"You get up in a meetin', you make a motion, the lights go out, then you go out."

All the men laughed at the bitter accuracy of Luke's description.

"Tha's no lie, Father," Moose's voice rose again. The subject always excited him. "You get up in a meetin' and ask a question, you're lookin' t' get your brains knocked out. Like one time I got up an' tried t' make a motion about a pension fund. I was in order too. Runty read me how t' do it in Cushin's Manual. Well, I start talkin' an', boom, I'm rollin' down the long flight o' stairs from the hall and I'm out on the sidewalk flat on my face."

"That was two years ago," Jimmy said. "The last meeting we had."

Runty grinned. "Tha's the way it's been ever since Johnny and his pistoleros took over our Four-Four-Seven. When I got enough balls in me I go right up to 'em and tell 'em what bums they are. One time they hit me in the head with a pipe and threw me in the river. So me an' the river know each other pretty good. It was winter time an' the water was colder 'n a nun's-well, I mean it was ice water, Father, an' damn if it don't bring me to." Runty went ho-ho-ho as if he had just told a funny story. "So y'see, I'm on velvet, Father. I should worry, I'm on borried time."

Father Barry felt himself being drawn in, deeper and deeper.

"Y'mean to tell me all this stuff's been going on and it never even gets in the papers?"

"The Graphic is the Mayor's sheet," Moose shouted. "You oughta know that, Father. And the Mayor 'n Johnny Friendly are like this, with Johnny Friendly on top. Hell, the Mayor pays off little political favors by givin' fellers in City Hall a note to Johnny or Charley to put 'em to work. It don't matter if we're regular longshoremen who need the work for the ice box and these bums who move in on us are just stinkin' ward heelers."

Father Barry looked skeptical. "You mean the Mayor and Johnny Friendly actually get together on who's to be hired down here?"

Runty laughed. "Cripes, I thought everybody in Bohegan knew that, Father. The last Mayor walked out with maybe a million bucks. Where you been, Father?"

Father Barry looked at Katie uneasily. "Maybe I've been hiding in the church."

"An' if I wuz you I'd stay there," Runty said. "This set-up down here is a pisser, 'scuse me again. I tell ya there's nothin' like it in the whole damn country. An' God may kill me if I aint tellin' the truth."

"Okay, I believe you. But your ancestors must be rollin' in their graves. A fine bunch of Irishmen! Hell, the English slaughtered our families like pigs for eight hundred years and we never quit. We found ways of fighting back."

Father Barry had memories, faded but precious as old flags in mothballs, of his father's glowing accounts of the O'Neills, Shane and Owen Roe, and Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, and of Red Hugh O'Donnell, that glorious lost-causer. They had figured in Pete Barry's boyhood dreams and he invoked them now as he felt himself more and more deeply caught up in a struggle he had been discreetly avoiding.

"It aint so easy to fight back, Reverent," said Luke, an occasional Baptist. "Right now we couldn't even be talkin' like this if we didn't have you along for pertection. Those cowboys 'd be ridin' herd on us."

Moose nodded. "Name one place where it's safe even t' talk without gettin' clobbered," he yelled. "Name me one. Just one."

"The church," Father Barry said quickly.

"The church!" Moose shouted in amazement.

"Shhh, keep it down to a shout," Jimmy cautioned. "You mean that, Father?"

"I said the church. Use the basement of the church."

This time Runty didn't laugh. "Do you know what you're lettin' yerself in for, Father?"

Father Barry felt in his pockets for a pack of cigarettes. The pack was crumpled and empty. "Anybody got a butt?" he asked.

Jimmy offered him a Home Run. "Union-made," he said.

Father Barry took it and Runty snapped a match for him and held the light, looking at his face as if he had just come across him and was studying his features for the first time.

"You sure you know what yer lettin' yerself in for?" Runty held his question steady like the light.

"No-I don't," Father Barry admitted. "But I'm ready to find out."

