Bleeding Edge

13

One early hour, all too soon, the boys and Horst are up and into a roomy black Lincoln to JFK. The plan for the summer is to fly to Chicago, take in the town, rent a car, drive to Iowa, visit with the grandparents there, then go off on a grand tour of what Maxine thinks of as the Midol West, because whenever she’s there it feels like her period. She rides along out to the airport, like not being clingy or anything, just could do with a nice breeze, through the window of the Town Car, OK?

Flight attendants walk in pairs, hands devotionally in front of them, nuns of the sky. Long lines of people in shorts and towering backpacks shuffle slowly along in check-in lines. Kids mess with the spring-loaded tapes on the queue-control stanchions. Maxine finds herself analyzing the traffic flow to see which line is moving fastest. It’s only a habit, but it makes Horst uneasy because she’s always right.

She stays till the flight is called, embracing everybody, even Horst, watches them down the Jetway, and only Otis looks back.

On the way out as she’s passing another departure gate, she hears her name called. Squealed, actually. It’s Vyrva, decked out in sandals, big floppy straw hat, microlength sundress in a number of vibrant colors banned by statute in New York. “Headed for California, are we?”

“Couple weeks there with the folks, then we’re coming back by way of Vegas.”

“Defcon,” Justin, in Hawaiian-print surfer’s board shorts, parrots and so forth, explains, which is an annual hackers’ convention, where geeks of all persuasions, on all sides of the law, not to mention cops at various levels who think they’re working undercover, converge, conspire, and carouse.

Fiona’s been off at some kind of anime camp in New Jersey—Quake movie and machinima workshops, Japanese staff who claim not to know a word of English beyond “awesome” and “sucks,” which for a vast range of human endeavor, actually, is more than enough…

“And how’s everything down in DeepArcher?” Only trying to be sociable, understand…

Justin looks uncomfortable. “One way or another, big changes on the way. Whoever’s in there better be enjoying it while they can. While it’s still relatively unhackable.”

“It isn’t going to be?”

“Not for long. Too many people after it. Vegas is gonna be like speed-pitching at the fuckin zoo.”

“Don’t look at me,” sez Vyrva, “I just roll the joints and bring out the junk food.”

A voice comes on the PA, making an announcement in English, though Maxine is suddenly unable to understand a word. The sort of resonant voice in which events are solemnly foretold, not at all a voice she would ever want to be summoned by.

“Our flight,” Justin picking up his carry-on.

“My best to Siegfried and Roy.”

Vyrva blows kisses over her shoulder all the way to the gate.

AT THE OFFICE, when Maxine checks back in, here’s Daytona with a tiny TV set she keeps in her desk drawer, glued to an afternoon movie on the Afro-American Romance Channel (ARCH) called Love’s Nickel Defense, in which Hakeem, a pro defensive linebacker, on the set of a beer commercial he’s doing, meets and falls in love with Serendypiti, a model in the same commercial, who immediately gets this Hakeem revved up to where before long he is dealing with running backs the way in-laws deal with hors d’oeuvres. Sparked by his example, the offense begins to develop its own winning ways. What has up to now been the lackluster year of a team that never wins even coin tosses is turned around. Win after win—a wildcard! the playoffs! the Super Bowl!

Halftime at the Super Bowl, the team is down by ten points. Plenty of time to turn this around. Serendypiti comes storming through several layers of security and into the locker room. “Honey, we got to talk.” Break for commercial.

“Whoo!” Daytona shaking her head. “Oh, you back? Listen, some muthafucker with white attitude called about ten minutes ago.” She fishes around on her desk and finds a note to call Gabriel Ice and what looks like a cellular number.

“I’ll do this in the other room. Your movie’s back on.”

“You be careful around this one, child.”

Bearing in mind the ancient CFE distinction between being complicit and merely attending to phone calls that should probably be answered, she is presently on to Gabriel Ice.

No hello, how you doing, “Are you on a secure line?” is what the digital tycoon would like to know.

“I use it all the time for shopping, tell people my credit-card numbers and stuff, nothing bad’s happened yet.”

