IV.

I don't know why I keep coming back. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now, but I'm willing to take a gamble with Spot one more time. I ain't a gambler for nothing, right?

Took me days to earn back the money I lost at the track. Guess it's a good thing I decided not to bet down there for a while, though every time I see a horse-drawn carriage clopping down the street I get tempted real bad. That's when I go find Julietta to distract myself, though my spending time with her ain't serious or nothing. Her big Sicilian papa is too frightening for me to be serious about her, even if I wanted to be.

Let me tell you, it's no easy task walking into O'Neill's saloon when my last two visits went so badly. I half-expect some red-faced Irish bruiser to throw me out at this point, but nobody tries tossing me into the street. Bet they're wondering why an Italian-looking runt keeps coming in here, though. I'm wondering the same thing, but it don't stop me from walking into the joint and narrowly escaping this clumsy mick who can't take three steps without stumbling all over the place.

"Watch where you're goin', brat," he growls at me.

I swear at him in Italian.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: bless the Italian language.

Good thing that mick is so clumsy, or else they'd be cleaning my blood off the floor. I dodge the fool just in time and sit at the very end of the bar, where I'm less likely to piss off anyone else. As much as I love getting on people's nerves—c'mon, it's hilarious—this really ain't the time for me to upset anyone.

Spot's all the way at the other end of the bar, but my eyes ain't on him for long. There's a girl hanging around the bar, completely out of place among all these rough-looking fellas, but she sure ain't here for the booze. Nice looking girl too, with blonde hair pinned up on her head and lips that are just begging for some action. I've seen girls look at Spot the same way this one is looking at him, except Spot is actually talking to her and smiling at her, like he cares or something.

Now that ain't like Spot at all.

For as long as I've known him, Spot's never had no time for girls. Always said they're a waste of time and money, and that you can't trust 'em for anything. He claims that the key to his success is that he never wastes time chasing skirts, so it's a little unsettling to see Spot respond to some saloon girl. What's the matter with him?

True, I've been seeing Julietta, but I've always had casual flings with Italian girls. With Spot it's different. It's been less than two months since he left the newsies, which really ain't that long of a time, but he ain't the same fella I used to call my friend. I guess that's the real reason I've been upset these last few weeks. It's like that time during the strike when Jack turned scab without warning and shocked the rest of us out of our skins. Boy, I was so mad I could barely see straight. Spot might have killed somebody if the bulls hadn't held him back.

And then to make matters worse, Jack's name wasn't even his real name, and for a while I felt like I never even knew the guy at all. That's how I feel with Spot, as if the moment he stopped being a newsie he stopped being himself.

"Hey, bartender," I say loudly. "Can't a hard-workin' fella whet his thirst around here?"

Spot turns away from the girl and strolls on over to my side of the bar, taking his sweet time about it, and as usual he ain't surprised to see me. I wouldn't be surprised if he knew I was coming to O'Neill's before I even got here. At least that hasn't changed about him, at least not yet.

"What, did ya decide to become a drinker?" asks Spot.

"Nope, still a cigar man," I say.

"That don't mean you can't drink."

"It means I can only have three vices: cigars, gamblin', and dark-eyed Italian girls. Four vices would be too many."

Spot smirks, but it ain't a malicious smirk. "Same old Race."

I can't say the same about him. "So who's the skirt?"

That smirk ain't a smirk no more. "None of your business."

"Since when do you pay any mind to dames, anyway? You always say you can't trust 'em."

"Well maybe I can change my mind. Ain't no rule that says I gotta think and act the way I always have, now is there?"

"I never said there was."

"But you believe it, don'tcha?" Spot ain't angry, exactly, but his eyes blaze with something I can't describe. "What are ya gonna do? Sell papes, bet down at the racetrack, and puff on your cigars every day 'til ya get old and keel over? Is that what you're gonna do, Race?"

