"All of them?
They didn't go to lunch.
They're downstairs in the street. They're waiting to see Tony kill you."
David dragged on his cigarette thoughtfully.
"How come five bucks is that important?" "From every tenant in the building he gets a little payoff. He can't afford to let you off the hook. Then he loses everybody."
"Then he's a shmuck," David said, suddenly angry. "All I wanted to do was my job. Nothing would have happened; he could still have gone on collecting his little graft."
David got to his feet and threw the cigarette on the floor. He ground it out under his heel.
There was a bitter taste in his mouth. The whole thing was stupid.
And he was no smarter than the rest; he let himself fall right into the trap they'd prepared for him.
He couldn't back down now even if he wanted to.
Neither could he afford to lose the fight downstairs. If he did, his uncle sure as hell would hear about it. And that would be the end of the job.
Needlenose was waiting for him downstairs.
"Where's the truck?" David asked.
"Across the street. I brought the dusters. Which ones do you want – plain or spiked?"
"Spiked."
Needlenose's hand came out of his pocket and David took the heavy set of brass knuckles. He looked down at them. The round, pointed spikes shone wickedly in the light.
He slipped them into his pocket.
"How do we handle the guy?" Needlenose asked. "Chinee style?"
It was a common trick in Chinatown.
A man in front, a man behind. The victim went for the man in front of him and got clipped from the rear. Nine times out of ten, he never knew what hit him.
David shook his head.
"No," he said. "I gotta take care of this one myself if it's going to do any good."
"The guy'll kill yuh," Needlenose said. "He's got fifty pounds on yuh."
"If I get into trouble, you come and get me out."
"If you get into trouble," Needlenose said dryly, "it'll be too late to do anything except bury yuh."
David looked at him, then grinned.
"In that case, send the bill to my Uncle Bernie. It was all his idea.
Let's go."
6.
They were waiting, all right.
The Sheriff had been right. The whole building knew what was going to happen.
Even some girls from the cosmetic company and Henri France.
It was hot and David felt the perspiration coming through his clothing.
The platform had been a clatter of sound – people talking, pretending to eat their sandwiches or packed lunches.
Now the pretense was gone, conversations and lunches forgotten.
The wave of silence rolled over him and he felt their curious, almost detached stares.
Casually he looked over the crowd. He recognized several of the men from the packing tables upstairs. They averted their eyes when he passed by.
Suddenly, he was sick inside.
This was madness. He was no hero. What purpose would it serve?
What was so big about this lousy job that he had to get himself killed over it?
Then he saw the platform boss and he forgot it all.
There was no turning back.
It was the jungle all over again – the streets down on the East Side, the junk yards along the river, and now a warehouse on Forty-third Street.
Each had its little king who had to be ever ready to fight to keep his little kingdom – because someone was always waiting to take it away from him.
A great realization came to David and with it a surge of strength and power.
The world was like this; even his uncle, sitting way up on top there, was a king in his own way.
He wondered how many nights Uncle Bernie stayed awake worrying about the threats to his empire.
Kings had to live with fear – more than other people. They had more to lose. And the knowledge was always there, buried deep inside them, that one day it would be over.
For kings were human, after all, and their strength would lessen and their minds would not think as quickly. And kings must die and their heirs inherit.
It would be that way with the platform boss and it would be that way with his Uncle Bernie.