A Man of Mystery

THE YOUNG WOMAN walked into the bar with all the subtlety of a tornado touching down in a shopping mall. She kicked the door with a long, slender leg and strode into the center of the narrow club with all the eyes in the place on her. She wore a short, black skirt that hugged her hips and a billowy white pirate blouse cut low at the neck. She flashed a brilliant smile and made eye contact with all six of the men in the bar. “What’s up, fellas?”

None of the men answered her. Women were not forbidden at Wheels’s Bar, but they were never exactly running rampant there, either. A few ladies might stop in now and then, but none were regulars. Wheels’s place was one of those hole-in-the-wall dives with a couple of TVs that played a nonstop dose of Chicago-area sports and a few empty tables along one wall opposite the bar where the regulars took up tall stools. It was not a hip hangout. It did not have fancy blender drinks. It was the antithesis of the sort of joint where a woman with any discerning taste would ever set foot. It did not attract casual customers. If you were there, it was because you wanted to be there.

None of the men in the bar could be considered a catch. The bartender, Wheels, was a former one-percenter now in retirement as a declared nomad. At one point in his life, he would have struck fear into the heart of anyone who saw him coming down the road on a heavily customized Harley, but now he spent his days reading Stoic philosophy and pouring beers. The other five guys were all pudgy, soft, blue-collar minions, most with a perpetually unswiped Tinder profile gathering digital dust.

The men in the bar were not exactly agog at the sudden presence of an attractive and dynamic woman, but neither did they know how to process one suddenly showing up in their depressing den of waning testosterone.

The woman did not seem to notice their discomfort. She walked right up to the bar. “How’re the Cubs doing?”

Rodridgo Salazar, called Sally by everyone but his mother, was a paunchy Latino who slogged out his days as a painting contractor. He was the first to gather himself enough to reply. He gulped down the mouthful of Miller Lite he’d been holding in his mouth since the woman kicked in the door and composed himself. “Uh, not great.”

“Typical.” The woman slapped an AmEx card onto the bar. “You take plastic, I assume?”

Wheels gestured to the dusty credit card machine next to the cash register. “All forms of legal tender and credit are acceptable at my bar. What are you drinking?”

“What do you have that’s expensive?”

Expensive drinks were not usually served at Wheels’s place. Most of them drank canned domestics because it was the cheapest. A lifetime of living paycheck-to-paycheck made all of them shy from anything with a high value.

Billy Butkis, a retired bus driver with abnormally hairy eyebrows, leaned forward. “I think Wheels has a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue somewhere.”

“Perfect.” The woman nodded toward the stack of bottles at the mirrored counter behind Wheels. “Let’s crack that sucker open and pour some drinks for me and all my new friends.”

“I can’t afford to drink no Blue,” said Billy. “And neither can any of these other broke-asses.”

“I’m buying. I’m Tracy, by the way. C’mon, let’s have some fun.” She pushed her card at Wheels. “Start a tab, please.”

Wheels raised an eyebrow, but did as she asked. He swiped it through the machine by the register. After a second, the register spat out a receipt. “I guess everyone’s drinking Blue tonight.”

There was a mild cheer from the guys at the bar.

Sally was impressed. “Can I make mine a double? I ain’t never had fancy whiskey before.”

“Fuck it; make ’em all doubles,” said Tracy. “Doubles for everyone.”

Wheels stacked up five glasses and poured a healthy slug into each.

Tracy did a quick head count. “There are seven of us here. We need two more.”

“Nah.” Wheels pointed to his ever-present mug of black coffee. “I’m sober almost ten years, and that sad bitch in the corner only drinks domestic beer or Diet Coke.” Wheels jabbed a thumb at a chubby man in a hooded sweatshirt and a Milwaukee Brewers cap. He was bald beneath the cap with scruffy cheeks and a pale complexion. He had dark, serious eyes.

“You only drink beer?” Sally looked at the guy in the Brewers cap. “I never noticed.”

The man held up his Miller Lite. “If you’re buying, you can refill this for me.”

“Done.” Tracy nodded at Wheels. “Give the man with the bad taste in baseball teams a Miller Lite on me and split whatever’s left of the Blue into these glasses.”