"No, it ain't what I'm gonna do," I say. I figured all that out for myself, after all. "I just gotta keep askin' questions, 'cause I feel like I don't know ya no more."

Well that shuts him up real quick. For about two and a half seconds, that is.

"You don't know nothin' about me," says Spot. "So stop tryin' to pretend that you do. And if you ain't gonna order somethin', then beat it, 'cause you got no reason to be here."

I know a threat when I see one, but I can't resist one last question. "All right, I'm out," I say, like I've decided to fold in a poker game. "But are you ever gonna tell me who Matchbox is?"

"No," says Spot.

"The skirt ain't Matchbox, is she?"

He glares at me. "Course not. Her name's Gracie. Now get outta here before I throw you out."

I don't like it, but I do as I'm told.

I'm still thinking about the mysterious Matchbox as I loiter outside of O'Neill's, smoking a cigar to give myself something to do. This Matchbox kid could be anybody, but there's also a lot of people he can't be. He can't be some tough guy who shoved Spot out of Brooklyn, or else us Manhattan boys would have heard of him, and he can't be a second-in-command that Spot gave power to, otherwise Spot would have told me outright.

I guess Matchbox could be a little-known thug who's been secretly making threats, but that don't add up neither. Spot wouldn't leave his boys to deal with a thug on their own. I start pacing up and down the street, and I keep on smoking cause it helps me think, and then a brilliant idea hits me. 'Course, brilliant ideas hit me all the time. I'm just an intelligent kinda guy, you know?

I'll wait for Spot to come out of the saloon when his shift's over, and then I'll follow him. Ain't no different than what my old pal would have done to me if our places was switched, except Spot would have had his "birds" do the following for him.

The hard part is waiting for Spot to come out.

Just as I expect, he walks out of the saloon like he owns the joint with that girl—Gracie, he said her name is—hanging onto his arm and looking at him like he's God's gift to New York. I duck out of sight behind some fella with a cart full of wares for sale, then wait for Spot and Gracie to start walking off before I follow 'em. And boy, following 'em ain't as much fun as I thought it would be. Spot keeps pulling Gracie into alleys and I don't see nothing from my hiding spots, but I can hear her giggling, the type of giggle that can get a fella nice and ready, if you know what I mean.

I start to get real bored when this happens for the third time, but then Spot looks at Gracie all serious and says, "Come over to my place when it gets dark. I'm gonna go pay my respects first."

Gracie just nods her blonde head, like it ain't a big deal. "I'll be waitin' for ya," she says sweetly, in a way that no skirt has ever dared to talk to Spot before.

But I ain't wondering about Spot's sudden interest in girls, 'cause I got more important things on my mind.

Spot's gotta pay his respects? To who? The President of the United States? Ain't likely, but maybe he's talking about the mysterious Matchbox.

If that's the case, then I guess Matchbox really is a thug. Must be a powerful kid if he's got somebody like Spot Conlon doing his bidding, and after Gracie leaves I follow Spot down a few more streets 'til he stops at this miserable looking plot of land.

Even though I'm hiding behind a thick tree, I can tell what kind of place this is. It's one of those plots of ground where they bury the poor people, the lowest of the low who don't got families or anybody to give 'em a grave in a proper cemetery. Spot walks around for a bit 'til he finds the grave he's looking for, and then he just stands there with a face made of stone, impossible to figure out even when he's by himself.

I gotta admit, it gives me the creeps.

"I'm sorry, Matchbox," says Spot, and then he walks off with his hands in his pockets.

Just like that.

Nothing but a blank face, a quiet "I'm sorry," and he's walking away from those poor graves, leaving me to stand behind that tree feeling like the sky just fell down. Out of all the things for Spot Conlon to do, this has gotta be fifty times more surprising than Gracie, and the saloon job, and everything else he's said and done in the last few weeks.

Well, whoever Matchbox is, he ain't living on this earth no more, and I'm no closer to an answer.