[128] “Where is our happiness gone?” Pablo mourned. “Somewhere we have sinned. It is a judgment. We should go to confession.”
No more did they discuss the marital parade of Cornelia Ruiz. Gone were the moralities, lost were the humanities. Truly the good life lay in ruins. And into the desolation came the rumors.
“Danny committed partial rape last night.”
“Danny has been milking Mrs. Palochico’s goat.”
“Danny was in a fight with some soldiers the night before last.”
Sad as they were at his moral decay, the friends. were not a little jealous of the good time Danny was having.
“If he is not crazy, he will be punished,” said Pilon. “Be sure of that. Danny is sinning in a way which, sin for sin, beats any record I ever heard of. Oh, the penances when he wants to be decent again! In a few weeks Danny has piled up more sins than Old Ruiz did in a lifetime.”
That night Danny, unhindered by the friendly dogs, crept into the house as silently as the moving shadow of a limb under a street light, and wantonly he stole Pilon’s shoes. In the morning it did not take Pilon long to understand what had happened. He went firmly to the porch and sat down in the sun and regarded his feet.
“Now he has gone too far,” Pilon said. “Pranks he has played, and we were patient. But now he turns to crime. This is not the Danny we know. This is another man, a bad man. We must capture this bad man.”
Pablo looked complacently down at his shoes. “Maybe this is only a prank too,” he suggested.
“No,” Pilon said severely. “This is crime. They were not very good shoes, but it is a crime against friendship to take them. And that is the worst kind of crime. If Danny will steal the shoes of his friends, there is no crime he will stop at.”
The friends nodded in agreement. “Yes, we must catch him,” said Jesus Maria of the humanities. “We know he is sick. We will tie him to his bed and try to cure him of the sickness. We must try to wipe the darkness from his brain.”
“But now,” said Pablo, “before we catch him, we must [129] remember to put our shoes under our pillows when we sleep.”
The house was in a state of siege. All about it raged Danny, and Danny was having a wonderful time.
Seldom did the face of Torrelli show any emotions but suspicion and anger. In his capacity as bootlegger, and in his dealings with the people of Tortilla Flat, those two emotions were often called into his heart, and their line was written on his face. Moreover, Torrelli had never visited anyone. He had only to stay at home to have everyone visit him. Consequently, when Torrelli walked up the road toward Danny’s house in the morning, his face suffused with a ferocious smile of pleasure and anticipation, the children ran into their yards and peeked through the pickets at him; the dogs caressed their stomachs with their tails and fled with backward, fearful looks; men, meeting him, stepped out of his path and clenched their fists to repel a madman.
This morning the fog covered the sky. The sun, after a number of unsuccessful skirmishes, gave up and retired behind the gray folds. The pine trees dripped dusty dew on the ground; and in the faces of the few people who were about, the day was reflected with somber looks and gray skins. There were no hearty greetings. There was none of that human idealism which blandly hopes this day will be better than all other days.
Old Roca, seeing Torrelli smiling, went home and told his wife, “That one has just killed and eaten his children. You will see!”
Torrelli was happy, for in his pocket there was a folded, precious paper. His fingers sought his coat again and again, and pressed until a little crackling sound assured Torrelli that the paper was still there. As he walked through the gray morning, he muttered to himself.
“Nest of snakes,” he said. “I will wipe out this pestilence f Danny’s friends. No more will I give wine for goods, and have the goods stolen again. Each man alone is not so bad, but the nest of them! Madonna, look down how I will cast them out into the street! The toads, the lice, the [130] stinging flies! When they sleep in the woods again, they will not be so proud.
“I would have them know that Torrelli has triumphed. They thought to cheat me, despoil my house of furniture and my wife of virtue! They will see that Torrelli, the great sufferer, can strike back. Oh, yes, they will see!”
Thus he muttered as he walked, and his fingers crackled the paper in his pocket. The trees dripped mournful drops into the dust. The seagulls circled in the air, screaming tragically. Torrelli moved like gray Fate on Danny’s house.
In Danny’s house there was gloom. The friends could not sit on the porch in the sunshine, for there was no sunshine. No one can produce a better reason for gloom. They had brought back the stolen stove from the gulch and set it up. They clustered to it now, and Johnny Pom-pom, who had come to call, told the news he had.
“Tito Ralph,” he said, “is no longer the jailer down at the city jail. No, this morning the police judge sent him away.”
“I liked Tito Ralph,” said Pilon. “When a man was in jail, Tito Ralph would bring him a little wine. And he knew more stories than a hundred other men. Why did he lose his job, Johnny Pom-pom?”
“That is what I came to tell. Tito Ralph, you know, was often in jail, and he was a good prisoner. He knew how a jail should be run. After a while he knew more about the jail than anyone. Then Daddy Marks, the old jailer, died, and Tito Ralph took his place. Never has there been such a good jailer as Tito Ralph. Everything he did just right. But he has one little fault. When he drinks wine, he forgets he is the jailer. He escapes, and they have to catch him.”
The friends nodded. “I know,” said Pablo. “I have heard he is hard to catch too. He hides.”
“Yes,” continued Johnny Pom-pom, “except for that, he is the best jailer they ever had. Well, this is the thing that I came to tell. Last night Danny had enough wine for ten men, and he drank it. Then he drew pictures on windows. He was very rich, he bought eggs to throw at a Chinaman. And one of those eggs missed the Chinaman and hit a policeman. So, Danny was in jail.
[131] “But he was rich. He sent Tito Ralph out to get some wine, and then some more wine. There were four men in the jail. They all drank wine. And at last that fault of Tito Ralph’s came out. So he escaped, and all the others escaped with him. They caught Tito Ralph this morning and told him he could not be jailer any more. He was so sad that he broke a window, and now he is in jail again.”
“But Danny,” Pilon cried. “What about Danny?”
“Oh, Danny,” said Johnny Pom-pom, “he escaped too. They did not catch him.”
The friends sighed in dismay.
“Danny is getting bad,” Pilon said seriously. “He will not come to a good end. I wonder where he got the money.”
It was at this moment that the triumphant Torrelli opened the gate and strode up the path. The Pirate’s dogs got up nervously from their corner and moved toward the door, snarling. The friends looked up and questioned one another with their eyes. Big Joe picked up the pick handle that had so lately been used on him. The heavy confident step of Torrelli pounded on the porch. The door flew open, and there stood Torrelli, smiling. He did not bluster at them. No, he approached as delicately as a house cat. He patted them kindly, as a house cat pats a cockroach.
“Oh, my friends,” he said gently, at their looks of alarm. “My dear good friends and customers. My heart is torn that I must be a carrier of bad news to those whom I love.”
Pilon leaped up. “It is Danny. He is sick, he is hurt. Tell us.”
Torrelli shook his head daintily. “No, my little ones, it is not Danny. My heart bleeds, but I must tell you that you cannot live here any more.” His eyes gloated at the amazement his words wrought. Every mouth dropped open, every eye went blank with astonishment.
“That is foolish,” Pablo cried. “Why can’t we live here any more?”
Torrelli’s hand went lovingly into his breast pocket, and his fingers brought out the precious paper and waved it in the air. “Imagine my suffering,” Torrelli went on. “Danny does not own this house any more.”