He Had it Coming
It was a murder, but not a crime.
The poison of kings.
I was told that that's what they called arsenic: the poison of royalty, the poison of kings. The man down at the shop who sold me my doses told me that as he carefully handled the drug, packing up my parcel for me. A seedy man with a thick beard and an uncomfortable leer, he wasn't concerned with my reasons for asking for arsenic by name; as long as I could pay, he was more than willing to sell. He kept himself busy—and kept me in his shop longer—as he mentioned that fact. He said that royalty from long ago days preferred to kill each other by slipping a strong dose of arsenic into one another's golden goblets.
He didn't have a golden goblet for me to drop the dark powder into that first time; a scratched and chipped mug I found had to be good enough. It was one of Mama's, and I brought it with me when I first walked into Brooklyn at the end of February. I didn't think she would miss it and, seeing as how it had been weeks, she mustn't have.
I'd been nervous, and I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to give him that first dose. Luck had been on my side, however, and when he invited me into a small room far from the superintendent's curious eyes, I saw that there was a pitcher with cloudy water perched on the end of an old, battered nightstand.
In the few seconds when he turned his back on me I had the mug out, the arsenic in the bottom. After making a big display of finding the pitcher and a mug that I'd never seen before, I offered him a drink of water before he could even invite me in. And the fool, he actually drank it.
For all the brains he believed he had, he'd given me the chance to poison him more than once. As far as I was concerned, it was as much his fault as it was mine.
There were no nerves now, only disgust mixed with the attraction I had to work hard to deny. With another smirk and the crook of his finger, he beckoned me forward; as if pulled by a magnet, I followed the knowing look in his piercing gaze, and I followed him as he led me up the stairs.
The door to the superintendent's office was wide open but the old man wasn't at his desk. I'd met him once before, on my second trip, and he was just like the old man, Kloppman, who worked in the Manhattan Lodging House. Kind and assuming, on good terms with most of his boys, he had turned his head when I was paraded through the second floor of the House, traipsing behind him as if I was a mere pet.
That's how he treated me. Like a possession, like a belonging, like his shadow, like his pet… like his own personal housecat. A saucer of milk and a gentle pat on the top of my head and I was supposed to be content.
But cats have claws, and cats have nine lives with which to make yours miserable. They can be spiteful little beasts when they wanted to be, turning on their master and leaving a welt and a trickle of blood in their wake as they nonchalantly licked their paw.
I was like a cat, my back arched as I hissed and I spit.
The time had come when I was finally going to sharpen my claws and swat back.
There were countless boys swarming around this floor. In my concentration their faces danced in and out of my vision, their features blurring until each and every one of them looked exactly the same to me. Only he stood out, the handsomest of them all—the cocky son of a bitch who had brought me to my knees.
It was my turn now.
He brought me into that same small room. It was for quarantine, he told me once, a room with a table and a small cot for the sick ones who couldn't be left in the bunkroom. With a sly smile and a lecherous look in his eyes, I knew that the single bed wasn't only used for the ill children. It was only too easy to see that that was why he kept bringing me to this part of the lodging house specifically but I had my pride—and I had my purpose.
In a mockery of a gentlemanly gesture he held the door open for me, letting me enter first. Murmuring my thanks under my breath, I slid past him. As I'd hoped, the pitcher was full again and sitting on the edge of the nightstand next to the mug I'd left behind. Casually setting my basket down beside it, I managed to slip my slender hand under the lace and grab the sachet of arsenic.
With one swift maneuver, I had dumped the poison into the empty mug and slipped the empty sachet in the front pocket of my skirt before he'd even closed the door behind us.
He met me at my side, his eyebrow cocked both in surprise and anticipation. I'd promised him—and I'd lied—that I would be willing to lie with him in this room the next time I managed to sneak back over the Bridge. Our meetings have always been a secret, at my request, and, as far as he knew, it took all of my nerve and my ingenuity to slip away from Mama's apron strings long enough for these quick get-togethers.
If he knew that I was much more inventive than he thought, he wouldn't have been so trusting.
But I was a girl—I was, begrudgingly but admittedly, his girl—and my intelligence was limited to the kitchen and to my piecework. I didn't get to go to school like my brothers, and I was to be kept home whenever I could, but that didn't mean that I was just a pretty face…
I was much more than that. It's a pity he'll never know how much more.
With an ink-stained hand, he reached for my elbow but I managed to escape his grasp. He made an impatient noise in the back of his throat, and a sharp cry of my name, but I just smiled. Wasn't he thirsty, I wondered. Didn't he want a drink first?
He was impatient but he knew me enough to know that, as docile as he would like me to be, I could be stubborn when I wanted to. With a small quirk of his lips and an amused laugh, he held out that same hand. Feeling a thump in my heart, I grasped the handle of the glass pitcher so tightly that I was afraid it might shatter in my hold. It didn't, and I was able to pour him a mug of water without spilling a drop.
Accepting it without a word, I watched with an eager eye as he downed the contents in three gulps. I couldn't hide my grin, feeling it stretch the width of my face as he set the mug down on the floor at his feet.
Now all that was left to do was wait—and, as I waited, I tried hard not to remember.
He'd been so surprised the first time I insisted he have a drink. I told him I was thirsty and I drank first. Wondering sweetly if he wanted to share, and marveling that it was so warm in this room for the chill winter weather, I slipped the poison in when he turned around to open the window. I all but poured the water down his throat myself when he reached for my hand and led me over to the bed.
He was suspicious, too. The headache came first, a throbbing behind his eye that he couldn't explain—and which gave me a reprieve from lying beside him that morning. The stomach cramps began shortly after. Doubled over in a pain he obviously didn't want me to see, I could have sworn I saw accusation written in his eyes… but he never said the words. Averting his gaze, mumbling that he was fine, he refused to believe that I—me, innocent, sweet Sarah—could have done this to him.
