Jumper 1 - Jumper (8 page)

I dropped the search for a while, discouraged, and instead thought about
why.

Why could I teleport? Not how. Why? What was it about me?

Could everybody teleport if they were put in a desperate enough position? I couldn't believe that. Too many people were put in those positions and they just endured, suffered, or broke.

If they escaped the situation it was by ordinary means, often—like my encounter with Topper—running from the frying pan into the fire. Still, maybe there were a few who escaped my way.

Again, why me? Was it genetic? The thought that perhaps Dad could teleport made my blood run cold, made me look in dark corners and behind my back. Rationally I doubted it. There were too many times he'd have jumped if he could. But no matter how many times I told myself that, the gut feeling still remained.

Could Mom teleport? Is that what she did? Jump away from Dad, like I did? Why didn't she take me? If she could teleport, why didn't she come back for me?

And if she couldn't teleport, what happened to her?

All my life, I'd wondered if I was some sort of alien—some sort of strange changeling. Among other things, it would explain why Dad treated me the way he did.

According to many of the more extreme books, the government was actively covering up all this information—concealing evidence, muffling witnesses, and manufacturing spurious alternative explanations.

This behavior reminded me of Dad. Facts constantly shifted around our house. Permissions changed, events mutated, and memories faded. I often wondered if I was crazy or he was.

I didn't think I was an alien, though... but I wasn't sure.

My landlord gave me a funny look when I asked if I could pay him the monthly rent in cash.

"Cash? Hell, no. Those postal orders are bad enough. Why don't you get a bank account? I thought it was strange when you paid with those postal orders, but I put it down to you being new in town. You want to have the IRS down on me?"

I shook my head. "No."

He narrowed his eyes. "The IRS really frowns on large cash transactions. I wouldn't want to think there's something funny about your income."

I shook my head. "No. I just have a lot of cash left over from a trip I took." My ears were burning and my stomach felt funny.

Later in the day I gave my landlord another postal money order for the rent, but I could see him thinking about it.

A woman on the phone told me that to open an account with her bank I would need a driver's license and a Social Security number. I had neither. Even talking to her I had to use a public phone. I was afraid to try and get a phone without I.D.

I put a thousand dollars in my pocket and jumped to Manhattan, west of Times Square, where the adult bookstores and porno theaters line Forty-second Street and Eighth Avenue. In two hours I was offered drugs, girls, boys, and children. When one of them said they
could
provide a driver's license, it was only to lure me down an alleyway, so they could "jump" me. I jumped first and quit trying for the day.

The Stanville Public Library is just off the downtown district, a three-block-by-two-block area of public buildings, restaurants, and dying stores. The Wal-Mart at the edge of town and the big mall twenty miles away in Waverly were taking the downtown business.

I walked along Main Street and thought about how different this stupid little town was from New York City.

The boarded-up front of the Royale movie theater had graffiti on the plywood, but the message was "Stallions Rule!" In New York the graffiti on theaters was obscene or angry, not high school athletic bragging. On the other hand, there were over fifty movie theaters in the midtown section of Manhattan and that didn't count the porno houses. Here in Stanville the only theater was closed, done in by the video business. If people wanted a real movie theater, they had to drive to the sixplex in Waverly.

It was pointless to compare restaurants, but the variety and range of them hit home when I came to the Dairy Queen. It was brick with high glass windows and bright fluorescent lighting. It had all the atmosphere and charm of a doctor's examining room. I thought of seven spots in Greenwich Village that would serve me anything from gourmet ice cream to "tofutti" to frozen yogurt to Bavarian cream pie. I could be at any of them in the blink of an eye.

"I'd like a small dip cone, please."

I didn't know the elderly woman behind the counter, but Robert Werner, who used to be in biology class with me, was flipping burgers. He looked up from the grill, saw me, and frowned, as if I was familiar but he couldn't place me. It had been over a year, but it hurt that he didn't recognize me.

"That will be seventy-three cents."

