“That ought to be easy,” said Hughie. “Why don’t we ask him?”
“Hell,” said Mack. “Then he’d catch on. You ask a guy when is his birthday and especially if you’ve already give him a party like we done, and he’ll know what you want to know for. Maybe I’ll just go over and smell around a little and not let on.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Hazel.
“No — if two of us went, he might figure we were up to something.”
“Well, hell, it was my idear,” said Hazel.
“I know,” said Mack. “And when it comes off why I’ll tell Doc it was your idear. But I think I better go over alone.”
“How is he — friendly?” Eddie asked.
“Sure, he’s all right.”
Mack found Doc way back in the downstairs part of the laboratory. He was dressed in a long rubber apron and he wore rubber gloves to protect his hands from the formaldehyde. He was injecting the veins and arteries of small dogfish with color mass. His little ball mill rolled over and over, mixing the blue mass. The red fluid was already in the pressure gun. Doc’s fine hands worked precisely, slipping the needle into place and pressing the compressed air trigger that forced the color into the veins. He laid the finished fish in a neat pile. He would have to go over these again to put blue mass in the arteries. The dogfish made good dissection specimens.
“Hi, Doc,” said Mack. “Keepin’ pretty busy?”
“Busy as I want,” said Doc. “How’s the pup?”
“Doin’ just fine. She would of died if it hadn’t been for you.”
For a moment a wave of caution went over Doc and then slipped off. Ordinarily a compliment made him wary. He had been dealing with Mack for a long time. But the tone had nothing but gratefulness in it. He knew how Mack felt about the pup. “How are things going up at the Palace?”
“Fine, Doc, just fine. We got two new chairs. I wish you’d come up and see us. It’s pretty nice up there now.”
“I will,” said Doc. “Eddie still bring back the jug?”
“Sure,” said Mack. “He ain’t puttin’ beer in it no more and I think the stuff is better. It’s got more zip.”
“It had plenty of zip before,” said Doc.
Mack waited patiently. Sooner or later Doc was going to wade into it and he was waiting. If Doc seemed to open the subject himself it would be less suspicious. This was always Mack’s method.
“Haven’t seen Hazel for some time. He isn’t sick, is he?”
“No,” said Mack and he opened the campaign. “Hazel is all right. Him and Hughie are havin’ one hell of a battle. Been goin’ on for a week,” he thudded. “An’ the funny thing is it’s about somethin’ they don’t neither of them know nothin’ about. I stayed out of it because I don’t know nothin’ about it neither, but not them. They’ve even got a little mad at each other.”
“What’s it about?” Doc asked.
“Well, sir,” said Mack, “Hazel’s all the time buyin’ these here charts and lookin’ up lucky days and stars and stuff like that. And Hughie says it’s all a bunch of malarky. Hazel he says if you know when a guy is born you can tell about him and Hughie says they’re just sellin’ Hazel them charts for two bits apiece. Me, I don’t know nothin’ about it. What do you think, Doc?”
“I’d kind of side with Hughie,” said Doc. He stopped the ball mill, washed out the color gun and filled it with blue mass.
“They got goin’ hot the other night,” said Mack. “They ask me when I’m born so I tell ’em April 12 and Hazel he goes and buys one of them charts and read all about me. Well it did seem to hit in some places. But it was nearly all good stuff and a guy will believe good stuff about himself. It said I’m brave and smart and kind to my friends. But Hazel says it’s all true. When’s your birthday, Doc?” At the end of the long discussion it sounded perfectly casual. You couldn’t put your finger on it. But it must be remembered that Doc had known Mack a very long time. If he had not he would have said December 18 which was his birthday instead of October 27 which was not. “October 27,” said Doc. “Ask Hazel what that makes me.”
“It’s probably so much malarky,” said Mack, “but Haze! he takes it serious. I’ll ask him to look you up, Doc.”
When Mack left, Doc wondered casually what the build-up was. For he had recognized it as a lead. He knew Mack’s technique, his method. He recognized his style. And he wondered to what purpose Mack could put the information. It was only later when rumors began to creep in that Doc added the whole thing up. Now he felt slightly relieved, for he had expected Mack to put the bite on him.
Chapter XXVI
The two little boys played in the boat works yard until a cat climbed the fence. Instantly they gave chase, drove it across the tracks and there filled their pockets with granite stones from the roadbed. The cat got away from them in the tall weeds but they kept the stones because they were perfect in weight, shape, and size for throwing. You can’t ever tell when you’re going to need a stone like that. They turned down Cannery Row and whanged a stone at the corrugated iron front of Morden’s Cannery. A startled man looked out the office window and then rushed for the door, but the boys were too quick for him. They were lying behind a wooden stringer in the lot before he even got near the door. He couldn’t have found them in a hundred years.
“I bet he could look all his life and he couldn’t find us,” said Joey.
They got tired of hiding after a while with no one looking for them. They got up and strolled on down Cannery Row. They looked a long time in Lee’s window coveting the pliers, the back saws, the engineers’ caps and the bananas. Then they crossed the street and sat down on the lower step of the stairs that went to the second story of the laboratory.
Joey said, “You know, this guy in here got babies in bottles.”
“What kind of babies?” Willard asked.
“Regular babies, only before they’re borned.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Willard.
“Well, it’s true. The Sprague kid seen them and he says they ain’t no bigger than this and they got little hands and feet and eyes.”
“And hair?” Willard demanded.
“Well, the Sprague kid didn’t say about hair.”