Wheels did as she bid and killed the rest of the bottle, filling each of the five rocks glasses to a potentially lethal level. “That’s a lot of whiskey, hey?”

“Hey, indeed.” Tracy picked up her glass and held it aloft in front of her. “To new friends.”

The other men at the bar quickly snatched their glasses and held them aloft, echoing her toast.

Tracy clinked her glass to the other four glasses of whiskey and nodded toward the Miller Lite drinker in the corner. He did not return the gesture, only picked up his bottle and took a drink, his eyes drifting back to the TV where the Cubs were blowing a three-run lead in the top of the seventh.

Tracy was bubbly and fun. Chatty, personable, and quick to laugh. The regular barflies were a little shocked by this. They usually sat at the bar in sullen silence, ate the free peanuts while they drank their cans of Miller Lites, and cursed at the Cubs’ middle relievers when those overpaid clowns hung curveballs over the center of the plate that ended up getting tattooed into the deep left field bleachers. Tracy told bawdy jokes. She asked the guys questions that made them feel like she was interested in them. And most importantly, she kept buying drinks.

At one point, she noticed the dusty jukebox in the far corner of the bar. “Does that thing still work?”

Wheels nodded. “Works great. None of these cheap-asses ever uses it, though.”

“We’d rather hear the game,” said Sally.

Tracy turned on her stool and dropped to the floor on unsteady legs, the effects of the copious amounts of booze evident as she swayed over to the machine. She flipped through the lists of available songs. “Christ. Is there anything on this thing from after 1976?”

“No. I couldn’t risk accidentally hearing disco,” said Wheels.

“I tried to get Wheels to put some Duran Duran on there once.” Sally covered his neck with his hands defensively. “He threatened to cut me with a broken bottle.”

“Plenty of Beach Boys, if you’re into real music,” Billy added his two cents. “Far as I’m concerned, Brian Wilson is twice the musical genius John Lennon ever was.”

Tracy patted her skirt. “No pockets. Anyone got a dollar?”

Sally rushed over to her side, his roly-poly body jiggling all the way. He handed her a five-dollar bill. “Least I can do to pay you back for the drinks.”

“This will get us thirty songs.” Tracy fed the bill into the machine. She started tapping in the codes for different tracks. In seconds, the thin audio of the ball game commentary was buried beneath the harmonies of the Beach Boys.

Tracy danced on wobbly legs. Sally started dancing along with her, doing his own, arrhythmic version of the 1950s craze, the Jerk. Tracy danced back to the bar and bought another round. The Blue was gone, so she had Wheels fetch his second-most expensive whiskey, a liter of J. Henry & Sons from a micro-distillery in Dane, Wisconsin.

Wheels watched Tracy with concern. “You’re kind of pouring it on there, miss. You going to be all right?”

“Are you my dad? Believe me, I can hold my liquor.”

“I never doubted you could. Just pointing out that you’ve had a lot for someone your size.”

Tracy winked at Wheels. “You calling me skinny?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ll take it. How ’bout you use my card and order us a few pizzas? You boys want some pizza?”

“I could eat.” Sally returned to his seat at the bar.

“I ain’t never seen any of you pigs turn down food,” said Billy.

Dirty Ernie, a tall, emaciated Black man who earned his unfortunate nickname from spending his life working in waste management for the city, approached the bar next to Sally. “Get extra. I only got this skinny because I end up in the chow line behind Sally too much.”

“Hey, if you can’t outrun me, that’s on you, Ernie.”

Wheels handed Tracy the cordless phone from under the bar. “You want pizza, go ahead.”

Tracy winked at Wheels when she took the phone. She called the place down the street, ordered three large pies, and gave them her credit card info over the phone. Twenty minutes later, three pizzas were walked through the door by a college kid. After he set them on the bar, he handed Tracy the receipt. She scribbled out her signature on the receipt along with a tip.

When the kid saw the tip, his eyes got big. “Ma’am, I think you made a mistake.”

“I know what I did. It’s a gift.”

