Stanley doesn’t want to walk with his back to traffic—the hotrodder could be behind the wheel by now—so he jogs three blocks to Windward, crosses the street, and makes a right turn toward the ocean. His eyes echo the rhythm of his steps, bouncing between faces in oncoming windshields, amblers rotating to and from the boardwalk. By now the lights along the avenue have picked up misty halos, and the squarejohn crowd has all but gone home. Familiar 42nd Street types emerge from the darkness: rowdy sailors and soldiers, pavement princesses cruising for trade, sharp-dressed Negro hustlers, hollow-cheeked junkies looking to cop. Stanley studies their features as they’re lit by the rescue mission’s buzzing JESUS SAVES sign, each pair of eyes hooded in the red glow, each nose throwing a shadow like the gnomon of a sundial.
He crosses the boardwalk to the beach side, out of the foot traffic, and takes a long look in both directions. The hotrodder and his girl are nowhere in sight, but Stanley spots Claudio without much trouble: he’s slumped on a wooden bench two hundred yards away, a block north of the Fortune Bridgo arcade. Three greaseheaded hooligans in pegged jeans and motorcycle jackets are gathered around him. At first Stanley thinks they’re strongarming him, but then he sees how they’re standing: at ease, bored, like they’re waiting for someone. Claudio’s cradling his head in his hands, still doing his lush bit. Stanley grins. The kid’s no Brando, sure, but damn if he can’t act a little after all.
Two of the thugs are the ones he saw earlier while working the grift on the hotrodder. The third punk wouldn’t have been larking around on his own. That means there’s a fourth someplace—probably off meeting the rest of the gang. He’ll bring them back here, and they’ll muscle Claudio into leading them to Stanley, so they can brace him for the evening’s take. It’s a straightforward operation. Stanley’s been on their end of it himself.
He zips his dark jacket to cover his light shirt and begins to walk toward them. Experience has taught him that people never pay attention to anything—they’re practically blind even when they do—so he’s not too worried about getting spotted. Once he’s closed half the distance he angles left onto the beach; he bears right again when he’s out of range of the streetlamps, moving parallel to the boardwalk. Mist has settled on the sand: it’s coarse and mealy at the surface, powdery where his new shoes punch into it. Stanley stops for a moment and shoves his hand down, grabs a fistful of fine dry grains, then another, and stuffs them into the right front pocket of his jeans. He puts a folded dollar bill in the left.
With the fog thickening and the boardwalk people backlit by neon it’s harder now to see, but he’s still able to pipe the greaser cavalry nearly three hundred yards off: what looks like six or seven of them, pressing through the crowd at the corner of Brooks Avenue, visible mostly from the attitudes of people they displace. They’re slowing down as the crowds get denser. Stanley figures they’ll be here in four minutes, tops.
Hey fellas, he says, sauntering up to Claudio’s bench. Let me take my buddy off your hands.
The three hammerheads look up at him, baffled. The two on the right turn to the third: the boss, a little older, stockier, swarthier, sporting a thin pink scar that splits an eyebrow and reappears at his hairline. The guy’s got deep cuts on his hands, too, which Stanley takes to mean either that he’s been in lots of knifefights or that he’s not very good at it. His chums both look fresh-weaned: one’s got a gluesniffer’s red eyes and runny nose; the other is white-blond and pimply.
Stanley shoulders past the two punks and tugs on Claudio’s arm. Man oh man, you’re really bombed, he says. Can one of you guys help me stand him up?
Not so quick, asshole, the boss says.
Stanley ignores him, lifts Claudio to his feet.
I wan’ go home, Claudio says. Sick.
Listen, the boss says, clapping a hand on Stanley’s shoulder. We saw the little con you were running tonight. Tell your friend to drop his drunk act. We need to have a discussion.
Stanley doesn’t shrug the hand off, doesn’t stop moving either. From the way these goons carry themselves, Stanley figures they’ve all seen The Blackboard Jungle maybe a dozen times apiece, but he keeps the smirk off his face for now. Yeah? Stanley says. So discuss.
You know who we are, buddy?
Stanley swivels to face him. Should I? he says.
You damn well should. We’re Shoreline Dogs.
Stanley gives the guy a slow up-and-down. Shoreline Dogs, he says.
That’s right. This is our turf. Nobody operates here without our say-so. What was your take tonight?
Stanley looks away, shrugs. Twenty, he says.
Bullshit.
So what’s your cut?