Cannery Row (6 page)

“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 that 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 tom cats and by night the owners came and got every one. “Mack,” he had asked, “why all tom 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 use—well—you use a lady cat. Catch every God damn tom 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?”

Lee put back his head so that he could see Mack through his half-glasses. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the proposition. The truck really wouldn’t run. Gay really was a good mechanic and the order for gasoline was definite evidence of good faith.

“How long you be gone?” Lee asked.

“Maybe half a day, maybe a whole day. Just ’til we get the frogs.”

Lee was worried but he couldn’t see any way out. The dangers were all there and Lee knew all of them. “Okay,” said Lee.

“Good,” said Mack. “I knew Doc could depend on you. I’ll get Gay right to work on that truck.” He turned about to leave. “By the way,” he said. “Doc’s paying us five cents apiece for those frogs. We’re going to get seven or eight hundred. How about taking a pint of Old Tennis Shoes just ’til we can get back with the frogs?”

“No!” said Lee Chong.

10

Frankie began coming to Western Biological when he was eleven years old. For a week or so he just stood outside the basement door and looked in. Then one day he stood inside the door. Ten days later he was in the basement. He had very large eyes and his hair was a dark wiry dirty shock. His hands were filthy. He picked up a piece of excelsior and put it in a garbage can and then he looked at Doc where he worked labeling specimen bottles containing purple Velella. Finally Frankie got to the work bench and he put his dirty fingers on the bench. It took Frankie three weeks to get that far and he was ready to bolt every instant of the time.

Finally one day Doc spoke to him. “What’s your name, son?”

“Frankie.”

“Where do you live?”

“Up there,” a gesture up the hill.

“Why aren’t you in school?”

“I don’t go to school.”

“Why not?”

“They don’t want me there.”

“Your hands are dirty. Don’t you ever wash?”

Frankie looked stricken and then he went to the sink and scrubbed his hands and always afterwards he scrubbed his hands almost raw every day.

And he came to the laboratory every day. It was an association without much talk. Doc by a telephone call established that what Frankie said was true. They didn’t want him in school. He couldn’t learn and there was something a little wrong with his coordination. There was no place for him. He wasn’t an idiot, he wasn’t dangerous, his parents, or parent, would not pay for his keep in an institution. Frankie didn’t often sleep at the laboratory but he spent his days there. And sometimes he crawled in the excelsior crate and slept. That was probably when there was a crisis at home.

Doc asked, “Why do you come here?”

“You don’t hit me or give me a nickel,” said Frankie.

“Do they hit you at home?”

“There’s uncles around all the time at home. Some of them hit me and tell me to get out and some of them give me a nickel and tell me to get out.”

“Where’s your father?”

“Dead,” said Frankie vaguely.

“Where’s your mother?”

“With the uncles.”

Doc clipped Frankie’s hair and got rid of the lice. At Lee Chong’s he got him a new pair of overalls and a striped sweater and Frankie became his slave.

“I love you,” he said one afternoon. “Oh, I love you.”

He wanted to work in the laboratory. He swept out every day, but there was something a little wrong. He couldn’t get a floor quite clean. He tried to help with grading crayfish for size. There they were in a bucket, all sizes. They were to be grouped in the big pans—laid out—all the three-inch ones together and all the four-inch ones and so forth. Frankie tried and the perspiration stood on his forehead but he couldn’t do it. Size relationships just didn’t get through to him.

“No,” Doc would say. “Look, Frankie. Put them beside your finger like this so you’ll know which ones are this long. See? This one goes from the tip of your finger to the base of your thumb. Now you just pick out another one that goes from the tip of your finger down to the same place and it will be right.” Frankie tried and he couldn’t do it. When Doc went upstairs Frankie crawled in the excelsior box and didn’t come out all afternoon.

But Frankie was a nice, good, kind boy. He learned to light Doc’s cigars and he wanted Doc to smoke all the time so he could light the cigars.

Better than anything else Frankie loved it when there were parties upstairs in the laboratory. When girls and men gathered to sit and talk, when the great phonograph played music that throbbed in his stomach and made beautiful and huge pictures form vaguely in his head, Frankie loved it. Then he crouched down in a corner behind a chair where he was hidden and could watch and listen. When there was laughter at a joke he didn’t understand Frankie laughed delightedly behind his chair and when the conversation dealt with abstractions his brow furrowed and he became intent and serious.

One afternoon he did a desperate thing. There was a small party in the laboratory. Doc was in the kitchen pouring beer when Frankie appeared beside him. Frankie grabbed a glass of beer and rushed it through the door and gave it to a girl sitting in a big chair.

She took the glass and said, “Why, thank you,” and she smiled at him.

And Doc coming through the door said, “Yes, Frankie is a great help to me.”

Frankie couldn’t forget that. He did the thing in his mind over and over, just how he had taken the glass and just how the girl sat and then her voice—“Why, thank you,” and Doc—“a great help to me—Frankie is a great help to me—sure Frankie is a great help— Frankie,” and Oh my God!

He knew a big party was coming because Doc bought steaks and a great deal of beer and Doc let him help clean out all the upstairs. But that was nothing, for a great plan had formed in Frankie’s mind and he could see just how it would be. He went over it again and again. It was beautiful. It was perfect.

Then the party started and people came and sat in the front room, girls and young women and men.

Frankie had to wait until he had the kitchen to himself and the door closed. And it was some time before he had it so. But at last he was alone and the door was shut. He could hear the chatter of conversation and the music from the great phonograph. He worked very quietly—first the tray—then get out the glasses without breaking any. Now fill them with beer and let the foam settle a little and then fill again.

Now he was ready. He took a great breath and opened the door. The music and the talk roared around him. Frankie picked up the tray of beer and walked through the door. He knew how. He went straight toward the same young woman who had thanked him before. And then right in front of her, the thing happened, the coordination failed, the hands fumbled, the muscles panicked, the nerves telegraphed to a dead operator, the responses did not come back. Tray and beer collapsed forward into the young woman’s lap. For a moment Frankie stood still. And then he turned and ran.

The room was quiet. They could hear him run downstairs, and go into the cellar. They heard a hollow scrabbling sound—and then silence.