The kid could barely stammer a thank-you. He backed out of the bar with a smile on his face that even a kick to the delicates would not have washed away.

“What’s the occasion?” Dirty Ernie helped himself to a couple of slices of pepperoni. “You’re spending a lot of money here tonight.”

“I won the lottery,” said Tracy. “I just wanted to spread some of my good fortune.”

“No foolin’?” Sally’s jaw dropped open. “I been buyin’ them fuckin’ tickets for twenty years. Once, I won twenty-four bucks. That’s about it, though.”

“Some days, it just feels good to be lucky, I guess.”

Tracy kept buying drinks until the rummies were good and soused. They ate the pizzas. They danced to the thirty songs Sally’s cash had bought her. Billy and Pauly Wyche fell asleep on the bar. Sally eventually got logy and collapsed in a sitting position against the wall. Ernie fell asleep sitting up with his jaw propped up on his hand.

Tracy took the hint. She was practically asleep herself. “Well, I should get on home, I guess.”

“You want me to walk you home?” Wheels looked around. “I could lock these idiots in here for a while. They’d never notice we were gone.”

Tracy held up her phone. “I’m getting an Uber. I’ll be fine.” She kicked off her heels before she dared to climb down off her stool. She was listing hard. It took effort and a hand on the bar to steady herself to pick up her shoes. “I’ll be fine,” she reiterated. “I had a good time with you guys. Thanks.”

“Come back anytime.” Wheels held out the black credit card for her.

She grabbed at it, missing a few times before she finally caught it.

Wheels eyed her suspiciously like a good bartender should. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m perfect.” Tracy saluted Wheels. “It was nice meeting you all.” Her words slurred together in a drunken jumble. She looked at the fat man in the Brewers cap who had said almost nothing all night, hadn’t danced once. He hadn’t even moved from his seat. “Even you, Mr. Baseball.”

The man just nodded at her. He kept watching the ball game on TV.

Tracy inhaled a deep, cleansing breath of stale barroom air and let it go slowly through pursed lips. It helped to clear her head. She glanced down at her phone. “My Uber is almost here. Thanks, fellas.”

From his spot on the floor, an extremely inebriated Sally tried to say something, but it only came out as nonsense. Hearing the nonsense made him laugh. Laughing made him tip over onto his side, which only made him laugh harder until the laughter switched to snoring.

Tracy smiled at him. “Lightweight.”

“Might be the first time he’s been called lightweight in his lifetime.” Wheels flipped the switch by the end of the bar that controlled the open sign in the window.

The red neon in the window went dark.

TRACY STUMBLED OUT to the sidewalk. It was late September and far too cold for a miniskirt and pirate blouse. The booze had screwed with her internal thermostat. She felt the cold press at her skin, but that was as far as it got. Her head was light, and her face felt like it was burning. The cold air felt good, balancing how hot the evening’s cascade of whiskey made her feel.

Tracy walked down the block. There was no Uber. There had never been an Uber. She did not even have the Uber app on her phone. Where she was going, she did not need an Uber.

She walked to the parking garage down the street. She ditched her shoes in a trash can next to the garage. Then, she slipped into the enclosed staircase and walked up the sixteen flights of stairs to the eighth level.

She was winded and jelly-legged by the time she got to the eighth floor. The booze was surging through her bloodstream at full force. It made her eyelids heavy, and her body felt like lead. She had come too far to fail, though. She had a plan and was going to carry it through.

Tracy pushed through the door at the top of the parking garage stairs and froze.

The fat guy in the Brewers cap was standing there.

At first, Tracy was amazed. For a brief moment, she actually thought the big man must have flown to the top of the ramp, but that would be silly. She took a step back and let herself get angry that he would dare confront her like that. “How? How did you get here before me?”

The fat man pointed toward the opposite corner of the garage. “Elevator.”

“Are you stalking me? You some kind of pervert?” She could not remember his name. Dan? Dave? Fluff?

The man did not flinch. “Nope. Not in the least. I just figured I’d try to talk you out of killing yourself.”

His words ran through Tracy like a spear. She suddenly felt very, very cold.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“How did you know?”

