem like less than it was.
That's how it goes sometimes, with--with addicts."  Even now, that word sounded strange coming out of
her mouth.

"But this isn't--it's gambling.  It's a game."  Gary sounded genuinely confused.  "It's not like alcohol or
drugs, it isn't chemical."

"Gambling isn't, but the rush that comes from taking a risk is.  Adrenaline is a powerful drug, Gary, you
should know that."

"So he really does need more than money.  Giving him the paper wouldn't have worked."

Poor Gary; all this really had rocked his foundations.  "It wouldn't have worked at all.  You did the right
thing," she assured him.

"Obviously it wasn't right enough.  I just didn't know what to do.  I know he needs more than money,
but..."  His voice trailed off.

Marissa didn't even know where to start listing all the things Chuck needed at the moment, and she was
too tired to try.  "We'll figure something out," she said, imbuing her words with more confidence than
she felt.  "We're his friends."

Gary let out a long breath.  "Yeah."

"Let's go home before Mrs. Cvetkovich decides to call the police anyway."

"Or her kid calls animal control," Gary added, a wry note in his voice as he started the van.

Spike "woofed" in agreement.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 

Part 11

Broken in two
I know you're on to me
That I only come home
When I'm so all alone
But I do believe
That not everything is gonna be the way you think it ought to be
Seems like every time I try to make it right it all comes down on me
Please say honestly you won't give up on me
And I shall believe
      ~ Sheryl Crow & Bill Bottrell
 

Pressed behind one of the broad, ancient oaks that lined the entry to the small park half a block away,
Chuck watched the van finally pull away, and breathed a sigh of relief.

No one had seen him; no one had noticed him watching events transpire.  There would be no
sanctimonious so-called friends to face down this time.  Thank God for small favors, which were the only
kind he seemed to be allowed lately.  He should have been--no, he was--happy to see them go.

So why did he feel so guilty about feeling so relieved?

Wandering aimlessly a few blocks from the stop where the driver had told him he either had to get off
the bus or pay more fare, Chuck had found himself in a familiar neighborhood, one that he
remembered from childhood visits to relatives of one sort or another.  He was never sure who was
related to whom, and how, in his crazy-quilt family.

The place hadn't changed much at all, except for the angry crowd gathered near an all-too familiar
delivery van.  From his vantage point Chuck hadn't been able to hear much of anything, but he could
guess what had happened easily enough.  Gary had rushed in, saved somebody's life, and then been
blamed for causing all the trouble in the first place.  Typical.

Wild plans had raced through Chuck's mind--climb in the back of the van and hide; saunter up as if
nothing had happened and say, "Fancy meeting you here"; go and beg forgiveness; run by as fast as he
could and snatch the paper out of Gary's back pocket--but in the end he had done nothing, paralyzed at
the thought of what he would say to Gary, what Gary would think of him.  What he already thought of
him.

Chuck had been surprised, when the crowd started to clear, to see Marissa, but he'd been even more
shocked at the woman who had stayed behind to talk to his friends.  That bright green coat, that
matching pillbox hat with an ostrich feather hanging off the back, that little yappy dog--surely it
couldn't be Aunt Gracie.  She had to be, what, two hundred years old by now?  Well, okay, maybe closer
to eighty-five.  But still.  Her dog, if it was the same dog, had to be about the same age, at least in dog
years.

While he tried to ignore his guilt, Chuck couldn't help but notice Gary's slumped posture, the way he
kept turning his head to check up and down the street, and the fact that he stayed closer to Marissa than
usual.  Chuck knew he was to blame for the uneasiness, the fear, and the exhaustion his friends had to
be feeling.  He wasn't convinced that they had a right to be as angry at him as they were, but still...

There was no running away from this.

Face it, Fishman, he told himself.  You fucked up big time.  Chuck strode over to the swing set, the wide
straps of canvas moving crazily in the breeze.  He lowered himself onto one just to have a place to sit.

And think.

So, what had happened this time?  A mother with a little boy clinging to her, arms and legs wrapped
around her like an octopus, had been among the last to leave.  Which meant, knowing the way things
went, that it was the kid's life Gary had saved.

Which he wouldn't have been there to do, had Chuck taken the paper that morning.

The storm clouds were still off to the west, the morning still bright, but Chuck felt darkness like a weight
inside him as he realized what he could have done.  Even if he had taken the paper, placed his bets, and
returned it, this had happened too early, and Gary would never have known about it...until he heard
about it on the evening news.

Toeing the dirt as he twisted in half circles on the swing, Chuck looked back to the street where it had
all happened, quiet now except for the occasional passing car and a couple of squirrels scavenging
around the oak trees.  To think of it shattered by ambulances, police cars...he clutched the chains more
tightly and shivered as he realized that it would have been his fault.  It could have been anyway, even if
he hadn't taken the paper.  If anything worse had happened at McGinty's when those guys had come
looking for him, Gary might not have been there to save that kid. And if Vince's thugs continued
looking for him, there was no telling what might happen to Gary.  It would have killed the guy to miss
out on saving this kid, and it would have been Chuck's fault; had it gone down that way, Chuck knew,
Gary would never have spoken to him again.

