The Hot Rock Read Online Free Page B

got his new record album — Sounds of Indianapolis in Stereo and Hi–Fi — out of the back seat and walked down the block to the house. It was a two–family row house, in which he and his mother lived in the three–and–a–half on the first floor and various tenants lived in the four–and–a half on the second floor. The first floor was only a three and–a–half because where the fourth room would have been was a garage instead. The current tenant, a fish handler named Friedkin, was sitting in the air at the head of the outside steps to the second floor. Friedkin’s wife made Friedkin sit out in the air any time there wasn’t actually a blizzard or an atomic explosion going on out there. Friedkin waved, an aroma of the sea wafting from him, and called, “How you doing, boy chick? ”

    “Yuh,” said Murch. He wasn’t too good at talking to people. Most of his conversations were held with cars.

    He went on into the house and called, “Mom?” He stood there in the kitchen.

    She’d been downstairs, in the extra room. Besides the three–and–a–half they had a semi–finished basement, what most of their neighbors considered a family room, down in the semi–dank downstairs. Murch and his mother had turned this underbelly into Murch’s bedroom.

    Murch’s mom came upstairs now and said, “You’re home.”

    “Look what I got,” Murch said and showed her the record. “So play it,” she said.

    “Okay,” he said.

    They went into the living room together and while Murch put the record on the turntable he said, “How come you’re home so early?”

    “Aahhh,” she said in disgust. “Some wise–ass cop out at the airport.”

    “You were taking more than one passenger again,” Murch said.

    She flared up. “Well, why not?” she wanted to know. “This city’s got a shortage of cabs, don’t it? You oughta see all those people out there to the airport, they got to wait half an hour, an hour, they could fly to Europe before they could get a cab and go to Manhattan. So I try to help the situation a little. They don’t care, the customers don’t care, they’d have to pay the same meter anyway. And it helps me, I get two three times the meter. And it helps the city, it improves their goddam public image. But try to tell a cop that. Play the record.”

    “How long you suspended for?”

    “Two days,” she said. “Play the record.”

    “Mom,” he said, holding the tone arm above the turning record, “I wish you wouldn’t take those chances. We don’t have all that much dough.”

    “You got enough to throw it away on records,” she said. “Play the record.”

    “If I’d known you were gonna get yourself suspended for two days —”

    “You could always get yourself a job,” she said. “Play the record.”

    Stung, Murch put the tone arm back on its rest and his hands on his hips. “Is that what you want?” he said. “You want me to get a job at the post office?”

    “No, never mind me,” his mother said, suddenly contrite. She went over and patted his cheek. “I know some thing’ll come through for you pretty soon. And when you do have it, Stan, nobody on God’s green earth spends it as free or as open as you do.”

    “Damn right,” Murch said, appeased but still a little grumpy.

    “Put the record on,” his mother said. “Let’s hear it.”

    “Sure.”

    Murch put the tone arm on the opening grooves of the record. The room filled with the shrieking of tires, the revving of engines, the grinding of gears.

    They listened to side one in silence, and when it was done Murch said, “Now, that’s a good record.”

    “I think that’s one of the best, Stan,” his mother said. “I really do. Let’s hear the other side.”

    “Right.”

    Murch went over to the phonograph and picked up the record, and the phone rang. “Hell,” he said.

    “Forget it,” his mother said. “Play the other side.”

    “Okay.”

    Murch put the other side on, and the