Free The Dollhouse Society: Margo by Eden Myles Page B

care?”
    “Settle down, punk,” the Chief said from the other side of the bars.
    Malcolm turned to him and said, “Could you leave us alone a moment?”
    “With him?” The Chief looked appalled.
    “Do you really think he’s capable of doing anything to me?” Malcolm asked.
    With a shrug, the Chief walked away.
    Malcolm turned back to the kid with the canary yellow hair. Under the grime and panic, he was cute, and he had beautiful, cornflower blue eyes. He resisted the urge to pat the boy’s knee. He didn’t do jailbait. “Look, pet, I know you’ve probably been through hell. But some advice? If you’re going to pick a pocket, you might not want to dye your hair Tweety Bird color. It makes you stand out.”
    “Sure, gov,” the kid said, staring at his feet. “You pick pockets?” He made it sound sarcastic, but Malcolm could tell he was genuinely curious.
    “I used to, when I was younger. I didn’t have much to eat, growing up.”
    “I know how that is. Your folks beat you too?”
    Malcolm felt a spike of sickness in his belly. He wished there was something more he could do, but he wasn’t sure what that was, and he’d decided taking the kid home with him would be very bad. With a sigh, he dug out the thousand dollars he had secreted away in a hidden compartment of his coat pocket, kept there as emergency money (say, for instance, for when someone lifted his wallet) and laid it on the bunk beside the kid. “Buy yourself some food, some better clothes, and go to a shelter tonight, all right? There’s one down on Madison Avenue, near the Laundromat. I just know there will be snow tonight, and you’ll be cold out there, and I don’t want to worry about you. Will you do that?”
    The kid looked at the money but didn’t immediately touch it. He said in a low voice, “You didn’t answer my question, gov. Why the hell do you care?”
    “Jesus, kid,” Malcolm said as he stood up. “Why wouldn’t I?”
    The kid looked up. Malcolm knew from the police report that his name was Devon Grayson, he was sixteen years old, and he had an arrest record for pickpocketing, assault, and prostitution. Jesus. Malcolm feared what would become of him in this town.
    Impulsively, he brushed his thumb across the grime on Devon’s cheek. “I gotta get out of here before I break the law.” He winked at Devon. “Try and make something of yourself, kid.”
    That night, as Malcolm made love to Richard on his new king-sized bed in the new penthouse apartment he had rented, he felt the satisfaction of having done a good deed—of having done the kid right.
    Devon.
    Devon Grayson. A sixteen-year-old juvenile delinquent from the East End of London.
    He did not expect to ever see Devon Grayson again. In fact, he knew it in his heart.
    But he was wrong.
    ***
    When Malcolm Sloan was forty-one years old, he came home early to his penthouse apartment one day to find Shane, the guy he’d dumped Richard for three years ago, in bed with their housekeeper, Juanita. Malcolm wasn’t sure what hurt more, the fact that Shane was a cheater or that Shane had sworn on his mother’s grave that he was gay, not bi, and definitely not straight.
    “Malc, wait!” Shane, a marketing exec originally from Kentucky, shouted.
    Malcolm threw his briefcase at Shane’s head. Shane ducked in time, and his briefcase collided with a bedside lamp, knocking it to the floor.
    Malcolm felt a wash of relief. Despite his lover’s infidelity, he didn’t really want to hurt Shane. It had never been his way. He even felt a little ashamed for reacting so childishly. His mother, God rest her soul, had once told him that a real man knows how to control himself as well as his environment. The philosophy had served him well in life. Maybe not in love, but definitely in business.
    Shane continued to call after him, but Malcolm had slammed out of the penthouse in anger and frustration. He took a cab to a posh hotel on Central Park West run by a friend of his from the