All right, she was Bernardo’s sister. So what? Plenty. It was bad, mighty bad, probably he could not remember anything worse. But in the movies he had seen, no matter how the family felt, the girl always felt different. And he could tell that Maria felt that way too.

He had to see her again, to make certain that she did. She was Bernardo’s sister, so he knew where she lived, and then and there he would have given ten years of his life to have been able to walk up to the front door of Bernardo’s flat, ring the bell and ask to see Maria Nunez.

Standing in the dark doorway of a tenement, Tony saw Riff, the Jets, and their girls pass. He heard Snowboy say they could have coffee at the Pot while they waited for Bernardo and his spics, and heard Graziella ask Riff if there was anything they could do to help.

“Plenty,” Gee-Tar said. “But it’ll keep until after.”

“You think you’ll have the strength?” Pauline scoffed.

“Enough to make you yell ‘enough,’ ” Gee-Tar said as he copped a quick feel.

It was an effort for Tony to wait until they were around the corner. Only then did he leave the shadows and walk rapidly along the curb until he came to the tenement where Bernardo lived. He even knew the exact apartment, because six or seven months ago the Jets and he had actually considered raiding Bernardo’s and working him over in the heart of his own territory.

It had been planned for him to go over the rooftops and come down the fire escape at the back of the house and kick his way through a window while Riff, Diesel, and the others shot the lock off the front door.

All the houses in the area were built pretty much alike, so the window off the fire escape was probably a bedroom, which posed a problem. Suppose her mother and father were sleeping in that bedroom?

It was a chance he would have to take, Tony thought as he ducked into the passageway that led to the backyard, and paused for a moment to orient himself.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the clotheslines and occasional pieces of wash hung in random patterns became visible. Breathing heavily, he moved a garbage can under the fire escape ladder which was beyond his reach. Climbing carefully on to the lid, he flexed his knees and leaped upward. The can tipped over but no one in the silent flats heard it. It was a sound they had grown accustomed to; dogs and cats foraged in the neighborhood and cans were always being overturned.

Rung by rung he pulled himself up the ladder until a knee touched the first crossbar, then he ascended rapidly until he reached the third story, where he began to climb slowly.

He paused at the steeply angled iron flight that led to the Nunez fire escape. He only dared go halfway up. Or should he ascend a half flight above the window? Then, if the worst happened, he would be closer to the roof. But no, he might be trapped on the roof. It would be easier to escape into the darkness below.