Clicking their teeth, striking their heels hard, smirking from the corners of their mouths, the Jets crossed the street slowly, forcing automobiles to grind to a full halt. When one stupid driver leaned out of his car and ordered them to speed it up, Riff paused, glared, then walked toward the car with Action and Diesel behind him, and in frantic haste the man in the car rolled up his window and locked his doors. Like frightened fish in a bowl being attacked by a cat, the driver and the woman at his side could only squirm from side to side as the boys, with practiced coordination, spit all over the windshield and door windows before they stepped aside to release the car. As it passed they kicked the rear bumper, then howled with laughter, for this was another square-driven car they had kicked in the ass.

On the sidewalk again and pleased with himself, Action pointed out a middle-aged Puerto Rican man and woman as they came out of a small Puerto Rican grocery. They saw the boys, hesitated, looked at each other indecisively, and retreated toward the grocery. But they weren’t going to get away that easy. Riff signaled, and Snowboy, who liked to think of himself as a commando, opened the grocery door to lob a small stink bomb into the crammed interior.

“What the hell,” Snowboy said to Baby-John after he caught up with the Jets. “They live like pigs, so they shouldn’t mind eating what smells like pigs.”

Baby-John nodded sagely as he stored this information for future use. Not only had Riff and Action shown him how to handle snotty automobile drivers who thought they bought a street when they paid for a car, but Snowboy had handled the PR’s in a way they wouldn’t forget. And if they went home and told their sons about it, and the sons came looking for the Jets, that was all right too, because any PR who stepped onto Jet turf was really going to be leaned on.

Belligerent, aching for contact, the Jets continued their neighborhood prowl.

This was the second night they had surveyed the scene without anything really happening, and Riff knew the boys were becoming restless enough to turn on him, which was what Action wanted. A leader had to take care of his men, keep things popping all the time, and the man who couldn’t wasn’t much of a leader.

There was only one man Riff would have been willing to turn the Jets over to, and as Riff thought of Tony again he could only be bitter. Maybe that was the trouble, Riff thought; he spent so much time covering up for Tony that he didn’t have enough left over for the boys and the action they required.

Suddenly he heard Mouthpiece call out: three PR’s were across the street at nine o’clock. Turning quickly on their heels, Riff and the boys started for their targets. But the PR’s, in their blue jackets with the yellow trim that identified them as Sharks, darted into a hallway and Riff cursed because it was useless to follow them.