I paid. In the Village it would have been considerably more. As I walked back to one of the plastic laminated booths I saw myself in the mirror that ran along the back wall. No wonder Robert couldn't place me.

I was wearing slacks from Bergdorf's, a shirt I'd gotten from some snotty clerk on Madison Avenue, and shoes from Saks Fifth Avenue. My hair was cut neatly, slightly punkoid, far different from the untrimmed mess I'd worn a year before. Then I would have been wearing worn, ill-fitting jeans, shirts with clashing patterns, and three-year-old tennis shoes. There would have been holes in the socks.

I stared for a moment, a ghostly overlay of that earlier, awkward me causing me to shudder. I sat down, facing away from the mirror, and ate my ice cream.

Robert came out from the kitchen to bus a table near me. He looked at me again, still puzzled.

What the hell.

"How's it going, Robert?"

He smiled and shrugged. "Okay. How about you? Long time no see."

He still didn't place me.

I laughed. "You might say that. Not for over a year."

"That would have been at...?" He paused, as if remembering, inviting me to fill in the blank.

I grinned. "You're going to have to remember all on your own. I won't help you."

He glared then. "Okay. Dammit. I know you, but where from? Give me a break!"

I shook my head and nibbled on my cone.

He turned to finish bussing the table, then straightened up suddenly. "Davy? Christ, Davy Rice!"

"Bingo."

"I thought you did a milk carton."

I grimaced. "Poetically put."

"Did you go back home?"

"No!" I blinked, surprised at the force in my voice. More softly I said, "No, I didn't. I'm just seeing the old hometown."

"Oh." He put his hands in his pockets. "Well, you look really good. Really different."

"I'm doing all right. I..." I shrugged.

"Where are you living now?"

I started to lie, to tell him something misleading, but it seemed petty. "I'd rather not say."

He frowned. "Oh. Is your dad still putting those posters up?"

"Christ, I hope not."

He started wiping the table. "You going to be here on Saturday? There's a party at Sue Kimmel's."

I felt my face turning red. "I was never in with those guys. Half of them are college kids. They wouldn't want me there."

He shrugged. "I don't know. Hell, maybe they think too much about clothes and things. They only invited me because my sister's close to Sue. You look more like you'd fit in now than I do. If you want to go with me, I'll vouch for you."

Christ, I must've changed a lot.

"Don't you have a date?"

"Nah. Nothing definite. Trish McMillan will be there and we sort of have this thing, but it's not a date."

"It's nice of you, Robert. You don't really owe me anything like that."

He blinked. "Well... it's not like I hang out with a high-class group. Maybe you'll add something to my image."

"Well... I'd like to. You working here all week?"

"Yeah, even Saturday until six. That old college-fund grind."

"When do you think you'll be ready to go?"

"Eight, maybe."

"You driving?"

He pointed out into the parking lot. "Yeah, that old clunker's mine."

I took a deep breath. I didn't want to go to his house. I didn't know what his parents would say to me or about me to Dad. The thought of going to that party, though... that really tempted me. "Could you pick me up here?"

"Sure. Eight sharp, Saturday night."

I spent some time that evening talking to Millie on the phone. It was frustrating because I kept having to put quarters in the pay phone.

"So, how's school so far?"

"Okay. Haven't really had to struggle yet. It's just the first month."

A recorded message asked me to add more money. I shoved several quarters in. Millie laughed.

"You really need to get a phone."

"I'm working on it. Getting a phone in New York... I'll call you with the number when I get it."

"Okay."

I was standing at the phones in the back lobby of the Grand Hyatt by Grand Central, a small mountain of quarters on the ledge in front of me. People swept past, going to the bathrooms. Occasionally a Hyatt security man in a suit would roust nonguests out of the bathroom. They were usually black, poorly dressed, and carrying plastic bags filled with miscellaneous belongings.

For some reason it bothered me that the security guard was black, too.

"What did you say?"

Millie was indignant. "I said there's a party I've been invited to in two weeks. I don't want to go because Mark will be there."

"Mark's your old boyfriend?"

"Yeah. Only he thinks I'm still involved with him."

