Read Online The Starving Years by Jordan Castillo Price - Free Book Online

said it probably wasn’t secure to swap photos, to just look for the red bandanna, Javier ate that up just as readily.
    Bad ideas all around. That was pretty obvious now.
    He drew a USB memory stick from his pocket and checked that it hadn’t been damaged back there in the crowd. He’d fallen, at some point, though it was kind of a blur. He turned the device around in his fingers. It seemed fine, though he wouldn’t know for sure until he plugged it in, verified that it still worked, and saw what he’d managed to copy.
    Once he pocketed the memory stick, he removed his eye patch, peeling the ties carefully from the semi-permanent ridge the strings had cut into his temple, and splashed the sweat and grime of the day from his face. The feel of the water centered him, made him feel more like himself. Disappointed? Perhaps. But dealing with Canaan Products was more important than hooking up with some guy. And they couldn’t deal with Canaan until the people from the job fair left.
    He turned to dry his face with a towel hanging over the track that held the shower curtain around the chipped clawfoot tub.
    Tim’s towel.
    There was a tap on the door. “Javier?” Marianne called through it. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine.” He stopped with the towel pressed to his cheek, but he resisted the urge to bury his nose in the terrycloth and breathe deeply. Resisted...barely.
    “You’ve been in there a long time. You’re not hurt or anything, are you?”
    “Everything’s fine.”
    So much for letting go of the infatuation.
    “Okay. Well...I gotta pee. If you can, y’know, finish up.”
    Disgusted, he turned away from the towel, tied his eye patch back into place and opened the door. Marianne shot him an apologetic look as she squeezed past him. He stepped out into the living room and she shut the door. Randy was now the only other one in the room, seated at the computer, squinting as he typed. Tim was conspicuously absent.
    “Women,” Randy called over his shoulder. “That’s the second time she’s had to go in the last hour.
    “What did you find out about the riot? Anything?”
    “Traffic delays. That’s what they’re calling it on the news. No mention of phone lines not working, either. This sucks, man. I gotta get my dentist on the phone.”
    Javier scanned the tiny apartment as Randy spoke. It was smaller than he’d imagined it would be, and plainer, too. Not that he’d been expecting granite countertops and a view of the Manhattan skyline; Tim had made it clear that money was the least of his motivations. Crystal clear. Still, the shabbiness Javier had conjured up in his overstimulated imagination had looked more like set-dressing than actual poverty. Or asceticism. Or…Javier glanced at a window covered in yellowed newspaper. Whatever you would call it.
    Which only went to show how ridiculous his own romantic notions had been.
    “You got a phone on you?” Randy said.
    “No. We weren’t supposed to bring one to the job fair.”
    “And you actually left yours at home? What’d you think, they were gonna frisk us at the door? I’ll bet you believe in Santa Claus, too. Or the Tooth Fairy. That’s who I need. The Tooth Fairy.”
    Marianne emerged from the bathroom in her stocking feet. “My mom and dad are probably worried sick about me. They never wanted me to move to New York.” She perched on the arm of the recliner as she was too keyed up to actually sit in it. “They said it was too dangerous. I thought they were just being overprotective, and if I stayed away from crackhouses and dark alleys they’d have nothing to worry about.”
    “Don’t worry,” Randy said. “By the time they hear about whatever’s going on, this whole thing’ll be over and done with and you can tell ’em yourself.”
    Javier only half-listened to the two of them. As much as he wanted to convince himself that the real Tim Foster, an actual flesh-and-blood human being, had nothing to do with the image he’d