Free Front-Page McGuffin & The Greatest Story Never Told by Peter Crowther Page B

before 6:20. The heart of Happy Hour.
    At this time, the regular regulars usually sit at the tables between the booths and the bar, conversation low and intense. Like a hospital waiting room.
    There’sonly two tables filled tonight.
    The table tucked in behind the bar close to the back wall has one man sitting at it. One man and a pack of playing cards. He’s turning the cards over one by one, placing some on one pile and some on another. Every once in a while, he starts another pile by placing a card away from the others and then leaves it alone, putting cards on the other piles. For anyone watching, any casual observer, there wouldn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for the way he’s turning those cards. But what do casual observers know about another man’s chosen path in life?
    This man is dressed in black—shirt, jacket and pants; the shirt buttoned right up to the neck but with no necktie—and he slouches back in his chair, a glass and a pitcher of beer on the table amidst the piles of playing cards. His eyes are hooded, bushy-browed, his face is thin—some might say ‘gaunt’ or ‘drawn’—and he sports a small, neatly-clipped goatee beard which covers the tip of his chin and not a lot else.
    This man is Artie Williams, sometimes known as ‘Bills’ and others as ‘Dealer’. He is something of a communicator, his head filled with numbers and probability percentages and ratios. There are those who say he has a direct line to the world beyond the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan and far away from the leafy thoroughfares of Central Park: the world where the spirits roam. But where this reputation has sprung from nobody knows. Artie Williams keeps himself very much to himself. Like tonight, Happy Hour, turning cards over on the table, drifting with the music, making piles and occasionally smiling to himself. And occasionally frowning.
    The table midway between the stairs and the bar has three men sitting at it. One is Edgar Nornhoevan; another is Jim Leafman and the last of the three is McCoy Brewer.
    They’re talking about the condition of the subways right now. A little while ago, they were discussing the flow of traffic down Fifth. In a while, they may be talking about what kind of winter they’re going to have this year. It’s the middle of September now and the weather is a big consideration in New York, particularly after the excesses of the previous winter.
    These men are what you might call real friends.
    They can talk deep-down personal stuff—like Jim’s wife Clarice cheating on him or Edgar’s prostate problems or McCoy being laid off from his job with the Savings and Loan company—or they can talk controversial stuff like religion or life after death or abortion rights, but that isn’t always necessary. Like tonight. And the truth is that only real friends can discuss trivialities with the level of intent and interest that Jim, Edgar and McCoy are displaying right now.
    But that conversation about the subways will be interrupted in just a minute. And it won’t drift into the weather. At least not tonight.
    For tonight, the City will be sending to The Land at the End of the Working Day one of its casualties for healing.
    It does that sometimes.
    The sound of shoes echoes through the bar, shoes coming down the stairs. One guy at the bar stops tapping his hand for just a couple of seconds, the wink of an eye, and takes in this sudden intrusion. Then he goes back to tapping. An elderly man further down the bar mutters something to himself and then smiles into the mirror, gives a kind of half-chuckle and then reaches for his drink, running a finger down the iced-up side. The man he sees looks right back at him and returns the smile, runs a finger down his own glass.
    Over in one of the booths, a woman in a red dress that’s so red it looks like she just spilt berry juice all over it—looks like it should be dripping that redness onto Jack Fedogan’s polished floor—she looks up for a