Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies…which I thought was rather obvious.
Tony, who was known by his colleagues as Racetrack, sat at the bar, nursing a drink and a memory. Unfortunately the drink was only good because it was strong, and he couldn't remember if the memory was real or something he'd made up. But details like that didn't matter. He was a dead man, and he knew it. You didn't cross the people that Race crossed and expect to come out alive. Or with your kneecaps still intact.
It was then, while Race wondered if he had ever really had his heart broken by a girl named Lily, that he felt that all too familiar presence of a hand on his shoulder. He shouldn't have been surprised; he had lived the moment in his head so many times that it was almost a relief to have it come at last. But only almost, because as much as Race ignored it, he didn't want to die. On the other hand, it wasn't like he had that much of a choice.
The two men escorted Race out of the bar, one at each elbow. He didn't even think about trying to make a run for it. After all, there was nowhere he could go where they wouldn't be able to find him again. He figured it was better to get it over with once and for all then to have it hanging over his head any longer.
Starlight danced on the water, and had Race been visiting the docks under more pleasant circumstances he might have enjoyed the view. He was glad this was the way he had to go, because he could think of many longer and more painful things to have happen to him.
"And so we commit his body to the deep." The words were followed by a short laugh and a push. The splash of his feet hitting the water were the last things Race heard before being engulfed in a watery silence. This was it. The end. El fine. And there was nothing he could do about it. With that thought Tony closed his eyes, sent up a brief prayer, and breathed in.
The police fished him out of the river about a week later. There was a small investigation afterwards, but everyone knew they had just been disposing of one of their own. And he wasn't an isolated case. He was just one more guy who had tried to run away with concrete slippers.
AN: I've been gone for a while…and I decided this was as good a story to come back with as any, despite it's shortness. And yes, I will finish everything else that I have started.