Free On the Waterfront by Budd Schulberg Page B

get them into America before they rot in the hold.
    “Okay, ask ten G,” Johnny said. “But be sure you don’t pull the men out without a good reason. Be sure it looks legit. So I c’n bull the press how we’re fighting for the rights of our men.”
    “I got ya, boss,” Big Mac said. “I don’t think we’ll have no trouble. That banana outfit aint got no guts.”
    They came back into the big room and the television fight was still on. “Solari’s hanging on,” Jimmy Powers was saying. “Riley had him hurt, but he can’t seem to finish him off. Only thirty seconds now. Solari has him tied up, the referee can hardly get them apart. They’re both pretty tired boys.”
    “Aah, turn it off,” Johnny said. “Them clowns can’t fight. There’s nobody tough any more.”
    He said it in a roar, looking around to challenge everybody, and the goons and the runners and the pier bosses and the shylocks and the gambling concessionaires and the stooges with big titles all nodded. Terry was standing there by the door, not coming in or throwing a few friendly hooks at his chums as he usually did. Johnny saw him and grinned.
    “There he is! You could of licked ’em both with one hand tied behind ya.” He put his thick arms around Terry’s chest and lifted him off the ground with affection. Then he fell into a favorite gag, cowering as if afraid he was about to be felled by a terrible punch. “Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me now! “ Usually Terry was glad to go along with the gag, pleased at all this attention from the big man of the neighborhood. But this time he hung limp in Johnny’s arms and he didn’t feint at him and fall into the byplay as he had been in the habit of doing.
    Johnny lost interest in the kid. After all, he was around mostly for laughs and as a little pay-off on the oldtime boxing skills, and he looked around for one of his shylocks, keeping in his mind all the transactions and aware that one of the loan sharks had yet to turn in his yield for the week.
    “Where’s Morgan? Where’s that big banker of mine?”
    Morgan, a waterfront Uriah Heep, who looked like something dredged up out of the foul waters of the slip, came forward. He was on his feet but he seemed to be crawling.
    “Right here, Mr. Friendly.”
    “Well ‘J.P.,’ how’s business?” Johnny said.
    “I’m havin’ trouble with Kelly again, boss,” “J.P.” recited his complaint with reproachful side glances at Big Mac. “He won’t take no loans and Big Mac keeps putting him to work anyway.”
    “I got to put him to work. He’s my wife’s nephew,” Big Mac insisted.
    “But he won’t take no loans.” “J.P.” was bold when Johnny was here to keep Big Mac off him.
    “I got to give him work. You know my wife. She’d murder me.”
    Johnny Friendly laughed. “That’s why I stay single.”
    Big Mac glared at “J.P.” He liked to run the pier a little bit the way he, Big Mac, felt like running it and he was sick and tired of this little wormy “J.P.” always running home to Johnny with his tattle-tales. “J.P.” reached into his crumpled gray suit for a worn wallet and took out a wad of bills. “Here’s the interest on the week, boss. Six-thirty-two.” “J.P.’s” take would be twenty per cent, around $125, nice pay for just nosing around into other people’s troubles.
    Johnny handed the roll to Charley Malloy. “Here, count it. Countin’ makes me sleepy.”
    Johnny liked to have his people checking up on one another. It was one of his ways.
    Skins DeLacey, a checker on Pier B, a sharp-looking, dressy kid with a knack for not working, and a reputation for stealing from himself just to keep in practice, came in and presented himself to Johnny.
    “Howja make out with the sheet tin?” Johnny asked softly.
    “Lovely,” Skins said. “I wrote a lovely receipt if I do say so myself.”
    “Stow the receipt. I’ll take the cash,” Johnny said.
    Skins had the wad. “Forty-five bills.”
    Johnny looked