Chapter IX

When Doc’s car came back to the laboratory, Mack and the boys secretly watched Hazel help to carry in the sacks of starfish. In a few minutes Hazel came damply up the thicken walk to the Palace. His jeans were wet with sea water to the thighs and where it was drying the white salt rings were forming. He sat heavily in the patent rocker that was his and shucked off his wet tennis shoes.

Mack asked, “How is Doc feeling?”

“Fine,” said Hazel. “You can’t understand a word he says. Know what he said about stink bugs? No — I better not tell you.”

“He seem in a nice friendly mood?” Mack asked.

“Sure,” said Hazel, “We got two three hundred starfish. He’s all right.”

“I wonder if we better all go over?” Mack asked himself and he answered himself, “No I guess it would be better if one went alone. It might get him mixed up if we all went.”

“What is this?” Hazel asked.

“We got plans,” said Mack. “I’ll go myself so as not to startle him. You guys stay here and wait I’ll come back in a few minutes.”

Mack went out and he teetered down the chicken walk and across the track. Mr. Malloy was sitting on a brick in front of his boiler.

“How are you, Sam?” Mack asked.

“Pretty good.”

“How’s the missus?”

“Pretty good,” said Mr. Malloy. “You know any kind of glue you can stick cloth to iron?”

Ordinarily Mack would have thrown himself headlong into this problem but now he was not to be deflected. “No,” he said.

He went across the vacant lot, crossed the street and entered the basement of the laboratory.

Doc had his hat off now since there was practically no chance of getting his head wet unless a pipe broke. He was busy removing the starfish from the wet sacks and arranging them on the cool concrete floor. The starfish were twisted and knotted up for a starfish loves to hang onto something and for an hour these had found only each other. Doc arranged them in long lines and very slowly they straightened out until they lay in symmetrical stars on the concrete floor. Doc’s pointed brown beard was damp with perspiration as he worked. He looked up a little nervously as Mack entered. It was not that trouble always came in with Mack but something always entered with him.

“Hiya, Doc?” said Mack.

“All right,” said Doc uneasily.

“Hear about Phyllis Mae over at the Bear Flag? She hit a drunk and got his tooth in her fist and it’s infected clear to the elbow. She showed me the tooth. It was out of a plate. Is a false tooth poison, Doc?”

“I guess everything that comes out of the human mouth is poison,” said Doc warningfully. “Has she got a doctor?”

“The bouncer fixed her up,” said Mack.

“I’ll take her some sulfa,” said Doc, and he waited for the storm to break. He knew Mack had come for something and Mack knew he knew it.

Mack said, “Doc, you got any need for any kind of animals now?”

Doc sighed with relief, “Why?” he asked guardedly.

Mack became open and confidential. “I’ll tell you, Doc. I and the boys got to get some dough — we simply got to. It’s for a good purpose, you might say a worthy cause.”

“Phyllis Mae’s arm?”

Mack saw the chance, weighed it and gave it up. “Well— no,” he said. “It’s more important than that. You can’t kill a whore. No — this is different I and the boys thought if you needed something why we’d get it for you and that way we could make a little piece of change.”

It seemed simple and innocent. Doc laid down four more starfish in lines, “I could use three or four hundred frogs,” he said. “I’d get them myself but I’ve got to go down to La Jolla tonight. There’s a good tide tomorrow and I have to get some octopi.”

“Same price for frogs?” Mack asked. “Five cents apiece?”

“Same price,” said Doc.

Mack was jovial. “Don’t you worry about frogs, Doc,” he said. “We’ll get you all the frogs you want. You just rest easy about frogs. Why we can get them right up Carmel River. I know a place.”

“Good,” said Doc. “I’ll take all you get but I need about three hundred.”

“Just you rest easy, Doc. Don’t you lose no sleep about it. You’ll get your frogs, maybe seven eight hundred.” He put the Doc at his ease about frogs and then a little cloud crossed Mack’s face. “Doc.” he said, “any chance of using your car to go up the Valley?”

“No,” said Doc, “I told you. I have to drive to La Jolla tonight to make tomorrow’s tide.”

“Oh,” said Mack dispiritedly. “Oh. Well, don’t you worry about it, Doc. Maybe we can get Lee Chong’s old truck.” And then his face fell a little further. “Doc,” he said, “on a business deal like this, would you advance two or three bucks for gasoline? I know Lee Chong won’t give us gas.”

“No,” said Doc. He had fallen into this before. Once he had financed Gay to go for turtles. He financed him for two weeks and at the end of that time Gay was in jail on his wife’s charge and he never did go for turtles.

“Well, maybe we can’t go then,” said Mack sadly.

Now Doc really needed the frogs. He tried to work out some method which was business and not philanthropy. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “I’ll give you a note to my gas station so you can get ten gallons of gas. How will that be?”

Mack smiled. “Fine,” he said. “That will work out just fine. I and the boys will get an early start tomorrow. Time you get back from the south, we’ll have more damn frogs than you ever seen in your life.”

Doc went to the labeling desk and wrote a note to Red Williams at the gas station, authorizing the issue of ten gallons of gasoline to Mack. “Here you are,” he said.

Mack was smiling broadly. “Doc,” he said, “you can get to sleep tonight and not even give frogs a thought. We’ll have piss pots full of them by the time you get back.”

Doc watched him go a little uneasily. Doc’s dealings with Mack and the boys had always been interesting but rarely had they been profitable to Doc. He remembered ruefully the time Mack sold him fifteen torn cats and by night the owners came and got every one. “Mack,” he had asked, “why all torn cats?”

Mack said, “Doc, it’s my own invention but I’ll tell you because you’re a good friend. You make a big wire trap and then you don’t use bait. You see — well — you use a lady cat. Catch every God damn torn cat in the country that way.”

From the laboratory Mack crossed the street and went through the swinging screen doors into Lee Chong’s grocery. Mrs. Lee was cutting bacon on the big butcher’s block. A Lee cousin primped up slightly wilted heads of lettuce the way a girl primps a loose finger wave. A cat lay asleep on a big pile of oranges. Lee Chong stood in his usual place back of the cigar counter and in front of the liquor shelves. His tapping finger on the change mat speeded up a little when Mack came in.

Mack wasted no time in sparring. “Lee,” he said, “Doc over there’s got a problem. He’s got a big order for frogs from the New York Museum, Means a lot to Doc. Besides the dough there’s a lot of credit getting an order like that. Doc’s got to go south and I and the boys said we’d help him out. I think a guy’s friends ought to help him out of a hole when they can, especially a nice guy like Doc. Why I bet he spends sixty seventy dollars a month with you.”

Lee Chong remained silent and watchful. His fat finger barely moved on the change mat but it flicked slightly like a tense cat’s tail.

Mack plunged into his thesis. “Will you let us take your old truck to go up Carmel Valley for frogs for Doc — for good old Doc?”

Lee Chong smiled in triumph. “Tluck no good,” he said. “Bloke down.”

This staggered Mack for a moment but he recovered. He spread the order for gasoline on the cigar counter. “Look!” he said. “Doc needs them frogs. He give me this order for gas to get them. I can’t let Doc down. Now Gay is a good mechanic. If he fixes your truck and puts it in good shape, will you let us take it?”