“Now’s the time to put somebody up to run for president against Lippy,” the Bennett kid said.
Everybody looked at Matt. Matt looked down at his uncomfortable black shoes. He would have given anything to have been with Runt the night Keegan’s cowboys caught up with the little guy.
“That’s right, keep pressing them,” Father Conley said. “Maybe they don’t know it yet, but times are changing. One of these days you’re going to knock them out of the box for good.” He looked at Matt and said, “I can help you. But I can’t do it for you. It takes leadership.”
Matt looked down at the sidewalk. He always felt strange in his dark blue suit. He looked over at Fran, talking with some of the other wives. In his mind, Fran and the storage company and the welfare of the kids were all churning around with Runt and what Father Conley was saying and the faces of these dock workers looking at him and waiting for him...
The morning after the funeral Matt’s alarm clock split the silence at six thirty. Matt swung his legs over the side of the bed. Fran stirred behind him. “I’ll get up make you some coffee.” She sat up and they looked at each other.
“I’m sorry, Fran, I—”
“Don’t be,” she said.
Even before what happened to Runt, she had felt it coming. And on the way home from church he had said, “All the fellers liked Runt. There’ll be hell to pay. Now’s the time to get ’em movin’ in the right direction.”
Fran, sitting up in bed behind him, said, “Don’t get in no more trouble than you can help, Matt.”
Matt stood up and stretched, groaned, and reached for his pants. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna watch myself, I ain’t gonna take no crazy chances like Runt, Lord-’ve-mercy-on-’im.”
She wasn’t even disappointed about the storage job. A storage man is a storage man, a longshoreman is a longshoreman. In the deepest part of her mind she had known that all along.
“I’ll get up make you some coffee,” she said again, as she had a thousand times before, as she would — if he was lucky — a thousand times again.
For a moment he roughed her up affectionately. “You’re gettin’ fat, honey.” Then he was pulling his wool checkerboard shirt on over his long underwear. If there was enough work, Fisheye was liable to pick him, just to make it look good in case there was an investigation.
The cargo hook felt good in his belt. He zipped up his windbreaker, told Fran not to worry, set his cap at the old-country angle, and tried not to make too much noise on the creaky stairway as he made his way down through the sleeping tenement.
Flanagan was coming out of his door as Matt reached the bottom landing. The old docker was yawning and rubbing sleep out of his eyes but he grinned when he saw who it was.
“Matt me lad, we’ll be needin’ ya, that’s for sure.”
We. It had taken Flanagan a long time to get his mouth around that we. There wasn’t any we over at the storage company. Matt nodded to Flanagan, a little embarrassed, and fussed with his cap like a pitcher.
“Once a stand-up guy, always a stand-up guy, huh, Matt?”
Matt grunted. He didn’t want them to make too much of a deal out of it. Matt felt better when he got outside and the wind came blowing into his face. It felt good — like the cargo hook on his hip, familiar and good.
As they reached the corner, facing the elevated railroad tracks that ran along the river, two figures came up from a basement — Specs Sinclair and young Skelly. Specs had a bad cold. He was a sinus sufferer in the wintertime. He wished he was down in Miami scoring on the horses.
“So you want more?” he said to Matt, daubing his nose with a damp handkerchief. “We run you out of here once but you ain’t satisfied. What’s a matter, you lookin’ to wear cement shoes?”
Matt gazed at him and felt pleased and excited that he was back with this old hoodlum Sinclair and this punk Skelly. They were like old friends in reverse.
“Quit racing your motor,” Matt said. “It ain’t gonna be so easy this time. None of us is gonna go wanderin’ around alone half gassed like Runt Nolan. We’re stickin’ together now. And Father Conley’s got the newspapers watchin’. You hit me in the head and next thing you know they’ll hit you with ten thousand volts.”
Specs looked at Skelly. Everything was getting a little out of hand, there was no doubt about it. In the old days you could knock off an old bum like Nolan and that was the end of it. This Matt Gillis, why didn’t he stay in cold storage? For the first time in his life Specs worried whether Lippy Keegan would know the next move.
Matt crossed the street and pushed open the door of the Longdock. Everybody knew he was back. Everybody was going to be watching him. He wished Runt would come over and stick him in the side with a left hand. He knew it wasn’t very likely, but it made him feel better to wonder if that scrappy little son-of-a-biscuit-eater was going to be watching too.
