"Goodwin-SmallChange" - читать интересную книгу автора (Godwin Parker)

death, who exhorted Lemming to join. So it went for weeks and months of abortive
agony illuminated only by the distant gleam of profit.

Then, late one evening in the dark of the moon, when a heavy fog hung over
Lemming's street and morale, the flames leaped suddenly higher on the asbestos.
There came to his nostrils not the expected reek of sulfur but a subtler
effluvium of expensive aftershave, together with a few bars of elevator music --
and a natty young man in a sixties vintage suit with narrow lapels and a slim
funereal tie peered at him from behind black, very mod horn-rimmed glasses. His
fulsome Power Lunch smile flashed from thirty-two precisely capped teeth. He
raised a manicured hand in greeting. A jeweled Rolex winked below
platinum-linked cuffs.

"Hey, guy. Glad you got it together. Call me J.B."

Lemming felt like a man battering for hours at a door that opened unexpectedly,
hurling him through on his own impetus. "Uh . . . yes."

"Formerly with BBD&O," his visitor said briskly. "I handle the power accounts.
Don't want to hype you, but I'm the guy who thought of squeezing the Charmin.
Sorry it took you so long to get through. I'm backed up on calls, but the Front
Office is wholly in sync with your efforts. You want to explore the area of
options, or do we cut to the chase and deal?"

A man able to spot a 1943 steel penny on dark concrete is not long without
presence of mind. When Lemming regained his, he presented his strategy. Every
dropped coin from every state (lower forty-eight for a start; later he might
expand) every day for the rest of his life. Delivery at midnight in paper bank
wrappers, daily statement included. Innovative, of course, but could they handle
it, yes or no?

J.B. -- even he who put entertainment into toilet paper and eroticized hair
cream for television -- was impressed. The capped teeth flashed in a smile that
would have wooed Magdalene away from Christ.

"Well?" Lemming waited. "Can do?"

"Bottom line, G.L.? It's big. Overwhelming. Inspired." The flames sprang up and
disappeared with the apparition. Lemming fidgeted and mumbled for an hour,
convinced he'd blown El Dorado for good. He was just settling down to read a
best-seller stolen from the local library, when J.B., sans combustion or music,
abruptly filled the air in front of him. Lemming felt a bit jangled. "Hey, give
some warning. Don't you always come in flames?"

"Only at first. The Satanists expect it, like holly at Christmas. G.L., you've
done it. I told the front office-- played it cool, trotted your idea around the
block to see where it stopped--" J.B.'s expansive gesture carved success in the
air -- "and they fucking lit up, even the Prince."

Who, he informed Lemming with genuine respect, had the cosmic foresight to sell