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

"A penthouse, no less," Flood noted when they reached the roof.

"Hardly that." Raphael laughed. "More like a pigeon loft." They went on inside. "Sit down," Raphael told him. "I'll make some coffee." He needed something to do to cover his confusion, to get him past that first stiff awkwardness that was always there when he met someone again after a long time. He was quite suddenly painfully aware of his one-leggedness and particularly anxious that Flood should not think of him as a cripple, so he made a special show of his competence, even though he was aware at the time that it was childish to do so.

Flood had not changed much. His skin was a bit sallower, and there were circles under his eyes that had not been there before. His grin was still sardonic, and his eyes still had that same hard glitter, but he seemed less sure of himself, almost ill at ease, as if he had somehow lost control of his life or something important had gotten away from him.

"Why aren't you in school?" Raphael asked, filling his coffeepot at the sink.

"I dropped out at midterm," Flood replied, sitting on the couch. "The Reed experience got to be a bit overpowering. Scholarship was never one of my strong points."

"How did your father take that?"

"He was moderately unenthusiastic-until I assured him that I wasn't coming home to dear old Grosse Pointe. We struck a bargain. The old pirate will keep those checks coming as long as I stay west of the Mississippi. It's a pretty good working arrangement."

Raphael put the pot on and then crutched over to the armchair. "How did you find me?"

Flood shrugged. "It wasn't that hard. I stopped by the hospital after Christmas vacation, but you'd already left. I talked with some of the nurses and that bald guy in the wheelchair."

"Quillian?"

Flood nodded. "There's a man with all the charm of a nesting rattlesnake."

"He's rough," Raphael agreed, suddenly remembering all the sweating hours in therapy under the lash of Quillian's contemptuous voice, "but he's damn good at his job. You might not want to walk when he starts on you, but you're damn well walking when he gets done."

"If only to get away from him. Anyway, I finally wound up in the administration office. I seduced the name of your uncle in Port Angeles out of one of the file clerks-blew in her ear, that sort of thing. You really don't want all the sordid details, do you?"

"Spare me."

"Sure. Anyhow, I filed Port Angeles away for future reference, and then after I hung it up at Reed, I drifted on up to Seattle. There was a girl who got fed up with the Reed experience about the same time I did. We got along-for a while, anyway. I was thinking about San Francisco, but she convinced me that we'd have a ball in Boeing City. We went on up and set up housekeeping for a month or so. It didn't work out, so I pulled the plug on her."

"You're still all heart, Damon."

"I improved her life. I taught her that there are more important things in the world than rock concerts and political theory. Now she's got a deep and tragic affair in her past. It'll make her more interesting for the next guy. God knows she bored the hell out of me." Flood had been speaking in a dry, almost monotonous tone with few of the flashes of that flowery extravagance Raphael remembered from the days when they had roomed together. The feeling was still there that something had gone out of him somehow, or that he had suffered some obscure and hidden injury that still gnawed at him. "I knocked around Seattle for a while," he went on, "and then I decided to take a quick run up to Port Angeles to see how you were doing."

"What made you think I'd be there?"

Flood shrugged. "It just seemed reasonable. That's your home. I just had it in my mind that you were there. It seemed quite logical at the time."

"You should have called first."

"You know, your uncle Harry told me exactly the same thing. Anyway, after I found out that I was wrong and got your address here from him, I took a quick turn around Port Angeles and then bombed on over. Once I set out to do something, I by God do it. I'd have followed you all the way to hell, my friend."

"What did you think of Port Angeles?"

"Would you accept picturesque?"

"You were unimpressed."

"Moderately. I don't want to offend you, but that is one of the gloomiest places I've ever had the misfortune to visit."