This was a picked crowd! There would be effective work tonight!
“Let the coppers try to bother us,” muttered Ernie, as he surveyed the group. “Coppers. Bah! If any one else shows up — well—”
His soliloquy was interrupted by the arrival of a group of men. Big Ben Hargins was here with his dock wallopers.
Ernie’s crew of mobsmen looked like pygmies beside this gang of huskies. They were the most notorious terrorists of all New York — these huskies who kept the racket going where the ships unloaded. First-class sluggers, all of them!
“Hello, Ben!” exclaimed Ernie, rising from his chair. “This fixes us. We’re all here, now. Waiting for the blowoff!”
“How soon?” questioned Ben.
Ernie looked at his watch.
“About fifteen minutes,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve got the three jobs timed. There’s a guy waiting to hear the first one. He’s going to call me here.
“Then we start. We’ll be doing our work while things are hopping up in the Bronx.”
“How far apart have you set them?”