On the Waterfront (35 page)

“I was never for tying that kid in close,” Johnny continued. “We’re not playing for marbles. This is business. There’s no room for goof-balls in this business. It’s time to straighten out that brother of yours.”

“Straighten out how?” Charley asked, in the fewest possible words this time.

“Okay, all you fellas, vamoose,” Johnny said to his local officials and collection boys. He trusted them, but there was no sense in having extra witnesses. This was best between him and Charley, so the rest of them could plead with a straight face they knew nothing about it.

As soon as they were out of there Johnny said, “Look, it’s simple. Drive him out to the place we’ve been using. Try to straighten him out on the way over. Maybe stake him and ship him out somewhere. But if he won’t play, if he tries to stiff ya, you’ll have to turn him over to Danny D.”

Danny D. was a black flag on the waterfront, an old Murder, Inc. boy who did jobs on order. He had beaten half a dozen murder raps. There were never any witnesses. All he could be held for himself was as a material witness. He was a cousin of the Benasios and he had broken some strikes for Interstate. There were cops who privately accused Danny D. of two dozen murders. He was a ship jumper convicted only once, years ago, on the Sullivan Law. He sized up as a clean deportation case, but his lawyers kept stalling it off in the courts.

The name Danny D. thickened Charley’s tongue. “Danny D. Johnny, you can’t do that. I mean, all right, maybe the kid’s out of line. But Jesus, Johnny, I can handle him. He’s just a confused kid.”

“Confused kid,” Johnny shouted. “Listen, shlagoom, first he crosses me in public and gets away with it. Then the next joker, an’ pretty soon I’m just another fella down here.”

“But it’s a risky thing, messing with a psycho like Danny D. right now. It’s time to lie low.”

“Don’t give me that lie-low shit. I lie low now and they pile it on me. I’m a crap shooter, Charley. When I get behind I don’t pull in. I double up on the bet. I go with everything I got. I came up that way. And, brother, I’ll go down that way—if I gotta go, which I wouldn’t take no bets on if I was you.”

“Johnny, I love ya, you know that,” Charley said. “I know the guts it took to muscle in on this thing and build it up into a beautiful machine. Anything you asked me, I was always there, you know that. But Johnny, this thing you’re askin’ here, I can’t do that. I just can’t do that, Johnny.”

“Then don’t,” Johnny said.

“But Johnny …”

“Forget I asked ya,” Johnny said.

Charley knew what that meant.

“Johnny, it’s my kid brother,” Charley tried for the last time.

“If it was
my
kid brother,” Johnny said, “hell, if it was my own mother, God bless ’er, I’d have to do it if they crossed me. I aint sayin’ I’d like it. I’m just tellin’ ya what ya have to do if ya wanna be a real man in this business. The men and the boys get separated awful fast when it gets hot.”

“Jesus Christ Almighty,” Charley said. He could feel the sweat running into his pants where his comfortable thirty-five-year-old belly folded into the thickening flesh of his thighs.

“Okay, on your horse, deep thinker,” Johnny Friendly ordered. Charley tried to make his exit casual, but the blood was running out of his face and his silk, white-on-white, twenty-dollar Sulka shirt was sticking to his skin.

Terry was lying on his bed, skimming through a racing-pigeon magazine and trying to get his mind off the squeeze he was in. He had the door locked. He wasn’t going out any more that evening. Where could he go? Who was there left to see? Only the kid, Billy, and even he was beginning to ride Terry for letting himself get caught in the switches. The mob was off him and the friends of Joey Doyle wanted no part of him. Truck and Gilly had walked out on him. Johnny had lowered the boom on him; the priest had given him a hard time, and finally when he did what this Barry had softened him up to do, the girl had run away from him as if he was a one-man epidemic or something.

He picked up the magazine and tried to read about a special race from Havana, but in a few moments he tossed it on the floor and stretched out on his back, trying to think. Until this thing had happened, he had never had to think. He could just drift along from day to day, picking his spots. He still couldn’t quite figure out how he had let himself get jockeyed into this corner. It was like a dry-mouthed whiskey morning when your head is coming apart.

There was a knock on the door and he half rose, tensing at the threat of intrusion.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, kid, it’s Charley,” the voice came through the door.

Terry jumped up to let him in. Charley looked big and prosperous in his camel’s hair coat. He was breathing hard from the walk-up.

“You’re out of shape, Charley.” Terry tried to keep his tone light. “Been living it up too good.”

