[b]OOC[/b] -- I, too, wish to thank ItsJustMe for letting me take over a character she created. (I will create a profile for "Hondo" soon but wish to wait until I see the format you use for your own characters. And I'm sorry if the image I chose doesn't look enough like The Duke to fit the comments made earlier about him by Naomi.)

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[B]Monday, April 4 2022 -- A bit after 3am[/b] 

[color=green]"The Tram ... it's stuck, hanging over the river. There's people in it."[/color]

Frank O'Connor -- better known as [url=https://i.imgur.com/otZeO85.jpg?1][i]Hondo[/i][/url] -- and Naomi gave each other questioning looks, after which he chuckled. "That would never have occurred to me." 

He told the woman who'd hurried up to them with the news, "I'll get to this personally, ma'am, but let me get these folks on their way first"

Hondo looked back to Naomi, then to the others gathered around him. "Officer Wilde, these are your Neighborhood Watch Block Captains."

He pointed to and named the 5 men and 4 women, each of whom greeted Naomi. He gave guidance specific to this night's situation to 7 of the Captains, each of whom confirmed their [i]orders[/i] and headed off. He asked the 8th Captain to cover the 9th Captain's area, then told the 9th, "I have something special for you and your people."

After explaining what he wanted from the woman named Kimmie Dolan, Hondo led Naomi and the woman who'd come to them for help the three-quarters of a mile to the Roosevelt Island terminal of the tram. They lit their way as best them could with a pair of the souvenir lanterns that had been given to Naomi by the girl from the bodega. 

(Hondo knew Maria, of course. In fact, he'd once tried to interest her in going out for coffee, lunch, dinner, or [i]whatever[/i], only to be very politely shot down. That had been quite a blow to the man who, by all measures, was tall, dark, and handsome and, as such, was [i]chased[/i] by women as often as he himself [i]chased[/i] them. It all made a little more sense to him -- and relieved his fear that he was [i]losing it[/i] -- when he learned that the beautiful Latina had eyes for others of her own gender. [i]Whew![/i])

They'd managed to increase the performance of the little lamps by wrapping aluminum foil over one side of cardboard sheets and then curling the cardboard around the backside of the lamps. It helped a bit, but Hondo couldn't help thinking just how much he missed his Police-Issue, 4 D-cell Maglite.

All along the way, the pair of them caught sight of people out and about with no apparent reason for being where they were. A dozen times or more, Hondo used his intimidating stature to intervene in potentially criminal situations: one pair of men had been loitering outside a jewelry store; another man had been trying to get into a building's side door and ran off at the sight of the three who'd happened upon him; and a trio of men were following and making lewd comments to a pair of teenage girls. 

(After Hondo ran the men off, he turned on the girls and snapped at them, "[i]Go home! What the fuck are you doing out here alone in the dark in the middle of a blackout? Jesus Christ, where are your parents?[/i]") 

Eventually, they reached the Roosevelt Island terminal for the tram. A crowd was standing near the waterfront, some of its [i]attendees[/i] standing around either of two fires blazing away in metal trash bin. The fires were providing heat for those around them, but that wasn't the primary reason for the blazes; most of the people there had been drawn by the situation 1,000 feet out and 250 feet above the East River: the stalled tram car.

"Anyone able to tell me anything about this?" Hondo asked with a loud booming voice. Several people began talking all at once, but the big man waved them all silent and clarified, "I mean, does anyone know who's up there, how many are up there ... stuff like that?"

"I think my daughter's up there," one man spoke up quickly. "She was on her way to see her mother in Midtown, and I'm sure that's the car she was on."

A woman in medical scrubs named Vicky Bloom -- who Hondo was familiar with in the [i]biblical[/i] sense -- stepped his way, smiled, and said, "Yeah, I think I know someone up there, Frank. A girl who came to the clinic earlier." 

She talked about Angela Henderson's bought with food poisoning, adding, "She should have spent a night in the hospital for monitoring, but her mother said no, that she'd be okay. I ... I think it was more about insurance costs than anything else. I don't like the idea that she'd stuck up there."

Hondo asked, "You know for certain she's up there?"

"Yeah, I was going to ride with them, but..." Vicky responded. She hesitated, then glanced toward a man standing by one of the can fires; Hondo didn't recognize him, but the man was most certainly his on again, off again lover's type. She finished with a very explanatory, "[i]You[/i] know." 

"Yeah, I think I do," he said, smirking devilishly. He glanced at the car, then asked Vicki, "If we wait until sunup...?"

"I would rather you didn't," she said, wanting very badly for a rescue to be started ASAP. She added a soft but meaning, "Please, Frank."

"Anything for you, Vicky," Hondo said. He didn't say it with a flirty or suggestive tone, but [i]he[/i] knew that [i]she[/i] knew his mind was filled with fantasies of being naked and sweaty with her in the very near future. He turned to Naomi, saying, "Okay, so ... this is gonna be an adventure."

He led her to the backside of the terminal's building, checked a set of double doors -- they were, of course, locked -- and then looked around himself. He found yet another metal garbage can, tipped it over to dump its contents, then righted it and began throwing some of the spilt garbage back inside. He explained, "We don't want to set anything on fire that's gonna poison us or go [i]boom[/i]."

Once he was ready, he lit the contents of the can and -- like out near the river's edge -- they had heat and light. He looked to Naomi and said, "Now we wait for the cavalry."

It was obvious in her eyes that she had no idea what the man was talking about. Hondo pointed to the set of double doors and explained, "There is gear in here for ascending on the cables and lowering people down to the water from the car. The Captain I gave instructions to ... she's going to the fire station to get the keys to this door or -- if they don't have a set -- get the gear necessary to force it open."

He sat on a stack of boxes near the fire, held his hands out over the growing flames, and said, "All we can do right now is wait." 

Hondo let his eyes take a walk up and down the police officer's form before smiling a bit wider. "In the mean time ... why don't you tell me something about yourself, Officer Wilde: married, single, engaged ... available for something ... [i]wild[/i] during a blackout."

The humor in his voice was meant to imply that he was only joking. But honestly, Hondo wouldn't have said no to Naomi inviting him to find a bit of isolation if she wanted to pass some time during the power outage.