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“Okay, no.”
He paused. “Whaddya mean, no? And what’s with the food?”
“Thought they might be hungry.”
“So you’re giving them that? Where’s the fish?”
“What fish? It’s a convenience store. They have Slim Jims and ICEEs.”
“Well—puff, puff—we’re gonna need—puff, puff—some fish.”
“Why do we need fish? And stop walking!”
“I gotta get this hooked to the car.”
“You’re not going to hook it to the car.”
“And why not?”
“I don’t have a hitch.”
Thereafter followed a long string of out-of-breath cussing. Followed by: “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU DON’T HAVE A HITCH?”
“Why would I have a hitch?”
“Everybody has a hitch! What do you do when you need to haul stuff?”
“I rent a truck.” And shit. I’d forgotten Stan’s truck again. He was going to skin me. And that was assuming I could find the thing, since it hadn’t been at the house.
Where the hell had I left it?
“What kind of truck?” Fin said, looking around.
“What?”
“You said we need a truck. What kind?”
“I didn’t say that. And you realize we’re having this convo in front of the store, right? Where everybody can see you?”
“There’s nobody around.”
“There’s that guy.” I pointed with the ICEE at the guy who’d stared at Fin earlier. He’d gotten his gas and what looked like a couple hot dogs and one of the nachos-of-death things these places always try to pawn off on you, like that cheese hasn’t been in the crock for two weeks.
But he wasn’t eating any of it, and not because it was nasty.
But because he was staring at Fin.
“Hey. That guy’s got a truck,” Fin said speculatively.
And then, before I could stop him, he dropped the mini-haul and went charging across the gas station, toward the guy. Whose eyes blew wide and whose food went everywhere when he threw the truck into gear and screeched out of the lot, like all the demons of hell were after him.
Or one big-nosed forest troll.
Who stood there, shouting something for a minute, before stomping back over. “Well, what the hell do we do now?”
“You can’t just steal a truck!”
“I wasn’t gonna steal it. I was gonna borrow it.”
