"That's no way to talk about our parishioners," Father Barry tried to joke it.

"We see enough of the parishioners at the Masses and Confession," Father Vincent said, going to the sink to wash his hands.

"I'm not so sure," Father Barry said.

"Peter, I hate to see you do this to yourself," Father Vincent said. "You've got a lot on the ball. You can go places. But not this way. You're cutting your own throat."

Father Barry shook his head. "I'm just trying to keep a few throats from being cut."

Father Vincent shrugged. "That's a problem for the laity. I don't think a priest has any right butting into it. All you'll do is get yourself out on a limb the Monsignor will be very happy to chop off," Father Vincent said. "But go ahead, if you want to be a curate all your life."

"Damn it, there are people out there getting clobbered," Father Barry said. The long, strenuous day was catching up to him now and there was no reserve of patience for the argument. Anyway he could throw the entire Encyclical of Pius XI at Brother Harry and it would make no difference.

On his knees for his night's-end prayer, Father Barry begged God to help him repair his weaknesses so that he'd have more strength to follow the path he had set for himself. "Lord, give me the strength to climb out on this limb," he prayed, "and please God, try to keep the Monsignor from going to the Bishop and getting him to chop me down." He reinforced this request with fifteen Our Fathers.

Fifteen.

TERRY'S FLOCK WAS ALOFT again that next afternoon, a fluttering, swiftly moving cloud against the sun-brightened sky. Terry watched them parentally, occasionally swinging his long pole to keep them exercising. At their deceptive rate of nearly a mile a minute they could sweep far out over the river and circle back across the squat buildings of Main Street in a few seconds. Billy Conley, attached to Terry like a pilot fish, enjoyed the sight too-one of the three experiences in Bohegan he gave himself up to with enthusiasm. The other two were girls (from the age of eleven) and block battles against the rival Dock Street Dukes.

"Will ya look at them beautiful goddamn birds?" Terry said.

"The ones you stole off the Army sure rounded out the flock nice," Billy said.

"Wait'll we get the squabs from these Army slates and our Belgian blues next spring," Terrv said "We'll fly them other bums into the ground."

Billy laughed and then, looking across the roof, frowned when he saw Katie Doyle making her way along the roof through the forest of television aerials and clotheslines.

"Who ast that broad up here?" Billy said.

Terry tensed at the sight of the girl approaching across the next roof level. He wanted to see her again, but he knew there was no percentage in it.

"Okay, I guess they got enough exercise," he said, no longer bothering to follow the sweeping flight of the birds. "Let 'em come in."

He handed the pole to Billy and waited for Katie. She had a graceful, lady-like walk, he was thinking; it seemed almost as if she were floating toward him. His chance meeting with her, his walk through the park with her the night before, her soft way of talking and the unfamiliarly kind things she said belonged more to the world of adolescent day-dreaming than to the hard reality of the Bohegan riverfront.

"What're you doin' up here on the roof?" Terry asked gruffly.

"Just looking," Katie said.

She was startled. She felt out of place, though she had been up a few times with Joey when he was exercising his flock. She lingered a moment, just now, to look at Joey's coop three roofs away. The birds were still there, unconcernedly eating from the self-feeder. The sight of them, all alive and waiting for Joey, made her brother's absence unbearably intense. Then she hurried on to Terry-why, she didn't know exactly-perhaps because he was a pigeon fancier too.

Now that Billy had lowered the pole the birds were circling closer to their loft. Terry hailed them with an encircling wave of his hand.

"You're looking at the champion flock of the neighborhood. Everyone of 'em bred 'n raised 'n trained by yours truly."

"I love seeing them fly out over the river," she said.

"They'll fly anywhere," Terry said. "Over the ocean. As far as fifteen hundred miles. They'll keep coming all day. And they won't even stop for food or water until they're back in the coop."

They were coming in for a landing one by one and pushing trustfully through the movable bars into the coop.

"Joey raised pigeons," Katie said.

Terry frowned. "Yeah. He had a few birds." He glanced at her and then seemed to be studying the tar-paper flooring of the roof. "I went over and fed 'em this morning."

"I wouldn't have thought you'd be so interested in pigeons," Katie said.

Terry shrugged. "I go for this stuff. Ever since I was a kid. I like the feel ya get when ya spot 'em in the sky comin' home from Wilmington or somewheres. Makes ya feel big"-he snickered-"almost like ya done it yerself."

"Do they always fly home?" Katie asked.

"Well, sometimes they get lost or hit a wire or somethin'," Terry admitted. "And then of course the hawks get 'em."

"Oh." Katie shuddered.

"Ya know this harbor's full of hawks?" Terry said. "That's a fact. They hang around on top of the big hotels. The Plaza over the river is full of 'em. When they spot a pigeon in the park, swoosh right down on 'em. They c'n tear a pigeon's throat open in a second, right in the air."

"The things that go on," Katie said, shutting her eyes for a moment.

"Yeah, ya c'n say that again," Terry said. "Hawks is a pain in the ..." He stopped abruptly. "What good is a hawk?" he wound it up.

Katie noticed one bird on the landing platform with a long string attached to its leg. When she asked what that was for, Terry looked across at Billy, who had turned aside disapprovingly.

"Well, that's kind of a funny thing," Terry began. "Y'see, a bird from some other flock or a lost racin' bird sees the string and-it's somethin' about pigeons-right away he's got to find out what it is. So he comes over 'n joins the flock and next thing he knows he's followin' 'em right into the coop. Kinda like hypnotism."

"Isn't that stealing?" Katie asked in that disconcertingly unemotional way she had of asking hard questions in a soft voice.

"Well-it's sorta like a sport. See what I mean?" Terry apologized. "Everybody does it."

"And that makes it right?"

