“Beer,” said Doc. “Two quarts.”

“Coming up,” said the Patrón.

“Is Mack around?”

“Sure. I guess so.”

“Tell him I want to see him.”

“Tell him who wants to see him?”

“Tell him Doc is back.”

“Okay, Doc,” said the Patrón. “This kind of beer all right?”

“Any kind of beer’s all right,” said Doc.

Doc and Mack sat late together in the laboratory. The beer lost its edge and a quart of Old Tennis Shoes took its place while Mack filled in the lost years.

Change was everywhere. People were gone, or changed, and that was almost like being gone. Names were mentioned sadly, even the names of the living. Gay was dead, killed by a piece of anti-aircraft fallback in London. He couldn’t keep his nose out of the sky during a bombing. His wife easily remarried on his insurance, but at the Palace Flop house

And Mack told Doc how Whitey No. 1 took a job in a war plant in Oakland and broke his leg the second day and spent three months in luxury. In his white hospital bed he learned to play rhythm harmonica, an accomplishment he enjoyed all the rest of his life.

Then there was the new Whitey, Whitey No. 2, and Mack was proud of him, for Whitey No. 2 had joined First Marines and gone out as a replacement. Someone, not Whitey No. 2, said he had won a Bronze Star, but if he had he’d lost it, so there was no proof. But he never forgave the Marine Corps for taking his prize away from him—a quart jar of ears pickled in brandy. He’d wanted to put that jar on the shelf over his bed, a memento of his service to his country.

Eddie had stayed on his job with Wide Ida at the Café La Ida.