Father Barry and Katie left the men at the entrance to the Longdock. When they came down for work at 7:30 and found nothing to do, what was there left for them except the companionship of the bar? Sometimes when a docker was hurt or they needed an extra hand, Big Mac sent somebody across the street to pull a man or two out of the bar.

Runty, Moose, Luke and Jimmy promised to show up in the church basement-used as an overflow chapel-at eight o'clock that evening. Father Barry hadn't even thought about the question of permission. It had seemed to him the moment for unqualified hospitality. He'd cross the next bridge when he got to St. Timothy's. He'd sit down with the Pastor just before lunch-no, maybe just after. Father Donoghue was a regular trencherman and was always in a better mood after he had eaten. "How much more Christian and merciful the Pastor is after he's finished a steaming plate of corn beef and cabbage," Mrs. Harris, their housekeeper, had once remarked, adding to the little repertoire of rectory jokes.

"I'll walk you back to your door," Father Barry told Katie.

Katie shook her head. "Thanks, but I'd like to stop in at the church anyway. There's something I want to pray for."

"For Joey?"

There was some of her father's direct humor in her voice as she said, "I think it's time I started praying for you."

Father Barry laughed. "Y'know, Katie, I was raised on a tough block. In the gang we had, two of the boys got the chair and at least three others are doing time. It almost seems like we had only two choices-to run with the mob or buck for the collar. Lots of those fellows could've gone either way. I fought 'em in the streets before they got into the heavy artillery. I'm not afraid to take them on again, if I have to."

"I'm getting you into trouble," Katie said.

"You can say that again," Father Barry said. "Every time you step outside the church in a neighborhood like this, you bump into trouble."

They were walking into the wind. The cold damp gusts of river air lashed at their faces. The Hudson was the color of gray chalk, bleak and relentless. Ships were moving across and down river.

Eleven.

THE WATERFRONT WESTERN UNION has no central office, no teletype machines, no uniformed messenger boys. Without them, news seems to flash around the harbor, from pier to pier, from bar to bar, from tenement to tenement. Each longshoreman approached for the meeting in St. Timothy's was cautioned not to invite anyone else unless he first made sure he was anti-Friendly. But the first leak soon grew to a trickling stream, and finally, in less than an hour, into a torrent of speculation and excitement. The Bohegan docks buzzed with news that Father Barry was calling a protest meeting to look into the job done on Joey Doyle. In the hold the stool-man whose task it was to set the stalks of bananas on the carriers' shoulders whispered into the ears of old Marty Gallagher.

"There's gonna be a meetin' on Joey Doyle in the bottom of St. Tim's t'night. Eight o'clock. Pass the woid along."

Gallagher, hard-working except when he went on his periodicals, shook his head. He got a tab most of the time and he knew better than to mess with Johnny Friendly.

"Lemme alone. I'm an old man."

Most of those approached said nothing at all. They just nodded and went on working. Some of them might sound off to a few trusted cronies about the way things were stacked against them, but they weren't going to commit themselves. And what the hell was a Roman collar butting into it for anyway? Nearly all of them were cynical and wondered what the priest was getting out of it. But one in a hundred felt strongly enough about Joey or about the whole stacked deal to take a chance.

Not Pop Doyle, though. When he came over to the Longdock for a beer and a cornbeef sandwich at lunch and heard what Father Barry was up to, he shook his head and muttered through a mouthful of cornbeef, "I'm ag'in' it. Leave the dead sleep in peace. Aint we had enough trouble?"

Runty had been on the bottle all morning, drinking on the cuff against his next payday. He was reviving again after sleeping off the effects of the wake. "I don' even begin to feel like a human bean until I'm half gassed." He laughed, and shrugged off Pop's surrender.

"I never yet seen the bunch that c'n stop Johnny and his respectable friend Weepin' Willie. But I say, Hear the Father out. What've ya got to lose?"

"Just your life," Pop said.

Runty grinned. "If God wanted me He'd 've taken me a long time ago. I'm on borried time."