“I guess we could get into definitions of ‘bad,’ but—”

“We could drift seriously off topic, yes fatal to a busy, important life… So…”

“I think you know my mother-in-law, March Kelleher. Have you seen her Web site?”

“I click into it now and then.”

“You may have read some harsh comments, like every day, about my company. Any idea why she’s doing this?”

“She seems to distrust you, Mr. Ice. Deeply. She must believe that behind the dazzling saga of boy-billionaire excess we all find so entertaining, there lies a darker narrative.”

“We’re in the security business. What do you want, transparent?”

No, I prefer opaque, encrypted, sneaky-assed. “Too political for me.”

“How about financial? The shviger—how much do you think it would cost me to get her to lay off? Just a ballpark estimate.”

“Somehow, like, I get this dim feeling, March doesn’t have a price.”

“Yeah, yeah, maybe you could ask anyway? I’d be really, really grateful.”

“She’s got you that worried? Come on, it’s only a Weblog, how many people even read it?”

“One is too many, if it’s the wrong one.”

Bringing them to a standoff, ethnicity of your choice. Her comeback should be, “With all your high-powered connections, who in the wide civilian world is ever going to hold you accountable for anything?” But that would be admitting she knows more than she’s supposed to. “Tell you what, next time I see March, I’ll ask her why she isn’t speaking more highly of your company, and then when she spits in my face and calls me your bitch and a corporate sellout and so forth, I’ll be able to ignore it ’cause down deep I’ll know I’m doing a big favor for a swell guy.”

“You despise me, right?”

She pretends to think about this. “People like you have a license to despise—mine got pulled, so I have to settle for being pissed off, and it doesn’t last.”

“Good to know. It might help you in future to stay away from my wife too, by the way.”

“Wait a minute, li’l buddy,” what a nasty piece of work this guy is, “you got me all wrong, like she’s cute as a bug’s ear and all but—”

“Just try to keep some distance. Be professional. Make sure you know who it is you’re working for, OK?”

“Talk slower, I’m trying to write this down.”

Ice, as intended, hangs up in a snit.

ROCKY SLAGGIATT CHECKS IN. As usual bringing no luggage. “Hey. Maxi, I got to come up to your neighborhood and intimidate, no wait what’d I say, I mean ‘impress,’ some customers. Need to discuss somethin witchyiz, in person.”

“Important, right?”

“Maybe. You know the Omega Diner on 72nd?”

“Near Columbus, sure. Ten minutes?”

Rocky is sitting in a booth in the back, in the deep underlit recesses of the Omega, with a smooth business type in a bespoke suit, pale-rimmed glasses, medium height, yuppie demeanor.

“Sorry to pull yiz away from work and shit. Say hello to Igor Dashkov, nice guy to have on your Rolodex.”

Igor kisses Maxine’s hand and nods to Rocky. “She is not wearing wire, I hope.”

“I’m wire-intolerant,” Maxine pretends to explain, “I memorize everything instead, then later when they debrief me I can dump it all word for word on the feds. Or whoever it is you’re so afraid of.”

Igor smiles, angles his head like, charmed I’m sure.

“So far,” Rocky murmurs, “the cop has not been invented who could get these guys any more than maybe faintly annoyed.”

In the booth adjoining, Maxine notices two young torpedoes of a certain dimension, busy with handheld game consoles. “Doom,” Igor waving a thumb, “just came out for Game Boy. Post–late capitalism run amok, ‘United Aerospace Corporation,’ moons of Mars, gateways to hell, zombies and demons, including I think these two. Misha and Grisha. Say hello, padonki.”

Silence and button activity.

“How nice to make your acquaintance, Misha and Grisha.” Whatever your real names may be, hi, I’m Marie of Roumania.

“Actually,” one of them looking up, baring a lineup of stainless-steel jailhouse choppers, “we prefer Deimos and Phobos.”

“Too much time with video games. Just out of zona, distant relatives, now not so distant. Brighton Beach, it’s heaven for them. I bring them over to Manhattan so they can have look at hell. Also to meet my pal Rocco. VC business is treating you well, old amigo?”

