I headed for the shallow end, unhooked the trailer, rolled it into the pool on some planks, sent my bums in, and cut the whale loose, all except a little piece of net that was hanging to his tail — and there didn’t seem to be much to do about that after he jerked free and began swimming around. And then, while I was hauling the trailer up and fishing out the ropes, I heard somebody yell. I looked just in time to see this truck, the one that was putting the canvas out, back into one of the guy-wires of the ladder the girl used for her dive. You could only see that guy about a mile, on account it was all strung with flags for the Fourth of July, but of course this truck, it would have to back into it. It snapped, and the ladder began to lean, from the pull of the other guy. I just had time to yank one of my bums out from under it, and then it hit with a crash you could hear ten blocks.
I had lost track of the girl at the pier, but she must have got to the pool ahead of me, because she came running over, and Mort was right behind her.
“Gee,” he says, “that sure is tough.”
They went over to where the ladder was lying, all smashed to kindling-wood, and Mort kept mumbling how tough it was. “But I got nothing to do with it,” he says pretty soon. “It’s right there in the agreement. Not responsible for anything that happens to you or your equipment; so that lets me out. Don’t it?”
She didn’t say anything, and he went off.
“So he’s got nothing to do with it, hey?” I said, as soon as I could get to her. “First he’s got nothing to do with the whale, and then he’s got nothing to do with the ladder. He’ll find out. Come on.”
She just stood there, looking at the ladder.
“Say, didn’t you hear what I said?” I asked. “Let’s go. You’re going to hear something.”
“And what am I going to hear?” she snapped. “We go in there, and you bawl him out. He says he’s busy, and then we come out again. No, thanks. I do this my way.”
“Yeah? And how do you do it?”
“Do you really mean it? Do you want to get even, or are you just talking?”
“Mean it? I mean it so hard I could sing it.”
“Then it’s our whale too, isn’t it? Didn’t we catch it? We’re going to claim our part of it. We’ll fix that young man. And we’ll fix him in the pocketbook, where it hurts.”
“Well, now say! He bought this whale.”
“I thought so. You don’t mean it.”
“I know, but I work for this guy — see.”
“Say it. Yes or no. Because I’m going to.”
The first customers had come through by then, and the roustabouts were dumping herrings into the pool for the whale to eat, and they were gaping at us, and I would have said anything to make her shut up.
“All right, then. Yes.”
“Then you keep your mouth shut, and I’m going to find a lawyer. And don’t make any mistakes. I mean business.”
She went, and I changed my clothes and kind of took charge of things, and didn’t say anything to Mort. But then I began to get worried. I wasn’t so sure I wanted a piece of this whale. You see, he didn’t seem to like herrings very well. By three o’clock he hadn’t touched a one, Mort sent the truck down for a load of seaweed. Well, he didn’t seem to like that either. So Mort sent to the packinghouse for a side of beef, and dumped that in. He didn’t seem to like that very well, either. So by sundown the pool was the worst mess of herrings, seaweed and beef you ever saw in your life, and had an aroma about like you would imagine. The crowd couldn’t stand it. They had been fighting to get in, but little by little they melted away until there was nobody coming through at all. Even the whale couldn’t stand it. At first he had nosed around in that stuff, looking for a clean place to blow, but now he didn’t even do that. He just lay there, and it didn’t take any fish doctor to see it was just a question of how long he could last.
About nine o’clock Mort came back to where I was, on the far end of the pool. “I think I’ll take a little run out of the city tomorrow, Dave,” he said. “I feel awful tired. You can keep things going.”
“Out of town? The Fourth? And you with a whale?”
“He’s run me ragged. I’ve got to rest.”
“You mean he’s run me ragged.”
“I mean he’s broke my heart. I’ve give him fish, Dave. I’ve give him grass. I’ve give him beef. I’ve give him the best that money can buy, and still he won’t eat. I don’t know what else to do.”
“And what do I give him?”
“Nothing. Just keep an eye on him. Of course, if anything happens, use your judgment. Just use your judgment.”
“Oh. Now I get it. First I got to move a live whale, and then I got to move a dead whale. And you, you dirty double-crossing heel, you know if you’ve got a dead whale in that pool tomorrow, they’ll Ku Klux you out of town, and that’s why you’re running away. Two hundred thousand people due here, worth a couple million dollars to the town, and watch them leave when the sun hits that thing. Well, I don’t bite, see? You can find another fall guy.”
“You got to do it for me, Dave. It’s got me scared blue.”
Then I let him have it. I let him have it about everything, especially the ladder. “Think of that! She even catches your whale for you. You take in all this dough. And then you’re too measly cheap even to pay for her ladder that broke up.”
He thought that over a long time. “Well, I won’t pay for it, see? And it’s not because I’m too cheap.”
“And why is it?”
“Never mind, I gotta reason.”
“The reason is money, like it generally is and that’s all I want to know. Listen, you made a mistake. It’s not you that’s taking a run-out tomorrow. It’s me.”
I went to where she was staying, and took her to a little restaurant, and told her everything that had happened. She listened, and when I got to the part where he had some reason for not coughing up she looked at me kind of queer, but didn’t say anything. “Oh, he’s all right,” I says. “He’ll come through, after he’s made everybody so sore they could kill him. That’s how he is. The main thing is we’re out from under the whale.”
“I suppose so.”
“Say, you didn’t start anything, did you?” I asks.
“I got a lawyer, but he can’t do anything until day after tomorrow. Judge Evarts went fishing over the Fourth. He’s down on the banks.”
“Then that’s all right. Day after tomorrow that whale will be history. If you really want to get even with that guy, you stick around till tomorrow and watch what happens. If that don’t hand you a laugh, nothing will.”
She walked back to the pool with me to get some things she left. When we got there, Mort was in the office with Mike Halligan, the Chief of Police, and Dr. Kruger, the Health Commissioner, and a guy named Ed Ayres, that’s executive secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. When we opened the door, Ayres was pounding the desk with his fist, and we started to back out, but Mort grabbed us and pulled us in. “Just the ones I wanted to see,” he says, and introduced us all around. “Miss Dixon is my diver,” he says. “I wouldn’t be keeping her if I was to have a whale in the pool tomorrow, would I?”