The fat man shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

Tracy turned and walked to the nearest ledge. “That didn’t explain it.”

The man followed her at an easy, ambling pace. “I knew you were planning to kill yourself about thirty seconds after you came into the bar.”

Tracy stopped and turned back to him. “How?”

The fat man ticked off the reasons on his fingers. “Four things, really: First, you were spending way too much money on strangers. That meant you did not care about paying bills; you were having a last hurrah. Second, the fact that you came into a dead-end bar in a dead-end part of town where you knew you wouldn’t know anyone. You didn’t want to run into anyone you knew, either because you felt they might know what you were doing and try to stop you, or because you were scared or too sad to see them. Third, you were drinking like someone who wanted to get drunk enough to make bad decisions. You weren’t about to have sex with any of the pathetic degenerates from the bar, so it had to be that you were prepping yourself for a different sort of mission, one where being too drunk to think would keep you from chickening out. And lastly, and most importantly, that’s a hell of a tan line on your left hand where the engagement ring used to be.”

Tracy’s cheeks were suddenly cold. She was crying, and the wind was freezing her tears on her skin.

The fat man waited in silence, watching her cry. Finally, he said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Tracy shook her head. She started to climb the safety wall at the edge of the ramp. “Don’t try to stop me.”

The fat man didn’t move. “Wouldn’t dream of it. We are all free and independent, aren’t we? If you want to take yourself out of this world, that’s your right as a sentient being with free will.” The fat man walked to the wall ten feet to Tracy’s right. He was taller than she was. He leaned his head over the edge and looked down. He made an appreciative whistle. “That’s a long way down. That’ll do the job, for sure. You won’t even know what hit you.”

Tracy boosted herself to the ledge using a Volkswagen bumper as a stepping stool. “I’m here for a reason.”

“I don’t doubt it. If you want to die, this is a guaranteed way to do it. You’ll probably bounce when you hit the pavement. Did you know that? Human bodies can bounce when they hit concrete from these sorts of heights. People think they just splat like dropped Jell-O, but it’s way more disgusting.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh, yeah,” the fat man said. “It’s horrible. Bones shatter. Organs compress and explode. A fall from this height will tear your aorta like tissue paper, and you’ll suffer instantaneous massive heart death. It’s a good way to go.”

“Stop talking.” Tracy’s stomach was starting to roil. She looked over the edge. A combination of booze, fear, and adrenaline made her guts lurch like she was going over the crest of a high hill.

“The trauma of hitting the sidewalk from this height, there’s no surviving it. I wouldn’t even call an ambulance, just call the morgue directly. Your chest cavity will collapse, and rib fragments will pierce your lungs and heart. Your skull will crack like an egg. You won’t feel a thing, though. You’ll be dead the second you hit the ground. Your brain won’t even have time to register the impact. No pain.”

“Stop. Talking.” Tracy tried to emphasize her command, but her stomach betrayed her. She suddenly spewed a whole night’s worth of pizza and booze eight stories to the sidewalk. The mess fell and made a faint splattering noise when it landed.

“That was a good precursor to the main event.” The guy moved a little closer to her. He didn’t look at her. He stared out into the distance and took in the quiet of the night. “Before you do this, why don’t you tell me why you’re doing it? You know, for the statement I’ll inevitably have to give to the police who show up and demand to know why I didn’t try to physically restrain you before you did your best Franz Reichelt impression?”

“Who?”

“Franz Reichelt. In 1912, he tried to make a suit for pilots that could become a parachute. He tried to test his invention and took a header off the Eiffel Tower in front of a crowd of curious onlookers. It was caught on film. Dude hit the ground hard.” The man paused before returning to the matters at hand. “Who Reichelt was is not important. Tell me what brought you up here.”

Tracy did not want to be on the ledge at that moment. Her stomach was still reeling. She launched a second volley of vomit to the sidewalk. Her sinuses were burning from bile and whiskey.

She dropped off the wall and slid to a sitting position alongside the silver Jetta. “It’s been a bad year.”

The fat man strolled around the front end of the car. He stopped eight feet from her. “Tell me about it.”

