He got a good look at Mooney's companion then and swallowed. Harse had
put on an overcoat because Mooney insisted on it and he wore a hat
because Mooney had told him flatly there would be trouble and questions
if he didn't. But he hadn't taken off his own silvery leotard, which
peeped through between neck and hat and where the coat flapped open.
"--ank," finished the driver thoughtfully.
Mooney didn't give him a chance to change his mind. "Red Bank is just
where we want to go. Come on!" Already he had his hand on the door. He
jumped in, made room for Harse, reached over him and slammed the door.
"Thank you very much," he said chattily to the driver. "Cold morning,
isn't it? And that was some storm last night. Say, we really do
appreciate this. Anywhere in Red Bank will be all right to drop us,
anywhere at all."
He leaned forward slightly, just enough to keep the driver from being
able to get a really good look at his other passenger.
It would have gone all right, it really would, except that just past
Fair Haven, Harse suddenly announced: "It is the time for me to. Eat?"
* * * * *
He snip-snapped something around the edges of the gleaming sort of
dispatch case, which opened. Mooney, peering over his shoulder, caught
glimpses of shiny things and spinning things and things that seemed to
glow. So did the driver.
"Hey," he said, interested, "what've you got there?"
"My business," said Harse, calmly and crushingly.
The driver blinked. He opened his mouth, and then he shut it again, and
his neck became rather red.
Mooney said rapidly: "Say, isn't there--uh--isn't there a lot of snow?"
He feigned fascination with the snow on the road, leaning forward until
his face was nearly at the frosty windshield. "My gosh, I've never seen
the road so snowy!"
Beside him, Harse was methodically taking things out of other things. A
little cylinder popped open and began to steam; he put it to his lips
and drank. A cube the size of a fist opened up at one end and little
pellets dropped out into a cup. Harse picked a couple up and began to
chew them. A flat, round object the shape of a cafeteria pie flipped
open and something gray and doughy appeared--
"Holy heaven!"
Mooney's face slammed into the windshield as the driver tramped on his
brakes. Not that Mooney could really blame him. The smell from that
doughy mass could hardly be believed; and what made it retchingly worse
was that Harse was eating it with a pearly small spoon.
The driver said complainingly: "Out! Out, you guys! I don't mind giving
you a lift, but I've got hard rolls in the back of the truck and that
smell's going to--Out! You heard me!"
"Oh," said Harse, tasting happily. "No."
"_No?_" roared the driver. "Now listen! I don't have to take any lip
from hitchhikers! I don't have to--"
"One moment," said Harse. "Please." Without hurry and without delay,
beaming absently at the driver, he reached into the silvery case again.
Snip, snippety-snap; a jointed metal thing wriggled and snicked into
place. And Harse, still beaming, pointed it at the driver.
Pale blue light and a faint whine.
It was a good thing the truck was halted, because the whining blue
light reached diffidently out and embraced the driver; and then there
was no driver. There was nothing. He was gone, beyond the reach of any
further lip from hitchhikers.