Because he wasn't working and felt defiant, he ordered another 35-cent shot for Pop and himself.

"Here's mud in the eye of Willie Givens," he offered the old, bold toast.

"You shouldn't be sayin' that so loud," Pop cautioned.

Word of the meeting whipped along the waterfront like the wind from the river. It blew out of the Longdock across the street to Friendly's, along the bar and into the back room where Johnny Friendly was enjoying a high breakfast of pickled pig's feet and his Pale India ale. He heard the news from Charley Malloy who told it to him tentatively, as if in fear of the dark-age practice of destroying bearers of ill tidings. You don't get to be a leader by being frightened, and Johnny Friendly wasn't going to be bugged by any parish priest and a handful of cry-babies. The Monsignor, O'Hare, was a buddy of Willie Givens, always ready to speak glowingly of the Pres at Communion breakfasts and, if worse came to worst, he might be able to get the Monsignor to nudge the Bishop to crack down on this upstart priest's Pastor. But he was willing to bet it would never go that far. Most headlines blow over. Most rank-and-file beefs fall of their own weight.

Just the same, he told Charley, as he went to work on his second pig-knuckle, have somebody case the meeting. Get the names. Maybe frighten 'em a little as they come out. But leave the church alone. "I don't want to get in bad with my mother."

It had been left to Charley to decide how to once-over the church meeting. On the way down to the docks he had settled for Terry. It would do the kid good, he figured. Rein him in a little closer to the organization. Put some cabbage in his pocket. Give him a sense of responsibility. Charley had made it because he was an organization man, loyal as well as cute. But Terry was a loner without ambition, believing in nothing and nobody. He had some abilities, like being handy with his fists. He could dance, and make a good appearance when he tried. The boys liked him around because of his brief fame in the ring. But he never seemed to care about cashing in on any of his talents. Even when it had seemed for a short time as if he might have a chance of breaking into the big time, he had acted as if none of that mattered. Charley didn't know why. He just knew that Terry was a moody, go-it-alone, don't-give-a-damn kid who could watch Charley take a grand a week off the docks without ever thinking he could or should have some of the same.

So Charley, wanting to help his kid brother, had begun to throw a few things his way. The Doyle job the night before. Charley never liked it as rough as that, but if Joey had to go, he figured Terry might as well get what benefit there might be in it. Johnny liked the kid from the boxing days, but he wasn't giving anything away for nothing. He had a principle about paying off only for services rendered. It was the only way, Johnny knew, to run an organization.

So the next assignment for Terry, Charley saw, was the church job. Double-o it for Johnny. Actually, Terry was a good choice. Despite the blood relationship, he was known to be outside the mob. And so independent-peculiar that no one would be too surprised what he did. There were even those who thought he was just a touch punchy. It was imperceptible, but maybe it was there at that. A fellow like that could wander into a church and pretend he didn't know exactly what he was doing. And furthermore, Charley felt he could trust Terry. Even if the kid believed in nothing, not even money, and expressed enthusiasm for nothing except his pigeons and his poon, he had a son-father respect that amounted to awe for Charley. When their old man had staggered out on them and the Children's Aid had taken them to some strange barrack-like shelter there had been only Charley to say, "Don't worry, kid. We'll handle it."

The atmosphere of the pier loft was leisurely compared to the activity in the hold and on the deck. The closed-in upper floor was piled high with coffee bags, neatly stacked, and cases of olive oil, rolls of hemp, cylinders of crude oil set on pallets to be efficiently moved by the stubby, versatile hi-low trucks. Drivers, checkers, loft handlers worked quietly, expertly; most of them had been here a long time. These were the gravy jobs and every one on this top floor was a solid Friendly man. Johnny was Number One in their book, a square shooter, a guy who never let you down unless you crossed him. "Johnny Friendly's done a lot of good around here," you'd hear them say in the loft.

