“I been here two months, and long enough. Leave me be your uncle, huh? You, Mac, come out here where you belong! Whose uncle are you?”
A couple of the fountain customers gave him his laugh. A man coming in from the street in a hurry approached and called to me, “Gimme some aspirin!” The door I was standing by popped open, and Uncle Dan was there, against me in the close quarters.
“Aspirin!” the man demanded.
“Henry!” Gale called.
“Right here!” the soda jerk called back.
“Wait on the gentleman. Take over for a while; I’ll be busy. Come here, Lila, will you?”
Lila moved, circled the end of the counter into the narrow aisle, and approached us. There wasn’t room enough to be gallant and let her pass, and I followed Gale through the door into the back room ahead of her. It was small, and the stacks of shipping cartons and other objects took most of what space there was. The rows of shelves were crammed with packaged merchandise, except those along the right wall, which held labeled bottles. Gale stopped near the door, and I went on by, and so did Lila.
“We don’t want to be disturbed,” Gale said, and bolted the door.
“Why not?” I inquired.
He faced me, and from a distance of five arms’ length, with Lila between us, I had my first good view of the eyes behind the specs. I had never seen a pair like them. They not only had no pupils, they had no irises. For a second I thought they were glassies, but obviously he could see, so evidently he had merely been short-changed. Whoever had assembled him had forgotten to color his irises. It didn’t make him look any handsomer.