"David Eddings - Losers, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

At the end of two years, however, the decision could no longer be put off. Raphael privately considered his options and independently made his choice.

"Reed?" his uncle said, stunned.

"It's a good school, Uncle Harry," Raphael pointed out, "the best school in this part of the country. They say it's one of the top ten colleges in the United States."

"But they don't even have a football team, do they?"

"I don't know," Raphael replied. "I don't think so."

"You could go to Stanford. That's a good school, too."

Raphael nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," he agreed, "but it's too big."

"They've got a good team. You might even get a chance to play in the Rose Bowl."

"Maybe, but I think I'd rather go to Reed. I've had a lot of fun playing football, but I think it's time I moved on to something else, don't you?"

"Where is this college located?" Mrs. Taylor asked faintly.

"Portland," Raphael replied.

"In Oregon?" Mrs. Taylor asked even more faintly.

Raphael nodded.

Mrs. Taylor's heart sank.


ii
Portland, the city of the roses, bestrides the banks of the Willamette River near where that stream joins the Columbia. It is a pleasant city, filled with trees and fine old Victorian houses. The campus of Reed College, where Raphael was enrolled, lies somewhat to the east of the river, and has about it a dreamy, timeless quality. The very buildings that rise from the broad lawns identify the place as a college, since such a random collection of Georgian manors, medieval cathedrals, and starkly modern structures of brick and glass could exist for no other reason.

In his car of recent vintage with its backseat filled with the new and expensive luggage his mother had bought and tearfully given him, Raphael Taylor pulled rather wearily into the student parking lot and stopped. The trip had been quite long, and he was unaccustomed to freeway driving. There was, however, an exhilaration about it all. He was on his own for the first time in his life, and that was something.

Thanks to his uncle's careful correspondence with the registrar and the bursar, all arrangements had been made well in advance, and Raphael knew precisely where his dormitory was located. With his jacket under his arm and two suitcases rather self-consciously swinging at his sides, he walked across to the manselike solidity of the dorm, feeling a certain superiority to the small crowd of bewildered-looking freshmen milling uncertainly around in front of the administration building.

His room was on the third floor, and Raphael was puffing slightly as he reached the top of the stairs. The door at the end of the hall was open, and billowing clouds of smoke were rolling out. Raphael's stomach turned cold. Everything had gone too well up until now. He went down the hall and into the smoke.

A young man with olive skin and sleek black hair brushed by him carrying a large vase filled with water. "Don't just stand there, man," he said to Raphael in a rich baritone voice. "Help me put this son of a bitch out." He rushed into the room, bent slightly, and threw the water into a small fireplace that seemed to be the source of all the smoke. The fire hissed spitefully, and clouds of steam boiled out to mingle blindingly with the smoke.

"Damn!" the dark-haired man swore, and started back for more water.

Raphael saw the problem immediately. "Wait," he said. He set down his suitcases, stepped across to the evilly fuming fireplace, and pulled the brass handle sticking out of the bricks just below the mantelpiece. The damper opened with a clank, and the fireplace immediately stopped belching smoke into the room. "It's a good idea to open the chimney before you build the fire," he suggested.

The other man stared at the fireplace for a moment, and then he threw back his head and began to laugh. "There's a certain logic there, I guess," he admitted. He collapsed on the bed near the door, still laughing.

Raphael crossed the room and opened the window. The smoke rushed out past him.

"It's a good thing you came by when you did," the dark-haired man said. "I was well on my way to being smoked like a Virginia ham." He was somewhat shorter than Raphael, and more slender. His olive skin and black hair suggested a Mediterranean background, Italian perhaps or Spanish, but there was no Latin softness in his dark eyes. They were as hard as obsidian and watchful, even wary. His clothing was expensive-tailored, Raphael surmised, definitely tailored-and his wristwatch was not so much a timepiece as it was a statement.