Hard Feelings (28 page)
I closed my eyes. The next moment, I was falling, so fast my face felt like it was going to explode. Then I hit the ground, with a loud
crack.
I opened my eyes. Blurry feet were gathered around me and voices were telling me to “stay still,” and that everything was going to be “okay.”
Now there were horrible, excruciating pains in my legs and arms and all through my back and neck.
Paula was kneeling next to me.
“Paula,” I mumbled. “Paula . . .”
I tried to get up, dazed and bloodied, but someone held me down.
“Paula,” I said. “Paula . . .”
But she was gone. There were just strangers around me:
“Where’d he jump from?”
“I don’t know.”
“I saw it—the fifth floor.”
“The
fifth
floor—damn.”
“Shit, look at his face.”
“Man, the poor guy.”
“Don’t worry, pal. You’re gonna be just fine.”
A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL, JANUARY 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Jason Starr
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada
by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage Books is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Starr, Jason.
Hard feelings / by Jason Starr.
p. cm.
“Vintage Crime/Black Lizard.”
eISBN : 978-0-307-42617-8
1. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.T336225 H37 2002
813’.54—dc21 2001046571
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