“Yeah, I’m going to start going to the Y,” Charley said. “Listen, kid, get your jacket on. We’re going to the fights.”

“Jees, I been so … I didn’t even notice who’s on the card,” Terry said.

“What difference?” Charley said. “A couple of tough niggers like it always is these days. I got a good pair, first row behind the press.”

“I been wantin’ to talk to ya,” Terry said.

“Get your jacket on. We’ll have time to talk on the way.”

Usually there wasn’t a cab for blocks, but tonight they found one on the corner. It was mean, early December weather, with hard rain crystallizing into sleet.

“Jesus, some lousy night,” Terry said.

“The paper said snow,” Charley said.

“The weather’s cockeyed. It’s this new bomb,” Terry explained.

“Where to?” said the cab driver.

“Turn left on Bedford,” Charley said. “I’ll tell you where to stop.”

“I thought we was goin’ to the Garden,” Terry said.

“Sure, but—I want to cover a bet on the way over,” Charley said. “Anyway it’ll give us a little more time to talk.”

Terry tried to relax against the fading leather seat. “Well, nothing ever stops you from talking, Charley.”

“Yeah, I guess I was born garrulous,” Charley said. “But—this isn’t for the pleasure of hearing my own voice. Terry, I want you and I should have a serious talk.”

“Mmmmm-mmmm,” Terry said, watching carefully.

“Er—the grapevine says you’ve got—you got a subpoena.”

“Check,” Terry said without expression.

“Of course the boys know you too well to put you down for a cheese-eater,” Charley said, feeling his way cautiously.

“Mmmm-mmmm,” Terry grunted.

“Just the same they think you shouldn’t be on the outside so much,” Charley went on. “They want you a little more on the inside. They think it’s time you had a few little things going for you down there.”

Terry shrugged. “A steady job. A couple extra potatoes, that’s all I want.”

“Sure, that’s all right when you’re a kid,” Charley agreed. “But you’re getting on. You’re pushing thirty pretty soon, slugger. It’s time you got a little ambition.”

“Well, I always figgered I’d live longer without it,” Terry said.

Charley looked at him and then turned his head away and lowered his eyes. “Maybe,” he said. Then to cover his feelings, he added quickly, “Look, kid, you know this new pier they’re building …”

Terry thought of the pile-driver and the way it kept beating in his head.

“It’s going to be a beaut—two million bucks. The Pan-American Line is coining in there and our local’s going to have the jobs. There’ll be a new slot for a boss loader.”

“So?” Terry said.

“You know the set-up,” Charley said. “Six cents a hundred pounds on everything that goes into a truck. It don’t sound so big, but it snowballs. And the lovely part is, you don’t have to lift a finger. I think it’s the sweetest touch in the harbor. It’s three, four hundred dollars a week just for openers. Guys like Turkey Dooley and Dummy Ennis can do thirty, forty G a year and pay tax on five. That’s how I see you, kid. A month in Miami every winter.”

“And I get all that dough for not doin’ nothin’?” Terry said.

“Absolutely nothing,” Charley said. “You do nothing. And you say nothing. You understand, don’t you, kid?”

Terry sighed and shook his head, struggling with his unfamiliar problem. “Yeah, I guess I do. But there’s more to this than I thought, Charley. I’m telling you. A lot more.”

Charley was disturbed to see how shaken his brother was. “Terry, listen to me,” he said sharply. “I hope you’re not trying to tell me you’re thinking of testifying against …” He pointed a suede-gloved thumb in the direction of his immaculate camel’s hair coat. “Kid, I hope you’re not telling me
that
.”

Terry rubbed the back of his hand across his face. “I don’t know, Charley. I mean, I’m tellin’ you I don’t know, Charley. That’s what I been wantin’ to talk to you about.”

“Listen, Terry,” Charley said patiently, as if he had to begin at the beginning, “those piers we control through the local, you know how much they’re worth to us …”

“I know … I know …”Terry said.

“All right,” Charley said, steaming himself up as he reminded himself how much trouble this kid was causing him, “you think Johnny can afford to jeopardize a set-up like that for one lousy, rubber-lipped ex-tanker who’s walking on his heels …”

“Don’t say that!” Terry begged.

“What the hell!” Charley said.

“I could’ve been better,” Terry said.

“That’s not the point,” Charley said.

“I could’ve been a lot better, Charley,” Terry said.

