CHAPTER THREE
Spot Conlon was a man of simple tastes.
After an arduous day of selling papes, he enjoyed nothing more than returning to the lodging house to retire to his room with a lovely female companion. Or simply returning to engage in a friendly game of poker with his buddies to get drunk and enjoy rounds of conversation about the lovely female companions they wish they had.
This particular night, he was engaging in the latter. He sat, the King Arthur of his fellow poker knights of the decrepit round table. A half filled beer mug sat before him and a cigarette dangled limply from his lips, smoldering, wisps of smoke rising to the air. His cards were fanned before him, not a particularly great hand, as he half heartedly listened to the newsie beside him describe the exquisite specimen of a woman he had eyed today while selling papes.
"'er tits were big as watermelons, I tell ya, and would have tasted mighty better! If only I could have gotten my hands on 'em!"
This crude remark elicited a round of laughter from the boys, and Spot feigned a strained smirk. He was on his sixth and a half beer, and not particularly drunk yet, but desperately wishing he was. He had not breathed a word to any of them about his rendezvous with the upper crust Georgiana Walker. That, he had planned for tonight, describing every last detail to his friends as they sat around the poker table, slack jaw and colored green with envy at his devious devices with such an absurdly desirable girl.
Yet, instead of rousing them with such insatiable tales of the upper class, here he was, sulking behind his playing cards and drowning his sorrows in brew. What a wasted night. And he had been so close….
"Heya, Spot, ya in or out?" Whitie Wilson's voice suddenly invaded Spot's ears, dashing his reverie. He looked up to the newsie over his hand of cards. His lips drawn in a pensive line, he exhaled deeply. "I'm out, Whitie," he sighed, throwing the cards down, where they fluttered haphazardly to the table. "I'm turning in for the night boys." He stretched his long legs out before him, pushing his chair back from the table as its legs scraped against the floor.
"This early, Spot?" Shade Cotrill inquired, briefly flicking his eyes over the cards he held before him, fanned out in a hand.
"Yeah, Shady, this early," Spot intoned listlessly, inhaling one last drag on the smoldering remnants of his cigarette before flicking it to the floor, snubbing it out the toe of a booted foot. He rose slowly to his feet, and the sudden urge to stretch his limbs overtook him. He raised his arms over his head, briefly raking his fingers through his hair. "Night, boys," he said, meandering towards the stairs leading to the second floor.
"Night, boss!" the boys cooed back mockingly, the inebriating effects of the booze obviously beginning to become quite apparent.
A corner of Spot's lips curled up in a smile despite himself, and his raised an arm high over his head, extending the middle finger in the direction of the continuing poker party.
This gesture only elicited more hoots from the boys. "Hey, Spot!" Shade called after the leader. "What if Adelle comes callin' on ya? What do you want us to say?"
Spot briefly halted, planting his foot on the first step, and glanced over his shoulder. "Tell her to fuck off! I'm all out of money anyhow. Ran me broke the last time!" he hollered.
He wasn't even to the top of the stairs before his shirt was unbuttoned and suspenders hanging loose at his sides. He was working on the last button as he passed the main bunk room, and murmured his goodnights to the boys not participating in the poker game. With a somnolent sigh, he continued down to the last door on the left—his quarters. He slammed his body weight against the weary door, and the plank of battered wood granted him egress to the darkened room.
The room itself was nothing special. Before Spot ascended as leader, it had been used as a storage closet for miscellaneous junk. It was just taken for granted amongst the newsboys that he had wanted his own room since his reputation for women had become increasingly unbridled, yet Spot had taken the quarters on for other reasons. For all the open frankness that he may exhibit with his boys, he was still a notoriously private person, ferociously guarding a self and secrets that very few, if any newsies, could lay claim to actually knowing.
Striding over to a warped vanity that was pushed unceremoniously against one wall, Spot fished a match out of his pocket and struck it against a wall. He lit a small kerosene lamp resting on top of the vanity, and the room was suddenly awash in the soft glow of its light. Not allowing the flame to go to waste, he placed a cigarette between his lips and lit up. Taking a long drag, he flicked the used match carelessly to the side.
He shucked off the dull grey button down and kicked off his shoes before falling onto the bottom of a dilapidated bunk. The worn, threadbare mattress uttered an unhappy noise under his weight, and Spot shifted his body into a more comfortable position onto his back. He stared into the darkness of the bunk above him. The mattress was still fragrant with a collection of flower blossoms, a compilation of all the scents of those he had bedded had worn in times before. He blew a lazy smoke ring into the air, lost in his thoughts.
Brooklyn was finally at peace and her leader could finally rest. It had been (although it was incredibly hard to believe) that it had been over half a year since Midtown had fallen, since Oliver Haddox had died, and since Angel Haddox escaped into that dark alleyway and out of his life.
