Quinn exhaled with a sudden sound, like a cough almost, and bent over in the chair. He bent and stayed there. Of all the things he wanted to do-mostly violent and some quite insane-he did none of them. He held still with the pain in him and felt he could actually see it. A red wave with blue edges. Don’t move, don’t move, because that way, Ryder, that way I’ll get you later for this.

“Those unions are mine,” Ryder was saying, “and that sews up the waterfront. I think you’re trying to undo that for me, Quinn.”

“All I really did…”

“You’re lying, Quinn. You reshuffled the North end docks so that I got less say-so and you got more. And clever too.”

“Shyster clever,” said the man behind the chair.

“No. Not crooked at all. That’s where he got me. Never occurred to me to look for a straight way I could get robbed.”

“Okay, Ryder,” and Quinn sat up. “The set-up is still yours and the fact that you’re making less money has to do with the racket squeeze and nothing with me.”

“Then how come you’re making more money, Quinn?”

“I’m not.”

“You’re lying.”

“Should I hit him?” said the man behind the chair.

“Shut up. Quinn, you listen to me. You been working good the two years you’ve been over to my side, good like a real hustler. But do it for me, not for you.”

Nothing else came and there was just the wheezing from Ryder, and then a clink. When Quinn looked up, he saw that Ryder had put his false uppers into the water glass. He was going to bed.

“You mean you’re done?” said the man behind Quinn’s chair. “He’s walking out?”

“Sure,” said Ryder. All the words made a flabby sound. “He’s smarter now than he was.” Ryder bunched his empty mouth, then let it hang again. “And he knows we got methods-”

My God, what a face, thought Quinn. And I wish I had hit him and his face looked like that because I had done it to him.