“Come on, Sal. Time to go.”
Sal was anything but cooperative, and especially when he was the last one at the bar. He snorted and grabbed for a handful of peanuts. “where’duh nuts go?”
“The same place they were when you asked ten minutes ago. I put them away. Sal. Really. It’s two-thirty. And…” Gloria looked out the front window of the Elmwood Inn and saw the light, distant, flashing, from the heart of the mount hope cemetery. “…I really gotta go.”
“You should never deny an old man his drink. Especially when he helped win the war. You know I was the first one at Odenbach shipyards? Right on Dewey. Come on, sweetie, gimme one more. One more for an old war vet’ran. Lemme tell you about the time this gang of thugs used the shipyards…”
Gloria knew that the beacon in the middle of mount hope meant there was serious danger in the Flower City. She also knew that Colonel Rochester would be angry with her if she didn’t answer the beacon in, like, a nanosecond. She also knew Sal wouldn’t budge until 2:45. She noticed she was tapping her foot, a habit she was trying to break. She opened the cooler. “Sal. I’ll make you a deal.”
“The krauts wanted a deal. No deal. Deals are for chumps.”
“I know, but this is a special deal. How ‘bout I give you a few sarsaparillas to take home? For your granddaughters? Didn’t you say they were visiting tomorrow?”
“Stupid communiss son of mine, with those damnable kids. They’re probably krauts.”
Gloria slumped against the beer cooler, and tossed a bowl of peanuts out within Sal’s reach.
“Where have you been?” Colonel Rochester said. “Didn’t you see the Beacon of Imminent Danger?”
Gloria pressed her lips together and sunk her head into her shoulders. While she imagined that Colonel Rochester’s job was a tough one, she wished he wouldn’t be so strict. “There was a guy at the bar,” she said, “and he wouldn’t leave, and Steve, the manager, went home early because he said his kid had some thing the doctor said was a cowlick, and then the morning shift never stocks the beer…”
“The safe and resplendent world of bartending must be put to bed when The Beacon of Imminent Danger beckons, Mixology Girl.”
“…I’m really sorry…”
“…and the forces at work tonight in our fair city won’t wait for your bar guests to languish in their debaucherous acts…”
“…I’m really sorry…”
“…unless you’d like to ask them yourself. Ask them if they’ll wait for you to punch out for your day job. Hmph. Can you picture it? ‘Excuse me, Tiger Man and Electrico, can you not spread death and destruction just yet? I’ve got to put crime-fighting on hold so that my spiritually destitute patrons are filled with spirits of another kind…’”
“…Dude!”
There was an audible silence. Colonel Rochester raised one of his grey eyebrows.
“I’m here, now,” Gloria cleared her throat. She tried to remember: Colonel Rochester was the product of another era, a bio-engineered reincarnation of The Flower City’s founding father. One who certainly didn’t know what “dude” meant. “So…like, what do we need to do?” She found she was again tapping her foot.
“I’m afraid that The Buffalo Boys are back in town,” Rochester said curtly. You have to meet up with Photon and…”
Gloria frowned inward. Photon. Jerk. Colonel Rochester was pointing at a map of the city that hung on the wall of their underground headquarters amongst the old Times-Union printing presses, and thought about the last time she had to work with Photon. Pompous, arrogant…he used pomade in his hair, for chrissakes. And his yellow-and-red costume…
There was a giant, muffled explosion that cut into her thoughts. The walls shook, and one of the computers in the room fell with a sparking crash onto the floor. Gloria and Colonel Rochester both fell, Rochester with a sparking, cursing crash. Dust from the girders above them billowed out, and the lights flickered.
“The Buffalo Boys,” Rochester said. "They’re here."