Tracy swiped vomit from her chin with the sleeve of her blouse. “It’s just another woe-is-me sob story. Everyone has one.” She was suddenly very lucid and sober, as if puking the booze in her stomach eight stories down had rid her of all the poison in her bloodstream. Maybe it was the rush of adrenaline giving her sudden clarity.

“I like woe-is-me stories,” said the man.

Duff. Tracy suddenly remembered his name. “What kind of a name is Duff?”

“Irish.”

“No, I mean, what does it mean?”

“It means I’m mad at my dad. What’s your story?”

Tracy shook her head. She looked up at the night sky. In Chicago, only a few stars were visible high above them because of the light pollution. “I never knew my dad.”

“By choice?”

“My mom said he died in Iraq when she was pregnant with me. She never told his family.”

“By accident, then.”

“My mom worked her ass off to raise me and keep a roof over our heads. She only had a GED, but she did it. I didn’t have much, but I never went hungry. And we used to laugh all the time. We had fun together. She was my best friend.”

“Past tense, I see. She passed, then? She died in late March or early April.” Duff took another step toward her. He leaned against the front fender of the Jetta.

“March twenty-third. Breast cancer. How’d you know?”

“I’ve read a few psychology books. Six months is a pretty standard amount of time for someone to get to the bottom of the proverbial barrel after someone’s death. Let me guess what’s next: your fiancé was banging your best friend?”

Tracy’s eyes widened in surprise. “How did you know that?”

“Logic. Your mom’s death was traumatic. You probably retreated into yourself for a bit to cope. Massive depressive episode, right?. Your best friend was around a lot, trying to make you feel better. Your fiancé was doing his best, but he was powerless. You were too depressed to do anything for him, so he felt worthless and neglected. Your best friend became his confidant because they were both worried about you, and then things happened. I’ve seen it before.”

Tracy sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her wrist. Her eyes were leaking tears again. “Found out about the affair a few weeks ago when Danny called off our wedding. He got Jasmine pregnant. All my friends sided with them because I’ve been so depressed. Some of them actually blamed me for the affair. Said I was reaping what I sowed.”

Duff grimaced. “That’s a kick in the ass.”

“I lost my mother, my fiancé, and my best friend within six months. I’m stuck in a dead-end job I hate, but I can’t find anything better. And I can’t quit, because even after years of searching. I’m still drowning in student loan debt. I’m just...lost.” Tracy paused. There was a rising lump in her throat.

“Let me guess—it gets worse?”

Tracy bit back a sob. “Had a routine doctor’s exam last month and they discovered some anomalies. They ordered some further tests. I found out last week that I can’t have a baby.”

Duff’s eyebrows raised on his forehead. “Wow. That’s...wow. I get it. All that shit happens to me, I’m probably chucking myself off a parking garage, too.”

“Why am I even here?”

“Because you were going to go out in a blaze of street pizza. Did you forget?”

Tracy rolled her eyes at Duff. “No, I meant, why am I here in the big picture sense? What’s the fucking point?”

“Of Life?”

“Why do we bother? All my dreams got wrecked in six months. My mom never got to see me walk down the aisle in a white dress. I went from planning a wedding to being single. I lost my best friend. I’ll never get to be a mom. What does it all mean if I can’t have the life I want?”

Duff shrugged. He slid down to a sitting position alongside the Jetta. It was a painful series of movements to get to that point. He moved like an old man despite being in his mid-forties. “You want to know a secret? Most of us never get the life we want. My parents wanted me to get a PhD in some sort of highfalutin degree program at a major college and be a professor like them. I ended up being a dirt-poor private detective because it’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s nowhere near the life they wanted for me, but it’s the life I got.”

Tracy looked over to Duff with red-rimmed eyes. “What keeps you going?”

Duff thought about it for a moment. He weighed a few options in his head before he declared, “Spite.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Duff gestured toward the dark expanse of the night sky overhead. “Look at that. You get more than a few miles up and we die without oxygen tanks or pressurization. Get out of this atmosphere, and we die. Seventy-something percent of this big, stupid rock is covered with water. We can’t breathe in that water. And there are sharks in that water. A lot of this planet is freezing cold. We die without the proper clothing and shelter. A lot of the planet is burning hot. We die without shade and water. The parts of the planet that do adequately support human life have things like tornadoes, flash floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.”

