Ed Mcbain - Mischief

He heard everything the Deaf Man was saying now; he guessed the acoustics in this apartment were exceptionally fine. The apartment itself was on Grover Avenue, overlooking Grover Park, which was where the concert would be taking place. The Deaf Man had given Florry a map of the park, and he referred to that now as he listened to what would be needed from him, looking up at the Deaf Man’s lips every now and then because no matter how good the acoustics were, you could sometimes miss a word or two, hmm?

“Do you see the largest patch of blue on the map?” the Deaf Man asked.

“Yes, I do,” Florry said.

“It’s called the Swan. It’s an artificial lake.”

“I see that,” he said, and looked at the map again.

“Just below that is an area tinted green. That’s called the Cow Pasture. It’s the largest grassy area in the park.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s where the concert will be held.”

“That’s where they do all the outdoor theater stuff, too, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s a beautiful spot. The lake in the background to the east, the buildings lining Grover Avenue to the north—well, you can see it from here,” he said, and walked to the wide expanse of windows lining the southern wall of the apartment. Florry went to stand beside him. Both men looked down the twelve stories to the park across the street.

There was the faintest hint of green on trees moving into timid leaf, but nothing was flowering yet, neither forsythia nor cornelian cherry shrub added touches of yellow or pink to the panorama below. Yet even in the rain, at three in the afternoon, there was a simple beauty to the starkness of naked trees against a gray and solemn sky. The lawn itself looked patchy and brown from above, but if the intermittent rains persisted, it would be green enough in time for the concert. And, of course, the lake beyond looked magnificent from this viewpoint, a dark patch of blue spreading amoebalike between the Cow Pasture to the west and the tennis courts to the east. Both men looked down appreciatively. There were still some things that could be enjoyed in this city—if only from a distance.

“They’re estimating a crowd of some two hundred thousand people,” the Deaf Man said.

“Be quite a bash,” Florry said. “Did you go to Woodstock that time?”

“No,” the Deaf Man said.

“August of 1969? You didn’t go that time? Man, you really missed something. There were four hundred thousand people there that time. What a thing that was! I got laid eight times in two days! Eight different girls! What a thing!”

“This won’t be like that,” the Deaf Man said.

“Oh, i know . Nothing could be like Woodstock. Ever again. Nothing.”

The Deaf Man suddenly wondered if he’d chosen the wrong man for the job. Would an anachronistic hippie be capable of shouldering such a huge responsibility? And yet, he had come highly recommended, a man who possessed not only the skills the Deaf Man required but who, in addition, held the quaint precepts of the law in rightful contempt. According to what the Deaf Man had learned, Florry—on thirteen separate occasions and for compensation far more generous than what Meteor Sound Systems, Inc. could ever provide—had been instrumental , one might say, in circumventing some rather elaborate alarm systems, thereby enabling easy access to the people who’d hired him. Since all of these burglaries—a round baker’s dozen, so to speak—had been committed in dwellings during the nighttime, this made Florry an accomplice to precisely thirteen committed Burg Ones, for which he could have been sentenced to a good long time in a state penitentiary if ever he were caught and convicted.

The Deaf Man’s source had worked with Florry on four break-ins over the past six months, and he’d told the Deaf Man that Florry knew everything there was to know about sound systems, that he worked well under pressure, and could also recite the names of all the hit songs and albums of every rock group there’d been for the past thirty years. The Deaf Man had been impressed—but he hadn’t realized then that Florry Paradise would still be wearing beads and a ponytail and a fringed deerskin vest while he reminisced about the good old days at Woodstock.

“I need an enormously sophisticated system,” he said.

“What are we talking about?” Florry asked. “Rap or real music?”

“Voice,” the Deaf Man said.

“You mean rap? This is for amplifying rap music?”

“No. It’s for amplifying a voice .”

“Well, that’s what rap is , am I right? Voices and drums, am I right? Like in the jungle.”

“Yes, but this won’t be rap. This will be a recorded voice . I’d need you to make the recording….”

“On tape? Or do we burn an EPROM?”

“I don’t know what that is,” the Deaf Man admitted. Nor did he know how you burned one.

“It’s an electronic chip. We’d digitally store the voice on it.”

“Well, whatever you think best.”

“But this won’t be rap, huh?”

The Deaf Man was ready to strangle him.

“Because this is a rap concert, am I right?” Florry said. “The one coming up in the park?”

“Rap and rock.”

“How big is that lawn?”

“A bit over ten acres.”

“They’ll be using stuff’ll blow away everything in sight. Woodstock, they didn’t even have any delay towers. You weren’t there, you really missed something. I got laid eight times in two days, did I tell you? The sound system there was primitive compared to what we got today. The stuff they’ll be using in the park’ll carry sound all over those ten acres and then some. You want this voice to go out over the speakers, is that it?”

“I want to drown out anything else that’s going on at the time. When we start the tape, or the chip, or whatever…”

“Will this be a delayed start, or what?”

“Yes, that’s what I’d like. I don’t want to be anywhere near the lawn when the tape starts.”

“That’s easy enough, I can rig that for you. You know…well, it depends, of course.”

“What were you about to say?”

“If you really want to do this right, let’s just knock out their signal and substitute yours for it.”

“That would be perfect.”

“But this would have to be after all their equipment is in place, you understand.”

“Yes.”

“They’ll probably be placing the stage, two, three days before the event. Do their equipment check the day before. What kind of fuzz will I have to worry about?”

“There shouldn’t be any additional police presence in the days preceding the concert. There’ll be a larger presence on the day itself…”

“Naturally.”

“…but the only thing we’ll have to worry about then is getting the tape started on cue….”

“That’ll be automatic.”

“Good.”

“So how many cops while I’m in there messing around?”

“I have no idea. My guess is you’ll have to worry more about private security guards. But I don’t think anyone will bother you. It’s been my experience that if a workman simply goes about his business, no one will bother him.”

“Mine, too. But these various groups, their own people might like challenge me, you know? Who’re you, man? What’re you doing here, man?”

“Tell them you’re with the parks department, setting up some noise-monitoring equipment for the parks commissioner. Tell them anything you like, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble, truly.”

“Just so they don’t go running to the cops, hey, there’s this honkie settin up shit here, he don’t belong to none of our groups.”