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

"I'm sorry," the woman at the motel said, "but Mr. Flood checked out just before ten this morning."

"I see," Raphael said. "Thank you." He hung up slowly.

"Well," he told himself, "that's that, then." The loneliness fell on him like a great weight, and the small room seemed suddenly very silent, very empty.

To be doing something, to fill up that silence, he made out a meticulous grocery list and went shopping.

When he returned, it was just growing dusk. He parked in front of the house and started to get out of his car. Across the street Patch walked by on silent feet, crossed over, and went on up past the houses of Sadie the Sitter and Spider Granny, her mother. On an impulse Raphael took out his crutches, closed the car door, and followed the melancholy Indian.

At the corner he had to wait while a couple of cars passed. He looked at the cars with impatience, and when he looked back up the street, Patch was gone. Raphael knew that he had not looked away for more than a second or so, and yet the silent man he had intended to follow had vanished.

He crutched on up past Sadie's house and then past Spider Granny's. Maybe Patch had gone down an alley. But there was no alley, and the yards in that part of the street where he had last seen Patch were all fenced.

Troubled, Raphael went slowly back down the street toward his apartment in the gathering darkness.

Flood had just pulled up behind Raphael's car and was getting out. "Training for the Olympics?" he asked sardonically as Raphael came up.

"Damon," Raphael said with a sudden sense of enormous relief, "where have you been all day? I tried to call you, but they said you'd checked out."

"I've been moving," Flood explained. "I found a place so grossly misnamed that I had to live there for a while."

"What place is that?"

"Peaceful Valley," Flood said, drawing the words out. "Isn't that a marvelous name?"

"Sounds moderately bucolic. Where is it?"

"Down at the bottom of the river gorge. Actually, it's almost in the middle of town, but it might as well be a thousand miles away. There's only one street that goes down there. The banks of the gorge are too steep to build on, so they've just let them go to scrub brush and brambles. There's a flat area along the sides of the river, and that's Peaceful Valley. The whole place is a rabbit warren of broken-down housing, tarpaper shacks, and dirt streets that don't go anyplace. The only sounds are the river and the traffic on the Maple Street Bridge about fifty feet overhead. It's absolutely isolated-sort of like a leper colony. Out at the end of the street there's an area called People's Park. I guess all the hippies and junk freaks camped there during the World's Fair. It's still a sort of loitering place for undesirables."

"Are you sure you want to live in a place like that?" Raphael asked doubtfully. "There are new apartment houses all over town."

"It's perfect. Peaceful Valley's a waste disposal for human beings-a sort of unsanitary landfill."

"All right." Raphael was a little irritated. "It's picturesque, but what are you doing down there? I know you can afford better."

"I've never lived in a place like that," Flood explained. "I've never seen the lower depths before. I suppose I'm curious."

"That kind of superior attitude can get a jack handle wrapped around your head. These people are touchy, and they've got short fuses. Give me a hand with the groceries in the car, and I'll fix us some supper.

"Do you cook?" Flood asked, almost surprised.

"I've found that it improves the flavor. You can have yours raw if you'd like."

"Smart-ass."

They went upstairs, and Flood nosed around while Raphael stood in the kitchen preparing their supper.

"What's this thing?" he demanded.