He had to do something, had to do it fast.  Maybe Marissa was right, when she always said things
happened for a reason.  Maybe the reason Gary had been here was so that Chuck would see him, see
Aunt Gracie and...

Aunt Gracie...the wheels started to turn, a plan forming in Chuck's mind.  When he was a little boy,
Chuck had been one of her favorites.  Out of all the cousins, he'd been the one for whom she'd make
snickerdoodles and read an extra story on the back porch swing.  And now, now when Chuck was really
in trouble...she lived in that big old house, all alone...for all he knew she was sitting on piles of cash.
Surely she would help him; he could appeal to her sense of family, which had always been strong.

But first--first, Chuck wanted to make sure that nothing else was going to happen to his friends.  He
owed them that much, at least.

At the very least.

With a furtive glance to make sure no one was watching, he pulled out his wallet, painfully thin these
days.  Three dollars, a couple of maxed-out credit cards, a license to drive a car he no longer owned,
and...and, wadded up and shoved in the corner of the compartment that held the bills, the hundred
dollar bill that Chuck had never been able to bring himself to spend or to wager.  That first day,
running into Gary like that, he'd lost his nerve completely.  Every time he'd tried to use it, Ben
Franklin's face had stared at him, accusing, and he'd found some other way.

Now there was no other way, but actually, Chuck didn't think Gary would mind what he was about to do
with it.  Well, he wouldn't completely disapprove.  Surely he wouldn't.  It was for the guy's own good,
after all.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 

I guess he got the idea if you hold a chunk of gold in your hand,
For once in your life you can throw some weight around.
     ~ Dar Williams
 

Harvey's Tobacco Shop was located three blocks from the park.  It wasn't exactly on the wrong side of
the tracks, but it was in the grey area between Gracie's neighborhood and the next.  Still affiliated with
the nicer, more residential area, it also catered to plenty of people from the run-down apartments and
dirtier business district just to the south.  As he'd told Gary, Chuck and Harvey were third cousins twice
removed--or maybe it was the other way around.  Chuck could never quite remember all the branches
on his family tree.  A lot of that had ceased to be important when his family had moved to Indiana, and
when he'd come back to town, first to go to college and then to stay, he hadn't had a whole lot to do with
the relatives who were still there.  At the obligatory gatherings--weddings, bar mitzvahs, the occasional
funeral--Chuck and Harvey would acknowledge each other with nods, circling warily in superficial
conversation when their mothers, who were close friends, were watching.  Otherwise, they ignored each
other.

All that had changed in the past year or so, as Chuck's search for something more exciting than the
gentlemen's wagers and office pools he could get in on at the brokerage had led him back to the old
neighborhood.  He'd remembered his father and his cronies talking about various money lenders and
bookies over beers and bar-b-que grills when they didn't think the kids were listening, and knew there
was action to be had in this part of town.  When he found out why Chuck was back, Harvey had been
only too glad to see him, only too glad to set him up with a friend of a friend--or at least that's what
Harvey had called Vince then.  Well, hopefully he'd be glad to take a little message to that secondhand
friend, too.

It was still early, not even nine o'clock, when Chuck knocked on the glass front door of the shop, peering
through the grill that covered the doors and windows.  There weren't any signs of movement inside, and
Chuck, ever alert, checked nervously behind him while he waited.  After a few moments without a
response, he cut through the alley to the back delivery entrance.  He pounded on that door until it was
thrown open by a man who, although chronologically only a couple of years Chuck's senior, looked like
he had a decade on his distant cousin.  Dark hair peppered with flecks of grey was slicked back from a
high forehead; muddy brown eyes, small and ferret-like, gazed out at the world under heavy brows with
an expression of permanent mistrust.  When Harvey Adler saw who was at on his back door, he
deepened that expression and threw in some paranoia for good measure.

"Fishman, what the hell are you doing here?" he hissed through yellowed teeth.

"I gotta talk to you, Harv."  Chuck waited for the man to open the door enough to let him in, but first
Harvey stuck his head further through the crack, checking up and down the alley.

"Did anyone see you come here?  I'm dead if they did, moron."

"Well, then let me in before somebody does see me, will ya?"

Harvey stared at him for a second, then relented, opening the door just barely wide enough for Chuck
to squeeze in and slamming it shut behind him.  "You got some nerve coming down here.  What do you
want from me, anyway?"  He stalked across the crowded, dimly-lit storeroom, its stacks of boxes eerily
reminiscent of the skyscrapers that had felt so threatening earlier.  Nearly choking on the heavy odor of
cigar smoke, Chuck followed Harvey to the back corner of the room.