Here pilferage was thought of not as a crime but as a way of life. The loft was a gathering point for cargo from which ten-thousand-dollar hauls could be made simply by falsifying a single invoice. But a lot of expert handling went on here too. Even the stacking of coffee bags called for skill. A trained man could heist a one-hundred-and-sixty-five-pound bag bulging with coffee beans as if it were a child's colored beanbag.

Charley Malloy had hopped a hi-low truck cruising down the aisles between the hillocks of cargo. He stepped off when he came to the neatly stacked six-foot mound of coffee bags on which Terry was reclining, absorbed in the latest issue of Confidential. Charley raised himself on the outer edge of the bags, enabling him to look over Terry's shoulder.

"Working hard?" he asked.

Terry shrugged and answered without looking around. "It's a living." He wriggled his backside even more luxuriously into the space between the coffee bags, and turned the page to admire another beguiling torso. "Wooo-oof," he barked.

"You don't mind working once in a while?" Charley persisted.

"I finished the work. I counted all them bags."

"Excellent," Charley said. "But we've got an extra little detail for you. That is, if you don't mind being disturbed or anything."

Charley climbed up another rung of bags until he was almost on a level with Terry. His voice lowered to its familiar tone, habitually conspiratorial. "Listen, this priest who took a hinge at the shape this morning, he and this Doyle girl are getting up a meeting over at the church tonight. St. Tim's. We want a run-down on it. You know, the names and numbers of all the players."

Terry was studying a spectacular Latin type in a lascivious pose. "Chiquita," he read the caption longingly.

"Yeah," said Charley. "That means small. There's nothing small about that tomato." He looked more closely over Terry's shoulder. Then he remembered his mission. "Put that damn thing down a minute. Only one thing on your mind. Now listen to me. We need someone to cover this church meeting. You're nominated."

Terry lowered the magazine reluctantly and raised himself on one elbow. This was the trouble with letting someone do you favors. You had to do favors back.

"Why me, Charley? I don't wanna go down in no church. I'd feel funny goin' in there."

"You've got a nice little job here," Charley said. "I want Johnny to know you appreciate it. Now all you've got to do is plant your can in the back pew and keep your ears open. What's so hard?"

Terry frowned. How could he explain? To someone who had drive and ambition and wanted a million bucks in a deposit box it couldn't be explained.

"It's stoolin', Charley. Don't you see? I'd just be stoolin' for you."

Charley started to light a cigarette in exasperation.

"No smoking," Terry said, thumbing toward the sign.

"Yeah, I know," Charley said, and continued to draw until he was sure he had a good light. Rules were made for the other guys, for suckers. Smart guys made their own as they went along. "Let me explain you something about stooling," Charley said. "Stooling is when you rat on your friends, the guys you're with."

"Yeah, yeah," Terry grunted his impatience.

Charley decided to drop the theorizing. "When Johnny needs a favor, don't try to figure it out, just do it."

Terry had picked up his magazine, and now he flipped a page and pretended not to listen.

"What right has this priest got poking his nose in our business?" Charley said, thinking this might be the pitch. It had always been a persuasive argument on the waterfront. He nudged Terry's elbow gently. "Now go on-join the congregation."

Terry's sigh was exaggerated. "Okay, okay. Only this is the last thing I do for ya, Charley. I don't want nuthin' from Johnny except enough work t' keep me in coffee and doughnut money, an' I figure he owes me that much even if I don't run all these goddamn errands for 'im. He already made enough outa me to ..."

"What's so hard?" Charley said again. "You go in a church and you sit down. It's open to the public, free of charge. We don't want trouble. We just want to know what they're saying about us. That's only reasonable."

"Charley," Terry said, almost tenderly, "you are the most reasonable son of a bitch I know. Now go away and leave me to my work." He turned another page and gave himself up to an undraped, drooping-eyed blonde who beckoned.

Charley rode another hi-low back to the spiral staircase leading to the main floor of the pier. Terry was a broody, stubborn, hard-to-figure kid, he was thinking, but when the temperamental smoke blew away he usually did what Charley wanted.

