Front-Page McGuffin & The Greatest Story Never Told (5 page)

Even the words themselves have a magical sound, Jack thinks. He rubs his shoulders and shivers. “You trying?”

“Trying,” says Front-Page.

They sit like that for a few minutes, silent.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Something … You. Good. Man. Jack.”

“So they tell me.”

“Something. Happening.”

Jack Fedogan turns around and looks at his friend’s face. Is it his imagination or is it the light filtering through the trees … or does Front-Page look more peaceful now?

“Hold. Hand,” says Front-Page McGuffin. “Going.”

Jack takes hold of Front-Page’s hand and grips it tight, trying hard to let him feel the warmth. “Front-Page?” he whispers.

“Yessss . . . ?” Sleepy-sounding now.

“Tell Phyllis I said, ‘Hi’.”

Front-Page’s head lolls forward. And now there is just one person sitting on the bench in Central Park, breathing in the fine mist and watching the lights twinkling through the trees. Jack sits there for a while like that, his arm around Front-Page McGuffin’s shoulder and Front-Page’s head leaning against his own like a sleeping lover, just watching the city and listening to its sounds.

* * *

It takes Jack Fedogan almost two hours to walk back to The Land at the End of the Working Day. Two hours in which he has re-lived weeks and months and years of memories. When he arrives at the familiar entrance at the corner of 23rd and Fifth, it’s raining hard and Jack is already sniffling.

“Where you been?” Edgar says as Jack clumps down the stairs. “It’s almost midnight!”

“Where’s Front-Page?” asks McCoy Brewer.

“Right now?” says Jack. “Right now I’d say he’s catching up with someone he’s been missing for a long time.”

“Where’d you leave him?” asks Bills Williams.

Jack walks across to the counter and lifts the hatch. “In the park.”

Bills smiles. “And I bet I know where,” he says.

“Coffee anyone?” asks Jack. “It’s been a long—”

Suddenly the lights flicker.

A wind blows down the stairs and swirls around them, a wind so strong that the five of them shield their eyes.

Then, as quickly as it appeared, the wind drops.

The lights return to their full intensity.

And a solitary shimmering figure stands at the foot of the stairs.

“Someone call me?” asks Dawdle O’Rourke.

Front-Page McGuffin & The Greatest Story Never Told

Copyright © Peter Crowther 2008 & 2011

Introduction

Copyright © Joe Hill 2008 & 2011

The right of Peter Crowther to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Originally published in printed book form in
The Land at the End of the Working Day
by Humdrumming.co.uk in 2008. This electronic version is published in March 2011 by PS by arrangement with the author. All rights reserved by the author.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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