"Look, Harv, I didn't know where else to go--"

The taller man whirled, pointing one long, bony finger at Chuck.  "I meant what I said on the phone
the other day, pinhead.  Vince is out for you.  You ain't the first guy that's welched on him, but you're
from the neighborhood, and now you're a big successful businessman, at least according to you.  He's
lookin' to make an example out of you.  Unless you got all the money you owe him and then some in
your pocket, you shouldn't even be showin' your face in this part of town.  Otherwise you ain't gonna
have a face, not when his guys find you."

"That's what I need to talk to you about."  Chuck took off his hat, fiddling with the brim as he followed
Harvey to the tiny desk in the back corner of the storeroom that served as the shop's office.

"Nope."  Harvey plopped down in the worn vinyl chair, his beady eyes glinting under the illumination of
a flickering fluorescent light that hung low over the banged-up metal desk.  He lifted an unlit cigar from
the ashtray at his elbow and pointed it at Chuck.  "No way, no way am I gettin' in the middle of this.
You made your own bed, now you gotta hide under it."

"Harv, just listen for a sec, okay?"  Brushing ashes off the corner of the desk, Chuck perched there as his
cousin lit the cigar.  With a deep breath, he began.  "First of all, I want to thank you for calling me a
couple days ago, letting me know what was going on.  I appreciate the warning.  I'd--I'd probably be at
the bottom of Lake Michigan right now if it wasn't for you."

"Nope.  The river."  Harvey spat the words around the stogie, now lit and clamped between his teeth.

"What?"

"Vince likes to use the river."

Oh, this was helpful.  "Uh...right.  Okay."  Chuck waved smoke away from his face and continued,
"Anyway, the thing is, Vince sent some of his guys around to where I work, to the bar, you know, and
they, they tried to mess with a friend of mine, somebody else who works there, because they were
looking for me.  But she doesn't have anything to do with this, she doesn't even know where I am, okay?"
He leaned in closer.  He had to make Harvey understand.  "I need you to tell Vince that.  I know you
can get a message to the guy, Harv.  I'm gonna get him the money later today, but for right now I need
you to tell him to lay off my friends, to stay away from McGinty's."

Harvey shook his head, tapping his cigar in the general direction of the ashtray.  "Look, the other day I
was feeling generous, you giving me that good tip on the Knicks game and all.  Besides, my mom
woulda disowned me if I just let them waste you without no warning--you're family.  Sorta."  He flashed
a look that said he wasn't sure he wanted to be related to a reprobate like Chuck, as if Harvey was such a
sterling credit to the family.  "But family only goes so far, and it don't go so far as stickin' my neck out
for you with Vince."

Comparing this pathetic office to the one he should have been in that morning, it dawned on Chuck
that he was doing this for family, his real family, but Harvey would never have understood the
sentiment.  There was one thing, however, that Chuck knew he'd understand.  "You don't have to do
anything.  Just tell him to leave everyone at McGinty's alone, okay?  Here--"  He produced a
slightly-worse-for-the-wear hundred dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Harvey.  "This is for you,
okay?  Just a token of my thanks."

Harvey puffed on his cigar for another moment.  "You better pay Vince back today.  They ain't kiddin'
around."

"I will, I swear it.  This is the tip of the iceberg, man.  Just...just tell him to keep away from my friends.
They can't help him, I haven't told them anything about where I am or what I'm doing.  They don't have
the kind of money he needs, so he can just stay the hell away from them, okay?"

Finally nodding, Harvey took the bill and pocketed it.  Chuck didn't know if it was that, or the relief of
knowing that his friends would be okay, but he suddenly felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted
from his shoulders.  "Thanks, Harv.  You're a stand-up guy."

"Yeah, right.  Get outta my shop, Fishman, before you stink up the place.  What'd you do, anyway, sleep
in a dumpster?"

"Close."  The fleabag hotel he'd hid out in for the past couple of nights hadn't even had showers, and he
was pretty sure that the sheets he'd slept on--fully clothed--hadn't been washed since the Bush
administration.  Chuck started for the door, then turned again.  "You're gonna make the call?"

"It's on the top of my to-do list.  Get outta here, and don't let anyone see you go."

Chuck let himself out the back door after a quick check of the alley, and slipped off down the street the
same way he'd come.  There, that hadn't been so hard, had it?  A stop at the corner drugstore to buy a
disposable razor, a few minutes in the bathroom at the local Burger King, and he'd be presentable
enough to visit Aunt Gracie.  Pulling his fedora down over his forehead and the collar of his jacket up
around his face, Chuck stepped out into the rapidly-darkening morning.  The clouds were seriously bent
on moving in now.  The rain would come soon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Page 3
Back to Page 1

---

Don't forget to feed the author!   peregrin_anna@hotmail.com

Return to GTA's Fanfic Index