Ever so cautiously, laughter and revelry had gradually returned to them, until one day it seemed as though what had occurred had not truly been reality, yet some horrid nightmare, a darkened dream that they all had to lock away in the abysses of their minds if they were to ever live life as they had before Midtown.
But they had, and all was finally well. One day at a time was the adage Spot liked to acerbically live by.
Although his face was still exceedingly handsome, he still bore the physical scars of that last encounter. A lovely, healed scar rode his right bicep, and one was proudly displayed parallel to his clavicle. The most visible one though, ran across the bridge of his nose, though in his experience with women, he found that it simply gave him more character.
Though the physical scars may be healed, the emotional ones were far from repair. It would have been unthinkable to display this Achilles tendon of emotion to his boys, so he had simply covered the pain the only way he had known how: fucking as many women as he could possibly acquire, whether he paid for their services or not.
Spot's lips formed a circle and he released a perfect smoke circle. Georgiana Walker. Miss Walker was to have been the jewel in this illustrious crown, alas, it had not been meant to be for the night had taken a most decidedly different turn…
A sudden series of curt raps from the door removed Spot from his thoughts. He could feel his face heat up and his breathing increase. His temper had been flared. And he had specifically told the dumbasses that no one was to disturb him.
"Who the hell is it?" he hissed to the intruder outside his door, venom laced into each syllable.
There was a slight pause before the person spoke. The voice was tense and unsure. "Uh, Spot. It's Whitie."
Spot released a groan, swinging his legs to the floor and sitting erect in bed. "Whitie, what in the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph do you want?"
"Boss, there's someone here to see you." The hesitancy seemed to infiltrate Whitie's voice more and more with each word spoken.
"If it's Adelle then tell her to fuck off! I have no more goddamned money!" There was a pregnant silence outside the door, and Spot took a satisfied puff on the cigarette, thinking he had warned away any potential visitors. He was just about to lie back in bed when Whitie spoke once more.
"Spot, it's not Adelle."
He could feel the blood pulse through his veins white hot with fury. He nearly snapped the cigarette in half when he clenched his teeth together. He jolted to his feet and strode heatedly across the room, placing his hand on the door knob to bestow upon Whitie a verbal lashing.
"Wilson, I don't give a shit if it's…" His words died a abrupt death on his tongue as he banged the door open and espied what was standing before him.
The girl. The girl with the red hair that he had somehow fallen onto after Georgiana had pushed him out her window was standing before him in his doorway. The last person on earth he had expected to have come calling on him so late at night…
He didn't even noticed Whitie standing behind the girl, only her. Her breathing was labored, and her breast rose and fell with quickly, as though she had sojourned quite some distance to appear before him. Her skin was ghostly white, other than her cheeks which had bloomed red from the journey. Tendrils of unruly hellfire red hair fell across her brow. But her eyes, green and glittering and full of utter determination, were locked only upon him.
He could not help but feel suddenly taken aback by her startling appearance outside his door.
"Well, aren't you going to invite a lady in, Mr. Conlon?" she intoned, arching a brow and bringing her silk robe together with the clutch of a hand.
Spot was too flabbergasted by her appearance to actually say anything in return; he only took a step back from the doorway, the broken cigarette still dangling limply between his lips.
The girl took the gesture as a sign of welcome, and stepped into his quarters, brushing past him (when he inhaled, he could determine the faint smell of lilac), and strode lightly across the room. She pulled out the rickety chair that was usually tucked into the vanity, and sunk primly into it, crossing her legs before her and resting her intertwined fingers on her lap. Her glittering green eyes remained on Spot. She smiled.
His gaze still transfixed on her, Spot slammed the door shut, not caring or realizing that it hit into Whitie's nose, who was still standing on the other side. He did not hear his best friend's cries of protest; he could only gap at the girl.
"I suppose you thought you'd never see me again, did you?" she asked.
"You could say that again, honey," he said, spitting out the cigarette butt and moving over to the bed. He sunk down into the lower mattress, palms on his knees and eyes narrowed. "Who the hell are you and why the hell are you here? And how the hell do you know my name?"
The faint red tint intensified in the apples of her cheeks and she looked away from him for a moment in embarrassment. She issued a laugh, like a tinkling bell, and her gaze found his again. "Those are all very good question, sir, and all deserve explanations. To answer your first question, my name is Roselyn Rialto. To answer your third question secondly, your reputation is just not known solely within the confines of the lower class. And lastly, I am here with a business proposal."
Spot's rigid posture relaxed somewhat and he laughed in spite of himself. "And just what kind of business proposal could you, Roselyn Rialto, have for me?"
She elicited a nervous twitter and pulled absentmindedly at a wayward strand of hair that had escaped her chignon. "Well, you, see…it's just that…I was wondering if you would be interested in marrying me?"