"Yeah-yeah," Terry muttered uncomfortably. Then he called to Billy, "Better check their water, kid. Looks like the can run dry. Get on the ball."

Billy glared at the two of them and swallowed a profanity as he entered the coop.

"The Golden Warriors?" Katie read the emblazoned inscription on Billy's back.

"Yeah. I started them Golden Warriors." Terry swaggered a little. "You might say I was the original Golden Warrior. This little bum here"-he thumbed toward Billy inside the coop-"he's my shadow. He thinks I'm a big wheel because I used to box pro for a while."

"Aah, I coulda licked ya," Billy said.

"Ha, ha. Ya couldn't lick a postage stamp," Terry said, and flicked his left a couple of times.

A large blue-checker pigeon with a thick white wattle around the eyes and a proud carriage flew through the movable bars and took his place on the highest perch, where he moved about and cooed authoritatively.

"You see that one," Terry said. "Now what do you think of that hunk a stuff?"

"Oh, she's a beauty," Katie said.

Billy had filled the self-serving watering can and was dexterously tipping it right side up.

"She's a he," the boy said furiously. "His name is Swifty."

"He's my lead bird," Terry explained. "He's always on that top perch."

"He looks so proud of himself," Katie said.

"He's the boss," Terry said. "If another bum tries to come along 'n take that perch he really lets 'im have it."

Katie sighed. "Even pigeons ..."

"Well, there's one thing about 'em though," Terry said, more in earnest than usual, "they're faithful. They get married just like people."

"Better," Billy said out of the corner of his mouth.

"They're very faithful," Terry went on, ignoring Billy's interruption. "Once they're mated they stay together all through their lives until one of 'em dies."

Katie lowered her head. "That's nice," she said.

He put out his hand to touch her and then, still afraid or in awe of her, he drew it back again. Terry noticed Billy grinning malevolently at them from inside the coop. "Okay, okay, now get outa there and fix the roof. Make yourself useless," Terry ordered.

Billy made an obscene sibilant sound under his breath, but did what he was told. Katie continued to keep her head down.

"You like beer?" Terry asked irrelevantly.

Katie looked at him. "I don't know."

He wanted to touch her, touch her gently. He had never felt tender toward anybody in his life and he was fumbling for words or gestures. "I bet you never had a glass of beer," he said. "That's what I bet-you never had a glass of beer."

"Once, my father ..." she began to say.

"How about you come 'n have one with me?"

"In a saloon?"

"Well, yeah. I mean I know a little dump-a place that's very nice, with a side entrance for ladies and all like that."

"I really shouldn't," Katie said.

"Come on, it won't hurt," Terry begged. "Come on ... Okay?"

He took her by the hand and drew her along. She told herself a better acquaintanceship with Terry might be a way of cutting into the dark horror of waterfront murder. But it was actually something about the hurt in Terry Malloy, the defensive toughness like the scar tissue over the wounded eyes, that drew her on.

Terry guided Katie to the ladies' bar of the Bellevue, which was the second-best hotel in town and prided itself on being off limits for local whores. An elderly Irish biddy, Mrs. Higgins, well known in the neighborhood for chronic, noisy insobriety, was being ejected by the bartender as Terry and Katie approached.

"Take your hands off me, I'm only after havin' one more ..." Mrs. Higgins was protesting.

"You and your one-mores," the bartender said, pushing her out. "Go home."

Katie hung back, and Terry took her arm.

"Come on-don't be ascared. See what I was tellin' ya? They run a nice quiet place. I mean the drunks get the heave-ho."

Inside, the Bellevue bar had a nineteenth-century flavor, with its time-worn mahogany bar and elaborate chandeliers. A merchant sailor nearing the end of a long drunk was singing Rose of Tralee to a middle-aged woman who had come in for lunch and had lost track of time. To Terry's chagrin a plump over-made-up young girl was at a corner of the bar with Terry's chum Jackie. Terry tried to look away, for it was Melva, but she caught his eye and called over, "Hiya, Terry?"

Terry barely nodded.

"A friend of yours?" Katie said.

Terry winced. "Just a-passin' acquaintance," he reached for the phrase he had heard somewhere. "What're you drinkin'?"

Katie hesitated and in the pause the sailor at the bar gave up Tralee to tell the bartender. "Hit me with another Gluckenheimer."

"I'll try a-Gluckenheimer," Katie said.

"Two Gluckenheimers," Terry called. "And draw two for chasers."

Katie looked bewildered. "Come on, give a smile. You're beginnin' to live a little," Terry tried to reassure her.

"I am?"

"Hey, Terry," the bartender called over from the bar. "See the fight last night? That new kid Ryff. Both hands. A little bit on your style."

"Ha, ha," Terry said. "I hope he gets better dice than me." To Katie he shrugged the bartender's compliment off. "Comedian."

"Were you really a prizefighter?" Katie asked.

"Aah, I used to be. I was goin' pretty good for a while. But-I didn't stay in shape. I had to take a few dives."

"A dive? You mean into the water?"

Terry laughed. "Yeah. Into the water." He laughed again.

"What are you laughing at?"

He pointed to her. "You. Miss Square from Nowhere."

She blushed slightly but she wasn't put off. "What made you interested-in fighting?"

Terry raised his shoulders again in that gesture of casual disgust. "Aah, I don't know. I had to scrap all my life. I figured I might as well get paid for it. When I was a kid my old man got chopped off"-he saw the question rising in her eyes and added quickly-"never mind how. Then they stuck Charley 'n me in a dump they called a Children's Home." The sore memory of it made him screw up his nose. "Boy, that was some home. Well, anyway, I ran away from there and peddled papers, 'n stole a little bit and fought in club smokers and then Charley hooked up with Johnny Friendly and Johnny bought a piece of me ..."