I sat there with him for an hour, rubbing his back as I whispered soft and soothing and comforting words into his ear. He must've thought I was trying to do my best to make the pain go away. I wasn't. I was trying to figure out how much more of the arsenic I would have to give him the next time to finish what I started.
The second time I was more careful. Explaining that I was on an errand for Mama, and that I could only stay for a few short moments, I asked him for some of the liquor I knew the boys kept hidden away in the bunkroom. He thought I was looking for something to lower my inhibitions, but I used the whiskey he brought with him to mix the arsenic and the water. I pretended to take a sip off of the mixture myself before telling him it was too strong for me and offering it back.
He drank it, of course. The whiskey dulled the effects and, while he felt the horrible pain much later, he never thought to turn the blame on me. It took him a few days to recover before he was able to find me in Manhattan again. I was a little put out that he wasn't dead, a little troubled to see that he still touched me with lust and pride, but I decided it was worth the wait.
The last thing I needed was for someone to rightly place the blame of his death on me. If he dies and I go to the electric chair for my role in his death, was it worth it?
It might be. If I had to die myself to be free, at least I was able to take him with me. But, even in death, I would have to follow him…
The electric chair was a real threat now, too. Only a year ago, last April to be exact, they'd executed the first woman down in Sing Sing. Ms. Martha Place had murdered her seventeen-year old stepdaughter by smothering her and she'd been killed for her crime. If she could be given the electric chair, I could. I was murdering someone, wasn't I?
But he had it coming, I told myself, my eyes straying to the empty mug and the shadow that fell across it. He had it coming. This was a murder, of course, but it wasn't a crime. A crime… it would be a crime to let him see another day.
His right hand reached out again for my arm, his left hand already slipping the second suspender off of his shoulder. They hung down past his waist now, drawing attention to the faded trousers he was desperate to shed. It made me apprehensive to see that he had full control of his hands and his urges.
"You promised," he said with the wolfish smile I'd come to know so well. But, just as he slowly brought me closer to the bed, I felt his hand slip off of my elbow. He stopped, shook his head once, the smile melting right off of his face.
He looked confused, and then—unless I was imagining it—a little bit of afraid. The fear didn't last, though his face twisted into an agony that he struggled to hide. His knees buckled underneath him, and he fell down to the cot; gripping the end of the bed to keep him sitting up, it was easy to see that I'd been correct in assuming that the arsenic today he added to the drugs already in his system would prove fatal.
It took all I had to keep that sigh of relief silent.
"Sarah," he mumbled then, his eyes already swimming in and out of focus, "I don't feel right." He gulped, his thin frame shuddering slightly as he bent over, placing his head between his knees. "Sarah, what was in that cup?"
"Nothing," I lied sweetly, running my fingers lazily down his back. "Why, what's wrong?" He trembled under my touch, looking up at me through thick eyelashes. Those beautiful, beautiful eyes of his were glazed but there was no mistaking the understanding tucked within their depths.
He knew I was lying. He knew exactly what I'd done.
And he was accepting it.
From my seat beside him, I leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the back of his head. For all he'd done—for all I'd done—I think… I'm quite sure that I still loved him.
"Goodbye, Spot," I said then, patting his sweat-soaked hair. The sudden damp made his dirty blond hair look even dirtier and I wiped the palm of my hand on my skirt. Rising slowly, turning my back on him, I put as much space between us as I could as I walked purposefully towards the nightstand.
"Sarah," he said, his voice slurred but hoarse. Swallowing loudly, swallowing back his pride and the poison, he croaked out two words. "Don't go."
I ignored him—I had to—as I retrieved my basket and callously reached down for the mug at his feet. Stowing the evidence of my treachery underneath the lace, I nearly jumped when I felt his cold, clammy hands on my wrist.
"I loved you, Sarah. I… I really did."
I thought about his admission for a moment before nodding, pulling my hand back and out of his reach. "I know," I said at last.
And then I left.
For all I'd thought I'd be able to do it, I couldn't watch Spot Conlon die.
The poison of kings.
As I walked calmly back through the busy, crowded lodging house, my head held high and my sewing basket close to my chest, I thought back to that disgusting old shopkeeper who sold me my arsenic. The poison of royalty, he'd called it, the poison of kings.
What other way should the self-proclaimed King of New York die than with the royal poison of arsenic?
disclaimer: The characters used in this story are the property of Disney. They are used with the intent to create entertainment, not profit.
end note: Surprise! It was Sarah Jacobs. Never would have guessed she had it in her, eh? I figure, it's time that Sarah gets her own story. Just like I said in the last chapter, the first chapter was – technically – the ending. Therefore, this is the beginning. It starts halfway through the movie, and is taken from Sarah's personality. This story might not have any original characters, which I probably should have said first chapter. Maybe then it would have been more obvious that the girl was Sarah.
There is something you need to know about me. I highly prefer Angst!Sarah and Womanizer!Spot. Those are the two personalities that I like to attribute to them; they will be the basis of the personality that I give each in this story. Sarah seemed too much of a goody-goody to me; I like to make her angsty. It's just so yummy. And Spot? Who doesn't love a womanizer?
eta 03/28/09: Just to let you know, I'm going to leave up the old end notes to show my mindset at the conception of this story while adding a little something behind the reasoning for the rewrite. As for this chapter, I split up the former first chapter into these two chapters - and I much prefer it this way. I love this scene, from Sarah's lingering attraction to Spot's acceptance of her actions. But questions still remain - why did she do it? And why is she so certain he had it coming?
