Where were the cops? This was the city of Chicago. There were four million people. Hadn't anybody called the cops?

They had his upper body inside the drum when they paused to gather their strength. Frank could feel his legs dangling outside. His vision cleared enough for him to see, by the light of the street lamp, the mass of wet concrete that waited below to swallow him. He forced his body to work, to move. He pushed against the slimy insides of the drum and lost his grip on the doughnut sack, which slid down, down, down into the concrete, where it rested on the surface. Frank sobbed.

"Come on, let's finish this," said one of his assailants.

Frank felt their hands on his legs and he started kicking, feebly. They grabbed his ankles anyway and pushed all of him inside the mixer.

He whimpered and tried making his arms work, tried to get himself turned, and only managed to move sideways before he slid into the concrete. His head landed on the sack of doughnuts and forced them into the wet mess. Frank felt the cold mass embracing him and he tried to shout. The gritty, heavy stuff filled his mouth and covered his eyes.

With a last surge of adrenaline, Frank crawled upright and thrust his body out of the concrete. He opened his eyes and saw the light outside the mixer for a moment. He cried out and reached for the light, but then the junk blotted it out for the final time. He clawed for purchase, unable to see, unable to hear.

But he did feel the rumble of the engine. He felt his world begin to turn.

None of the media outlets really knew how to handle the event. Channel 8, the news station that had vilified Frank Krauser the previous year, wouldn't touch it. A few of the other stations tried to come up with a Frank-Krauser-as-victim angle but gave up. Most of the coverage was limited to anecdotal blurbs in the papers and a twenty-second brief on the morning news show. The police never could decide if Krauser was murdered or not, so they conveniently decided on "not" and forgot about him. In fact, before very long, almost everybody had forgotten about Frank Krauser.