Fuzz полностью

Two bottles of expensive scotch, one already dead, were on the coffee table before the sofa upholstered in rich black leather. On the wall opposite the sofa, there hung an original Rouault, only a gouache to be sure, but nonetheless quite valuable. A grand piano turned its wide curve into the room, and a petite brunette, wearing a miniskirt and a white crocheted blouse, sat at the piano playing "Heart and Soul" over and over again.

The girl was perhaps twenty-three years old, with a nose that had been recently bobbed, large brown eyes, long black hair that fell to a point halfway between her waist and her shoulder blades. She was wearing false eyelashes. They fluttered whenever she hit a sour note, which was often. The deaf man seemed not to mind the discord that rose from the piano. Perhaps he really was deaf, or perhaps he had consumed enough scotch to have dimmed his perception. The two other men in the room didn't seem to mind the cacophony either. One of them even tried singing along with the girl's treacherous rendition-until she hit another sour note and began again from the top.

"I can't seem to get it," she said, pouting.

"You'll get it, honey," the deaf man said. "Just keep at it."

One of the men was short and slender, with the dustcolored complexion of an Indian. He wore narrow black tapered trousers and a white shirt over which was an open black vest. He was sitting at a drop-leaf desk, typing. The other man was tall and burly, with blue eyes, red hair, and a red mustache. There were freckles spattered over his cheeks and his forehead, and his voice, as he began singing along with the girl again, was deep and resonant. He was wearing tight jeans and a blue turtleneck sweater.

As the girl continued to play "Heart and Soul," a feeling of lassitude spread through the deaf man. Sitting on the couch, watching the second phase of his scheme as it became a reality, he mused again on the beauty of the plan, and then glanced at the girl, and then smiled when she hit the same sour note (an E flat where it should have been a natural E) and then looked again to where Ahmad was typing.

"The beauty of this phase," he said aloud, "is that none of them will believe us."

"They will believe," Ahmad offered, and smiled thinly.

"Yes, but not at this phase."

"No, only later," Ahmad said, and sipped at his scotch, and glanced at the girl's thighs, and went back to his typing.

"How much is this mailing going to cost us?" the other man asked.

"Well, Buck," the deaf man said, "we're sending out a hundred pieces of first-class mail at five cents postage per envelope, so that comes to a grand total of five dollars-if my arithmetic is correct."

"Your arithmetic is always correct," Ahmad said, and smiled.

"This is the damn part I can't get," the girl said, and struck the same note over and over again, as though trying to pound it into her memory.

"Keep at it, Rochelle," the deaf man said. "You'll get it."

Buck lifted his glass, discovered it was empty, and went to the coffee table to refill it, moving with the economy of an athlete, back ramrod stiff, hands dangling loosely at his sides, as though he were going back for the huddle after having executed a successful line plunge.

"Here, let me help you," the deaf man said.

"Not too heavy," Buck said.

The deaf man poured a liberal shot into Buck's extended glass. "Drink," he said. "You deserve it."

"Well, I don't want to get crocked."

"Why not? You're among friends," the deaf man said, and smiled.

He was feeling particularly appreciative of Buck's talent tonight, because without it this phase of the scheme would never have become a reality. Oh yes, a primitive bomb could have been assembled and hastily wired to the ignition switch, but such sloppiness, such dependency on chance, had never appealed to the deaf man. The seriousness with which Buck had approached the problem had been truly heart-warming. His development of a compact package (the inverter had weighed a mere twenty-two pounds and measured only ten by ten by five) that could be easily transported and wired in a relatively short period of time, his specific demand for an inverter with a regulated sine-wave output (costing a bit more, yes, $64.95, but a negligible output in terms of the hoped-for financial realization), his insistence on a briefing session to explain the proper handling of the dynamite and the electric blasting cap, all were admirable, admirable. He was a good man, Buck, a demolition expert who had worked on countless legitimate blasting jobs, a background essential to the deaf man's plan; in this state, you were not allowed to buy explosives without a permit and insurance, both of which Buck possessed. The deaf man was very pleased indeed to have him in his employ.