“What are you getting at?”

The fat man shrugged again. “I’m saying that since we evolved out of our great primate ancestor as a minor surface annoyance to the planet, we’ve had to deal with the fact that the planet doesn’t want us here. It is constantly trying to kill us. Not only that, but we’re the only creature that understands that this grand failed experiment called life eventually ends. We have to live every day with the specter of potential death hanging over us, and the knowledge that none of us truly knows what comes next, no matter how reassuring the televangelists are about Heaven being real. That’s a pretty heavy burden for a normal mind. That’s an even heavier burden for a mind dealing with trauma. Believe me, lady, it never surprises me when someone chooses the easy road out. In fact, I’m surprised most of us don’t do it. This world is crazy.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

Duff rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck to the side. “I told you—it’s pure spite. It’s the only way I can flip middle fingers at the whole system. This rock doesn’t want any of us here. The Universe is trying to kill us, and it will eventually win that battle. But yet, we just keep going until then.” Duff raised his right arm to the sky and extended his middle finger at the inky darkness above them. “I’m still here because whatever chaos that runs this whole show hasn’t figured out how to kill me yet. I keep living because by living, it means I’m outsmarting the big organism that continually tries to shuffle me off its mortal coil. Pure, unadulterated spite.”

Tracy swallowed hard. It felt like there was a stone in her throat. It burned. “I don’t think I can go on, though.”

“Why not?”

“Because I just feel like I can’t. I can’t stand to see one more day.”

“If you don’t know, then you’ve got a mystery on your hands. You can’t quit life with a mystery to solve.”

Tracy bit back a sob that tried to escape. “Spoken like a true detective.”

“Spoken like a guy who has been where you are. Spoken like a guy who knows what you’re going through. I weighed it out. I did the math. Quitting Life is easy. For some people, maybe it’s the right thing to do. Some will tell you it’s never the right answer, but they’re moralizing from a high horse. They’re not in that person’s shoes. They can’t know what that person is going through. They’re dictating from a position of power and better mental health, but it doesn’t make them automatically correct. Maybe it is the right decision for some, emphasis on maybe. I don’t know. I can only speak for myself, and I want to piss Life off some more before I finally have to throw in the towel. We get few enough spins around the Sun, anyhow. It’ll be over before we know it.”

There was a long silence between them. Tracy let tears slide down her cheeks.

“My ass hurts.” Duff leaned to his right and rubbed his butt.

This made Tracy laugh. It was a short, barking laugh, but it was still a laugh. “Am I being stupid?”

“When you were rooting for the Cubs earlier? Absolutely.”

She smiled. “No, I mean just now.” She pointed at the ledge of the ramp.

“There was a Superman comic some years ago where a girl was going to jump from a rooftop. Superman told her if she honestly did not believe she would never again have another happy moment, then she should jump, and he would let her fall.”

“Did he let her fall?”

Duff shook his head. “She took his hand, and Supe got her the help she needed.”

“You think I need help?”

“I think we all probably need help.”

“Even you?”

Duff gave her a sad half-smile that never reached his eyes. “Especially me. I’m a fucking slow-motion train wreck.”

Tracy got to her feet and walked back to the ledge. Her legs were unsteady. She felt sick and dizzy. She looked at the sidewalk far below. “If I want to jump, will you let me?”

Duff gestured at his body. “Look at me, lady. I’m nonathletic, obese, and as slow as a sloth on Benadryl. If you wanted to jump, you could be kissing the pavement before I could get to my knees.” Duff made no move to stand. “I firmly believe that we are all creatures of free will. If you want to go, you’ll go. Maybe not now. Maybe not tomorrow. But if you’re dead set on going, then you’ll find a way if that’s what you decide you have to do. No force on the planet will stop you.”

“Not even you?”

“Especially not me.”

