Disclaimer: "If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended, that you did but slumber'd here while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme is no more yielding then a dream." -Midsummer's Night Dream
Ahasuerus
The city was turning pale blue with the morning sun when the feeling caught up to AR.
It was these moments; the quiet ones that tended to side-swiped him he hated the most. It was when the starched collar was a little too dry against his skin, and his body ached from the sixteen hour marathon at the billiard tables. Lucky and Meyer looked no better; with suit coats, vests and ties long since discarded. Glasses of half-filled Scotch littered the sideboard. They'd open a window earlier in the night, to let in the cool air but it had done little to shake the malaise of the evening. Business was good, and the game was friendly- as much as it could be between three men like them and perhaps it was because that quietness filled the evening that Rothstein felt his mind wander and gave these moments their tiny entrances.
It was moments like this when he realized that all his power and his wealth laid somewhere out there and as unformed- and therefore as useless- as the ideas of a hundred future plays that would litter Broadway and the thousands of wishes from showgirls who pictured their name up in lights. It was moments like this- quiet and peaceful after a kind, when Arnold Rothstein, the Big Bankroll realized just how thin the line between he and the dubs he took daily really was.
He was a gambler before anything else but he had learned early on there was no money in the uncertainty of it all, in allowing that line to remain so and he'd taken steps to prevent it. He worked to shift the odds invariably towards his favor. He was good at it too. Better than most people- from adversaries like Nucky Thompson, to friends like Charlie Luciano really knew. He didn't try to hide it really; he knew he was smart and liked when people knew it too but the secrecy always came, the understating, the deference to louder and showier associates like Charlie and his ilk. On any other man, it would have been shyness but on Rothstein, it just seemed a bit of his majesty.
He preferred staying away from the spotlight; he never went looking for admiration or fear. Not in that sense. Besides those things he found came naturally, after he did what he did best. His reputation was as multilayered as his businesses and it ran the gamut. He wasn't a man of flesh and blood. People put what they needed on him and because he never refuted or acknowledged the stories, they seemed to stick. His grandeur was as ethereal as the lights of the Great White Way. It clung to him like the grime of the city against the windows of Tammany Hall. And he let it even though it helped make him a little more undefined, a little less.
But it also fed him something more, it let him want.
That was the sum of his parts, really, and that was his secret.
And bit by bit, it continued to chisel away at him. That longing was what came over him in these moments when his coffers were full with riches both imagined and real. He still wanted. For what, he didn't know- there was nothing more to obtain. He had everything. He controlled the largest city in the world, and everyone knew it even if they never said it. He was fine with it that way. Notoriety would have gotten him targeted and one of the things he wanted was to remain alive. He had no interest in wars. There was little profit in them unless he could supply both sides; as he'd done on several occasions.
No, instead; after surveying his domain- AR would find himself catapulted into moments of reflection like this when despite the boys' attentive, playful presence, Rothstein found himself in a room utterly alone, poor and fiending for something he couldn't name so he had no means to sate it.
It made him feel cheap, no better than a junkie and it made that thin line practically invisible.
Charlie had noticed the shift, the changing of the air. Rothstein sensed it as soon as he realized Luciano straightening after his shot and resting both hands over his pool stick to watch him. Meyer, pretending not to notice as he so often did when he was in the room with the two of them, continued to fawn over his shot. But Charlie kept his trained eye on AR, without speaking. The younger man was guessing at something, plotting.
Sometimes AR felt like he underestimated Charlie because of moments like this; when he recognized a little of himself in him. Charlie had the same hunger but whereas AR seemed content just to search; Luciano wanted ownership. He needed people to see, to envy. And he was just cocky enough to know innately that if AR lacked something- he was the man to get it for him.
That was Charlie's secret.
"AR?" The voice was heavy with emotion, part curiosity and part something AR would have almost named concern. "Where you at?"
"You alright, Mr. Rothstein?" Now Meyer had turned his attention to them. The way Charlie had positioned it he couldn't do otherwise. There was only a second of hesitation before AR realized what had happened. Smart kid too, he thought; Charlie saw the boss wanting something and fetched it. He had even known what Rothstein wanted before he did.
In payment, AR managed a smile he usually reserved for more private times before thanking him silently. Setting the pool stick he was holding against the green, he nodded. "Home, I think." Then, because it struck just how much he did need what Charlie had offered. "With Carolyn."
"Yea, we should get you home. She's probably worried about you." Luciano continued with a little more teasing to his voice. He'd put the thought in AR's brain, now he could reap the benefits and savor the simplicity of something that was not business but friendship. Like most who kept scores; Luciano knew how valuable that was too. "And she's way more scary then you, AR."
"No doubt," Rothstein allowed the abuse of language wash over him, dispelling the mood like the lights of the city was slowly gaining against the twilight. "All told, how much did I lose tonight?"
Meyer's turn to pipe up, in his way complimenting Charlie's direction and comforting Rothstein's ego. "Actually you were ahead 3 grand. I'll pay up tomorrow. G'night, Mr. Rothstein."
Charlie dragged his feet a little, reshuffling the pool balls as the three of them began to replace vest and tie, cufflinks and suit coat until they were unchanged from the day before- with the loneliness of the evening vanquished, and the humanity retreated back behind the mythos of their reputations.
Or maybe, AR allowed himself to entertain the thought; Charlie just wanted to make sure he was really alright.
He favored him with the same smile from earlier, and the briefest of nods that anyone but Charlie and his greediness to understand and memorize everything would have missed. But Charlie wasn't everyone, and he knew the Big Bankroll's tells better than anyone alive so when the affection peeked from behind impassiveness, he took it.
He flashed a smile of his own, the lucky one before ducking his head and disappearing into the hallway. By the time Rothstein had followed suit the streets were empty save for the morning light, and the coming day.