Twelve.

WHEN HE STRODE INTO the overflow chapel in the church basement and found only a scattered handful of longshoremen on hand for the meeting, Father Barry felt a twinge of disappointment. There weren't more than a dozen, and with many sitting alone and leaving seats gaping between them as if not wanting the others to know they were there, the group looked even smaller. Father Barry recognized Runty, who made his presence felt in a chesty, defiant, yet sceptical way; and Moose and Jimmy and Luke. Sitting alone behind them was Katie, cool and reserved on the outside, but watching everything with a smoldering intensity that could be felt in the room, embarrassingly, insistently.

Father Barry had scrapped and scrambled all day not only to prepare himself for this meeting, but to inveigle permission to hold it at all. At first the Pastor, Father Donoghue, had been annoyed with his curate for leaping in with an invitation to longshoremen without first consulting him.

But it was an emergency, Father Barry had insisted, the sort of thing a waterfront church should be ready to jump into with both feet. Father Donoghue hadn't been so sure. President Willie Givens was known to be a good friend of Monsignor O'Hare. Might this meeting not offend Givens, and therefore the Monsignor? And if the Monsignor went to the Bishop? The Pastor stood in pretty well with the Bishop, Father Barry reminded him. Yes, Father Donoghue said, and I'd like to remain so. We have a serious concern with these men's souls as individuals, he pointed out. But is it our function to call them together as a social body? Aren't we overstepping our boundaries?

Father Donoghue asked his questions mildly enough. He was a pious, kindly man, sympathetic to the poor who made up so much of his parish, although not unmindful of the practicalities.

In answer, Father Barry quoted a statement of Pope Pius about the error of thinking the authority of the church is limited to religious matters. "Social problems are of concern to the conscience and salvation of man," Father Barry had roughly translated the Holy Father. "It looks to me as if one of our parishioners was murdered for trying to establish a more human and moral social order on the docks. Does his own parish church say 'it's none of our business'? Isn't that exactly what the Pope is talking about, brought right down here to the docks of Bohegan?"

Father Donoghue sucked on his lips, said he would take the matter under, consideration and let his eager, hot-tempered curate know by mid-afternoon. At three-thirty, with a daring that surprised even himself, he gave Father Barry a green light without first consulting the Bishop. His only qualification was that Father Barry make it clear that the dockworkers were simply using the church's facilities, but that St. Tim's would not be responsible for any decisions or actions issuing from the meeting.

"Any way you say," Father Barry grabbed it. The main thing was, the meeting would not be canceled, as he had feared when he first looked at Fatheh Donoghue's undecided face. From that point on, Father Barry figured, he could play it by ear. Eventually he might have to angle some way he could get a favorable nod from the Bishop.

Once the meeting was set, Father Barry called Frank Doyle, the old cop, to drop in for a little chat. Doyle was on the fence the first half hour. He wanted that pension and he was afraid he had already unburdened himself too freely to Katie. It wasn't until Father Barry promised him professional secrecy that Frank Doyle let go. After he got talking he found it a relief. Doyle told the priest it was on ice from the start that Donnelly's detectives would close the books on the Doyle case without a coroner's verdict of murder. Donnelly had no other choice. The whole Bohegan administration was so deeply involved with the waterfront rackets that you could say the Mayor, the Police Commissioner and the union dock bosses were partners.

Frank Doyle talked to Father Barry for over an hour. The priest took notes but filed it as the story of Mike X. Doyle told him of some earlier Bohegan murders, and of police blackout of clues and evidence. He agreed that pressing the case of his nephew was an ideal opening wedge for a better deal on the docks. But he had seen too much to believe that the priest, for all his good intentions, could get anywhere. The line-up against him, from the mob, through the stevedore companies, to City Hall had headed off tougher competition. Just the same, it took a load off his mind and his conscience to open up to the priest, almost like confession.