"Pohl, Frederik - Enjoy, Enjoy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

he was there.

The person he was looking for was named Murray. Murray was an old, old..,
friend? Something like that. What he basically was was somebody who owed
Cowpersmith fifty dollars, from a time when fifty hadn't seemed like an awful
lot. Cowpersmith had heard, the day before, that Murray was in town, and tracked
him down to a hotel on Central Park South.
After some deliberation he had telephoned Murray. He really hated doing it. He
needed the fifty, but in his view the odds against getting it were so bad that
he didn't like the risk of investing a dime in a phone call. The dime was, after
all, real money. There was no way to flash a revoked American Express card at
the phone booth, as he had done with the last two restaurants and the airline
that had brought him back from Chicago, where the last of his bankroll had
melted away. But the odds had paid off! Murray was in, and obliging- "What
fifty?
"Well, don't you remember, you met that Canadian girl-
"Oh, Christ, sure. Was it only fifty? Must be some interest due by now, Tud.
Tell you what-
-and the way it worked out they were to meet at this party, and Cowpersmith
would collect not fifty but a hundred dollars.
That required some decision making, too, because there was the investment for a
subway token to be considered. But Murray had sounded prosperous enough for a
gamble. Only no Murray. Cowpersmith took another hit from a girl wearing batik
bellbottoms and a halter top and glared around the room. Through the roar of
Alice Cooper he realized she was talking to him.
"What?
"I said, is your name Ted?
"Tud.
"Turd?
"Tud Cowpersmith, he yelled over the androgynous rock. "It's a family name,
Tudsbury.
She reached up close to his ear-she was not more than five feet tall-and
shouted, "If you're a friend of Murray's he's looking for you. He allowed her to
lead him around the buttress of the stairwell, for the first time noticing that
her armpits were unshaven, the hair on her head stuck out in tiny, tied witch
curls, and she was quite pretty.
And there was Murray, knotting his wild red eyebrows hospitably. "Hey, Tud.
Looking great, man! Long time.
"You're looking fine too, said Cowpersmith, although it wasn't really true.
Murray looked a little bit fine and a lot prosperous; the medallion that hung
over his raw-silk shirt was clearly gold, and he wore a very expensive- looking,
though ugly, thick wristwatch. The thing was he also looked about fifteen years
older than he had eighteen months before. They sat in two facing armchairs, one
a broken lounger, the other so overstuffed that the stuffing was curling out of
it. The girl sat cross-legged between them on the floor, and Murray idly played
with her tied curls.
Cooper had changed to the New York Queens and somebody had turned the volume
down, or else the shelter of the stairwell did the same thing for them.
Cowpersmith got several words of what Murray was saying.
"Ajob? Cowpersmith repeated. "What kind of ajob?