Tracy looked back at the sidewalk. Her eyes drifted to some of the high-rises around them. People were living in those buildings. Actually living. They had lives. They were doing things. They were watching TV or sleeping. They were raising families. They were raising pets. They were learning new languages, or learning to play guitar, or playing a video game they had played too many times before because it was a comforting escape from reality. At that moment, Tracy realized that none of them would care if she died. Most of them wouldn’t even know she died. Her death might make the papers, but it would be a buried story. No one would care. The sun would rise in a few hours. The sun would rise whether she was there or not.

Tracy realized Duff was right. As long as she lived, she was a nuisance to a world that was completely apathetic to her. The system wanted her to die, and she wanted to upset that system.

“Duff?”

Duff said nothing. He didn’t even look at her.

Tracy looked back at the big, wide night sky. “Duff, I think I want to go home.”

Duff still did not answer her.

Tracy turned around. The big man had somehow gotten up silently and was already moving toward the elevator. He walked slowly, but with purpose.

Tracy called after him. “Did you hear me? I said I want to go home.”

Duff stopped and turned to face her. He shooed her away with his hands. “So go. Free will, remember. You’re a creature of choice, not habit. You choose your path.”

“But, you—”

Duff turned back toward the elevator. He kept going.

Tracy was confused. She started to follow. She called after him again.

“You’re wasting your time.” A voice from the stairs stopped her cold. The bartender, the man they called Wheels, was standing in the doorway with two Chicago cops, a tall, muscular man, and a shorter, stouter woman. They wore matching uniforms, blue shirts, black pants. The woman mumbled something into the radio mic by her collar.

Tracy’s jaw hung open. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.” Wheels jutted his chin toward Duff. “You’re wasting your time with him.”

“Why? What? Where is he going?” Tracy was confused. “I thought he was concerned.”

“He was, in his own way. He wouldn’t have followed you if he weren’t.” Wheels took Tracy by the arm. His touch was delicate for a man of his size. He walked her toward the stairs, leading her gently.

“Why did he leave?”

“Because he’s Duff.”

Tracy let herself be helped by the two police officers. The woman took Tracy’s other arm. She spoke lowly to her, comforted her. The staircase was warmer than the top of the parking ramp. An ambulance drove around the corner of the ramp and stopped. Two EMTs got out. They had a mylar thermal blanket and wrapped it around Tracy while they helped her climb into the back. Tracy let them guide her. She was limp and exhausted, utterly drained from the night’s experiences.

Wheels watched as the EMTs strapped her to the gurney in the back of the truck. “Get better, okay? Come back and see me when you do.”

Tracy nodded. Her head lolled to the side. “Tell Duff I said thanks, will you?”

“I will. He won’t care. But, I will tell him.”

One EMT climbed into the back of the truck with Tracy. The other closed the doors and ran back to the driver’s seat. After a moment, the truck lurched forward and began a slow descent down the parking ramp.

Wheels watched from the top of the ramp until the truck was spat out of the ramp’s exit.

It drifted into the night, red-and-white lights spinning, but no siren. In moments, it blended into the wash of lights from the traffic and was gone.

THE FAT GUY strolled back to his apartment. He stopped at the taquería on the first story of his building and got three carne asada tacos to go, more out of habit than hunger. He climbed the stairs to his apartment slowly, knees cracking with each step. He cursed the lack of an elevator in his building. Surely, that couldn’t be up to code. Why didn’t the city step in?

Duff keyed the door to his apartment and limped into his room. Clothes were strewn about on the floor, all in various states of cleanliness. A towel hung over a hook on the back of the door. A dresser was in one corner, cluttered with odds and ends. On any flat surface, there were empty cans of Diet Coke and Coke Zero waiting to be recycled. There was no bed, only a plush recliner in the center of the room.

Duff flopped into the chair and popped the footrest. He turned on the modestly sized TV mounted on the wall in front of the recliner. A rerun of M*A*S*H was on, the one where Hawkeye and BJ pretend to be nice to Frank. Not one of his favorites, but it would do.

The next morning, when his business partner arrived at the office, Abe would ask, “What did you do last night?”

Duff would tell him, “I watched M*A*S*H.”

Abe would ask, “That’s it?”

And Duff would nod once. “That’s it.”