“The point is, we don’t have much time,” Charley reminded him.

“I’m tellin’ ya I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Terry cried out. “I wish I could tell ya what it’s like, Charley—this goddamn makin’ up your mind.”

“Well, make up your mind, kid. I beg you. I beg you.” Then he added with shame and resignation and desperation in his half-whispered voice, “Before we get to 2437 Bedford Street.”

The address rang a bell in Terry’s mind, a deadly, somber bell. “Before we get to
where,
Charley?” he asked in disbelief. “Before we get to
where?
”

Outside the cold sleet swirled and slowed the progress of the cab. Charley’s forehead was hot and moist. All the years of clever words, the smart operator’s arsenal of rapid-fire speech had brought him to tins—to this bedrock pleading: “Terry, for the last time. Take the job. Please take the job.”

Terry shook his head.

Charley prided himself on his good manners, on his intelligence and reserve, but now the frustration and the danger exploded something in him and without knowing what he was doing he reached into his shoulder holster and pulled out a short-handled .38. “You’re going to take the job, whether you like it or not. And keep your goddamn mouth shut. No back talk. Just take it!”

When Terry saw the gun in the folds of the overcoat, he was not frightened; the shock of this final gesture seemed to carry him beyond fear into a state of stunned, intuitive compassion he had never known before.

“Charley …” he said sadly, embarrassed for both of them. He reached out and gently turned the barrel to one side.

Charley leaned back against the seat and lowered the gun into his lap. He pushed his hat back to let his forehead breathe. He took an initialed handkerchief out of his breast pocket and mopped his face.

“Please take it,” Charley whispered. “Take that job.”

Terry had pulled away into his corner of the back seat. He was still shaking his head in shock and disappointment. “Charley—oh, Charley.” A deep sigh welled out of him that said, “Wow …”

Charley bit his lip and let the gun slip down into his overcoat pocket. In the silence that followed they could hear the sleet driving against the windows and the sound of the wet tires slurping against the cobblestones. It was an old road, leading inland from the river into the flat, drab backland of Jersey.

When Charley began to talk again, he was groping, almost gasping for words, trying to work his way back toward some relationship with Terry.

“Look, kid. I—look, I …” He reached out and tried to squeeze the biceps of Terry’s right arm, an old affectionate gesture between them. Terry neither pulled his arm away nor made it easy for Charley to reach him.

“How much you weigh these days, slugger?” Charley suddenly wanted to know.

“Seventy-five, eighty. Who cares?” Terry shrugged off his question in a sullen monotone.

“Gee, when you weighed a hundred sixty-eight pounds you were beautiful.” Charley lapsed into the past. “You could’ve been another Billy Conn. Only that skunk we got you for a manager brought you along too fast.”

Terry had been slowly shaking his head. Now the past and all the abuses it had stored up in him seemed to cry out. “It wasn’t him, Charley. It was you!”

Terry came out of his corner, leaning toward Charley, incited by the old humiliation that was like the blood from a cut that won’t coagulate. “You remember that night in the Garden? You came down to the dressing room and said, ‘Kid, this aint your night. We’re goin’ for the price on Wilson.’ You remember that? This aint your night. My night! I could’ve taken Wilson apart that night. So what happens? He gets the title shot, outdoors in the ball park. And what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palookaville. I was never no good after that night. You remember that, Charley. It’s like a—peak you reach, and then it’s all downhill. It was you, Charley. You was my brother. You should’ve looked out for me a little bit. You should’ve taken care of me. Just a little bit. Instead of makin’ me take them dives for the short-end money.”

Charley wasn’t able to look at Terry. “At least I always had some bets down for you,” he said softly. “You saw some money.”

“See, you don’t understand,” Terry raised his voice as if to bridge his failure to communicate.

“I tried to keep you in good with Johnny,” Charley made an effort to explain.

“You don’t
understand!
” Terry cried out again. “I could’ve had class. I could’ve been a contender. I could’ve been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am. Oh, yes, I am. It was you, Charley.”

There was silence again for perhaps ten seconds, while Terry continued to stare at Charley and Charley looked anxiously into Terry’s face and saw the days of their youth, saw Terry the dirty-faced urchin and Terry the twelve-year-old gutter fighter and Terry in his flashy towel robe prancing in his corner as he waited for the bell and Terry the twenty-eight-year-old has-been hanging around Friendly’s Bar, a bum—which is what he was.