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him yelled. The police halted a distance away. Dunne turned and pushed his way toward the rear of the crowd. He was almost free when an arm came around his neck, a bulky band of hardened muscle that pulled so tight he felt as if he might black out. He tried to reach into his inner pocket to grab the iron claw, but before he could, the arm released him and he was shoved so hard he lost his balance and slammed into the side of a building. When he got up, he was surrounded by dockworkers. The one who had held him around the neck, a hulking, clean-shaven man in a cloth cap, stuck his finger to the tip of Dunne’s nose. In his other hand he held a baling hook.
    â€œYou’re a newspaperman, ain’t ya? Come down here to spy!”
    â€œStick him!” a voice in the crowd yelled. “Stick him in the balls!”
    â€œI’m no newspaperman,” Dunne said.
    â€œOh no?” the man said. “Then what are you? A bloody informer in the pay of the master informer, the chief Republican nigger-lover, Robert Noonan?”
    Dunne slipped his hand into the interior pocket of his pants and gripped the iron claw. He marked the spot in the middle of the man’s forehead where he would land it. “All I’m doing is trying to make a living, that’s the only reason I’m here, as a drummer for Alton’s Distillers, been trying to sell Manning on our stuff for weeks now.”
    â€œA lyin’ shit is what youare. Manning ain’t never sold any-thin’ but his own horse piss.”
    â€œDon’t stop me from trying to sell him ours, does it?”
    â€œI seen him in Manning’s before today,” another man said. “He’s telling the truth about that.”
    From down by the river came a swelling wave of shouting. A boy ran up. “The men is stormin’ the pier!” he yelled. “They’re gonna get the niggers! Come on!”
    â€œGo try to sell that old stinkbug whatever piss it is that you’re peddling,” the ringleader said. “Couldn’t be worse than the piss he already pours.” He turned away and pushed his way through the crowd.
    At the bottom of Catherine Street, a mass of men pressed close around the cast-iron façade of the pier. Those in front clambered up onto the grates that covered the entrance. They rocked them back and forth until the hinges groaned with their weight. More men climbed on and shook the metalwork.
    â€œGet the niggers! Get the niggers!” the crowd shouted as encouragement to the scores of men hanging from the gates. Several boys scampered to the top. Just as they reached it, the hinges surrendered and ripped loose with a loud crack. Men jumped free as the gates crashed down. The mob pressed ahead. Those on the ground jumped to their feet to avoid being trampled. To the right of the pier, a band of about twelve black men bolted out from behind a metal door. They stayed as close together as they could, running in a pack across South Street and up Catherine, toward the phalanx of police.
    The dockworkers in the rear of the crowd that had surged onto the pier saw what was happening. “The niggers are getting away!” a woman screamed. The dockworkers ran to block the black men’s path, their sticks and baling hooks poised above their heads. “Get the thievin’ sons of bitches, the boss’s darlin’s!” a white-haired crone wailed from the second floor of a building on the east side of Catherine. The flying wedge of blacks had gone only a dozen yards when the dockworkers cut them off. Dunne found himself between the two groups.
    The black man at thefront of the wedge was short and sturdy. He wore a canvas duster over his overalls that came down to his ankles. He reached into the pocket and pulled out a revolver. He pointed it at Dunne. Dunne put his hands in the air. He heard the scrape of hobnails on the paving stones behind him.
    â€œPut it away, nigger.” It was the