"Nose to nose," Johnny Friendly said, looking at Charley.

"Like a pair o' lovers," "J.P." said.

"Some brother," Johnny said, looking at Charley.

Charley swallowed and said nothing.

"Well, you usually got something to say," Johnny said.

Charley took a deep breath and made an effort to trade on his slightly educated gift of gab.

"Nose to nose might not mean too much, Johnny." Charley tried to sound confident. "He could have been telling him off too, like he did before. I still don't believe he's going to talk. There won't be any evidence of that until he gives public testimony."

Johnny pushed a cigar into his mouth and talked around it. His cold, sarcastic voice made second-string tough guys like Truck, Gilly and Big Mac feel relieved that they weren't on the receiving end.

"Thanks for the legal advice, Charley. That's what I always kept you around here for. Now how do we keep this no-good son-of-a-bitch from giving public testimony? Isn't that what you call-ah-the main order of business?"

Big Mac muttered something in back of his hand and Truck's fat-muscled shoulders shook with troubled mirth. Charley glared at them. Meatheads, the lot of them. And every one of them drawing down a couple of union salaries and expenses because Charley had set it up for them.

"Johnny, he's not the brightest, but he's a good kid, you know that."

"He's a bum," Big Mac said. "After the days I gave him in the loft, he's got no gratytude."

"You shut up," Charley suddenly raised his voice at Big Mac. "How about your gratitude to me? I kept you on the job. Schlegel wanted to fire you half a dozen times."

Johnny put both hands out in front of him, fingers spread wide, to signal silence.

"All right, Mac-Charley-I'm conductin' this-investigation."

There were a few cautious smiles from the claque. But they were all worried. Charley was a valuable member. He was good at talking to the Central Trades Council and in the wage-scale negotiations and to the press. Now things were heating up all over the harbor and a legitimate-looking fella like Charley the Gent would be handy to have around. One of the best "sea lawyers" in the harbor.

"Terry's done a few favors for us, Johnny. We mustn't forget that," Charley tried again. "It's simply that this girl and maybe the priest too have begun exerting some kind of influence over him that's, well, that's affecting his mental attitude. See what I mean?"

This had been velvet talk for confusing honest members of the District Council or a militant wage-scale delegate. But Johnny had no patience with it now.

"Goddamn it, talk English so's I can understand it," he shouted.

"I mean the Doyle broad and the priest may be getting their hooks into him so deep he doesn't know which end is up any more," Charley said, in what was actually his native tongue.

"I aint interested in all that mental-attitude crap," Johnny said. "We're into a bi-state investigation. This aint no two-bit city deal Willie Givens c'n talk or buy his way out of. This one is make or break. Your little brother can hang us. All I want t' know is, is he D 'n D or is he a canary?"

Charley took a long time answering. He was conscious of his sweat pores moistening. There was no use giving Johnny Friendly any bent nails for answers. Whatever Charley said, he would have to deliver on it. No one was safe around Johnny who didn't deliver on his word. In his own way, according to his own rules, he was a fanatic for the truth.

"I-wish-I-knew," Charley mouthed his answer deliberately.

"So do I, Charley," Johnny said. "For your sake."

Johnny looked at his lieutenant, his eyes drilling cold holes in him. A shudder rippled through the room. Men who passed themselves off as real tough in the embattled bars and alleys of Bohegan were afraid for Charley. They kept very still. They tried to look neither at Johnny nor Charley for fear of making the slightest misplay.

"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.