Cannery Row

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.

Those who were staying wore long evening dresses while those who were going had on short print dresses and looked very pretty. The quilt, finished and backed, was in a big cardboard box in the bar. The bouncer grumbled a little, for it had been decided that he couldn’t go to the party. Someone had to look after the house. Contrary to orders, each girl had a pint hidden and each girl watched for the signal to fortify herself a little for the party.

Dora strode magnificently into her office and closed the door, She unlocked the top drawer of the rolltop desk, took out a bottle and a glass and poured herself a snort. And the bottle clinked softly on the glass. A girl listening outside the door heard the dick and spread the word. Dora would not be able to smell breaths now. And the girls rushed for their rooms and got out their pints. Dusk had come to Cannery Row, the gray time between daylight and street light. Phyllis Mae peeked around the curtain in the front parlor.

“Can you see him?” Doris asked.

“Yeah. He’s got the lights on. He’s sitting there like he’s reading. Jesus, how that guy does read. You’d think he’d ruin his eyes. He’s got a glass of beer in his hand.”

“Well,” said Doris, “we might as well have a little one, I guess.”

Phyllis Mae was still limping a little but she was as good as new. She could, she said, lick her weight in City Councilmen. “Seems kind of funny,” she said. “There he is, sitting over there and he don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“He never comes in here for a trick,” Doris said a little sadly.

“Lot of guys don’t want to pay,” said Phyllis Mae. “Costs them more but they figure it different.”

“Well, hell, maybe he likes them.”

“Likes who?”

“Them girls that go over there.”

“Oh, yeah — maybe he does, I been over there. He never made a pass at me.”

“He wouldn’t,” said Doris. “But that don’t mean if you didn’t work here you wouldn’t have to fight your way out.”

“You mean he don’t like our profession?”

“No, I don’t mean that at all. He probably figures a girl that’s workin’ has got a different attitude.”

They had another small snort.

In her office Dora poured herself one more, swallowed it and locked the drawer again. She fixed her perfect hair in the wall mirror, inspected her shining red nails, and went out to the bar. Alfred the bouncer was sulking. It wasn’t anything he said nor was his expression unpleasant, but he was sulking just the same. Dora looked him over coldly. “I guess you figure you’re getting the blocks, don’t you?”

“No,” said Alfred. “No, it’s quite all right.”

That quite threw Dora. “Quite all right, is it? You got a job, Mister. Do you want to keep it or not?”

“It’s quite all right,” Alfred said frostily. “I ain’t putting out no beef.” He put his elbows on the bar and studied himself in the mirror. “You just go and enjoy yourself,” he said. “I’ll take care of everything here. You don’t need to worry.”

Dora melted under his pain. “Look,” she said. “I don’t like to have the place without a man. Some lush might get smart and the kids couldn’t handle him. But a little later you can come over and you could kind of keep your eye on the place out the window, How would that be? You could see if anything happened.”

“Well,” said Alfred. “I would like to come.” He was mollified by her permission. “Later I might drop over for just a minute or two. They was a mean drunk in last night An’ I don’t know, Dora — I kind of lost my nerve since I bust that guy’s back. I just ain’t sure of myself no more. I’m gonna pull a punch some night and get took.”

“You need a rest,” said Dora. “Maybe I’ll get Mack to fill in and you can take a couple of weeks off.” She was a wonderful madam, Dora was.

Over at the laboratory, Doc had a little whiskey after his beer. He was feeling a little mellow. It seemed a