There were more headlines. Some editorialist wrote that the port of New York was more corrupt than Port Said, and over in Reagan’s backroom, Al Linn said, “If Port Said’s that crooked what’re we wasting our time here for?”
A few days after Nolan was buried, Fassetti, the number-two Nolan man who was now both number one and number three, sent his mouthpiece to meet with Johnny’s mouthpiece. A settlement was worked out. Fassetti promised to stay on his own docks, to deliver Dennis, and to pay ten thousand in cash for Johnny Blue Jaw’s slashed throat. Dennis was tortured before he was killed, and Johnny, completely satisfied, turned the ten thousand over to his boys. “I don’t want the lousy money,” he grandly said. “It’s the principle o’ the thing. Them Chelsea sonovabitches should be satisfied with their own docks.”
Mack, the brain, got five of the ten. The four gunmen who’d driven out to Brooklyn split thirty-five hundred between them and Willy got the remaining fifteen hundred.
When the winter winds began to blow the old newspapers with the old headlines of unsolved murders down the waterfront streets — when all good dock wallopers treated themselves to a rye fortifier before shaping up — Johnny Blue Jaw thought of his pal Willy collecting numbers on the bitter cold piers. One day when Willy, coughing and red-faced, entered Reagan’s back-room, Johnny called him over to where he was sitting with Al Linn. “It must be raw as an oyster down there, Willy. I’m thinkin’ of pullin’ you off ’til spring. How’d you like to work with Al here?”
“Let me think about it. Huh, Johnny?”
“There he goes again! Ain’t he a corker, Al! The one guy who never wants a favor. Okay, freeze ’em off. You’re so old you don’t need ’em anyway.”
Alice was excited when Willy told her. “Johnny-boy’s ready to pay off! That fifteen hundred wasn’t so much—”
“But who wants that Stealing Department,” Willy said uneasily as if he hadn’t been in on the business with Burnham and Nolan. “That Al Linn’s too damn wise. One of these days he’ll find himself in the clink. One of these investigators’ll mean something.”
“How about hitting Johnny up for something in the union then,” she said suddenly.
“The union? Clancy?”
“Things’re quiet at Clancy’s. Like an old age home!” She laughed out of sheer excitement: money excitement.
“What could I do there?”
“What they all do. Make some easy graft.”
The next day in the back-room, Johnny Blue Jaw laughed his sides off when Willy said, could he get into the union somewhere. But Al Linn only smiled. “Willy’s got an idea,” he said.
“You mean, his girl friend’s got an idea. That blonde’s one connivin’ dame!”
“Johnny, Clancy’s been operating all by his lonesome for years now,” Al argued. “We can put Willy in to keep an eye on him. You can’t trust those union crooks further than you can see them.”
“They’re entitled to a lil somethin’ outa the pot, Al.”
“Right, Johnny. But it’s a good thing to shake the pot once in a while. Willy can take Delaney’s job and Delaney can work for me.”
“Aw right,” Johnny Blue Jaw gave in. “We’ll shake the pot real good. Willy, your girl friend’s through at the office!” He grinned. “That’ll show Blondy to mind her own damn business, pal!”
Delaney had been the local’s secretary-treasurer, a job, as Willy learned, that was wearing mostly on the eyes. Sometimes as he read a little murder, a little sex, a little sports in the News, with Mary the new office girl reading her love magazine, he’d think he was getting three grand a year for belonging to a library.
Once a month though, for a couple of days there was some action. The dock wallopers’d come trooping into the office with their three dollar dues. They’d line up at Mary’s desk, whistling and wolf calling. Sometimes in the crowd, some trouble-maker, maybe a Father Bannon man, might stage-whisper, “Where do the rats go when the ship sinks? To the waterfront!” But Willy never let on he heard. Bunch of suckers, he thought.
There were no receipts, no books. “We’ll let them boondogglin’ Screw Dealers down there in Washington pile up the paperwork!” fat Clancy said slyly to his new secretary-treasurer as they cut up a pair of (union expense account) steaks at White’s Restaurant.
The local had over two thousand members and they paid in more than six thousand in cash every month. “I know where every nickel goes,” Alice said to Willy, “and don’t let Clancy double-talk you. A thousand goes for salaries, yours, Clancy’s and Mallet’s, the absentee vice-president. You’ll never see him in the office ’cause he’s always with the politicians. A thousand covers the office girl, the rent and such. Two thousand every month goes to ILA headquarters for general assessments and the per capita tax on the local membership. Clancy always holds out a couple hundred members on headquarters, Willy,” Alice tipped him off. “Be sure to get cut in on that graft. Johnny-boy’s graft is a thousand a month. He don’t need it but he takes it to keep Clancy from forgetting who owns the union. That leaves a thousand to be split up between Clancy, Mallet and you. Delaney used to get two fifty of it. Willy,” she said smiling. “You’re making enough to support a wife.”
“What!” he exclaimed, astonished.
She kissed him. “Honey, don’t faint. Just a lil idea. We’re set now, aren’t we, and whose idea was it about the union?”
In April, Clancy threw a quickie strike on two piers where the Mathews Stevedoring Company had contracts. Within twenty-four hours a messenger arrived with three gold Swiss watches. Clancy kept one and gave the others to his vice-president and secretary-treasurer. “Now we’ll go see old Dan Mathews and negotiate.”
“Don’t they get sore when you shake them down?” Willy asked.
“Shakedown’s a mobster word,” Clancy corrected him. “You better learn some union words, my friend. On the waterfront there’s the mob and there’s the union. You’re a union man now. As to Old Dan Mathews, he don’t expect nothin’ for nothin’. He’d be the first to tell you, Willy, that only tough leaders can keep the men in line.”
Willy shook his head. This union was a pie where you could come back for all kinds of helpings. And all of it legit! Like the raffle tickets he was selling to the dock wallopers over at Reagan’s bar. What a racket, Willy thought blissfully. He saw Johnny Blue Jaw less and less, traveling more with Clancy and Mallet. There were banquets and political balls where he took Alice. At a benefit for the benevolent order of firemen, between the chicken a la king and the ice cream, Alice pressed his hand under the table. “All these men with their wives, Willy. Why not you and me?” She was wearing a soft rose dress and her eyes were suddenly warm and even a little uncertain as if she were really worried Willy wouldn’t marry her after all. He was a big-shot in the union now.
“I never thought of it,” he admitted.
“Think of it, Willy.”
He laughed. “Maybe I will.”
They got married at City Hall. When Johnny Blue Jaw heard the news he said to Al Linn, “Only a hick’d marry a dame fadin’ like a funeral parlor lily. We were pals, but leave it to a dame!” He was bitter but when he saw Willy he poked him in the ribs. “Hi, stranger. No wonder I never see you no more. Remember who introduced you! Hey, the three of us could sleep in one bed. I’ll come around some night, Willy, okay?”