"Steven Gould - Jumper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

At night they fought, over dinner, at the one play we went to, and in the hotel room. Dad wanted
sex and Mom wouldn't, even after I was asleep, because the company was footing the bill for one
room only and I was on a rollaway in the corner. Three times during that week he made me get
dressed and go down and wait in the lobby for thirty minutes while they did it. The third time, I don't
think they did, though, 'cause Mom was crying in the bathroom when I came back and Dad was
drinking, something he never did in front of my mother. Not usually.

The next day I saw that Mom had a bruise on her right cheekbone and she walked funnyтАФnot
limping on any particular side, but like it hurt to move either leg.

Two days after we got back from New York, I came home from school and Mom was gone.

Anyway, I really liked New York. It seemed a good place to start overтАФa good place to hide.



"I'd like a room."

The place was a dive, a transients' hotel in Brooklyn, ten blocks from the nearest subway stop.
I'd picked it with the help of the Pakistani cabdriver who drove me from the Port Authority Bus
Terminal. He'd stayed there himself.

The clerk was an older man, maybe my dad's age, reading a Len Deighton novel through
half-glasses. He lowered the book and tilted his head forward to look at me over the glasses.

"Too young," he said. "You're a runaway, I'll bet."

I put a hundred down on the counter, my hand still on it, like Philip Marlowe.

He laughed and put his hand on it. I lifted my hand away.

He looked at it closely, rubbing it between his fingers. Then he handed me a registration card
and said, "Forty-eight a night, five-buck key deposit, bathroom's down the hall, payment in advance."
 I gave him enough money for a week. He looked at the other hundreds for a moment, then gave
me the room key and said, "Don't deal here. I don't care what you do away from the hotel, but if I see
anything that looks like a deal, I'll turn you myself."

My jaw dropped open and I stared at him. "You mean drugs?"

"NoтАФcandy." He looked at me again. "Okay. Maybe you don't. But if I see anything like that at
all, you're history."

My face was red and I felt like I'd done something wrong, even though I hadn't. "I don't do stuff
like that," I said, stammering.

I hated feeling like that.

He just shrugged. "Maybe not. I'm just warning you. And don't bring any tricks here either."

A memory of rough hands grabbing me and pulling down my pants made me cringe. "I don't do