But if three Sharks were in the neighborhood there might be others. Riff heard Action say that he was going to make some mighty poor fish out of them Sharks tonight, and as the Jets echoed this fighting sentiment they began to look harder for the enemy. About to turn a corner and break into two squads, to cover more territory, Riff raised his hand in the signal that meant the worst kind of trouble: cops. Having acquired a wide experience of cops, they slowed to a walk and waited for the prowl car to pull a little ahead of them before it stopped.

Certain the Jets appeared innocent—out for a walk, nothing else—Riff was the first to approach the prowl car. Mouthpiece had ducked off because he carried the knives, two pairs of brass knuckles, and two lengths of bicycle chain that bulged one of his pockets. Riff smiled to himself as he saw how expertly Mouthpiece disappeared into a tenement basement. By using backyards and going up and down fire escapes, Mouthpiece would make it to the secret cellar bin which was their armory.

In an expert maneuver to block the cops from taking out after their ordnance man, Riff placed his hand on the car door to hold it shut and leaned forward to greet the plainclothesman and the uniformed cop at his side.

“Well, if it ain’t Detective Schrank,” Riff greeted the pleasant-faced man, now irritated, who attempted to open the door. “And Officer Krupke,” he recognized the driver kept in the car on the other side by Action and Big Deal. “Now what brings you to this part of town?”

“Who was the guy who took off?” Schrank demanded. “And get your hand off the door before I break all your fingers.”

Stepping back, Riff’s eyes signaled Action to let the cops out of the car. “A fine way to greet some junior citizens anxious to live in peace with our representatives of law and order,” Riff complained.

On the sidewalk Schrank took several hesitant steps as if to pursue the boy he had seen breaking off from the gang; but it would be impossible to find him now so Schrank exposed most of his teeth in a forced smile. Tall, beefy, powerfully built, with big hands that had broken their share of heads, he teetered on his heels as he stripped a stick of gum to place in his mouth. “Who took off in such a hurry?” he asked.

Riff made a big show of counting heads. “We are all present and accounted for. Now if you’ll tell us to what good fortune we owe the pleasure of your company, we’ll sing you two spirited choruses of our welcome song.”

“It’s no pleasure, and you’re no company,” Schrank said. He had been on the force for thirty years and his features had become hardened by experience and a philosophic fatalism that had made possible his survival. All people were rotten, was what Schrank believed, but the trouble makers had to be weeded out and beaten into submission.