the whole beef fought out under a stranger's name — "He reads Gately’s bowling shirt in…"
He reads Gately’s bowling shirt in the headlight and says reasonably that Moose still has a chance to keep out of what they’ve got no beef with him
Context
The Nucks address Gately all through the confrontation as "Moose" — the name stitched on a donated bowling shirt — so the entire life-or-death exchange is conducted under a wrong name read off a garment, a man negotiated with, shot at, and warned-off as somebody he isn't. The misidentification is the theme's small cold joke inside the violence: even at gunpoint, the person is not actually being addressed, only the label he happens to be wearing.