city game idea help?

[RandomNPC]

so heres the situation:

party is split, half the party went to help a supply wagon get to its destination without being robbed, the other half stayed behind, the bard got a job with the theives guild he's trying to infiltrate and had to stay behind, spuring half the group into not going on this trip.

so the half out of town had gotten the spotlight first, leaving two players and a third person not there, sitting out of the fight that lasted all game. so to make up for the one party sitting out the game i want something good that doesn't take all game for them to do, that still lets the bard do his thing.

the bard was going to play on the street by an alley and if the town guards or anyone seeming suspusious came by he would stop playing and talk to them long enough for the people he was covering to notice he stopped playing, that being the signal to run away.

with a cleric and a rogue tagging along, what do i do with them?

a few ideas:
1: Town guard is tipped off about the job and tries to arrest him
2: Another theives guild tries to make trouble
3: Nothing bad happens (not verry entertaining)
4: town guard on patroll wanders by not knowing any better
5: i hop on the message boards and see what everyone else thinks.

[Dan_Hemmens]

My advice: don't throw good money after bad. If you wound up with half the party doing nothing last session, don't do the same this session.

*Don't* let the scene devolve into combat. That *will* take ages. Just let the Bard's job go perfectly smoothly. Player like to succeed sometimes. Give him a decent reward (in either cash or prestige amongst the thieves) and he won't care that it didn't take long.

[RandomNPC]

i don't think it should be combat, and the bard just wants to be known within the theives guild as someone they can trust. but there's going to be a cleric and rogue with him, and i feel they need some kind of encounter as a way of saying sorry for the combat and all last time.