"Thanks.
-but the pot did not ease him. He was looking for somebody. That was the reason 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.
"A job? Cowpersmith repeated. "What kind of a job?
"The finest fucking job in all the world, said Murray, and laughed and laughed, poking the girl's shoulder. When he had calmed down, he said, "What do you work for, Tud?
Cowpersmith said angrily, "God, you know. I worked for the advertising agency until they took cigarette ads off TV, then I was with the oil company until-
"No, no. For what purpose.
Cowpersmith shrugged. "Money?
"Sure, but what do you do with the money?
"Pay bills? he guessed.
"No, no, damn it! After you do all the lousy stuff like that. What do you do with the extra money? Like when you were still pulling down twenty-five K at the agency and everything was on the expense account anyway?
"Oh, sure. It had been so long ago Cowpersmith had almost forgotten. "Fun. Good food. Plays. Girls. Cars-
"Right on, cried Murray, "and that's what everyone else works for, too. Everybody but me! That's what my job is. I don't have to work for those things, because I work at them. I don't imagine you're going to believe this, Tud, but it's true, he added as an afterthought.
Cowpersmith looked down at the girl and swallowed hard. A dismal vision flashed through his mind, of the five crumpled twenties in his pocket turning out to be joke money that, turned over, might say April Fool or, held for ten minutes, might evaporate their ink, leaving bare paper and ruin. "I don't have any idea of what you're talking about, he said to Murray, but still looking at the girl.
"You think I'm stoned, Murray said accurately.
"Well-
"I don't blame you. Look. Well, let's see. Shirley, he said, half laughing, "how do we explain this? Try it this way, he went on, not waiting for her help, "suppose you had all the money in the world. Suppose you had more money than you even wanted, right?
"I follow you. I mean, as a theoretical thing.
"And then suppose you had like an accident. Crashbang; you're in a car accident or a piano falls on you. Quadriplegic. Can't have any fun anymore. Got that?
"Bad scene, said Cowpersinith, nodding.
"All right, but even though you can~t do much yourself anymore, there's a way you can have some fun vicariously. Like you're not going to Ibiza yourself, but you're seeing slides of it, or something. You can't get the kicks a normal person can, but you can get something, maybe not much but better than nothing, out of what other people do. Now, in that position, Tud, what would you do?
"Kill myself.
"No you wouldn't, for Christ's sake. You'd hire other people to have fun for you. And then with this process- he patted the ugly thing that looked like a wristwatch, but Cowpersmith now realized was not- you can play back their fun, and maybe it isn't much, but it's all the jollies you can ever get. Right, Shirley?
She shook her head and said sweetly. "Shit.
"Well, anyway, it's something like that. I guess. It's kind of secret, I think probably because it's someone like Howard Hughes or maybe one of the Roekefellers that's involved. They won't say. But the job's for real, Tud. All I have to do is have all the fun I can. They pick up the tab, it all goes on the credit card, and they get the bill, and they pay it. As long as I wear this thing, that's all I have to do. And every Friday, besides all that, five hundred in cash.
There was a pause while Bette Midler flowed over and around them from the speakers and Cowpersmith looked from the girl to his friend, waiting for the joke part. At last he said, "But nobody gets a job like that.
"Wrong, friend," said Shirley. "You did. Just now. If you want it. I'll take you there tomorrow morning.
Behind the door stenciled E.T.C. Import-Export Co., Ltd. there was nothing more than a suite of offices sparsely occupied and eccentrically furnished. Hardly furnished at all, you might say. There was nobody at the reception desk, which Shirley walked right past, and no papers on the desk of the one man anywhere visible. "I've got a live one for you, Mr. Morris, Shirley sang out. "Friend of Murray's.
Mr. Morris looked like a printing salesman, about fifty, plump, studying Cowpersmith over half glasses. "Good producer, he agreed reluctantly. "All right, you're hired. And he counted out five hundred dollars in bills of various sizes and pushed them across the desk to Cowpersmith.
Cowpersmith picked up the money, feeling instantly stoned. "Is that all there is to it?
"No! Not for me, I've got all the paperwork now, your credit card, keeping records-