The first warning he had was when there was a sudden commotion among
the lodge brothers. Mooney turned, much too late. There was Harse; he
had wandered over there, curious and interested and--Harse. He had
stared them up and down, but he hadn't been content to stare. He had
opened the little silvery dispatch-case and taken out of it the thing
that looked like a film viewer; and maybe it was a camera, too, because
he was looking through it at the conventioneers. He was covering them
as Dixie is covered by the dew, up and down, back and forth, heels to
head.
And it was causing a certain amount of attention. Even one of
the photographers thought maybe this funny-looking guy with the
funny-looking opera glasses was curious enough to be worth a shot.
After all, that was what the photographer was there for. He aimed and
popped a flash gun.
There was an abrupt thin squeal from the box. Black fog sprayed out of
it in a greasy jet. It billowed toward Harse. It collected around him,
swirled high. Now all the flashguns were popping....
It was a clear waste of a twenty-dollar bill, Mooney told himself
aggrievedly out on the sidewalk. There had been no point in buttering
up the bellhop as long as Harse was going to get them thrown out anyway.
* * * * *
On the other side of the East River, in a hotel that fell considerably
below Mooney's recent, brief standards of excellence, Mooney cautiously
tipped a bellboy, ushered him out, locked the door behind him and,
utterly exhausted, flopped on one of the twin beds.
Harse glanced at him briefly, then wandered over to the window and
stared incuriously at the soiled snow outside.
"You were fine, Harse," said Mooney without spirit. "You didn't do
anything wrong at all."
"Ah," said Harse without turning. "So?"
Mooney sat up, reached for the phone, demanded setups and a bottle from
room service and hung up.
"Oh, well," he said, beginning to revive, "at least we're in Brooklyn
now. Maybe it's just as well."
"As well. What?"
"I mean this is where you wanted to be. Now we just have to wait four
days, until the twenty-sixth. We'll have to raise some more money, of
course," he added experimentally.
Harse turned and looked at him with the pale eyes. "One thousand
dollars you have. Is not enough?"
"Oh, no, Harse," Mooney assured him. "Why, that won't be nearly enough.
The room rent in this hotel alone is likely to use that up. Besides all
the extras, of course."
"Ah." Harse, looking bored, sat down in the chair near Mooney, opened
his kit, took out the thing that looked like a film viewer and put it
to his eyes.
"We'll have to sell some more of those things. After all--" Mooney
winked and dug at the pale-eyed man's ribs with his elbow--"we'll be
needing some, well, entertainment."
Harse took the viewer away from his eyes. He glanced thoughtfully at
the elbow and then at Mooney. "So," he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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