Truthfully, someone had followed Spot to Charlotte's apartment—Jinks, an old newsie friend, Spot's second, the only one he'd ever trusted with Charlotte—with her name, with her address, with her well-being—had slunk down the street behind Spot who was slinking behind Charlotte. He ducked into the alley across from her building—sure he could still see both her window and the front door—and lit up a cigarette. It used to be that Spot would stay with Charlotte all night and Jinks wasn't expected to stay awake, just to be nearby in case anything went wrong. Lately, though, Spot didn't stay more than a few hours and Jinks was on high alert the whole time. Their mutual boss, Louis Amato, had been leaning heavily on Spot to reveal where he often disappeared to—that he hadn't beaten the truth out of him yet was proof that he trusted him and wanted to keep him around. Or it was proof that he already knew. Jinks suspected the latter to be more likely. He'd never personally seen any of Amato's guys around, but that didn't mean anything and he knew it. That Spot hadn't come to the same conclusion was just proof that he was in way too deep with this girl.
Spot had first come to Jinks during the newsie riot of 1899. He'd given him very little information—the address of a Polish bakery, the vague description of a girl with dark hair clipped back from her face in a pearl barrette—and instructions to follow her home every night to make sure she made it all the way up to her room. Jinks had stood in that same alley for years, waiting for her window to flicker with the glow of the lamp. Despite that, he still barely knew what she looked like. On the street, in a crowd, he would know her by the way she walked but not by her face. He'd never seen it up close or before it was dark enough for the street lights to be on.
In truth, it was hard for Jinks to convince himself that he wasn't in love with this girl he didn't know anything about. He'd been her sole protector for years, present even when Spot couldn't be bothered to be there for her, and he felt a strong, strange, choking fondness for the way her skirt twisted around the tops of her boots as she walked and the swish of her hair across the middle of her back, pressing her shirt against her skin. In the morning when Spot slipped out of her building, if Jinks stood downwind, he often thought it was her he could smell lifting off Spot and reaching back to him. Spot didn't know anything about the way Jinks felt and he never would. And Jinks would never act on any of it. He'd been living in Spot's shadow—often literally—since they were kids, and his loyalty to Spot was stronger than his obsession with Charlotte.
Upstairs, Charlotte made herself heavy on Spot's chest and pretended to be asleep. Maybe if he didn't want to wake her, he'd stay the night like he'd always done before he fell in, really fell in, with Amato. She'd never met Amato but she hated him. She hated Spot coming in late with bruised cheekbones and black eyes after doing his dirty work. She hated the booze on his breath and the way he sometimes smelled like hookers just from—he assured her—being around his boss.
His chest was cold under her cheek and she rubbed her hand across his skin to warm it.
"Mmmm," he murmured, and kissed the top of her head. His arm—the one tight around her—tightened more.
"Don't go," Charlotte whispered sleepily, tucking her head up under his chin. "I don't want to sleep without you."
"You know I gotta go, Angel. I got woik ta do."
"Stay," she persisted, "just this one night."
Spot tucked one hand under her arm and pulled her up so that their noses were touching. He parted her lips with his and kissed her, his hands twisted in her hair. Charlotte gripped at his back and returned the kiss, hoping to entice him to stay. But he broke away and leaned his forehead against hers and pressed his eyes closed and breathed hard, breathed her out of him, so that he'd be able to leave.
"What do we do?" she asked.
"What we've always done. We been doin like dis fer years an it ain't never been no problem."
"Maybe it's never been a problem for one of us," she disagreed.
"C'mon, you understood. I had a reputation ta maintain an dat never included settlin down wid a nice, tidy goil. Spot Conlon ain't da committed type."
Charlotte pushed herself up to a sitting position and pulled her knees up to her chest, tucking the sheet around herself to keep warm.
"An you," Spot persisted, sitting up next to her, "had a reputation, too, as a good, nice, pure, baker's assistant who didn spend her nights lockin legs wid da likes a me. Do' you did pick preddy well if ya ask me." He bumped her should with his.
"Yes," Charlotte answered. "Fine. I got to keep my job and you got to keep screwing half of New York."
"Dat ain't fair."
"No, it wasn't. I don't know why I ever let you keep coming here, then or now."
She got up and pulled her nightgown on from where it lay draped over the plain wooden chair at the foot of the bed, then wrapped herself in her robe and made for the window and the fire escape. Spot's hand gripped the top of her arm and he yanked her back from the curtain.
"Stay away from da window," he ordered. He got out of bed and pressed up against her from behind, forcing her to him with his arms around hers.
"Don' pull dis. Not tonight. I don wanna talk about dis shit anymore. 'Should' or 'shouldn' ave, it don matter. Ya did. I did. We are. If you don wanna see me den fine. It'd make my life a hella lot easier, not sneakin around like dis."
Charlotte glared straight ahead and waited for him to release her before shoving angrily away and taking three steps back from him. They stood facing one another in silence and in the dark. Next door, someone coughed in his sleep. Below them, the murmur of voices sounded over a phonograph. Spots hair hung limp to his jawline in the gray light, his shoulders slumped forward and his chest rising and falling with intentional consistency. Charlotte's eyes trailed over his sharp forehead and tight chin and the slash of his nose in a thin face and she found his eyes again, blue even in the dark, and she saw them soften as hers did the same. She took one step back toward him and reached for his hand.
"Stay," she said wearily, and her face was pained. Spot touched her chin with his thumb, her nose, brushed it over her eyelids and trailed it down her cheek and settled a hand behind her ear.
"I can't stay, Angel. You know dat."
She nodded and pinned his hand between her cheek and shoulder.
"Touch me again," she whispered. He slid his hands under the open folds of her robe and pushed it from her shoulders, then pressed his fingertips to her back through the thin material of her nightgown.
"I dunno if I can come tomorrow," he said. The way he was looking at her—all business, all Spot Conlon—she didn't object. She nodded. His hands dropped and he reached to pull on his pants.
"Just don't bother coming back. I can't do this anymore," she said halfheartedly. He grinned at her in the dark.
"I know you don' mean dat, Baby. Ya never do." He gripped her by her thighs and dragged her toward him, pressing hard against her.
"I'm too good," he rasped in her ear. "You'd never turn Spot Conlon away."
