“What?”
“That.”
“You mean the clock? Fifty dollars — with the group seventy-five dollars.”
Frankie walked out without replying. He went down to the beach and crawled under an overturned rowboat and peeked out at the little waves, The bronze beauty was so strong in his head that it seemed to stand out in front of him. And a frantic trapped feeling came over him. He had to get the beauty. His eyes were fierce when he thought of it.
He stayed under the boat all day and at night he emerged and went back to Alvarado Street. While people went to the movies and came out and went to the Golden Poppy, he walked up and down the block. And he didn’t get tired or sleepy, for the beauty burned in him like fire.
At last the people thinned out and gradually disappeared from the streets and the parked cars drove away and the town settled to sleep.
A policeman looked closely at Frankie, “What you doing out?” he asked.
Frankie took to his heels and fled around the corner and hid behind a barrel in the alley. At two-thirty he crept to the door of Jacob’s and tried the knob. It was locked. Frankie went back to the alley and sat behind the barrel and thought. He saw a broken piece of concrete lying beside the barrel and he picked it up.
The policeman reported that he heard the crash and ran to it. Jacob’s window was broken. He saw the prisoner walking rapidly away and chased him. He didn’t know how the boy could run that far and that fast carrying fifty pounds of dock and bronze, but the prisoner nearly got away. If he had not blundered into a blind street he would have got away.
The chief called Doc the next day. “Come on down, will you? I want to talk to you.”
They brought Frankie in very dirty and frowzy. His eyes were red but he held his mouth firm and he even smiled a little welcome when he saw Doc.
“What’s the matter, Frankie?” Doc asked.
“He broke into Jacob’s last night,” the chief said. “Stole some stuff. We got in touch with his mother. She say it’s not her fault because he hangs around your place all the time.”
“Frankie — you shouldn’t have done it,” said Doc. The heavy stone of inevitability was on his heart. “Can’t you parole him to me?” Doc asked.
“I don’t think the judge will do it,” said the chief, “We’ve got a mental report. You know what’s wrong with him?”
“Yes,” said Doc, “I know.”
“And you know what’s likely to happen when he comes into puberty?”
“Yes,” said Doc, “I know,” and the stone weighed terribly on his heart.
“The doctor thinks we better put him away. We couldn’t before, but now he’s got a felony on him, I think we better.”
As Frankie listened the welcome died in his eyes.
“What did he take?” Doc asked.
“A great big clock and a bronze statue.”
“I’ll pay for it.”
“Oh, we got it back. I don’t think the judge will hear of it. It’ll just happen again. You know that.”
“Yes,” said Doc softly, “I know. But maybe he had a reason. Frankie,” he said, “why did you take it?”
Frankie looked a long time at him. “I love you,” he said.
Doc ran out and got in his car and went collecting in the caves below Pt. Lobos.
Chapter XXIX
At four o’clock on October 27 Doc finished bottling the last of a lot of jellyfish. He washed out the formaline jug, cleaned his foceps, powdered and took off his rubber gloves. He went upstairs, fed the rats, and put some of his best records and his microscopes in the back room. Then he locked it. Sometimes an illuminated guest wanted to play with the rattlesnakes. By making careful preparations, by forseeing possibilities, Doc hoped to make this party as non-lethal as possible without making it dull.
He put on a pot of coffee, started the Great Fugue on the phonograph, and took a shower. He was very quick about it, for he was dressed in clean clothes and was having his cup of coffee before the music was completed.
He looked out through the window at the lot and up at the Palace but no one was moving. Doc didn’t know who or how many were coming to his party. But he knew he was watched. He had been conscious of it all day. Not that he had seen anyone, but someone or several people had kept him in sight. So it was to be a surprise party. He might as well be surprised. He would follow his usual routine as though nothing were happening. He crossed to Lee Chong’s and bought two quarts of beer. There seemed to be a supressed Oriental excitement at Lee’s. So they were coming too. Doc went back to the laborataly and poured out a glass of beer. He drank the first off fox thirst and poured a second one to taste. The lot and the street were still deserted.
Mack and the boys were in the Palace and the door was closed. All afternoon the stove had roared, heating water for baths. Even Darling had been bathed and she wore a red bow around her neck.
“What time you think we should go over?” Hazel asked.
“I don’t think before eight o’clock,” said Mack. “But I don’t see nothin’ against us havin’ a short one to kind of get warmed up.”
“How about Doc getting warmed up?” Hughie said. “Maybe I ought to just take him a bottle like it was just nothin’.”
“No,” said Mack. “Doc just went over to Lee’s for some beer.”
“You think he suspects anything?” Jones asked.
“How could he?” asked Mack.
In the corner cage two tom cats started an argument and the whole cageful commented with growls and arched backs. There were only twenty-one cats. They had fallen short of their mark.
“I wonder how we’ll get them cats over there?” Hazel begun. “We can’t carry that big cage through the door.”
“We won’t,” said Mack. “Remember how it was with the frogs. No, we’ll just tell Doc about them. He can come over and get them.” Mack got up and opened one of Eddie’s wining jugs. “We might as well get warmed up,” he said.
At five-thirty the old Chinaman flap-flapped down the hill, past the Palace. He crossed the lot, crossed the street, and disappeared between Western Biological and the Hediondo.
At the Bear Flag the girls were getting ready. A kind of anthor watch had been chosen by straws. The ones who stayed were to be relieved every hour.
Dora was splendid. Her hair freshly dyed orange was curled and piled on her head. She wore her wedding ring and a big diamond brooch on her breast. Her dress was white silk with a black bamboo pattern. In the bedrooms the reverse of ordinary procedure was in practice.