"Jerry Davis - Random Acts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Jerry)

increase, and I smile back --- I have no choice, her smile is one
of those that are so warm and natural and happy that you smile
back out of reflex, whether you feel like it or not. "You made it
out alive!" she exclaims in her throaty voice; it cracks a little
at the peak of her emphasized "alive."
She and Tom get to their feet and we head toward the car,
ignoring the stares of the people drifting out of the building ---
people realizing that I was, indeed, a spy for the Barb's most
notorious reporter. I tell them about what went on in the meeting
as we pile into the car and Tom starts the loud, throbbing engine.
Tom listens to me, but I can tell he's lost interest. There's no
story here for him, unless he wants to write for the National
Inquirer. The car jerks forward, leaping down the road, and in two
minutes we make it to Euclid Street. Tom parks in his rented spot
way up the hill from the building where Tom and I share an
apartment. The building, named "The Euclid," is right across the
street from the Berkeley campus, and there's never any parking
anywhere near the campus. This spot way up the hill is the closest
he could get. For the same reason my vehicle is even farther away
--- I haven't seen it in over a week.
Pris and I help Tom put the rubberized canvas covering over
his car ---it's a gleaming 1967 Camero convertible with a totally
un-stock, high performance engine and transmission, not at all
street legal --- and having secured that, we plod down the hill
toward the Euclid. I'm right in the middle of suggesting we stop
at Rodney Red's Bar, which we're passing, when Tom suddenly
exclaims "Hey!" He stops and points.
"What?" Pris asks.
"The bum. Look." He's pointing at the Euclid building, which
is only a half block away. The steps are clearly visible, and
sitting on them is our bum.
"No, that can't be the same . . ." I start, but trail off. It
is the same bum. I can tell by his jerking, uneven motions, like a
wind-up toy with broken gears. Nobody else moves like that. How in
the hell? I wonder. How in the hell did he get here before us?
"That must have not been our bum at the meeting," Tom says.
"It looked like him to me," I say. Then again, the bum at the
meeting didn't act like our bum. We reach the steps of the Euclid
and he looks up at us, grinning a grotesque, rotten-toothed grin
with gaping holes, and bobs his head up and down like a lizard.
"How did you get back here so fast?" Pris asks him.
The bum stops his bobbing nod, and draws his head back in a
way that makes his neck look like rubber. "Huh?" he says.
"The meeting," Tom says. "How did you get back from the
meeting before us?"
The bum lowers his eyebrows, scrunching up his face.
"Whaaat?"
"You weren't at the meeting?" Tom says. "You know, about the
little red lights?"