Extract leverage, test the party, and decide whether helping them will cost him more than refusing.

He needs quiet, fast-moving cargo, and he cannot afford a watch raid in his name.

• Offer coin, but less than he wants and in clean, counted bundles.
• Promise a future favor with real teeth.
• Name a watch patrol route, informant, or timing detail he can use tonight.
• Appeal to dockside reputation: a deal kept once becomes a deal repeated.
• Threaten exposure, but only if the party can back it up.

• Ask what he is afraid of losing tonight.
• Trade one useful truth for one name.
• Press the human cost of turning families away.
• Point out that a noisy refusal costs him more than a clean yes.
• Offer a smaller ask first, then expand to the full passage.

• Wary respect if the party speaks plainly and never bluffs about facts they do not have.
• Sharp amusement if they try to outfox him with half-truths.
• Immediate coldness if they mention the city watch without proof.
• A grudging soft spot if they frame the refugees as cargo he can choose to save.