Heart of the Cards

By SaL

Chapter Two: I'm on Fire

A/N:  Ok I wrote this chapter when I was in a pissy mood.  Ya know cuz they were showing MD3 on the Disney channel and I was watching it then my dad is all like he's watching something stupid about the Salem Witch Trials.  So I was all like how I was there first and how the movie was almost halfway through and it wasn't fair and he said I don't care and it's a school night. So I screamed and stomped upstairs and then my sister was on the computer so then I had nothing to do but write which is what I did.  Ahem… so here it is, enjoy! 

~*~

Racetrack stormed into the bunkroom against his better judgment.  For upon entering every little sound, person, just everything in general annoyed the hell out of him.  He felt as though he was suffocating and just needed to get away. 

"Hey Race! Where ya been?"  Crutchy greeted.

"Race! Missed ya this mornin'" Swifty called out.

"Ooooo" whistled Mush "nice threads!"

"Must a cost a pretty penny." Blink snickered.

Racetrack only pushed past them gritting his teeth with fists clenched as he struggled to restrain himself.  Race fell back on his bunk and reached for his cigar box, which he found empty.  Fury blazed within his eyes as he pulled Snipeshooter from his bunk and slammed him against the wall. Race snatched the cigar from his and threw it to the floor stomping out the golden embers. 

"Dis is the last straw kid, ya here me?"  He hissed.  "I'm not takin' anymore of dis shit!  Ya wanta cigar, den get your own damn cigar!  Do it again and so help me God I'll mess you up so bad ya won't be able ta walk for a month!"

With that said, Race shoved the boy into the crowd that had been forming behind him.  A path was cleared as Race stomped across the room jumping onto the fire escape.  No one bothered to go after him while he was in one of his moods.  For the most part the kid was an easygoing kinda guy but man did he have a temper!

In good moods, when Race was himself, he'd joke that the temper came from his Irish side.  Racetrack was half Irish, half Italian and one of the few boys in the lodging house who knew anything about his past.  Though he never spoke of his past and surprisingly enough only one person knew, David.  How and why no one could say.

Meanwhile Race was briskly striding down the streets, fists shoved in his pockets, eyes scowling toward the ground.  Suddenly he felt a shove and looked in time to see a girl fall to the ground, as she too wasn't looking where she was gong. 

"Hey! I'm tryin' ta walk here!" He snapped a bit harshly.  She glared at him mumbling an apology, sighing he offered a hand pulling her to her feet.  Just as she was about to leave he stopped her.

"Wait a minuet missy your not going anywhere.  I believe you have something that belongs to me."  Shock flashed through her eyes for an instant before she replaced it with a look of annoyance. 

"Look I don't have anything of yours. I just met you for cryin' out loud!"

"The hands are quicker than the eye."

"Just what are you implying!"  Annoyed, Race reached into her pocket to produce a handkerchief, which held his grandfather's gold pocket watch, given to his father, given to him.  His expression never changed as he brushed past her. "Amateur" he mumbled. 

            'Who the hell did that girl think she was!  Tryin' ta pull one over on me, ha!  First I have to deal with Gino's crap! Then Snipeshooter, now this!  Damn Gino, that bastard won't take me cuz I ain't got no dough!  Isn't that the whole point of conning?! How the hell am I supposed ta get the kinda dough he's expectin'? Not peddlin' papes that's for sure!  I'll show him! He'll regret the day he underestimated me!'   Race's mind screamed as he passed the tracks knowing that if he lost he'd try to hurt someone.

            About an hour or so later he found himself level headed , walking through Times Square.  Race went down a few streets past a baseball field and down one last block where his trek came to an end.  Racetrack now found himself before a Victorian house on a middle class street.  The home before him had appeared in his dreams and nightmares for years.  It had been his once, before they came and ruined everything. 

            Anthony shuttered as the memories washed over him the strange man who had been over for dinner, the gun, the blood, and his laughter.  The man who was supposed to have been his father's friend shot him in the back and laughed while he watched him die.  It was a miracle that Tony had gotten out alive the man had assumed him to be dead and left him there lying between his cold dead parents. 

Anthony's first thoughts had been to had been to run to the police but they hadn't believed his story.  So he set off in search of Gino for help with no avail, instead he came across the newsies.  Tony then decided to stay with them and sell papes with the hope of raising the money for a ticket to sail to Italy and join the rest of his family. 

Racetrack stood there and sighed longingly at the house whishing his family had still lived there.  He'd raised the money to return home thousands of times but he could never bring himself to leave.  Race loved the newsies, they were his brothers and he couldn't bear to return home without getting his revenge. 

"Thinking of home, huh?" Came a familiar soft melodic voice, breaking Race from his trance.  Sure enough he turned to see the girl from Gino's place.

"Uh… yeah somethin' like that." He mumbled.  "You live round here or somethin'?"

"Who me!" She exclaimed good-naturedly.  "No, I live with Gino in the apartment above the Carousel.  He's my dad.  By the way, my name's Gina."

"Anthony" He responded while shaking her hand.  She smiled at him. "I know"

"How? How did you find me?"  Tony asked staring intently at her while she returned her gaze to the house before them.

"Well I must admit, it wasn't easy.  But you dropped something before you left today and I wanted to return it.  So, I closed a half hour early and went to the newsboys lodging house.  They told me you'd left in a bad mood and asked why I'd come.  So I said that you had dropped a personal item and I whished to return it.  That's when this guy with curly brown hair and blue eyes took me aside and said to try you here.  And that's how I found you. So what are you doing here?"

"This is where I usually come when I'm upset either here or the tracks. So what'd I drop?"

"This picture."  Gina said taking it from her bag and handing it to him.  Sorrow washed over his features as he fingered the old photo held within an old sliver frame.  "I could tell it was special since it was a bit tattered so I put in one of my mother's old frames." She explained.

"I-I don't know what to say. Thanks this means a lot."  Race managed mesmerized by the photo taken just days before his parents had taken him to America.  They had left his brothers and sisters in Italy till they could get settled in and afford to send for them.

"You miss them a lot don't you?"

"Yeah, I do.  But my brothers and sisters they're still in Italy and I'm gonna go back one day and find them."

"Me too. My mother returned to Italy when my Nona died and she never had the money to come back but she writes as often as she can. Tell ya what, we'll go back together that way between the two of us we'll have enough money and we won't be lonely over the long trip."

Anthony smiled then turned away from the house.  The two began walking back toward Manhattan together in their new friendship.

"I'd like that"

~*~

A/N: well there you go a quickie little chapter.  So this story is based on my all-time fave. movie The Sting but Newsies comes in a close second.  So hope ya like and I'll try to up date real soon!  Class rings tomorrow! Oh yeah! Can't wait! *squeals* Ok I'm alright just a little sugar high again!  Alright so please review and write later!

                                                                                                ~SaL