“A little slow,” Rocky shrugging, “mi gratto la pancia, you know, just scratcha da stomach.”

“We say khuem grushi okolachivat,” beaming at Maxine, “knocking pears out of pear tree with dick.”

“Sounds complicated,” Maxine smiling back.

“But fun.”

Even if this guy looks like he still gets carded at clubs, apparently somewhere inside the smooth suburban packaging, nested matrioshka-deep, is a hulking battle-scarred ex-Spetsnaz toughguy eager to tell war stories from ten years ago. Next thing anybody knows, Igor is flashing back to a clandestine HALO jump over the northern Caucasus.

“Falling through night sky, over mountains, freezing my ass off, I begin to meditate—what is it I really want out of life? Kill more Chechens? Find true love and raise family, someplace warm, like Goa maybe? Almost forget to deploy my parachute. Down on ground again, everything is clear. Totally. Make lots of money.”

Rocky cackles. “Hey, I figured that one out, didn’t have to jump out of no airplane.”

“Maybe if you jump, you decide to give all your money away.”

“You know anybody ever did that?” sez Maxine.

“Strange things happen to men in Spetsnaz,” replies Igor. “Not to mention upper altitudes.”

“Ask her,” Rocky leaning in toward Igor’s ear. “Go ahead, she’s OK.”

“Ask me what?”

“Know anything about these people?” Igor slides a folder in front of her.

“Madoff Securities. Hmm, maybe some industry scuttlebutt. Bernie Madoff, a legend on the street. Said to do quite well, I recall.”

“One to two percent per month.”

“Nice average return, so what’s the problem?”

“Not average. Same every month.”

“Uh-oh.” She flips pages, has a look at the graph. “What the fuck. It’s a perfect straight line, slanting up forever?”

“Seem a little abnormal to you?”

“In this economy? Look at this—even last year, when the tech market went belly-up? No, it’s got to be a Ponzi scheme, and from the scale of these investments he could be front-running also. You have any money with him?”

“Friends of mine. They’ve become concerned.”

“And… these are grown-up persons who can deal with unwelcome news?”

“In their special way. But they warmly appreciate wise advice.”

“Well, that’s me, and my advice today is proceed quickly, unemotionally if possible, to the nearest exit strategy. Time is of the essence. Last month would have been good.”

“Rocky says you have gift.”

“Any idiot, nothing personal, could see this. Why isn’t the SEC taking action here? The DA, somebody.”

A shrug, eloquent eyebrows, thumb rubbing fingers.

“Well yes, that’s certainly a thought.”

For a while Maxine has been aware of peripheral armwaving and hand jive, not to mention quiet declamation and deejay sound effects, from the direction of Misha and Grisha, who turn out to be great fans of the semiunderground Russian hip-hop scene, in particular a pint-size Russian Rastafarian rap star named Detsl—having committed to memory his first two albums, Misha doing the music and beatboxing, Grisha the lyric, unless she has them switched around…

Igor pointedly consulting a white-gold Rolex Cellini, “Do you think hip-hop is good for them? You have children? What about them, do they…”

“The stuff I was listening to at that age, I’m in no position—but this number they’re doing now, it’s kinda catchy.”

“‘Vetcherinka U Detsla,’” Grisha sez.

“‘Party at Detsl’s,’” explains Misha.

“Wait, wait, let’s do ‘Ulitchnyi Boyets’ for her.”

“Next time,” Igor rising to leave, “promise.” He shakes hands with Maxine, kissing her on both cheeks, left-right-left. “I’ll pass your advice on to my friends. We’ll let you know what happens.” Tunefully away and out the door.

“Those two gorillas,” Rocky announces, “just ate two whole chocolate cream pies. Each. And I get stuck with the check.”

“So it was Igor who wanted to see me, not you?”

“Ya disappointed?”

“Nah, my kinda fella. He’s mob, or what?”

“Still tryinna figure it out. People he hangs with in Brighton Beach, some of them were in Yaponchik’s circle before the li’l Jap got popped, definitely a old-school crowd. But just doing a quick eyeball scan, no visible tats, 15 and a half collar size, ehh,” wobbling his hand, “it’s doubtful. He seems to me more like a fixer.”

