“What!” they cried. “What do you mean? How does not [132] Danny own his house any more? Speak, O Corsican pig.”
Torrelli giggled, a thing so terrible that the paisanos stepped back from him. “Because,” he said, “the house belongs to me. Danny came to me and sold me his house for twenty-five dollars last night.” Fiendishly he watched the thoughts crowd on their faces.
“It is a lie,” their faces said. “Danny would not do such a thing.” And then, “But Danny has been doing many bad things lately. He has been stealing from us. Maybe he has sold the house over our heads.”
“It is a lie,” Pilon cried aloud. “It is a dirty wop lie.”
Torrelli smiled on and waved the paper. “Here I have proof,” he said. “Here is the paper Danny signed. It is what we of business call a bill of sale.”
Pablo came to him furiously. “You got him drunk. He did not know what he did.”
Torrelli opened the paper a little bit. “The law will not be interested in that,” he said. “And so, my dear little friends, it is my terrible duty to tell you that you must leave my house. I have plans for it.” His face lost its smile then, and all the cruelty came back into it. “If you are not out by noon, I will send a policeman.”
Pilon moved gently toward him. Oh, beware, Torrelli, when Pilon moves smiling on you! Run, hide yourself in some iron room and weld up the door. “I do not understand these things,” Pilon said gently. “Of course I am sad that Danny should do a thing like this.”
Torrelli giggled again.
“I never had a house to sell,” Pilon continued. “Danny signed this paper, is that it?”
“Yes,” Torrelli mimicked him, “Danny signed this paper. That is it.”
Pilon blundered on, stupidly. “That is the thing that proves you own this house?”
“Yes, O little fool. This is the paper that proves it.”
Pilon looked puzzled. “I thought you must take it down and have some record made.”
Torrelli laughed scornfully. Oh, beware, Torrelli! Do you not see how quietly these snakes are moving? There is Jesus Maria in front of the door. There is Pablo by the [133] kitchen door. See Big Joe’s knuckles white on the pick handle.
Torrelli said, “You know nothing of business, little hobos and tramps. When I leave here I shall take this paper down and—”
It happened so quickly that the last words belched out explosively. His feet flew up in the air. He landed with a great thump on the floor and clawed at the air with his fat hands. He heard the stove lid clang.
“Thieves,” he screamed. The blood pressed up his neck and into his face. “Thieves, oh, rats and dogs, give me my paper!”
Pilon, standing in front of him, looked amazed.
“Paper?” he asked politely. “What is this paper you speak of so passionately?”
“My bill of sale, my ownership. Oh, the police will hear of this!”
“I do not recall a paper,” said Pilon. “Pablo, do you know what is this paper he talks about?”
“Paper?” said Pablo. “Does he mean a newspaper or a cigarette paper?”
Pilon continued with the roll. “Johnny Pom-pom?”
“He is dreaming, maybe, that one,” said Johnny Pom-pom.
“Jesus Maria? Do you know of a paper?”
“I think he is drunk,” Jesus Maria said in a scandalized voice. “It is too early in the morning to be drunk.”
“Joe Portagee?”
“I wasn’t here,” Joe insisted. “I just came in now.”
“Pirate?”
“He don’t have no paper,” the Pirate turned to his dogs, “do he?”
Pilon turned back to the apoplectic Torrelli. “You are mistaken, my friend. It is possible that I might have been wrong about this paper, but you can see for yourself that no one but you saw this paper. Do you blame me when I think that maybe there was no paper? Maybe you should go to bed and rest a little.”
Torrelli was too stunned to shout any more. They turned him about and helped him out of the door and sped him on his way, sunk in the awfulness of his defeat.
[134] And then they looked at the sky, and were glad; for the sun had fought again, and this time won a pathway through the fog. The friends did not go back into the house. They sat happily down on the front porch.
“Twenty-five dollars,” said Pilon. “I wonder what he did with the money.”
The sun, once its first skirmish was won, drove the fog headlong from the sky. The porch boards warmed up, and the flies sang in the light. Exhaustion had settled on the friends.
“It was a close thing,” Pablo said wearily. “Danny should not do such things.”
“We will get all our wine from Torrelli to make it up to him,” said Jesus Maria.
A bird hopped into the rose bush and flirted its tail. Mrs. Morales’ new chickens sang a casual hymn to the sun. The dogs, in the front yard, thoughtfully scratched all over and gnawed their tails.
At the sound of footsteps from the road, the friends looked up, and then stood up with welcoming smiles. Danny and Tito Ralph walked in the gate, and each of them carried two heavy bags. Jesus Maria darted into the house and brought out the fruit jars. The friends noticed that Danny looked a little tired when he set his jugs on the porch.
“It is hot climbing that hill,” Danny said.
“Tito Ralph,” cried Johnny Pom-pom, “I heard you were put in jail.”
“I escaped again,” Tito Ralph said wanly. “I still had the keys.”
The fruit jars gurgled full. A great sigh escaped from the men, a sigh of relief that everything was over.
Pilon took a big drink. “Danny,” he said, “that pig Torrelli came up here this morning with lies. He had a paper he said you signed.”
Danny looked startled. “Where is that paper?” he demanded.
“Well,” Pilon continued. “We knew it was a lie, so we burned that paper. You didn’t sign it, did you?”
“No,” said Danny, and he drained his jar.
[135] “It would be nice to have something to eat,” observed Jesus Maria.
Danny smiled sweetly. “I forgot. In one of those bags are three chickens and some bread.”
So great was Pilon’s pleasure and relief that he stood up and made a little speech. “Where is there a friend like our friend?” he exclaimed. “He takes us into his house out of the cold. He shares his good food with us, and his wine. Ohee, the good man, the dear friend.”
Danny was embarrassed. He looked at the floor. “It is nothing,” he murmured. “It has no merit.”
But Pilon’s joy was so great that it encompassed the world, and even the evil things of the world. “We must do something nice some time for Torrelli,” he said.
XVI
Of the sadness of Danny. How through sacrifice Danny’s Friends gave a party. How Danny was Translated.
WHEN Danny came back to his house and to his friends after his amok, he was not conscience-stricken, but he was very tired. The rough fingers of violent experience had harped upon his soul. He began to live listlessly, arising from bed only to sit on the porch, under the rose of Castile; arising from the porch only to eat; arising from the table only to go to bed. The talk flowed about him and he listened, but he did not care. Cornelia Ruiz had a quick and superb run of husbands, and no emotion was aroused in Danny. When Big Joe got in his bed one evening, so apathetic was Danny that Pilon and Pablo had to beat Big Joe for him. When Sammy Rasper, celebrating a belated New Year with a shotgun and a gallon of whisky, killed a cow and went to jail, Danny could not even be drawn into a discussion of the ethics of the case, although the arguments raged about him and although his judgment was passionately appealed to.
[136] After a while it came about that the friends began to worry about Danny. “He is changed,” said Pilon. “He is old.”
Jesus Maria suggested, “This Danny has crowded the good times of a life into a little three weeks. He is sick of fun.”
In vain the friends tried to draw him from the cavern of his apathy. In the mornings, on the porch, they told their funniest stories. They reported details of the love life of Tortilla Flat so penetratingly that they would have been of interest to a dissection class. Pilon winnowed the Flat for news and brought home every seedling of interest to Danny; but there was age in Danny’s eyes and weariness.
“Thou art not well,” Jesus Maria insisted in vain. “There is some bitter secret in thine heart.”
“No,” said Danny.