"How's that? I thought you didn't return his calls or let him in your apartment."

"I don't. He's amazing. Oblivious. And the sonofabitch keeps it up even though I know he's dating someone else."

"Hmmm. You sound like you'd really like to go to this party."

"Well. Shit. I don't want to make decisions based on avoiding or seeing him. It pisses me off."

"I could—"

The recording had me put more money in.

"What did you say, David?"

"I could go with you if you like."

"Get real. You're in New York."

"Sure. Now. In two weeks I could be in Stillwater."

She was quiet for a moment. "Well, it would be nice. I'll believe it when I see it, though."

"Hey! Count on it. Will you pick me up at the airport? Or should I take a taxi?"

"Christ! A taxi won't run sixty miles to Stillwater. I'll come get you, but it will have to be after classes."

"Okay."

"What, you mean it?"

"Yes."

She was quiet again. "Well, okay then. Let me know."

That took care of my next two Saturday nights. I said good-bye and hung up. The security guard came out of the rest room following closely behind another street person. I swept the rest of the quarters off the ledge and dropped them in one of this guy's plastic bags. He looked at me, startled and, perhaps, a little frightened. The security man glowered at me.

I walked around the corner and jumped away.

Leo Pasquale was a bellboy at the Gramercy Park, the nice hotel I'd stayed at before I got my apartment. He was the winner in the hotel-staff dominance due over who waited on me.

I tip well.

"Hey, Mr. Rice. Nice to see you."

I nodded. "Hello, Leo."

"Are you back with us? What room?"

I shook my head. "No. I've got an apartment now. I could use your help with something, though."

He looked around at the bell captain, then tilted his head to the elevator. "Let's ride up to ten."

"Okay."

On the tenth floor he led me down the hall and opened a room with a passkey. "Come on in," he said.

The room was a suite. He opened a door and we walked out onto a large balcony, almost a terrace. The afternoon was pleasant, warm without being muggy. The traffic noise rose up from Lexington Avenue in waves, almost like surf. Buildings rose around us like mountain cliffs.

"What do you need, David? Girls? Something in a recreational drug?"

I took the money out of my pocket and counted out five hundred-dollar bills. I gave them to him and held the remaining five hundred in my other hand where they were still visible.

"Down payment. The rest you get on delivery."

He licked his lips. "Delivery of what?"

It was my turn to hesitate. "I want a New York State driver's license good enough to pass a police check."

"Hell, man. You can buy a fake driver's license for less than a hundred... a good one for under two-fifty."

I shook my head. "Your money is just a finder's fee, Leo. I'm not paying for a fake ID with this thousand. I'm paying to be hooked up with an expert. I expect to pay for his services myself."

Leo raised his eyebrows and licked his lips again. "All of the thousand is mine, though?"

"If you come up with the product. But if it's hackwork, if it's no good, forget the second five hundred. Find me a wizard and the rest of the money is yours. Can you do it?"

He rubbed the bills between his fingers, feeling the texture of the paper. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure. I don't know anyone directly, but I know a lot of illegals with really good papers. You got a number I can reach you at?"

I smiled. "No."

"Cagey."

I shook my head. "I don't have a phone. I'll check back. When will you know something?"

He folded the money carefully and put it in his pocket. "Try me tomorrow."

I paid a homeless man twenty dollars plus cost to go into a liquor store and buy a magnum of their more expensive champagne. He came out with the large bottle in one hand and a jug of wine under his other arm.

"Here, kid. Have a hell of a time. I certainly intend to."

I thought of Dad. I considered taking this guy's wine away from him, grabbing it and jumping before he could do anything. Instead I said "Thank you" politely and jumped back to my apartment as soon as he'd turned away.

The champagne barely fit in the tiny refrigerator lying down, but not standing, and even then it bumped against the door. I leaned a chair against the door to keep it shut.

I spent the next two hours up on Fifth Avenue, buying clothes and shoes. A few of the clerks even remembered me. After that I went to my hairstylist in the Village and got a haircut.