ONE DAY, headed for The Deseret pool, Maxine finds the service elevator is tied up, perhaps till further notice—more yuppie scum moving in, no doubt. She goes looking for another elevator and eventually finds herself downstairs in the labyrinthine basement about to step, much against her better judgment, into the infamous Back Elevator, a legacy from earlier days, rumored to possess a mind of its own. In fact, Maxine has come to believe it is haunted, that Something Happened in it years ago that never got resolved, and so now whenever it sees a chance to, it tries to steer occupants in directions that might help it find some karmic relief. This time instead of going all the way up to the pool, whose button she has pressed, it takes her to a floor she doesn’t recognize right away, which turns out to be…

“Maxi, hey.”

She squints into the somehow greasy dimness. “Reg?”

“It’s like being in some Asian horror movie,” Reg whispers. “Oxide Pang probably. Can you kind of slide over here alongside the wall so we stay clear of that security camera?”

“And why are we keeping out of camera range, again?”

“They don’t want me in the building. By now there’s got to be at least a restraining order.”

“You’re what, you… stalk buildings now?”

“That fake toilet at hashslingrz? Just now out in the street, happened to spot one of the guys from there, had enough blank tape with me, so I started following and taping. Zigzagging all over the neighborhood, after a while he picks up a couple-three others I recognize, and next thing I knew, they’re all going into The Deseret here, getting star treatment at the gate. It occurs to me that since Gabriel Ice is one of the owners of this place—”

“Wait a minute, Ice? Since when?”

“Thought you knew. Any case it’s all academic now, we’ve been overtaken by events. Ice fired me off the movie yesterday. My apartment got broken into again, this time trashed, all my footage taken except what I hid.”

Not a promising development. “You better come with me. There might be a service elevator free by now.”

By way of which they manage to escape out the back and over to Riverside, where they just make it onto a bus heading downtown.

“I don’t suppose you’ve mentioned this to the cops or anything.”

“In case they need a good laugh to lighten up their otherwise grim workday, you mean. Sure, how about on my way out of town?”

“Seattle.”

“It’s time, Maxi. Ice did me a favor. I don’t need a hashslingrz movie on my résumé, bad for my image, and you know what, hashslingrz is history. Whatever happens, it’s fuckin doomed.”

“Wouldn’t say they’re on the brink of Chapter Eleven exactly.”

“If a dotcom had an immortal soul,” Reg strangely distant, as if already calling back out the window of some westbound conveyance, “hashslingrz’s’d be lost.”

They get off at 8th Street, find a pizza joint, sit for a while at a sidewalk table. Reg drifts into a patch of philosophical weather.

“Ain’t like I was ever Alfred Hitchcock or somethin. You can watch my stuff till you’re cross-eyed and there’ll never be any deeper meaning. I see something interesting, I shoot it is all. Future of film if you want to know—someday, more bandwidth, more video files up on the Internet, everybody’ll be shootin everything, way too much to look at, nothin will mean shit. Think of me as the prophet of that.”

“You’re fishing for compliments, Reg, what about that unscheduled redecoration on your apartment? Somebody must have thought highly of something you shot.”

“Ice,” he shrugs. “Tryin to repo what he thinks is his.”

No, Maxine thinks with a sudden flulike ache in her fingers, Ice would be best-case. And if it’s anybody else, Seattle might not be far enough. “Listen, if you need me to hold on to anything for you—”

“Don’t worry, you’re on my list.”

“And you’ll let me know when you leave town?”

“I’ll try.”

“Please. Oh, and Reg.”

“Yeah, I know, I used to watch the old Bionic Woman myself. Sooner or later Oscar Goldman says, ‘Jaime—be careful.’”

“He was a strong Jewish-mother role model for me. Just remember even Jaime Sommers needs to step cautious once in a while.”

“Don’t worry. I used to think that as long as I could see it through the viewfinder, it couldn’t hurt me. So it took a while, but now I know different. You happy?” Disillusioned child written all over him.

“I guess I could take that as the good news.”