the scene opens to o'dale and myrna's voicemail and eventually fades into the middle of the voicemail box where the narrator (kelly) says, "and now the rumor." throughout a series of phone conversations among all of the original characters from chapters 1–12 and those introduced in chapter 13–22, rumors of "the package" circulate. because chuck has it, it has possibly been passed to rufus, to his wife cathy, to sylvester, and to gwendolyn. in addition, bridget realizes that james knows both chuck and rufus, though he tried to hide it from her earlier, suggesting he may be on the "down-low" with chuck as well. gwendolyn also cheated on sylvester with james. however, she used a condom as revealed in chapter 4. this would put bridget, big man, and james at serious risk. lastly, pimp lucius gets a similar concerned call from an unidentified woman (who may have gotten "the package" from big man, and subsequently passed it to pimp lucius).