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"And here I thought that London and San Francisco were known for fog," Neal says. "But this is something else."
"I've still got the tracker on you," Peter says.
"If I wanted to disappear, I don't need fog to do it. Why are we here again?"
"Because there's been a theft and the Chicago office thinks it's connected to the one at the Guggenheim."
"A modern art crime spree."
"Something like that."
The buildings around them are barely visible through the fog, and Neal is surprised to find that he's disappointed. It's been nearly four years since he's been to a city other than New York, and he'd wanted Chicago to feel different. Right now, the city is just that: a city encased in fog so thick that it's really just them and a few storefronts -- the same as it would be anywhere in Manhattan.
The spend the afternoon in the museum, and mostly not even in the galleries, and when they come out it's still hard to see more than 30 feet in around them, and so Neal starts looking for the subtle differences, because it seems that he won't get much else.
The architecture is different, less glossy and more organic. There are just as many people on the street, but it feels more open, less crowded. Even Peter is acting differently, keeping closer to Neal than he usually does, even though Neal still has a tracker and Peter's been provided with a nifty portable GPS keyed to the damned thing. Neal wonders whether he knows that he's doing it.
Six more months, he reminds himself. Then what?
Mozzie probably has a few ideas involving modern art. Or Renaissance art. Maybe even some Impressionists, and most definitely a European city or two or seven.
Peter's plans for him most likely include a condo in the city and Sunday night dinners at the Burke house.
Neal just wants to be somewhere else. Somewhere that's not Manhattan or anywhere in New York, actually. Maybe he'll come back here to Chicago when there's not so much fog so that he can take in the feel of the city without being tied to Peter, and without being blanketed by weather.
He wants it all, always has. He wants to fit into Peter's happy domesticity and he wants Mozzie's life on the run. He likes the notoriety, the excitement, the money; but he likes the quiet too.
Right now, though, he'll settle for new.