“The pay phone’s out front,” the counterman said. “Do me a favor. Keep your word about no trouble in here.”

Riff refused to be bothered with an answer as he returned to double-lock the front door and look again out into the street. Tony wasn’t around. Suppose Bernardo wanted to get rolling tonight? He would have to go along.

“Bernardo, we’re challenging you. All out, and once and for all.”

“We accept,” Bernardo said, and waited until the chorus of assent was still. “On what terms?”

“Whatever terms you’re callin’ for.” Riff spread his hands. “We’ve decided to let you call it.”

“You started it,” Pepe said.

“Because of you, we’re finishing it,” Riff said to Pepe and Nibbles. “You’re a couple of pretty low-down punks to jump a kid in the movies. And we’re not forgettin’ what you did to him—toilet and all.”

Bernardo had to smile. “A bath—any kind—could only do him some good. Anyway who jumped me the first day I moved here?”

“Who asked you to move here?”

“My mother and father,” Bernardo replied. “Can you say the same?”

“You dirty spic bastard, I’m gonna teach you some manners,” Action said as he rose from the counter.

Bernardo spread his feet in a fighting stance. “I’m waiting, you mick sonofabitch. But I don’t think you’re much of a teacher.”

“Hold it.” Riff got between them. “Do you or don’t you accept?”

“We accept,” Bernardo said. “Name the time.”

“You name it,” Riff said.

Bernardo thought for a moment. “Tomorrow night?”

“Fine!” Riff was delighted; now he could find Tony. To seal the commitment and show the Jets how a real leader behaved, he offered Bernardo his hand. “Where’s it gonna be? The park or the river?”

“How about under the highway?” Bernardo suggested as he shook Riff’s hand.

Riff nodded that the battlefield was acceptable to him. “What about the weapons?”

“Suit yourself.”

About to elaborate to prove that the Sharks were ready for anything the Jets could heave, swing, or throw at them, Bernardo saw someone outside the door of the luncheonette and recognized the lousy Polack who had been dancing with his sister. He moved to open the luncheonette door and admit Tony. “Your big man is here,” he challenged Riff and knew that he had scored. “Maybe you want us to repeat everything?”

Tony looked through the luncheonette window at the blinking traffic signal a block away. It was red now, as if to warn him of danger and that he must react slowly. At the end of the block the broken letters of a neon sign sputtered fitfully, and the silence of the street was broken by a sharp burst of laughter from a passing car.

“You don’t have to repeat nothing,” Tony said. “All I’m interested in is what’s this gonna be with?”

“Maybe knives and guns,” Riff said, because he wanted to impress Tony with his guts.

“I thought so,” Tony replied. “Just what I’d expect from a coop full of chickens.”