Maria bowed her head. “I know that. So I must work hard at my job to earn enough money to pay it back.”

“But you like him?”

“Yes,” Maria said.

Bernardo crushed the butt under his foot and removed a fresh cigarette from the pack. “How about loving him?”

“I don’t know,” Maria said. “But he’s a nice boy.”

“Let’s get off the roof.” Bernardo took his sister’s hand. “The company’s gone and you can go to sleep. By the way, I forgot to ask you. How do you like your new job?”

“I love it!” Maria clapped her hands. “Imagine, working in a bridal shop! The dresses, the veils, everything is so beautiful.”

“You’ll be the prettiest bride,” Bernardo said to his sister. “The most beautiful of them all. When Chino sees you coming down the aisle it’ll just knock him out. Maybe he’s not like the other Sharks, because he’s got a job and goes to work. But I wouldn’t want any of the other Sharks for you.” He opened the roof door for his sister and bowed gracefully. “Si, he’ll make you a good husband, Maria. So you ought to try to fall in love with him.”

“I’ll try, Bernardo,” she promised. “I’ll try with all my heart. Are you going to sleep now too?”

“Later,” Bernardo said. “I’ve got to see some of the boys.”

“About what?” Maria asked. “To go fighting?”

Bernardo kissed his sister’s cheek. “Just to talk things over.” He was evasive.

“God go with you,” she said.

“Sure,” Bernardo replied. “I don’t care if He comes along.”

CHAPTER TWO

For more than three weeks now the Jets had been ambushing Sharks and the Sharks had not chickened out. Riff had fought his way to the street from his own tenement hallway, and a paving black had missed Bernardo by inches.

Night after night the tempo was stepped up, until Schrank and Krupke were on the block every nightfall, searching for Riff and Bernardo and their boys. But the boys knew the neighborhood warren better than the police, and doubled up in a cramped dumb-waiter, on a cellar shelf inside a trunk, deep in a dark bin or under the steps of a tenement, the Jets and Sharks waited for the neighborhood to clear of cops. When this happened—it could be two, three, four in the morning—sniping began again, and each morning brought more casualties, more tension to the block.

The last four nights running, the Sharks had got the better of the Jets, had shown more ingenuity in their ambushes, but the Jets fought back. Mouthpiece had thrown another stink bomb into the grocery in the hope this would bring Bernardo and the Sharks out in full force, but Bernardo had refused. In retaliation, he had Pepe and Nibbles waylay Baby-John in an afternoon movie.

The point of an icepick had been pressed into Baby-John’s back and he was warned not to cry out. Once they had him in the men’s room, Nibbles crammed Baby-John’s mouth full of toilet paper before they pushed him into a booth and clobbered him around. After they had half-drowned him in the toilet bowl, Pepe had nicked Baby-John’s ear with the icepick and told him to take his brand back to the Jets with a message… the Sharks were willing to fight the Jets, but not willing to take it out on old people. If the chicken-livered Jets didn’t cut it out, they were going to be gutted but good.