After the Socks incident, Snoddy gave up selling papers for awhile. He had more important things to do, anyway. Finally, he was going to prove himself to Jack and the boys. Finally, he was going to do something.
Snoddy Elliot was on a mission.
Pushing his way through the usual lunchtime crowd at Tibby's on a dreary Thursday afternoon, Snoddy was determined to share the fruits of his labor, with just about anyone who would listen. And if they didn't pay attention to him, as they so often did?
Well, this was a serious enough situation that Snoddy would just have to make them listen…somehow.
Following the route he could probably walk with his eyes shut, Snoddy headed toward the rear of the room, toward the corner table, which today, mysteriously enough, was not completely crowded. He slid into a chair and grabbed a roll off Racetrack's plate.
"Hey guys, we need to talk." His serious tone was unheeded by the others. The boys acted as if he hadn't said anything at all, and this reaction irked Snoddy considerably.
"Hiya Snoddy, where you been lately?" Stripes, who for unknown reasons had been hanging around Manhattan quite a bit, grinned at him from across the table. Snoddy peered at her for a moment. Something was different about her today…
It took him only a few seconds to realize that this was the first time he had seen her without Spot. Usually they were always together, always touching, always sickening. Shaking his head in mild disbelief, Snoddy turned to Jack, who was talking rather rapidly at him.
"…And so I figured you had something better to do. I mean, I see you at the distribution center every morning for the last six years, and then you disappear for practically a week straight. Have you even been sellin' lately?"
"No," Snoddy began, only to be cut off by an angry Racetrack, who had apparently just discovered his dinner roll kidnaped. "Hey! Give that back, ya bum. I paid for that, thankyouverymuch."
Snoddy rolled his eyes and tossed the half-eaten roll back to its rightful owner. Race sent him a scathing look then proceeded to devour the rest of the roll in the matter of seconds. From across the table, Snitch started to chuckle.
"You look like a rat when you make that face..."
"Anyway," Snoddy continued, determined to get the important news to his friends. "No, I haven't really been sellin'. I've been busy with other things."
"Oh, Mr. High an' Mighty, too good to sell papes, huh?" One could always depend on Stripes to add some zest to the conversation. Snoddy glared at her.
"You sure are one to be talkin' about being high and mighty, Stripes. Ain't Spot expectin' ya home soon?" Stripes sent him a withering glare, but her mouth snapped shut all the same. With a shake of his head, Snoddy plowed on. "Listen, I found out somethin'. Somethin' important," he said quickly, hoping no one would interrupt him—again.
Jack sat back, lacing his fingers behind his head and watching Snoddy with a mildly interested expression. "Okay, Snoddy. What's up?"
Snoddy took a deep breath. The moment he had been waiting for. Finally, he would prove his worth to his friends. Finally. "Well I've been doing a little investigating, and you'll never believe what I found out."
"I never did like guessing games," Racetrack muttered, still sore over the dinner roll. "Spit it out, will ya?"
"You know Tommy Dugan?" Heads bobbed around the table. Tommy had been at that very table just this morning, the ubiquitous cup of coffee clenched in his huge hands. "Well," Snoddy continued, "turns out he ain't really a cop."
The reaction that this statement received was a little different then what he had expected. No jaws dropped, no one jumped to their feet in rage, and no one looked around in utter disbelief. A few chuckles sounded around the table, while most of the others simply blinked, half in shock, half in confusion.
"Not a cop?" Illusion, who Snoddy hadn't even noticed was sitting next to Stripes until that moment, leaned forward on her elbows. "Well if he ain't a cop, what the hell is he?" She gazed evenly at him, one eyebrow raised, face a portrait of skepticism.
"He's a lunatic is what he is," Snoddy retorted defensively, inviting even more sniggers to erupt from the assembled. "I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it's the truth. Here, look!" With a flourish, he withdrew a stack of official looking documents from the pile of newspapers sitting beside him. Fanning them out on the table, Snoddy looked around triumphantly. "Files from the police station."
Jack, who had picked up a sheet and was skimming it over, paused to peer up at him. "How'd you manage to swipe these?"
Snoddy's shrugged, making no effort to hide the smugness in his voice. "I've got my connections," he said with a smirk. Slowly, unsure hands reached out to pick up the papers, and as the incriminating facts were read, eyes around the table widened in disbelief.
Thomas James Dugan: Two years imprisoned for arson, attempted murder. Sixteen month confinement at Silver Valley Mental Institution, Silver Valley, Massachusetts. Diagnosed clinically insane, with violent tendencies. Cured and released on September 25, 1899.
Jack, as always, was the first to find words. "Holy shit," he breathed,"this ain't no joke." He released the paper from his fingers, letting it flutter to the tabletop like a dying autumn leaf.
"What're we gonna do, Jack?" Racetrack muttered, turning to face his trusted leader. "We gotta do somethin', right?"
"Of course we gotta do somethin'," Illusion interjected, shaking the paper clenched in her fist for emphasis, "this guy's dangerous. Says so right here: violent tendencies. Attempted murder."
