Cursing, the man lurched forward and aimed a kick at Toddy.
Then the dog called Toddy an unpleasant name, the same name the man had called him.
"Cabrone!" it snapped. Bastard!
And then the dog howled insanely and leaped-at the man. For he had received the kick intended for Toddy and in a decidedly tender place.
The watch slid from Toddy's nerveless fingers. He slammed the lid of his box and dashed for the door.
In his last fleeting glimpse of the scene, the dog was stalking the man and the man was kicking and shouting at him. And in the doorway to the kitchen, the girl clutched herself and rocked with hysterical, uncontrollable laughter.
"I," said Toddy, grimly, as he raced toward the Wilshire line bus, "am going to call it a day."
The box seemed unusually heavy, but he thought nothing of it. Late in the day, like this, it had the habit of seeming heavy.
4
Like most people with a tendency to attract trouble, Toddy Kent had a magnificent ability to shake it off. Hot water, figuratively speaking, affected him little more than the literal kind. He forgot it as soon as the moment of burning was past.
This afternoon, then, he was not only troubled and worried but troubled and worried at being so. Sure, he'd had a bad scare, but that had been more than an hour ago. An hour in which he'd ridden into town and had three stiff drinks. Why keep kicking the thing around? What was there to feel blue about? It was even kind of funny when you looked at it the right way.
Irritated and baffled by himself, Toddy turned in at the twelve-foot front of the Los Angeles Jewel & Watch Co.
Most of the shop was in darkness, but the door was unlocked and a light burned at the rear. Milt was reading off a buyer, one of the new ones. And his brogue was as broad as the young man's face was red.
"So! Yet more of it!" Milt slapped aside his brilliant swivel lamp and jerked the jeweler's loupe from his eyes. "Did you look at dis, my brilliant young friend? Did you feel of it, heft it-dis bee-yootiful chunk of eighteen-karat brass?"
"Why-why, sure I did, Mitt! I-"
"You did not!" the little wholesaler proclaimed with mock sternness. "I refuse to let you so malign yourself! Better I have taught you. Better you would have known. I viii tell you what you felt, my friend, vot you looked at! It was dis bee-yootiful young housewife, was it not? Dot vas where you were feeling and looking!"
A chuckle arose from the other buyers. The young man's voice rose above it.
"But it's stamped, Mitt! It's got an eighteen-karat stamp right on it!"
Mitt threw up his hands wildly. "Vot have I told you of such? On modern stuff, yess. The karat stamp is good. It means what it says. But the old pieces? Bah! Nodding it means because dere vas no law to make it. It means only dot you must have good eyes. It means only dot you have a file in your box and a vial of acid, and better you should use dem!"
The young man nodded, downcast, and started to move away. Mitt beckoned, spoke to him in a harsh stage whisper.
"Tell no vun, but dis time I make it up myself. Next time"-his voice rose to a roar-"FEEL DER GOLD AND NOT DER LADY!"
Everyone laughed, Mitt the loudest of all. Then he saw Toddy and hailed him.
"Ah, now here ye have a real gold-buyer! What has my Toddy boy brought, heh? Good it will be! Always a good day it is for hot Toddy!"
His voice was a little too hearty, and he stood up as he spoke and jerked his head toward the curtained doorway to his apartment.
"If these gentlemen will excuse us for a moment, I would have a word with you in private."
"Sure," said Toddy. "Sorry to hold you up, boys."
He followed Milt back through the drapes, and the little jeweler whispered to him for a moment. Elaine. Again. He cursed softly and raised his shoulders in a resigned shrug.
"Okay, Mitt. I'll come back later and check in."
"You understand, Toddy? There was not much I could do. I could not get away at this hour, for one thing, and the money-I was afraid I would not have so much as was required."
"Forget it," said Toddy. "You've done enough for me without having to take care of her."
Jaw set, he shouldered his way through the drapes again and strode out of the shop. Milt watched him through the door, then sank heavily down into his worn swivel chair. He took a long swig from an opened quart of beer and wiped his mouth distastefully. He looked up into the shrewd-solemn circle of his buyers' faces.
"There," he said, sadly, his dialect forgotten, "is one of the best boys I know. Brains he has, and looks, and deep down inside where it counts, goodness! And wasted, all of it is. Thrown away on a-on-"
They nodded. They all knew about Elaine. Toddy didn't talk, of course, except to Milt. And Milt wasn't a gossip either. But they all knew. Elaine got around. Elaine was hot water, circulating under its own power.
"Why don't he dump her, Milt?" It was a buyer named Red. "You can't do anything with a dame like that."
"I have asked myself that," said Milt, absently. "Yes, I have even asked him. And the answer… he does not know. Perhaps there is none. The answer is in her, something that cannot be put into words. She is vicious, selfish, totally irresponsible, physically unattractive. And yet there is something…"
He spread his hands helplessly.
One by one, the buyers drifted out, but Milt remained at his bench. He was musing, lost in thought. As if it were yesterday he remembered that day a year ago, the first time he had seen Elaine and Toddy Kent… It had been raining, and Toddy's bare head was wet. He had left Elaine up at the front of the shop and come striding back to the cage by himself. "I have a watch here," he said, "that belonged to my grandfather. I don't suppose it's worth much intrinsically, but it's very valuable to me as a keepsake. Give it a good going-over, and don't spare any expense. I'll pick it up in a couple of days."
Milt said he would. He would be glad to. He was considerably awed by the young man's manner.
"Oh, yes," said Toddy, and he slapped his pockets. "Just put an extra five dollars on the bill, will you? Or, no, you'd better make it ten. I lost my wallet a little while ago. Think it must have been out in Beverly Hills when I was leaving my bank."
He did it so smoothly that Milt's hand moved automatically toward the cash drawer. Then it stopped, and he looked at the watch and at Toddy, and down the aisle at Elaine.
"It is a disagreeable day," he said. "You and the lady- your wife?-are both wet. If you will step back here, have her step back, I have a small electric heater…"
"Some other time," Toddy said, imperiously pleasant. "Just make it ten and-and-"
"Yes," nodded Milt. "My suggestion is good. It is very, very good. Come back, sir, you and your wife."
So they had come back, warily. And Toddy had accepted a brandy in silence. And while he was sipping it, Elaine drank three.