Tommy looked down and patted his stomach, the beer in his glass sloshing a few times in his hand:
"I haul bricks and rebar at the construction site every day; I'm tired enough. Come to you in my free time to get tortured? I might as well move into the hospital directly, save the trouble of going back and forth."
Kermit laughed too, raising his glass to Shane:
"The only exercise I need right now is walking from here to the toilet and back. Several trips a day, that's enough cardio."
Kevin chimed in from the bar: "Come on, Kermit! That's at most a 'bladder sprint,' not training!"
Shane shrugged, indicating he didn't care. He actually didn't plan to hard-sell to them.
He said this mainly as a "soft ad," just so they knew roughly what he was doing and could help spread the word among the bar patrons.
"Suit yourselves. When the doctor tells you one day that your cholesterol is exploding and your heart can't take it anymore, and you come to me for private lessons then," Shane paused deliberately, "the price will double."
Tommy grunted, "If it really comes to that, I'll just work a few more jobs at the construction site!"
Shane said no more, greeted Kevin, then turned and pushed open the wooden door of the Alibi Room and walked out.
Fine snow mixed with cold wind slapped against his face. It was only after three in the afternoon, but the typical gloomy winter sky of Chicago caused the old streetlights on both sides of the street to light up early.
The sky wasn't completely dark yet, but the street corners were already shrouded in a depressing lead-gray background. Occasionally, pedestrians wrapped tightly in coats shrunk their necks on the sidewalk, hurrying against the cold wind.
Actually, he shouldn't have been alone today.
Karen had originally planned to come over and celebrate the official completion of this small "gym" with him, and maybe secretly share some intimacy belonging to the two of them in this empty warehouse.
Unfortunately, plans couldn't keep up with changes. Two days ago, she told Shane that a teacher for one of her classes suddenly decided to move an important test to this afternoon, so she had to go to school.
And the other members of the Gallagher family also had their own busy things to do.
School, work, fixing pipes in some rich neighborhood... So, this memorable "completion day" ended up being for Shane alone.
Shane retracted his still-warm hands into his jacket pockets, shrunk his neck further into his collar, and strode forward.
But he didn't go straight home like usual. Instead, after turning a corner on the street, he walked in another direction.
He needed to find a lottery shop.
This idea had actually been in Shane's mind for a while.
When he wanted to take out Peggy's "stolen money" to help the family before, the first excuse he thought of was "winning the lottery."
But after a more careful understanding (mainly by querying the lottery rules in the US of this era), he realized his idea was a bit too taken for granted.
In the US, small prizes, like around $600, could usually be redeemed directly at the sales point.
For some types of lottery tickets, prizes under $1000 could also be cashed out directly in the store.
But once it exceeded this amount, you basically had to go to the corresponding lottery center to claim it, and the procedures were troublesome, requiring identity registration and being recorded.
This made his excuse of using a "big win" as a source of large funds impossible.
But getting around $1000 is still feasible, he calculated in his heart.
Because these past few days, he could feel the anxiety about money appearing on Fiona again.
The most obvious sign was that the quality of food on the table had quietly begun to "shrink" again. Clearly, the eight hundred dollars he had "found" before had bottomed out.
Spending it so fast, Fiona probably used part of it to fill large overdue bills like gas fees.
"Take 1000 back for emergency first, then think of other reasons later," Shane made this plan.
And the amount of $1000 wasn't exaggerated. Fiona wouldn't be too suspicious, otherwise she would let her imagination run wild about where the money came from and dig to the bottom again.
He identified the direction and walked toward a convenience store that also sold lottery tickets, not far from the Alibi Room in his memory.
Occasional snowflakes drilled into his neck, bringing traces of icy cold.
As Shane walked, he was already conceiving in his mind how to mention this new "windfall" to Fiona at night.
"I got lucky and scratched a ticket. That's reasonable, right?"
But before Shane had walked far, just as he was passing through a small alley and preparing to turn onto the main road.
Bang! Bang bang bang—!
A sudden burst of gunshots exploded, shattering the deathly silence of the afternoon!
"Holy sht!"
Shane was directly taken over by his body's instinctive reaction. He ducked and quickly darted to the side of a green dumpster in the alley next to him, his back pressed tightly against the wall.
Fck, truly the Land of the Free, gunfights every day!
Shane cursed inwardly. He originally thought this kind of scene would only be staged in core gang neighborhoods or late at night, but now it seemed his understanding of America was too "superficial."
He saw a sedan rushing toward Shane from the other end of the street.
Not far behind the car, several police cars with sirens blaring followed closely.
Even more deadly was that from the rear window of the fleeing sedan, a person holding a pistol leaned out from time to time, pulling the trigger "bang bang bang" at the pursuing police cars behind.
But most of the bullets hit the road surface, splashing sporadic concrete.
Just as Shane held his breath, hoping they would leave quickly, the desperate speeding car made a sharp turn, tires screeching against the ground, and turned onto the road where Shane was!
Just as the car passed the mouth of the alley where Shane was hiding, a bulging sack was thrown out.
The intention of the throw was obvious: they wanted to throw this bag into the dumpster to hide the "evidence," or to come back for it after it was over.
However, the car was too fast, and the throw was hasty and inaccurate.
Resulting in the sack not flying into the dumpster. It first hit the edge of the dumpster with a "thud," then began to tumble.
Finally, this sack fell impartially right into Shane's arms?!
This whole process happened in a flash.
The police cars chasing the sedan didn't notice this little interlude due to the blind spot created by the turn. Before long, the screaming sirens gradually faded away.
The street became quiet (everyone on the street had run away). This silence made the chase and gunshots just now seem like Shane's hallucination.
Cowering Shane: "...???"
He looked down at the sack in his arms, obviously containing "big goods," and his brain crashed for a moment.
What... what the fck is this?!