Jack shut his eyes, lowering his head to cradle it in his hands. A heavy, tense silence settled over the booth, and Snoddy's hands crept out to rest tentatively on the array of papers, inky fingers splayed wide in an almost protective position, preserving the precious pieces of dangerous information, fearing they'd somehow get damaged.
The sound of someone clearing their throat seemed louder then it should have as it shattered the quiet that hung over the cluster of newsies. Each pair of eyes, clouded with bewilderment and a hint of fear, snapped upward to where the noise had come from.
"Hey guys, did—" The usual cheerful greeting died prematurely upon Tommy Dugan's lips as his eyes fell upon the papers sitting on the scarred tabletop.
He stood there, staring dumbly at the papers Snoddy had delivered, for a minute or two. Blue eyes focusing and unfocusing, mouth hanging open. No one moved.
Finally, a high-pitched, hysterical sounding laugh burbled forth from Tommy Dugan. The newsies watched him with wide, wary eyes as he swept his hand through the air, motioning to the tabletop. "Those ain't no newspapers," he said sharply.
The silence persisted. Everyone was to afraid to speak. To afraid to be the spark that would cause the explosion that was very clearly growing in Tommy Dugan right at that moment.
Finally, Jack's head snapped up. His face was scared, and tired, and as Snoddy studied him he realized that their fearless leader was perhaps not as fearless as he had always thought. "The gig's up, Tommy," he said slowly, trying to keep his tone neutral, trying to keep his quaking nerves from making his voice tremble. It was a hard thing, having to always be the brave one. The leader.
"Gig? Gig? What gig ya talkin' about, Kelly? There ain't no gig. There ain't no..." having found Jack to be immune to his words, Tommy Dugan turned to the others. "Racetrack, Blink...girls, there ain't no gig. What gig?" The more he spoke, the higher his voice began. Soon it was wavering and shaking, unsteady as its owner's state of mind.
The stocky young man spun on his heels and rushed towards the door, still babbling. "Gig? Don't know what the hell you're talking about, gig. I'm just a copper on the beat. A copper...on the beat."
A white clad waiter placed a comforting hand on Tommy's arm, only to be flung into a wall. "NO! Don't fuckin' touch me. I'm just a copper on the beat!" roared Tommy.
And then he pushed his way outside into the cold, smack into Mush Meyers, who's stomach was grumbling so loudly he thought you could hear it clear to Brooklyn.
The well-built newsie was caught off-guard, but months in the boxing ring kept him steady on his feet. He reached out his hands and settled them on Tommy's bulging shoulders. "Heya buddy," he greeted, trying to steady his stumbling cohort, "What's the matter?"
But the only thing Tommy had to answer with was gibberish. Eyes wild, he pulled a knife from his waist. The blade glinted dully in the winter sunlight before it was plunged into Mush Meyer's shoulder.
The windowless, closet sized room sitting at the end of the upstairs hall that had up until then been ignored was now filled with people. Fitting to it's newly adopted 'Sick Room' title, the space was devoid of any traces of dust or dirt. Kloppman had spent nearly four hours cleaning it up when he heard what had happened.
The story, predictably, had made the rounds on the streets; there was not a newsie from the Battery to Queens who hadn't heard of what happened that afternoon, right in broad daylight, outside of Tibby's Restaurant in Manhattan. What was surprising was how the accuracy of the story remained intact, as if it was to precious a tale to be altered, even by the most imaginative and manipulative of minds.
And so each street-rat in each grimy borough relayed the same story, with little to no changes: how, after Tommy Dugan saw the newsies sitting there in Tibby's with his police files spread before them like some kind of incriminating feast, he completely lost it (not that he was sane before that, of course. This fact was now common knowledge to the society of adolescents who controlled the city streets). Without a word, he bolted from the restaurant, and, as it happened, right smack into Mush Meyers, who was going to meet a few friends for a late lunch. Mush would later recall, with great gusto and a flourish of drama, how Tommy studied him with wild, disoriented eyes, and once recognition clicked in his demented mind, began babbling incoherently. As Mush, that noble fellow that he most certainly was, reached out to comfort the poor raving lunatic, Dugan pulled a knife from his waistband, and with a bloodcurdling yell, plunged the blade into Mush's flesh, about six inches from his jugular vein, and doing a bit of damage to the tendons in his shoulder.
There would be no more boxing rings in Mush Meyers' future.
All the screaming and shouting and blood thankfully caught the attention of a few cops nearby, and, once they realized the severity of the situation, they tackled Tommy to the ground and commanded someone call the nearest doctor, or, by god, the boy was going to bleed to death right there on the street.
A good samaritan did just that, and Mush was taken to the hospital while Tommy Dugan was taken to the local precinct. As Mush was being stitched up and, later on, lectured on how lucky a young man he was to still be alive, Tommy was being sent to a prison a ways upstate, and this time, it was for good.
And that was how most of the population of the Manhattan Newsboys Lodging House came to be crammed into the airless room at the end of the hall, each one eager to talk to Mush Meyers, the new local hero.